Among the ranks of the Nova Corps, insignia mattered.
A T-shaped star on the helt visor marked the lowest combat ranks.
Soone like Steve Rogers, equipped with his current starship-class enhancents, could probably take on ten of them alone.
A four-pointed cross-star insignia denoted a Decurion-level Nova.
With proper equipnt and a shield, Rogers could still fight one head-on.
Above them stood the Centurions.
Their helts bore an eight-pointed star.
These were the backbone of the Nova Corps.
Under normal circumstances, Rogers would probably lose to one.
Though, as always, comic-book logic tended to decide those outcos more than power scaling.
Especially now that Drex Valen had transford Rogers into sothing far beyond an ordinary super-soldier.
That said, Nova Centurions were genuinely formidable.
Sam's helt wasn't an ordinary one.
Despite carrying the Decurion insignia, it possessed significantly greater authority and energy allocation privileges than standard models.
It wasn't rely a Decurion helt.
It was a Centurion-level Super Nova helt.
The highest authorization level within the Nova Corps.
And over the years, only one person had ever been granted it.
Richard Rider.
Sam's father.
Within the Nova Corps, Richard's reputation was legendary.
His standing was roughly equivalent to Steve Rogers' status on Earth.
A living symbol.
A hero known throughout the organization.
Which ant Sam wasn't just another Nova.
He was a Super Nova.
"You're busy again?"
The mont Drex's phone buzzed, every woman in the room looked over.
"No, no."
Drex waved dismissively.
Nothing important.
At the mont, he was enjoying a warm-water spa with his companions.
That took priority over almost everything else.
Esdeath floated lazily in the enormous pool, dressed in a custom swimsuit.
She stretched like a cat and sighed.
"I never want to leave this place."
The automated spa pool maintained a perfect temperature and continuously adjusted water pressure through intelligent flow-control systems.
Warm currents brushed against every part of the body.
The sensation was completely different from a traditional massage.
Combined with the specially formulated aromatic oils mixed into the water, it created a level of relaxation that bordered on addictive.
Esdeath adored it.
The pool was almost the size of a swimming pool.
Floating inside felt like being massaged from every direction simultaneously.
For perhaps the first ti in her life, the war-loving queen had completely forgotten about battlefields.
Forgotten about torture.
Forgotten about conquest.
Drex picked up a sandwich.
At first glance, it seed strangely ordinary for such an extravagant setting.
A sandwich.
Nothing more.
Except the ingredients told a different story.
Fresh Australian lobster.
Pan-seared scallops.
A sauce that looked like mayonnaise but secretly contained premium French foie gras.
Thin shavings of black truffle scattered across the top.
The cost of a single sandwich could probably fund soone else's breakfast, lunch, and dinner for an entire month.
Whether it tasted a hundred tis better than a normal sandwich was debatable.
Luxury often worked that way.
The difference wasn't always proportional to the price.
Still, there was sothing absurd about eating a sandwich worth hundreds of dollars with the sa casual attitude soone else might eat street food.
While ordinary people debated whether they could afford an extra egg on breakfast, others treated black truffles like chopped green onions.
Drex finished the sandwich.
"It's not even that good."
His verdict was rciless.
The irony was that he genuinely didn't know how to spend money anymore.
He possessed enough wealth to set cash on fire and probably keep half the United States warm through winter.
Yet finding aningful ways to spend it had beco surprisingly difficult.
At this point, the entire world knew sothing interesting about Umbrella Corporation.
Its most profitable business wasn't heavy industry.
It wasn't energy production.
It wasn't military technology.
It wasn't spacecraft.
It wasn't advanced robotics.
It was costics and healthcare products.
Ridiculous.
But true.
Selling skincare products generated more profit than most criminal enterprises could ever dream of.
The reason was simple.
Not everyone used drugs.
Almost everyone used skincare products.
Won.
n.
Teenagers.
The custor base was practically the entire planet.
In terms of pure profit, Umbrella's industrial divisions couldn't compete with its pharmaceutical and costic departnts.
Even seemingly mundane products produced astonishing revenue.
Take the pest-control line.
Rat poison.
Cockroach poison.
Mosquito repellent.
Simple products.
Yet because they actually worked, they sold across the entire world.
Together, those three product lines generated well over a hundred billion dollars annually after taxes.
For comparison, before its modernization, Stark Industries had been valued at roughly four hundred billion dollars.
Tony Stark himself was probably worth more due to his patents and intellectual property portfolio.
Even so, Umbrella's consur products were becoming monsters in their own right.
Then ca the costics division.
Drex had essentially dismantled the benefits of the Extremis Virus into countless diluted components and sold them separately.
Even heavily restricted, the effects were absurd.
Competing products required years to achieve visible results.
Umbrella products accomplished the sa thing in a month.
Sotis less.
Sotis better.
Naturally, they dominated the market.
Yet even those weren't the company's best-selling products.
The true kings were elsewhere.
Hair-growth serum.
Weight-loss dication.
The mont those two products launched, they shattered every sales record Umbrella had ever set.
The market was simply too large.
Nearly a third of the Arican population was obese.
Of the remaining two-thirds, roughly half were still overweight.
Globally, obesity affected billions.
Hair loss was just as widespread.
Baldness.
Receding hairlines.
Pattern hair loss.
Alopecia.
The potential custor base was almost endless.
An inexhaustible gold mine.
Umbrella's weight-loss dication had already reduced severe and moderate obesity rates in Arica by more than ninety percent.
Mild obesity had practically vanished.
The treatnt required continued use, but most patients considered that a small price to pay.
After all, being able to eat whatever they wanted without exercising was exactly what many of them had always dread of.
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