Chapter 6
The choice, limited to a single option, felt like a noose tightening around my ambitions. I had to cut straight to the bone. I immediately discarded the Protective Field Generator and the Gravitational Gyroscope. Both were giants compared to what I could handle right now. Assembling either would require, at minimum, a fully equipped workshop, and at maximum, an entire industrial complex and a budget I couldn't even imagine. Those were goals for a future version of me that didn't exist yet. The Stun Grenade, though tantalizingly practical, felt too... limited. It was a consumable, a tactical tool that could be bought or replaced with a similar backup in a pinch. No. I needed something fundamental.
That left three cards on my mental table, cards I hoped would be trump cards: the Poison, the Muscle Stimulant, and the Intellect Brew. The Muscle Stimulant beckoned, promising strength without side effects. In a world where a super-strong thug could be lurking around any corner, raw physical power was a serious consideration. But the longer I read through the recipe lists, the clearer it became: brute force was just a tool. And I wanted to be the one building those tools.
And so: Intellect.
It was the foundation of all foundations, the base on which anything else could be built. It would allow me not just to blindly follow blueprints received from the Forge, but to understand them at a deep, intuitive level. To modify them, maybe. Improve them. Beyond that, in this universe, intellect was not just an advantage, it was a weapon of strategic significance.
Reed Richards, whose brilliant mind, like his body, could stretch to any limit, bending the very fabric of reality; Tony Stark, who built a heart for himself and armor for the world out of scrap metal in a cave; Otto Octavius; Victor von Doom; Hank Pym; even perpetually broke Peter Parker. Countless people in this world had climbed to extraordinary heights, or plunged to the depths of madness, on the strength of nothing but a formidable mind. If this brew could sharpen my mind even temporarily, even by a couple of measly units, the horizons that would open up before me were probably beyond anything my current, foggy state of consciousness could even suspect.
And there was another reason. A more personal one, sharp as a splinter driven under a nail, the kind I tried not to think about. In my past life, I was not a genius. I was not an idiot either. Just ordinary. One of billions of interchangeable parts in a giant mechanism. I had studied hard, gripped my work with both hands, pushed myself past my limits to achieve something meaningful, but there was always someone smarter, faster, more talented. I had watched ideas drift through my mind as vague, foggy shapes, only to take form in the hands of others as brilliant, successful projects. I had felt possibilities I hadn't thought of in time drifted away to those who could calculate three moves ahead.
It wasn't so much offensive as exhausting. A constant, grinding race where you knew your place from the start: somewhere in the middle of the pack. That was why, at some point, I had dropped everything and moved out to the countryside, and honestly, I had never regretted it. But here, in a world where the stakes were immeasurably higher, where Tony Stark's genius sat on one end of the scale and the Green Goblin's madness on the other, being ordinary was a death sentence.
The Muscle Stimulant would give me strength, the ability to run or fight back. But it would not teach me to see the trap before I fell into it. It would not let me create something that could level the playing field against gods and monsters. And intellect was not just a weapon. It was my personal rebellion against a past defined by mediocrity. A chance not just to survive, but to finally become what I'd always wanted deep down but never managed to be: the architect of my fate, not just another extra in someone else's story.
I walked to the window. Below, faceless figures flowed along the sidewalk. In my past life, I had been one of them. A person living by rules written by others, buying tools made in other people's factories, building with materials and technologies created by others, following laws drafted by hands that were not mine. My creative drive had been boxed in by the rigid constraints of the physical world, the law, and my own limited knowledge. The Muscle Stimulant would make me a stronger, more durable part in someone else's machine. The Intellect Brew would give me a chance to become the mechanic.
Not just following instructions, but writing my own. Not just a user of the system, but a developer of it. That thought was more intoxicating than any whiskey. The ability not just to adapt to this insane world, but to understand its fundamental principles and, perhaps, nudge them a little in my favor. That was the highest form of craft, something I'd never even allowed myself to dream of before. And it settled my choice once and for all. Strength is a tool. Intellect is the hand that holds all the tools.
