The above-ground city of Wakanda lasted only a few weeks under my rule. And even that was purely out of convenience. Once its resources were emptied, once every scrap of usable tech was mapped, analyzed, and broken down, the city became nothing but dead weight—a relic of a kingdom I no longer needed.
So I destroyed it.
Not with explosives. Not with missiles. Not with anything crude or primitive.
No, I erased it with precision.
A gravity field collapsed the outer districts into dust. Plasma beams sliced through former streets like molten scalpels. Vibranium structures crumpled like paper as I folded their atomic lattice into raw material. The entire city was dismantled, atom by atom, until nothing but flat earth and the skeletons of old foundations remained. Wakanda, as the world knew it, was erased from existence.
In its place, I began constructing what I truly desired.
Not a city.
Not a kingdom.
But an empire of science.
The first structures I built were purely functional: storage. One warehouse purely for vibranium—gigantic, reinforced, shielded with layered gravitational plating. Even a sliver of vibranium was priceless, and I now owned more of it than the rest of the world combined. The second warehouse was for everything else—resources, hyperconductor coils, antimatter fuel cores, quantum processors, and the countless materials my experiments demanded in obscene quantities.
But these were surface-level conveniences.
The real heart of my new domain began far below the ground.
It took months just to dig out the initial tunnels—an enormous undertaking even for us, even with reality-altering tools and machines that could convert bedrock into dust in seconds. The scale was beyond monumental. I carved out a cavern system so large that even standing above it, the ground vibrated with the faint echo of its depth.
What I created was not a base.
Not a bunker.
It was a megastructure.
A subterranean empire.
A labyrinth of science.
Thousands upon thousands of rooms—labs, vaults, power cores, dimensional gates, test chambers, quantum distorters, biological incubation farms, machine foundries, reactor halls, and research sectors dedicated to forces humans wouldn't even have names for until far into the future. Entire wards were built simply to hold the concepts I intended to create.
The deeper I built, the more it became something unreal, something far beyond Earth technology. Something that belonged in a future millions of years away.
My power to manipulate elements didn't just help—it revolutionized construction. Walls made of synthesized neutronium composites. Floors reinforced with phased vibranium-lattice frames. Power conduits made from quantum-threaded alloys capable of holding stellar-level energy. Even the ventilation system was designed to withstand dimensional rupture events.
It was perfection.
It was obsession.
It was mine.
The entire construction took six months—six months of nonstop labor, nonstop resource conversion, nonstop engineering on a scale that no human civilization could ever hope to comprehend. Even with Foundation technology, even with Tesseract-fueled reactors and Rick Prime's molecular compiler, it pushed the limits of what should've been possible.
But I didn't build what was possible.
I built what I wanted.
While the underground complex took shape, I remained in steady contact with the O5 Council. I reported that Wakanda was secured, contained, and converted into a usable research territory. I didn't mention the extent of its destruction. They didn't need to know. And if they did learn, they wouldn't dare question me—not with what I now possessed.
With each meeting, I also requested updates on the American Civil War. Our influence continued to spread, our assets embedded on both sides, though ultimately aligned with the Union. History was still shifting around our presence, but we kept it close enough to the original path to avoid collapsing the timeline.
Every update they gave me only fueled my desire for more advancement.
More weapons.
More breakthroughs.
More absolute control.
By the time the sixth month concluded, the underground complex was fully operational. Lit. Powered. Breathable. Shielded. Armed. And ready to begin producing results far beyond anything the Foundation—or humanity—had ever imagined.
Standing at the entrance to the main elevator shaft, staring down into the glowing depths of my creation, I felt something I hadn't felt in a long time.
Satisfaction.
This wasn't just a lab.
It was the future.
My future.
My fortress.
My dominion.
And the world wasn't ready for what would come out of it.
Not even close.