Marvel: Sign-In System – Starting with the Glint-Glint Fruit

Skye witnessed her mother take revenge on Whitehall.

It was bloody and brutal, and the physical torment alone was enough to break a person’s will. But for a villain like Whitehall, Skye did not even need to make a special request—the Inquisition had already dispatched a battle-brother to keep his mind intact throughout the punishment, perfectly reflecting the principles Matthew had established.

The Inquisition carried out that philosophy without compromise: the wicked should be treated with even greater cruelty. Simple torture and death were ultimately forms of release for people like him, and such an easy end would bring no sense of justice to those he had harmed.

Many of his victims were already gone, so the living judges had no reason to worry about whether his punishment was excessive. The only principle that mattered was imposing the harshest sentence his crimes allowed.

As for Skye’s mother, Jiaying, once she had personally completed her revenge against Whitehall—the man who had victimized her and was still alive—she too would face punishment from the Inquisition.

And the sentence would not be light.

Skye had already prepared herself for that. None of it affected her emotionally anymore, because she had something far more important to prepare for—

Terra’s first Great Crusade.

Terra had entered a state of full military readiness, yet ordinary citizens felt none of the tension building beneath the surface. They continued working and living with joy, gradually building Terra piece by piece.

Everyone deeply valued the life they had now.

Reacher stood inside an office at City Hall. His clothing had changed considerably; he no longer dressed in the plain, unremarkable style he once preferred.

What he wore now had been specially produced by Terra’s Logistics Department, combining modern masculine aesthetics with magical patterns woven into the fabric that gave it functions far beyond ordinary apparel.

The office door opened.

Natasha walked in wearing a white shirt, jeans, and black platform shoes. She looked sharp and confident.

Seeing Reacher standing by the floor-to-ceiling windows with a cup of coffee, she walked over.

“How is it, Natasha?” Reacher asked without turning around.

“Everything is ready.”

“It’s just a shame that the beyond-visual-range strike system is still nowhere near completion.”

Natasha sounded slightly disappointed.

The combat structure of Terra’s three warbands had already become highly developed.

The Astartes served as the absolute spearhead and main assault force, and they also had the largest number of soldiers.

Their role was to inflict overwhelming damage on the main battlefield.

The Raven Guard acted as Terra’s mobile force, maneuvering across the battlefield to support the Astartes while carrying out sabotage, harassment, and aerial combat operations.

They were effectively Terra’s rapid-response warband.

The Grey Knights, as battle-brothers, focused on magical firepower and battlefield support—serving as long-range artillery platforms and support units.

Together, the three warbands covered almost every requirement of modern warfare.

There was only one major weakness—

they lacked reliable beyond-visual-range precision strike capability.

In other words, they lacked the equivalent of a modern military’s long-range strike system.

Terra still had shortcomings when it came to saturating an enemy fleet or a designated region with heavy long-distance firepower.

That kind of capability could not depend on the magical abilities or Devil Fruit powers of individual soldiers.

Natasha’s Glint-Glint Fruit, Skye’s Tremor-Tremor Fruit, and Reacher’s Magma-Magma Fruit could all produce devastating long-range attacks over wide areas.

But that required them to be physically present on the battlefield.

What happened if they were somewhere else?

Clearly, this was a gap in Terra’s military infrastructure.

Unfortunately, there was no immediate solution.

Terra might already be far beyond ordinary human civilization, but compared with species and empires that had accumulated millions, tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions of years of technological development, its progress was still slow.

The technological gap could not yet be closed.

Fortunately, Doctor Otto’s artificial sun project was already underway.

Melina’s Science Department had begun designing several possible beyond-visual-range strike systems around the artificial sun framework.

Purely technological solutions, however, were not yet practical.

Technology at that level was still beyond what Terra could fully control.

Unless they obtained advanced technological knowledge from other civilizations in the universe and successfully absorbed it, developing such systems on their own would remain extremely difficult.

The Emperor once described those scientists as people with almost unfair levels of talent.

But that did not mean they could casually invent technology of this level from nothing.

The super-soldier serum had only been developed and continuously improved because Terra possessed the research data left behind by Alexander Pierce’s Hydra faction, the bodies of five frozen super soldiers, and blood samples from Isaiah, the black super soldier.

Only by combining all of those foundations had they been able to complete the research.

They needed something to build upon.

Creating something entirely from imagination was the kind of thing Wanda might eventually be capable of.

So for now, the best option was still to integrate magic with technology.

Of course, that was a matter for later.

In the upcoming war against Limbo, they would not have beyond-visual-range fire support available.

If technology could not fill the gap, manpower would have to.

“You seem distracted by something else.”

Natasha noticed that Reacher’s attention had wandered, mostly by instinct.

Observation Haki could sense another person’s emotions, but it was far less effective against someone who had awakened Observation Haki to a comparable level.

“Yes. I was thinking that the Emperor needs a palace,” Reacher said casually.

Natasha raised an eyebrow. “War is about to begin, and as War Commander, that’s what you’re thinking about?”

“The war plan is already complete. All that remains is to fight it. Thinking about it any further won’t change anything.” Reacher did not seem concerned.

It was not arrogance.

