Chapter 2
The rush of that first emotion, and I won't pretend otherwise that it was an extremely positive emotion, faded and left behind cool calculation and an itching curiosity. Without hesitation, I mentally reached toward the system, willing myself to engage with it. Surprisingly, the transition was completely mundane, with no special effects, no fanfare. It felt as natural as reaching out a hand, as though I had been using this interface my whole life and it was simply an extension of my thoughts. But what I saw inside it left me, to put it mildly, at a loss.
Floating weightlessly at the center of the semi-transparent interface was a hammer, or rather the sketch of one. Not a carpenter's or a machinist's hammer, but a true blacksmith's hammer.
It had a massive head of some unknown metal, covered in intricate runic patterns that glowed with a soft, unearthly light. The handle was wrapped in something resembling reptile skin and decorated with complex engravings that seemed to constantly shift shape. It looked more like a priceless museum exhibit or an Asgardian war‑god's weapon than any working tool. My old, faithful metalworking hammer with its ash handle, perfectly fitted to my grip over years of use, would have looked like a pathetic beggar standing next to it. And yet, in that moment, I knew I would not trade my reliable tool for any divine weapon in existence. My hammer had been real. This one was still just a pretty picture.
Beneath the hammer, a line of text in a clean, elegant font read: "Forge Reality! Cost: 100 OP." I focused on it mentally, and a small information packet immediately flowed into my mind.
Each Forging attempt grants access to technologies from infinite variations of the Multiverse.
And that was it? I spent 100 OP, struck the virtual hammer, and received a "technology"? There were too many unknowns. How would I actually receive it?
As a physical prototype that materialized in front of me? As a direct information download into my brain with full instructions on how to build it? Or just a stack of blueprints that I would still have to spend years working from without the necessary resources or equipment? And what kind of technologies, exactly? Kree bioengineering?
Did the magic of this world, which seemed to operate by clearly defined laws, count as technology or not? The word itself could be interpreted so broadly that my head started to spin. Fine. I would figure it out in time. For now, there were more questions than answers.
Above the hammer were three tabs. The first, "Forge Reality," was currently active. The second read "Technologies." Anticipating something, I switched to it, only to be disappointed. Empty. Completely empty.
They hadn't even bothered to include a single sample technology as an example. Cheapskates.
The third tab read "Inventory." Now that was interesting. If it worked like the inventory systems in classic LitRPGs, this wouldn't just be helpful. It would be a genuine cheat code in the real world. Holding my breath, heart fluttering with excitement, I opened it. A five-by-five grid appeared before me. Twenty-five slots total. Not much, but enough for a start.
I looked at the old laptop on the desk, touched it, and mentally pictured it moving into one of the cells. I focused on that intention. What happened next was pure, unambiguous magic. The laptop didn't vanish in a flash of light. It simply dissolved like a mirage, leaving behind nothing but a dusty rectangle on the desk.
"Now I believe," I said quietly, staring at the empty spot, then at the laptop icon sitting forlornly in the inventory's first cell.
I mentally clicked the icon, and a brief description appeared:
"Laptop, brand Zuun Electronics. Rarity: Common. Condition: 73/100."
The inventory also served as a basic catalog. Convenient. With another thought, I returned the laptop to its place. It materialized on the desk with a quiet, barely audible click. Incredible. There was a difference between watching system messages flicker before your eyes and seeing something physically impossible happen in the real world. This changed everything. The possibilities a pocket warehouse like this opened up were genuinely limitless, from hauling heavy loads to, well, anything at all.
The three main tabs were accounted for. The last visible element was a panel in the upper right corner of the interface: "0 OP," the local currency needed for "rolls." Only one question remained, and it was the most important: how did I earn it?
OP (Points): the currency required for Forging Reality and unlocking technologies. Earned by manifesting the user's Creator's Spark while making something.
"Well, nothing's clear, but it's very interesting," as they say. Fine, I was dancing around the obvious. In broad terms, it was obvious enough: I needed to make something with my own hands. The question was what exactly qualified as this vague "something."
I glanced at an old wooden chair in the corner, one of its legs noticeably wobbly. Old habit took over. I walked over and flipped it upside down. Just as I'd thought, the screw had loosened. No tools on hand, but a coin from my pocket worked well enough as an improvised screwdriver. A couple of minutes later, the leg sat perfectly flush. The familiar satisfaction of a job done right settled in my chest, and then... silence. I waited for a system notification, a pop-up, some kind of sign. Nothing came. Apparently, repairs didn't count as "creation." The system wanted something new, built from nothing. That was an important, and fairly unwelcome, clarification.
My gaze drifted around the room in search of inspiration and landed on a student notebook sitting at the corner of the desk. Drawing, maybe? Or origami.