There was still one problem, one I'd already turned over in my mind dozens of times: the ingredients. What if I couldn't get them because of their rarity or price? What if they simply didn't exist in this world? I dismissed the second possibility, trusting the system's adaptability. It should be able to adjust the recipe, find analogues. But the first was a real concern. Fine. In any case, this was a long-term investment. If I couldn't brew it in the coming days or even months, I'd get to it later. I wasn't going to stand still in the meantime. At a minimum, I planned to build a Spud Gun. At a maximum... I honestly didn't know. The Death Star, maybe. Ha.
I focused back on the internal interface. It didn't look like a computer screen so much as a semi-transparent blueprint suspended directly in my consciousness. Text and icons glowed with a soft, ghostly blue light, and navigation didn't happen through eye movement but through pure intention. I thought about selecting the Intellect Brew, and the corresponding line in the list lit up. The "Confirm" button glowed next to the number "-50 OP," and in the center of the expanded window, a three-dimensional model of a small flask with shimmering liquid rotated slowly. I paused for a moment. Fifty points, earned by honest, painstaking labor.
It was my first serious investment in something genuinely tangible, even if only in a future sense. The thought that it might come to nothing sent a cold prickle down my spine. What if the recipe turned out to be unfeasible? What if I'd just burned my OP for nothing? I shoved those thoughts away with force. The man who refuses to risk anything stays in his cardboard box in Hell's Kitchen until the end of his days, flinching at every shadow. I gathered myself and formed the mental command, putting everything I had into it.
"Confirm."
The blue inscription flashed. The number "50" scattered into myriad glowing particles and vanished, and my balance updated to a bleak "15 OP." Then came the pain.
It was nothing like an ordinary headache. It felt as though two white-hot nails had been driven into my temples and then twisted. Sharp but brief, like a lightning strike. It passed after a moment and left behind a ringing silence in my skull and then knowledge. I knew the recipe for that brew perfectly, down to the last molecule, down to the smallest nuance. This was not like reading a book or watching a video. The knowledge did not "appear" in my head. It "became" part of me, as though it had always been there, like a suddenly resurfaced memory from a forgotten childhood.
It was not just an ingredient list. I could feel them. I could almost touch the velvety surface of the Phantom Orchid's petals, ghostly as they were. The sharp, sterile smell of isopropyl alcohol flooded my senses. I could almost hear the quiet hum of a charging quartz crystal. The synthesis process unfolded in my mind not as a dry diagram but as a vivid, three-dimensional film playing out in a fraction of a second.
I watched Phantasmine molecules, the orchid's active compound, arrange themselves into complex chains and bond with silver ions. I observed the quartz crystal lattice vibrating under an electrical discharge, releasing the catalytic pulse that triggered the reaction. It was frightening and wonderful at the same time. The system had not just handed me instructions. It had implanted the experience of a nonexistent alchemist directly into my brain. That led to serious thoughts: what else could it upload into me? The muscle memory of a seasoned pilot? The practiced knowledge of a neurosurgeon? The entire wisdom of a vanished civilization? The potential of Celestial Forge ran far deeper and was far more dangerous than I had assumed.
Beyond the recipe itself and the processing methods, I had also received information about the ingredients. That was the most critical part. Without knowing where and how to find a Phantom Orchid, the recipe would be nothing but a useless line of text. But I knew.
The recipe was not prohibitively complex, but it demanded precision and some fairly specific conditions. Four main components:
Active Agent: Phantom Orchid Pollen. Extractant: Isopropyl alcohol, 99.9%+ purity. Conductor: Colloidal silver, concentration around 20 PPM. Catalyst: Attuned Quartz Crystal.
Then the process. The quartz crystal had to be placed inside a Faraday cage and charged with a lightning discharge. Then the extraction: in complete darkness, Phantom Orchid pollen and isopropyl alcohol had to be mixed to produce Phantasmine extract, the key substance in the entire brew. Final stage, synthesis: the finished extract and the colloidal silver were combined in a flask, and the charged crystal was brought near it. Its field triggered a chain reaction.
The output was approximately twenty to thirty milliliters of clear liquid, one dose of the Intellect Brew, with an effect lasting a couple of hours. What exactly did it do? That was the most interesting part. It all came down to Phantasmine, an extremely unstable but powerful alkaloid that functioned as a universal neural conductor. It would not make me smarter in any permanent sense. Instead, it would force my brain to operate at absolute peak efficiency.
