Cows and chickens were dialed in.
Lettuce and tomatoes were climbing.
MergeCore was fully automated.
Kai didn't even have to touch the controls anymore.
So he turned to the one animal nobody in the luxury food game wanted to talk about…
Pigs.
🐖 10,000 MergeSwine
Kai bulk-ordered 10,000 pigs, delivered straight to the newest section of his land. MergeCore tagged each one as Tier 0 and began mass-routing them through the swine merge channel.
The system worked day and night.
[MERGE: Tier 0 + Tier 0 = Tier 1 – Fast Grower Line]
[MERGE: Tier 1 + Tier 1 = Tier 2 – Leaner Fat Line]
[MERGE: Tier 2 + Tier 2 = Tier 3 – Balanced Yield Line]
[MERGE: Tier 3 + Tier 3 = Tier 4 – Crimson Swine Line]
Tier 4 MergePigs were massive, clean, odorless, and their meat had a natural salt seasoning.
The moment Kai sampled the product, he knew he had something elite.
"This alone could bankroll the next five expansions."
💻 MergeMart Expansion
The moment MergePork hit MergeMart, it sold out in 2 hours.
A luxury hotel group bought out the first 3-month contract.
A New York restaurant group offered to prepay $2 million for exclusive Tier 4 Crimson Swine cuts.
Kai declined.
Exclusivity meant leverage.
He didn't want to sell power—he wanted to control it.
Instead, he doubled production.
🌾 Land Expansion: Merge-Ready Soil
Kai spent $800,000 buying new acreage—drought-prone land no one wanted.
But once it hit merged Tier 1 status…
[MERGE: Soil Plot Tier 0 + Tier 0 = Tier 1]
[MERGE: Tier 1 + Tier 1 = Tier 2 – Water Retention Base]
[MERGE: Tier 2 + Tier 2 = Tier 3 – Nutrient Flex Soil]
[MERGE: Tier 3 + Tier 3 = Tier 4 – Adaptive Terra]
Now it was super soil—capable of sustaining any crop in any condition, with integrated root-feedback layers for crop-specific optimization.
🧠 MergeCore: Sector Control Upgrade
To handle the expansion, Kai segmented MergeCore into Tier Zones:
Zone A: Poultry
Zone B: Bovine
Zone C: Racing Equine
Zone D: MergeSwine
Zone E: Crops
Each ran semi-independently, reporting back to Kai's private master terminal.
No one had access.
Not even the AI dev team he hired to maintain it.
🛑 Government Eyes
A letter arrived, unmarked.
Sealed envelope. Military-grade paper.
It wasn't a threat.
It was a proposal.
The U.S. government wanted to schedule a closed-door meeting.
Purpose: "Tier-Based Food Security Partnership."
Kai smiled.
Summary
Earnings
MergeEggs: +$48,000
MergeMilk: +$54,000
Tomatoes & Lettuce: +$51,000
MergeWheat: +$33,000
MergePork Launch (Tier 4): +$76,000
Cigarettes: +$45,000
Expenses
10,000 Pigs: –$180,000
Pig Merge Fuel & Maintenance: –$40,000
New Land Purchase: –$800,000
MergeSoil Upgrades: –$55,000
MergeCore Tier Zone System: –$35,000
Net Profit: –$803,000
Kai's Total Net Worth: $2,395,000