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"Within me?" Loki fell dead silent. His sharp eyes narrowed into tight slits as his brilliant, calculating mind worked in overdrive.
'If the Manager didn't care about gold... and didn't give a damn about the ancient relics rotting in Odin's Vault... then what in the Nine Realms could he possibly want?' Loki mentally inventoried every single valuable thing he possessed. Unfortunately, nothing came up that felt remotely impressive enough to tempt a cosmic entity like Rosh.
The only item of note on his person was the polished spear clutched tightly in his hand. Sure, it was technically a divine weapon forged with Asgardian magic, but it wasn't that special compared to the terrifying artifacts locked beneath the royal palace. And standing next to Thor's stupid enchanted hammer, Mjolnir? It looked downright cute.
There was zero chance a terrifying merchant who could dissolve into light and slice through reality cared about a standard-issue royal spear.
And besides that... he was literally carrying nothing else.
After trying and failing to solve the puzzle, Loki finally gave up with an irritated sigh. He locked eyes with Rosh, a forced, tight smile tugging at the corner of his lips.
"Alright, enough with the cryptic riddles, Manager," Loki said smoothly. "Tell me plainly. What exactly do you want from me?"
Rosh didn't hesitate for even a fraction of a second.
"Simple," Rosh said, his voice as casual as if he were asking for a cup of morning coffee. "I want... five hundred years of your divine power."
"..."
Loki froze dead in his tracks. For a brief, absurd second, he genuinely wondered if his ears were playing tricks on him.
Then, his dark eyes widened. "Excuse me... what?!"
Loki was barely fifteen hundred years old! Rosh was casually asking him to fork over a literal third of his entire life's accumulated divine magic! The sheer, unmitigated audacity of the demand left the God of Mischief completely speechless.
And before Loki's brain could even begin to process that massive hit... Rosh nonchalantly added the kicker.
"And on top of that," Rosh continued, casually tapping his fingers against his knee, "I'll also need two-thirds of your Luck Points."
Loki just stared at him in utter, jaw-dropping disbelief. The request was so astronomically outrageous that even the galaxy's most notorious fast-talker couldn't find a single word to say.
Of course, Rosh wasn't just pulling random numbers out of thin air to screw with him. The Rumble-Rumble Fruit carried an eye-watering price tag of 400,000,000 Origin Points. Draining only Loki's divine power wouldn't reach that colossal number. Draining just his Luck Points wouldn't cut it either. To make the transaction go through, Rosh needed to harvest from both buckets.
Thankfully, Origin Points weren't tied to standard gold or credits. Every soul across the universe carried their own unique form of cosmic capital: Luck & Fate, Talent & Skill, Innate Abilities, Bloodline & Divine Lineage, Raw Magical / Physical Power, and Lifespan
The total value was entirely dependent on who was standing in the shop.
For Rosh's previous earthly customers, collecting raw Luck Points had almost always been more than enough. Take Steve Rogers, for example. Captain America's absurd, universal hero destiny meant his Luck Points alone were worth a mind-boggling 1,000,000,000 Origin Points. Compared to a fortune like that, Cap's peak-human body and military combat experience were practically pocket change, and Rosh hadn't even bothered calculating them.
Loki, however, was a completely different story. He wasn't just a mortal blessed with a big heroic destiny. He was an Asgardian prince, a god-tier sorcerer with fifteen centuries of dense, concentrated divine magic running through his veins. That massive reservoir of divine power was worth an obscene amount of Origin Points on its own, and when stacked right on top of two-thirds of his royal Luck Points?
It was finally enough to pay the steep bill for one of the absolute strongest Logia Devil Fruits in existence.
"That's... an insanely steep price." Loki's usual playful smirk vanished completely, replaced by a deadly serious expression. Even for the Prince of Asgard, this wasn't a choice he could just make on a whim. Five hundred years of raw divine magic. Two-thirds of his total Luck Points.
Either one of those costs on its own was an agonizing blow. Combined? It was an astronomical sacrifice.
While trading away a conceptual resource like "Luck" was a brand-new idea to him, Loki was far too smart to struggle with the math. He didn't need Rosh to spell it out. Luck was the invisible hand pulling the strings of fate behind the cosmic curtain. Surrendering two-thirds of it meant throwing himself into the dark unknown.
