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 consumers 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 something extraordinary.
Compared to traditional supplements, 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 seemed dramatically diminished.
It wasn't stimulant-based.
Drex had no interest in manufacturing crude chemical addiction.
Instead, he had engineered something far more effective:
A biologically optimized nutrient compound derived from human-compatible organic extractions.
The source material...
Was less marketable.
Along the U.S.-Mexico 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 consumers 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 became a tidal wave.
Satisfied customers became living advertisements.
The company's early investments were recovered almost immediately.
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-meter concrete perimeter walls.
The original ranch barriers had merely discouraged predators like mountain lions.
These new fortifications?
They were designed for privacy.
Security.
Containment.
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 come near me!"
A captured member 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 experimentation."
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 equipment, rare materials, and even black-market scientific instruments 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 merely replicate another scientist's work.
He would create something superior.
Unfortunately...
Repeated attempts at direct super-soldier enhancement ended in catastrophic biological failure.
Subjects died.
Every time.
Despite mathematically stable formulations, something 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 enhancement...
He explored genetic hybridization.
This time, 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 time...
The subject survived.
Drex's eyes sharpened.
Success.
The transformed man collapsed, gasping.
"What... what did you do to me?"
His body had changed grotesquely.
Massive musculature.
Dark green armored skin.
Razor-like teeth.
Clawed extremities.
He had become something monstrous.
A reptilian humanoid predator.
Drex studied him with clear satisfaction.
"I altered your genome with crocodile DNA."
His tone was clinical.
"Interesting. Changing direction worked immediately."
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 meant nothing.
Drex casually countered with a measured strike.
The transformed subject's chest exploded inward as he was hurled across the room.
Durable.
Strong.
Still insignificant.
But promising.
Rather than terminate the experiment...
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, immediately submitted.
"Understood..."
Excellent.
Drex finally had a viable template.
His next challenge:
Scaling.
And for that...
He needed better candidates.
Not gang members.
Not disposable criminals.
Soldiers.
New York City's veteran hospitals provided ideal recruitment pools.
Thousands of wounded ex-military personnel.
Men 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.