By the time the decision to go to war had been made, every available piece of intelligence had already been gathered. They had even accounted for the possibility of a prolonged campaign, injuries, deaths, and every other foreseeable variable.

There was nothing meaningful left to refine.

He no longer needed to waste time reconsidering plans that were already complete.

“Why did you suddenly start thinking about building a palace for the Emperor?”

“It wasn’t sudden. I’ve thought about it before. The Holy Terra Empire is destined to unify the entire Earth and eventually expand across the Solar System and the Milky Way.”

Reacher shook his head.

“And yet ever since Terra was founded, we have never built a proper imperial palace for the Emperor.”

“It should represent the highest symbol of authority in the hearts of Terra’s people.”

Building an imperial palace might appear excessively extravagant, especially when it required enormous resources that could burden a newly established empire.

But Terra was not an ordinary nation.

Its core population might still consist largely of ordinary humans, but its true direction was closer to that of a divine civilization—

a state meant to transcend the limits of ordinary humanity.

As genetic technology continued to improve, and once Terra unified the entire planet, a global age of human evolution would inevitably follow.

Humanity would gradually shed the limitations of ordinary mortal bodies.

People would gain greatly extended lifespans and extraordinary physical abilities.

Terra did not lack money, nor did it lack the resources needed to construct a palace.

Such a palace would not merely be an act of luxury—it would become one of the supreme monuments in the hearts of Terra’s citizens.

A symbol of faith.

It would also help reinforce unity and stability.

Terra had existed for quite some time now, and its cities had developed rapidly, yet there was still no sign of a palace belonging to Matthew, the Emperor.

That absence had already led many citizens to discuss and speculate about it.

It was not exactly causing unrest, but after Reacher received reports about those discussions, even he felt that the situation was somewhat inappropriate.

Matthew himself might not care, but certain symbols still mattered.

The United States had the White House, Britain had Buckingham Palace, France had the Élysée Palace, and Russia had the Kremlin.

Some principles were universal.

Whether the ruler actually wanted to live there was one matter—

whether such a place existed at all was another.

“Novi Grad, Velica, Zagora, and Morava have already completed their urban layouts,” Natasha said thoughtfully after a moment’s silence, shaking her head. “If we want to plan a massive imperial palace now, we’ll have to alter the existing construction plans.”

She also agreed that an imperial palace should be built.

The problem was that Terra’s major cities had already been planned from the beginning. Building the palace in any of them would not require tearing everything down and starting over, but redesigning the existing layout would still consume considerable time and manpower.

Reacher understood what Natasha meant. She was not opposed to building a palace—she simply did not think it belonged in any of the existing cities.

“So what do you suggest?”

“What else? Let the Emperor decide.” Natasha said, her lips curving upward. Something like this wasn’t for them to dictate; Matthew had to make the call.

Ten minutes later, inside the conference room, Matthew sat comfortably in his chair, a look of genuine surprise on his face. “Build a palace?”

“You two really know how to find work for me,” Matthew muttered, shaking his head.

Compared with some cold, enormous palace, he preferred living in an estate.

Why would anyone need such a huge place just to live in?

It held little appeal for him.

He probably would not even stay there for long periods of time.

Still, Reacher and Natasha had a point.

For a ruler, an imperial palace was more than a residence—it was an iconic structure representing both the nation and its sovereign.

Once the Terra Empire became renowned throughout the universe, Matthew would eventually have to meet the rulers of powerful interstellar empires and civilizations.

He could hardly invite them all to his private estate.

Even Odin had his own royal palace. Asgard was hardly enormous and its population was relatively small, yet it still possessed a grand royal complex.

Terra could not afford to fall behind.

If they were going to build one anyway, Matthew decided after a moment’s thought, they might as well make it spectacular.

“Let’s build our own celestial palace—a city in the sky.”

The idea came to him almost immediately, and he made the decision on the spot.

It would also satisfy an old fantasy he had once carried.

After all, who had never imagined visiting a legendary city above the clouds?

“A city in the sky?”

Reacher and Natasha spoke at the same time, both visibly surprised.

“Yes. We’ll build a celestial palace completely separated from the surface. If it’s meant to stand above everything else, then it should truly be apart from everything else.”

Matthew rose and walked toward the floor-to-ceiling windows.

“The palace doesn’t need to be located anywhere on Earth. Let it become a sacred place people look toward—a legend in its own right.”

Earth’s population was simply too large.

Once the planet was unified, placing the imperial palace in any particular region could create all kinds of problems.

Some might be positive.

Others would not.

No matter how carefully Terra balanced economic development, the city surrounding the palace would inevitably gain special status—and over time, that could easily breed arrogance.

People living there might begin looking down on those from other regions as though they were provincial outsiders.

That kind of attitude could never be completely eliminated.

As long as people possessed emotion and desire, such tendencies could only be restrained, not erased.

Matthew and Terra’s laws might suppress them—

but suppression was all they could achieve.

It could also create resentment among people living elsewhere.

So rather than deal with the problem later, Matthew decided to eliminate the source of it from the beginning.

If Terra was going to follow a system built around divine authority, then he might as well carry that idea through completely.

His celestial palace would remain separate from the surface world.

And because it would be capable of flight, mobility would be one of its greatest advantages—wherever it was positioned in the future would hardly matter.