It would accelerate synaptic connections to something approaching the speed of light, sharpen access to every layer of memory, including the deepest ones, and multiply my capacity for analysis and pattern recognition. The temporary nature of the effect came from the catalyst breaking down quickly into harmless components, after which the neural network returned to its baseline state.
"This is basically NZT-48," I muttered, mulling over the problem of the main ingredient. "The effect is practically the same. Interesting. The real challenge is going to be those temperamental Phantom Orchids."
Temperamental was an understatement. The flower was essentially endemic to places with residual "creation energy" or where the boundaries of reality had grown thin. It only became material and visible at night. During the day, it existed as nothing more than a knot of raw energy. That was also why the extraction had to be done in complete darkness: the orchid could not tolerate ultraviolet light. As for where to find such places, I had a rough idea. In the Marvel universe, and specifically in New York, there should be plenty of them.
Abandoned sanctuaries. Sites of recent battles between powerful mages. Even the Greenwich Village area, where the Sanctum Sanctorum of the still-future Doctor Strange supposedly stood. In theory, any location with a high enough magical background could work. The Orchid problem was solvable, at least in principle. What about the rest?
Isopropyl alcohol of that purity was a standard laboratory reagent, and a quick internet search was reassuring: it could be ordered from any industrial chemical supplier. Colloidal silver could either be purchased or made, though the latter required a small lab setup, so buying was the simpler path. A quartz crystal of the required size and purity was equally accessible; geological supply shops existed for that very purpose. No serious, insurmountable obstacles. I exhaled in genuine relief. The system had managed to adapt the recipe to this world and to my current means. That was hard not to appreciate.
I opened the system interface and glanced once more at the lonely "15 OP" in the corner. Only then did I notice I'd never actually switched from the Forge tab to the Technologies tab. When I did, what greeted me instead of the expected emptiness stopped me cold.
Blueprint (Simple). Project: Arcanum of Steamworks and Magick Obscura. (Technology unlock cost: 100 OP)
"So technologies aren't one-time!" The words came out louder than I intended, and something enormous lifted off my chest the moment I said it. It was almost too good to be true.
And so what if the unlock cost for the next recipe from the same project had doubled? The Muscle Stimulant, healing potions, the Protective Field Generator, and a whole list of other interesting options were all still on the table. They were still coming. I desperately wanted to burst into villainous laughter, but I held it back. Not yet.
This news flipped my entire strategy on its head. I had believed that each choice was final, that I was walking a narrow, single road with every other path cut off behind me. But this was not a road. It was a central square, with dozens of roads branching out from it in every direction, and given enough time I could walk all of them. Technologies were no longer singular, irreversible decisions. They were components in a larger system. I could plan combinations, build synergies, and keep strengthening without limit.
So. Next steps.
First: Save up 150 OP and hit the gacha a second time. If a blueprint loaded with useful recipes counted as "simple," I was equal parts terrified and intensely curious about what lay behind the higher rarity tiers. Iron Man armor? Rick's Portal Gun? An atomic 3D printer? The guesses could go on forever. Technology was my key to everything.
Second: Create the Intellect Brew. Ideally, several batches. Use them in critical situations, when designing complex devices, or when facing problems that required genuine creative leaps.
Third: Unlock the Muscle Stimulant recipe. Or, if the second spin dropped something more "interesting," adjust accordingly.
Fourth: Earn money and build a real life. Drop out of college, which at this point felt like a waste of time. Move into better housing, ideally a private place with a garage I could convert into a lab. Buy a car. Handle the rest of the mundane details.
Fifth: Do not die. Though this was less a step and more of a permanent condition underlying all the others. Do not attract the attention of government agencies. Keep a low profile. Do not play hero. Do not walk into trouble on purpose. Avoid every single mistake that 99.9% of isekai protagonists in every book seemed to make with cheerful enthusiasm.