I grabbed the notebook and found a ballpoint pen in the desk drawer. I tried drawing first. I was no artist by any stretch, and neither was John. After a few crooked sketches and no response from the system, I irritably tore out a sheet. Paper.
What could you actually make from paper? The answer came before I even finished asking the question. Origami. I began folding the classic crane that everyone knows. Something a step more complex than a basic paper plane, but nowhere near the legendary dragon that only a handful of people in the world could actually fold.
After a couple of minutes of patient, careful work, the paper crane was finished. It stood a little crookedly on the desk, which I found oddly charming, though not nearly as pleasing as the system notification that popped up.
[Created simple art piece: Origami. Complexity: Minimal. Received +1 OP!]
"Let's go!" I couldn't help blurting out the old gamer phrase. First point in the piggy bank of my future greatness. I just needed to fold ninety-nine more of these and I could cash in. The main thing was having enough pages left in the notebook.
Motivated by that first success, I forgot entirely about browsing the internet or making any plans for the future. The goal was simple and clear: earn the first hundred OP. The whole world shrank to my hands, methodically folding paper and the brief flashes of system notifications.
[Received +1 OP!]
[Received +1 OP!]
...
[Received +1 OP!]
[Warning! OP earning limit for the area of creating simple Origami has been reached!]
That last message hit like a punch to the gut, instantly killing my enthusiasm. Ten OP from cranes. Ten total. And I had already settled into the idea of meditative grinding, like something out of that old tale about folding a thousand cranes to earn a wish.
Apparently, there were no easy roads for me. The word "simple" in that notification made it clear enough: if I made something more complex, there was a chance to start earning again.
I had to get on the internet after all, though for an entirely different reason than I had originally planned. After half an hour of browsing tutorials and video guides, I reluctantly concluded that my skills were nowhere near good enough for a full Elephant, let alone a Dragon, whose diagrams spanned a hundred steps and required a working knowledge of terms like "bird base with additional folds," "reverse folds," "rabbit ear," and "wet folding." That was closer to advanced calculus than a craft hobby.
But a solution presented itself. An elegant one that seemed to me an ideal approach for farming OP: modular origami. The obvious option was a kusudama, a paper ball. The "Electra" kusudama, according to the tutorials, required thirty identical modules. Each module was slightly more complex than a crane, but the assembled whole should be complex enough to qualify as a step up.
I tore out another sheet from the notebook and got to work. I immediately ran into a problem. My fingers, accustomed to manual labor and heavy tool handles, felt like clumsy sausages.
I cursed under my breath when I failed yet again to make a clean, even fold. I, a person who could assemble furniture with his eyes closed and turn a perfect table leg on a lathe, could not handle a single piece of paper without messing it up. Absurd.
After ruining a couple of sheets and wearing down my nerves, I eventually got a feel for it.
By my estimate, one kusudama would take about half an hour. The only other problem was that the notebook pages were disappearing fast. I would need to go to the store. I dug through the pockets of my shorts and the desk drawers and scraped together a couple of crumpled dollars and a small handful of change. Not much. The nearest 24-hour convenience store greeted me with the smell of cheap coffee and disinfectant.
Under the indifferent gaze of an Indian cashier, I picked out the cheapest pack of printer paper available. Walking back through the deserted, sparsely lit streets of the neighborhood, I felt like a complete idiot, because risking my neck on these streets at night wasn't worth a pack of paper. I hadn't risked going out to take out the trash, but I had risked it for this. It would have been funny if it had actually cost me something.
Hell's Kitchen at night was a completely different place than Hell's Kitchen during the day. It shed the mask of an ordinary, run-down neighborhood and showed its true face. From a dark alley came the crash of an overturned trash can, followed by the angry shriek of a cat. On the corner beneath the flickering neon of a Joe's Pizza sign stood a group of guys in baggy clothes.
They weren't doing anything illegal, just smoking and talking quietly, but something about them radiated a quiet, coiled menace. I picked up my pace and kept my eyes forward. In this world, one wrong glance could earn you a knife between the ribs.
The air was thick and humid, reeking of rotting garbage, cheap food from the late-night spots, and exhaust fumes.
Somewhere in the distance, a siren wailed again, the permanent soundtrack of this city and of this neighborhood in particular. Suddenly, I felt my own vulnerability with sharp, physical clarity. In my old body, I'd been no Hercules, but I could handle myself. Ten years of physical labor had made sure of that.
But now I was in the body of a skinny student who, according to the memories I'd inherited, hadn't been in a fight since middle school, and had lost. Any one of the guys on that corner could have snapped me in half without breaking a sweat.