Rosh met Loki's intense, calculating stare without flinching.
"Compared to what the Rumble-Rumble Fruit gives you?" Rosh said coolly, leaning back. "I'd say it's the bargain of a lifetime."
He shrugged with total unconcern. "Nothing in this universe worth having ever comes for free. That's the most fundamental law of existence, and I know a sorcerer as brilliant as you understands how trade works."
Loki didn't push back because Rosh was 100% right.
If Loki didn't understand the law of equivalent exchange, he never would have survived centuries of dark magic and cosmic politics. Instead of wasting breath arguing, he quietly began weighing the costs against the ultimate payoff.
'Five centuries of hard-earned divine magic... yeah, that hurt. Bad.'
'But what do I get in return? The absolute, total power to become lightning itself.' Thinking back to their brief beatdown in the desert made the math a whole lot easier. During their entire fight, Loki hadn't felt even a single drop of divine energy coming off Rosh. Not a trace of Asgardian-style magic or cosmic godhood.
Yet, despite having zero divine magic, Rosh had absolutely humiliated him.
His terrifying strength hadn't come from some royal bloodline or ancient blessing. It came entirely from the miraculous, reality-bending power of his Devil Fruit. If the Light-Light Fruit could instantly turn an ordinary person into an unstoppable god... then what would the Rumble-Rumble Fruit do for him?
Would losing five centuries of divine magic really matter... if the replacement power was infinitely superior?
To Loki, the scales were tipping fast, and as for the "Luck Points"...
A bitter, quiet chuckle almost escaped Loki's lips.
'Luck? Please.' When had fate ever been on his side? Since they were children, every bit of good fortune in the Nine Realms had been handed to Thor on a silver platter. Odin favored Thor. The people of Asgard worshipped Thor. The throne was practically built for Thor.
Compared to all that... what had "luck" ever done for Loki? Absolutely nothing.
If throwing away his useless luck was the tax required to grab the one power capable of putting him above Thor forever... then it wasn't a loss at all. It was a steal.
After a long, heavy silence, Loki finally made up his mind.
Still... he wasn't about to lose his edge completely. He was the God of Mischief, after all. Loki sat up straight, locking eyes with Rosh, his voice turning firm and decisive.
"Manager, I want to try the trial sample first," Loki demanded cleanly. "Only after I test the power myself... will I sign off on this trade."
Rosh looked at him, an amused, nostalgic grin spreading across his face. 'Man, you gotta love the irony.'
When Loki first walked into the shop, Rosh had offered him a free trial sample right off the bat, and Loki had turned his nose up at it like a snob. Now, after getting knocked on his ass in the desert, here he was, asking for that exact same sample.
The irony was golden, but Rosh didn't rub it in. Considering the guy was about to cough up 500 years of magical essence, a little caution was completely understandable.
Without saying another word, Rosh pushed himself up from the sofa.
"Follow me," Rosh said, gesturing toward a heavy oak door at the side of the lounge. He led the Prince of Asgard deeper into the Home of the Devil Fruits.
The testing room was waiting.
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A few moments later...
The silver door to the testing room clicked open, and Elizabeth walked in carrying a polished silver tray. Resting neatly in the center was a single, clean slice of the Rumble-Rumble Fruit. She stepped forward with a polite, immaculate posture, presenting the tray directly to the Prince of Asgard.
"Your trial sample, Your Highness."
Loki reached out, picking up the fruit slice between two slender fingers. He held it up to the light, inspecting it with heavy skepticism. The fruit's strange, swirling lightning patterns covered every square millimeter of its surface, giving off an unnatural, alien glow.
"...This certainly doesn't look like anything edible," Loki muttered, frowning slightly. "If I didn't know better, I'd guess you were trying to poison me."
Still, after everything Rosh had put him through in the desert, Loki knew the merchant had no reason to play cheap tricks.
Taking a small breath, Loki took a bite. The exact millisecond it hit his tongue, his face violently contorted.
"...Ugh!" The Prince of Asgard's legendary, effortless composure completely collapsed in an instant. His eyes watered, his throat tightened, and he barely managed to force the bite down his throat.
Loki whipped his head toward Rosh, staring at him in utter, unadulterated disgust.
