Lucifer wasted no time.
The move to Manhattan was swift and brutal.
He secured the new service apartment—a small, modern unit, courtesy of Stark's logistics fund—and immediately established his new routine.
The Platinum-Tier job from Stark could wait; his defense could not.
He sat on the floor, ignoring the plush new carpet.
Raven, surprisingly, had settled into the corner, silently observing, having found a strange comfort in the normality of the new apartment and Lucifer's obsessive routine.
"Time for work, Raven,"
Lucifer murmured.
Raven gave a curt nod.
"Focus."
"Shield Up!"
The Tier 4 Force Field covered him, and the familiar, heavy blanket of Raven's ability washed over his mind.
The fatigue from the past week's sleepless work instantly evaporated. His mind was a hyper-focused laser.
He spent the first night and the entire next morning in a continuous cycle of activation, cooling down, and training, using Raven's power to bridge the gap between his physical exhaustion and his mental will.
For the next week, Lucifer established a punishing schedule:
Morning (Training): Two hours of intense Force Field training with Raven's continuous assistance, pushing the Tier 4 limit.
Day (Work): Six hours of low-profile, Silver Rank deliveries for the system and for Tony Stark's legitimate businesses. These jobs were now $500–$1,000 each, paying for his rent and food while keeping his Delivery Count up.
Evening (High-Risk): One high-risk, off-the-books delivery for Stark, prioritizing speed and stealth, utilizing his scooter and the Force Field for evasive maneuvers. This kept the Platinum-Tier progression active.
Night (Repeat): Sleep for four hours, then start the training cycle over.
The grueling regimen paid off, both in currency and confidence.
After one week of non-stop work and training, his stats reflected the dedication:
[Current Funds $251,980]
[Tier 4 Force Field Activated (10/10)]
[Focus Training 60/60 Minutes]
[Tier 4 Force Field has reached Max Capacity!]
[Tier 4 Force Field Upgraded to Tier 5!]
[Tier 5 Force Field Specifications:]
Duration: 2 minutes 30 seconds
Cooldown: 6 minutes
Sturdiness: Tier 5 (Can shield the user from sustained automatic weapons fire, most conventional explosives, and a direct punch from a low-tier metahuman. Sturdy as military-grade carbon composite.)
Lucifer allowed himself a moment of genuine, if exhausted, pride. Military-grade carbon composite. He could now survive a full-on firefight.
During the breaks, an odd, quiet friendship developed between the delivery boy and the demon's daughter.
Raven found that merely being in Lucifer's proximity, listening to his mundane complaints about traffic or his landlord, was grounding.
His cynicism was a strangely stable counterpoint to the volatile emotions she usually had to suppress.
She started helping with more than just focus.
She'd use a very controlled application of power to tidy his clothes and organize the small apartment, maintaining her "clean mental space" while providing a genuinely clean living space.
She even began to passively mimic some of his human behaviors.
One afternoon, Lucifer returned from a delivery run to find Raven sitting on the sofa, clutching a mug of tea (not coffee), watching an old sitcom on the apartment's small TV.
"That's a terrible show, Raven,"
Lucifer commented, leaning against the doorframe.
"It is,"
She agreed, her voice soft.
"But the laughter tracks are predictable. It requires no emotional suppression. It is… normal."
Lucifer smiled.
"You're getting too attached to normal, world-ender. It's a dangerous habit."
"Perhaps,"
She replied, taking a slow sip of the tea.
"But the fatigue you feel after your deliveries is very normal. It provides a useful anchor."
The primary complication, however, was Tony Stark.
Lucifer had been making increasingly difficult deliveries to Stark Tower, moving everything from esoteric chemicals to alien alloys.
But every time he was in the lab, he noticed the same thing: Tony looked worse.
His skin was gray, his movements were slow, and the ARC reactor in his chest, which was slowly poisoning him, was running low on power.
One night, Lucifer delivered a stack of classified R&D reports and found Tony slumped over his desk, struggling to breathe.
Lucifer's Basic Empathy LVL 1 screamed a clear, piercing signal of Imminent Catastrophe and Physical Failure.
"The isotopes didn't work, did they?"
Lucifer asked, placing the reports down.
Tony waved a weak hand.
"They're a start. I synthesized all I could from the Vibranium, but the reaction is unstable. The new element… I can't finalize the structure. I'm missing the key."
"You're running out of time,"
Lucifer stated bluntly.
"And I don't need my money bag dying on me before I hit Gold Rank."
Tony managed a weak, sarcastic grin.
"Touching. Glad to know my potential mortality motivates my new logistics guy."
Lucifer paused, looking at the holographic projections of atomic structures swirling around the room.
He was just a delivery guy, but he had lived many lives, including one where he had mastered an entirely different system of power.
He knew about Fundamentals and Balance.
"You're looking for something new, an undiscovered element, to act as a stable core,"
Lucifer said, his voice flat.
"But maybe the key isn't in finding the new. Maybe it's in creating a stable environment."
He stepped closer to the projection, pointing at a chaotic, unstable ring of electrons.
"You're trying to force the circle closed with a massive external energy source. Look at your materials. You have the raw power; you just need the catalyst."
He remembered a fleeting moment from a lecture centuries ago, something about the stable foundation of reality itself.
"Think about your current power source. The palladium core is killing you because it's incomplete. But what if the missing element isn't an element at all?"
Lucifer tapped the center of the chaotic ring on the display.
"What if you need a perfectly inert, non-reactive energy source to stabilize the reaction? Something that provides the necessary power signature, but has zero negative interaction with the rest of the structure."
He looked directly at Stark.
"What if you need to use the material from the core of the thing that's been killing you? The thing that started the whole reaction in the first place. You have to synthesize the new element using the decay."
Tony, who had been listening with an air of dismissive patience, suddenly froze.
His eyes, though still bloodshot, widened.
He pushed himself upright, his weak hands flying to the holographic controls.
"The decay... a clean burn,"
Tony whispered, his mind racing. He started manipulating the simulation, adjusting parameters based on Lucifer's suggestion.
A second later, the chaotic structure snapped into a sudden, stable, brilliant gold configuration.
Tony stared at the image—the structure of the new element. His breathing immediately became less labored.
"That's… that's brilliant. A complete paradigm shift,"
Tony said, looking at Lucifer with an intensity he hadn't shown before.
"You just saved my life, Morningstar. Who the hell are you?"
Lucifer simply retrieved his empty messenger bag.
"I'm the delivery guy, Mr. Stark. I deliver the goods, and I deliver the advice. Now, I have another shift to make. Don't die before I get my next Platinum payout."
He turned and headed for the exit.
[Side-Quest Completed: The Catalyst]
[Objective: Provide the key insight required for Tony Stark to successfully synthesize the new element and cure his condition.]
[Reward Received: $50,000 Bonus]
[Current Funds: $301,980 Credits]
[New Skill Unlocked: Fundamental Insight LVL 1 (Passive) - An innate ability to perceive and understand the foundational concepts and structural weaknesses of complex systems (technology, magic, logic, etc.).]
Lucifer didn't look back.
He had secured his life insurance, gained a massive bonus, and unlocked a passive skill that felt like it would be incredibly useful.
He stepped onto the transport platform, pulled out his phone, and checked his job board.
Tier 5 Force Field was ready. Time for another High-Risk delivery.
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