And no Devil of Hell's Kitchen was going to materialize to save me. Matt Murdock might be a hero in some sense of the word, but he wasn't all-seeing and he wasn't all-powerful. He went after gangs and killers. He didn't rescue every idiot who decided to stroll through a rough neighborhood after midnight.
That walk sobered me up better than any cold shower. I didn't just need 'technology' from the system. I needed strength. Or at least something that would let me protect this fragile new life.
Back in the apartment, I threw myself into the work with fresh resolve. Forty minutes of concentration, teeth-grinding, and quiet swearing later, the first kusudama was done. It came out slightly lopsided, but recognizable.
[Created art piece: Origami. Complexity: Medium. Received +3 OP!]
Good. Medium complexity counted, and the three-point reward was a welcome bonus. Even if those same forty minutes could theoretically have produced more cranes before the limit hit, that was no longer the point. OP farming was moving again.
I glanced at the time on the laptop. Two in the morning. I had a clear picture of how the next several hours were going to go. The thought of college flickered through my mind and faded. It was Thursday, a class day.
As much as I considered college a useless drain on time and energy, it was also a source of information. Mary Jane studied there, and Harry Osborn was likely to show up for her at some point. Neither of them was background noise anymore. They were key figures, even if secondary ones. Going was worth it. But first: grinding.
The next several hours passed in a blur. My hands folded modules mechanically while I ran a news channel on the laptop to keep from going insane with the monotony. I got quick enough that one kusudama took no more than twenty minutes. By 5:30 AM I had assembled ten of them. But the eleventh ball brought another unwelcome surprise.
[Created art piece: Origami. Complexity: Medium. Received +1 OP!]
[Warning! OP earning limit for creating medium complexity Origami has been partially reached! The next 9 items will award +1 OP each.]
So the running total was: 10 + (10 × 3) + 1 = 41 OP. With 9 more points left to squeeze out of these paper balls, that brought me to 50. Exactly halfway. Not bad at all.
And I could keep folding modules during class. So grinding away here at this hour made no real sense, especially since an irresistible drowsiness was starting to pull at me. John's memory told me there were three classes tomorrow, starting at 10:15, with a half-hour walk to college. That gave me three to four hours of sleep.
I collapsed onto the couch and lay there in the dark, staring up at the ceiling before drifting off. My life hadn't just been turned upside down. It had been completely flipped on its head. The Marvel Universe. A strange, stingy system. A new body. Thinking about my old, steady life sent a pang of melancholy through me. Back there, I'd made physical things, objects you could touch that served a purpose, even if that purpose was mostly my own.
A solid table. A reliable roof. Real, tangible results. And now? I was folding fragile paper balls for ephemeral points in exchange for some unknown "technology." I could almost taste the bitter irony of it. Like I'd traded real craftsmanship for a video game with a sketchy reward.
What if this Marvel was one of the darkest variants? What if Galactus was already on his way to Earth? Or, God forbid, this was the zombie apocalypse universe? Anything would be better than Marvel Zombies. As I turned those cosmic horrors over in my mind, a drunken shout and the crash of a breaking bottle floated up from the street below.
The thin walls did nothing to muffle it. A cold draft pushed through a gap in the window frame and hit my face.
That chill pulled me back to the night's work, and specifically to the act of creation itself.
My fingers still remembered the feel of the paper, those monotonous, precise folds. I'd made hundreds of identical modules over the course of the night.
And with every new fold, a low-grade irritation had grown in me, gradually sharpening into something close to quiet rage. This felt wrong. To me, creation had always been a deliberate process. You took shapeless material, wood, metal, clay, and invested your labor, your skill, a piece of yourself into it, and out of that, you made something useful.
Something that would serve someone. A chair you could actually sit on. A plate you could put food on. A tool you could work with. That was a conversation with your material. What I had been doing tonight was a profanation of that. Soulless, mechanical repetition in exchange for virtual points.
These paper balls, these kusudamas, were empty inside and out. They served no function beyond the vague aesthetic, and even that was debatable. They were fragile and meaningless. And the system was rewarding me for making them. I felt like a lab monkey pressing a lever to get a banana. Was this really my 'Creator's Spark'? Folding paper according to someone else's diagrams? The thought stung.
No. I needed to rack up these hundred points as quickly as possible and get the first technology. I needed to start making something real. Something with weight and strength and purpose. Something I could actually call my work.
But before I could worry about great creations and dangers no less great lurking in the form of world-devouring cosmic entities, I needed to survive tomorrow in this cardboard box of an apartment in the city's most dangerous neighborhood. That thought, here and now, was far more sobering than any Galactus.
I said a quiet prayer to whatever gods existed in this world. Unlike in my old one, my words weren't empty here. I prayed that this particular version of the Marvel universe would turn out to be at least something other than the kind where everyone was already doomed. With those encouraging thoughts, I finally fell asleep.
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