"Manager..." Loki choked out, clutching his throat. "Is it strictly necessary for a god-tier power to taste like something scraped out from the bottom of an Asgardian sewer?!"
Even a prince who prided himself on flawless royal manners couldn't hide his horror. The flavor was beyond description, a rancid, foul nightmare that tasted like rotting trash mixed with battery acid. It was, without a shadow of a doubt, the single worst thing he had ever put in his mouth in his fifteen hundred years of life.
But before Rosh or Elizabeth could even answer... Loki froze dead in his tracks.
His dark eyes widened, and the horrendous taste instantly vanished from his mind, completely forgotten. Because something impossible was happening inside him.
The second the fruit sample hit his stomach, a warm, surging wave of raw, cosmic energy erupted throughout his entire body. He felt it flooding his veins, rushing through his muscles, and soaking deep into his very bones. Every single cell in his body suddenly awakened, humming with a terrifying, rhythmic vibration.
"...This..."
Loki slowly raised his right hand, staring at his pale palm. Almost purely by instinct, he reached inward, tapping into the newly awakened power resting in his gut.
The moment his mind willed it to react—
*Crackle!*
*Snap!*
A blinding burst of brilliant, blue-white lightning exploded from his fingertips! Wild, jagged arcs of pure electricity danced across his skin, filling the quiet testing room with a deafening, metallic roar of thunder.
Loki stood completely frozen, his breath hitching in his chest and his mind going entirely blank.
'It's real... It's actually real.' He stared at the violent blue lightning wrapping around his fingers in utter disbelief.
This wasn't just him manipulating external magic. He could feel it deep in his soul; this wasn't a spell he was casting or an element he was bending to his will. The lightning wasn't separate from his body.
He was the lightning, and the lightning was him.
An indescribable surge of pure, unadulterated euphoria rushed through his entire chest. On the surface, this power looked nearly identical to Thor's. Both of them commanded the terrifying wrath of the storm. But Loki immediately recognized the massive, game-changing difference.
Thor wielded lightning through an external crutch, Mjolnir. His meathead brother had to call upon storms using a magical hammer forged by dwarves.
Loki's power, however, sprang directly from his own biological flesh. No hammer. No ancient spells. No borrowed authority from All-Father Odin. His very physical existence had become living, breathing thunder.
"...It's real," Loki whispered, his voice trembling slightly as every last microscopic trace of doubt evaporated from his heart. "It's all completely real..."
He looked down at the violent electric arcs snapping off his knuckles. For a man who had spent his entire life wearing a fake, guarded mask, hiding his raw excitement was physically impossible right now.
'Everything the Manager had said... every single word written in the encyclopedia... every mind-boggling claim... was 100% true.' A slow, sharp smirk began to spread across Loki's face. Then it grew wider and wider. By the end of it, he was grinning like a madman.
'If I master this power... why would I ever need to envy Thor again?!' The realization sent a violent thrill straight up his spine.
*Crackle!*
Eager to test the limits of his new body, Loki focused his mind once more.
This time, his entire left shoulder instantly dissolved into a swirling cloud of raw, humming electrical energy! His physical flesh and bone vanished completely, leaving behind a brilliant mass of blue sparks. Elizabeth's subtle gasp echoed in the room as the ambient air passed harmlessly through the hollow space where his shoulder used to be.
A second later, with a light *zzap!* the lightning condensed right back together, smoothly reforming into solid, flawless skin.
Loki stared at his shoulder in awe. Even as an Asgardian royal who had seen cosmic entities, dark magic, and ancient relics across the Nine Realms... nothing in existence came close to this.
A Devil Fruit wasn't just a magical artifact. It was a literal, fate-breaking miracle.
Loki slowly raised his head, locking eyes with Rosh. There wasn't a single grain of hesitation left in his body. His voice rang out firm, loud, and absolute.
"I've made my decision, Manager."
Loki snapped his hand shut, extinguishing the lightning with a confident flare.
"I accept your terms. Five hundred years of divine magic, two-thirds of my luck... take it all."
"Let's make this trade."
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Next Chapter: The Day Thor Lost Everything
Next Next Chapter: Thor's Breaking Point
Next Next Next Chapter: Asgard's Ultimate Weapon
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