Vitamin Infinity's launch did not explode overnight.
That much, Drex had expected.
At three hundred dollars a bottle, his product occupied a price bracket that made most consurs hesitate before even reading the label. Initial sales were sluggish, almost glacial.
But Drex wasn't concerned.
A superior product didn't need hype forever.
It needed results.
And results...
Were coming.
Within days, early buyers began noticing sothing extraordinary.
Compared to traditional supplents, vitamins, and overpriced wellness scams they had taken for years with negligible effect...
Vitamin Infinity worked.
Noticeably.
Users reported surging energy.
Sharper focus.
Improved physical stamina.
Reduced fatigue.
Even chronic exhaustion from sleepless nights seed dramatically diminished.
It wasn't stimulant-based.
Drex had no interest in manufacturing crude chemical addiction.
Instead, he had engineered sothing far more effective:
A biologically optimized nutrient compound derived from human-compatible organic extractions.
The source material...
Was less marketable.
Along the U.S.-xico border, a suspicious number of traffickers and narcotics smugglers had recently disappeared.
Their biological contributions, once refined and cloned through Drex's advanced processing systems, provided scalable organic substrates capable of producing millions of doses.
Brutal?
Certainly.
Efficient?
Undeniably.
And if consurs ever discovered the truth...
Drex suspected most would continue purchasing anyway.
Because effectiveness, in capitalist ecosystems, often outweighed morality.
Within a month, Vitamin Infinity had sold out across New York City.
Every bottle.
Word-of-mouth beca a tidal wave.
Satisfied custors beca living advertisents.
The company's early investnts were recovered almost imdiately.
Then profits surged beyond expectation.
Over one hundred million dollars.
In one month.
Drex had crossed from wealthy into genuinely dangerous territory.
With new capital flowing like a breached dam, Drex expanded aggressively.
He purchased every farm surrounding Heathweed Township near his existing ranch.
Thousands of acres.
Combined, the landmass exceeded 3,000 acres.
A private empire.
Old fencing was demolished.
In its place, Drex commissioned towering five-ter concrete periter walls.
The original ranch barriers had rely discouraged predators like mountain lions.
These new fortifications?
They were designed for privacy.
Security.
Containnt.
Because this was no longer a ranch.
It was becoming a fortress.
A hidden kingdom far safer than New York's inevitable superhuman chaos.
And deep beneath it...
Drex built his true priority.
A research complex.
"Please! Don't co near !"
A captured mber of the Scorpion Gang struggled violently against restraints, panic flooding his voice.
Drex barely reacted.
"You're being dramatic," he said dryly. "It's just human experintation."
He injected the subject.
Seconds later...
Death.
Again.
Drex frowned.
This was becoming irritating.
With vast wealth now at his disposal, Drex had acquired advanced equipnt, rare materials, and even black-market scientific instrunts that money alone couldn't purchase legally.
For restricted technologies?
He simply stole them.
His philosophy remained elegantly simple:
If acquisition protocols were inconvenient, bypass them.
His goal was straightforward.
Power he already possessed.
But in Marvel's world, personal power alone was insufficient.
He needed subordinates.
Assets.
Enhanced operatives.
Naturally, the Super Soldier Serum presented itself as inspiration.
But Drex, with Kryptonian scientific pride woven into his DNA, refused to rely replicate another scientist's work.
He would create sothing superior.
Unfortunately...
Repeated attempts at direct super-soldier enhancent ended in catastrophic biological failure.
Subjects died.
Every ti.
Despite mathematically stable formulations, sothing consistently rejected the transformation.
As though...
Certain evolutionary thresholds were being denied.
Drex considered the possibility that perhaps Steve Rogers' transformation involved variables beyond serum chemistry alone.
Annoying.
So he pivoted.
Instead of pure enhancent...
He explored genetic hybridization.
This ti, he modified the serum using reptilian genomic integration.
Specifically:
Crocodilian DNA.
The next subject was injected.
Agony followed.
Violent convulsions.
Skeletal restructuring.
Tissue mutation.
But this ti...
The subject survived.
Drex's eyes sharpened.
Success.
The transford man collapsed, gasping.
"What... what did you do to ?"
His body had changed grotesquely.
Massive musculature.
Dark green armored skin.
Razor-like teeth.
Clawed extremities.
He had beco sothing monstrous.
A reptilian humanoid predator.
Drex studied him with clear satisfaction.
"I altered your geno with crocodile DNA."
His tone was clinical.
"Interesting. Changing direction worked imdiately."
The creature lashed out in rage.
Drex caught the strike one-handed.
Effortlessly.
The beast now possessed strength capable of crushing vehicles.
Yet against Drex's bioelectric-enhanced Kryptonian physiology...
It ant nothing.
Drex casually countered with a asured strike.
The transford subject's chest exploded inward as he was hurled across the room.
Durable.
Strong.
Still insignificant.
But promising.
Rather than terminate the experint...
Drex chose utility.
"You're now part of my Beast Soldier program."
He lifted the broken creature effortlessly.
"The serum contains a genetic virus. Without regular antidote injections, you die."
The crocodilian mutant, bleeding and terrified, imdiately submitted.
"Understood..."
Excellent.
Drex finally had a viable template.
His next challenge:
Scaling.
And for that...
He needed better candidates.
Not gang mbers.
Not disposable criminals.
Soldiers.
New York City's veteran hospitals provided ideal recruitnt pools.
Thousands of wounded ex-military personnel.
n broken by war.
Amputees.
Trauma victims.
Psychologically shattered but physically disciplined.
Many had lost limbs, purpose, and futures.
But they retained combat instincts.
Training.
Structure.
Compared to gangsters, they were vastly superior raw material.
And importantly...
They were easier to control through promises.
Restoration.
Strength.
Purpose.
Drex saw not victims.
He saw opportunity.
A future army hidden in plain sight.
And Drex Valen had always believed...
True empire required soldiers.
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