Of course, they had plot armor. Did I? Could a system count as one? There had to be seers, prophets, and other super-powered beings in this world for whom my anomalous growth rate would shine like a beacon in the night. And yet I had not been neutralized. That meant either I was destined to play some key role in the future, or I was so insignificant I had not registered on anyone's radar yet, or, the option I liked most, my system made me a blind spot for anyone looking.
Alright. Setting those thoughts aside since they were clearly above my current pay grade. Time to build the Spud Gun 3000.
I yawned, long and hard, and finally noticed the clock. One in the morning. Given that I'd slept less than five hours ago, punishing my body further would be genuinely stupid. Fine. The Spud Gun could wait until tomorrow. What couldn't wait was the inventory experiments. They wouldn't take long, but they'd give me a clear picture of what was practically my only material ability with anything resembling the word "super" attached to it.
First experiment, the most obvious one: containers. I didn't have a box handy, so I pulled out a desk drawer, tossed in some odds and ends, a pen, an eraser, a couple of paper clips, an old key, then touched the whole thing and mentally sent it to inventory. Success. One slot taken, contents included. Excellent.
But what about those contents? Was the drawer acting as a "container" that preserved the relative position of its objects, or did everything collapse into a common heap in subspace? I returned the drawer to reality, carefully arranged the pen, eraser, and a few coins inside, and memorized their exact positions. I sent it back to inventory and immediately retrieved it. Everything sat exactly where I'd placed it, down to the millimeter. The inventory preserved not just the container itself but its entire internal structure. That opened up enormous possibilities for transporting complex and fragile equipment in the future. No vibration. No impact. No shifting.
Next: liquids. I poured water into a glass and tried to inventory just the water by running a finger across its surface. Nothing happened. The system apparently required clearly defined object boundaries. I inventoried the entire glass of water instead. That worked. When I retrieved it, not a single drop had spilled. More than that, there was no condensation on the outside of the glass at all, despite the warmth of the room. That pointed to a complete stasis, not just of time but of thermodynamic processes.
The next logical test was time itself. I started the stopwatch on my phone, put the phone in inventory, waited what felt like about thirty seconds, and retrieved it. The stopwatch showed the exact same time as when it disappeared, to the hundredth of a second. Time inside inventory was frozen. Noted.
Then came the experiment involving living things. Scanning the room, I spotted a small spider in the upper corner of the ceiling. I carefully extended a finger toward it and tried to place it in inventory. The system's response was instant and unambiguous.
[Living beings cannot be placed in Inventory!]
Fair enough. I hadn't been particularly attached to the idea anyway.
Weight and dimensions: the heaviest things in the studio were a half-empty refrigerator and a two-meter wardrobe. Both went into inventory and came back out without any trouble at all. The upper limits of weight and size hadn't been established yet, and they appeared to be considerable.
Final round: physics. I heated a pan on the stove until it was sizzling hot and inventoried it. Then I crumpled a sheet of paper into a ball, tossed it into the air, and inventoried it mid-flight. When I retrieved the ball, it simply appeared in my hand, stationary, with none of its falling momentum preserved. I repeated the test with a heavier wooden block. Same result. Momentum was not conserved. Heat, on the other hand, definitely was.
When I retrieved the pan ten minutes later, heat was still radiating from it exactly as if I had just pulled it from the burner. The stasis genuinely extended to thermodynamics as well.
As I lay down to sleep, I ran through the results one final time. The lack of momentum preservation was a mild disappointment. The idea of launching objects directly out of inventory had been an appealing one. But on reflection, it was also a relief. It meant I couldn't accidentally cause a disaster by retrieving something heavy while moving at speed.
To put it plainly: the system was not just powerful, it was also, in its own way, safe. It gave me extraordinary capabilities but drew clear lines around them. "Living beings cannot be placed in Inventory." "Momentum is not preserved." These were not bugs. They were features. They were rules that pushed me toward more elegant solutions rather than raw, brute-force ones. The system did not want me to become a god hurling asteroids out of my pocket. It wanted me to stay a craftsman, a smart, resourceful, inventive craftsman who worked within the laws of his world and used every tool at his disposal to reach his goals. That approach suited me. It was, in its own strange way, honest.
Before I finally drifted off, I smiled to myself. Tomorrow, I would build a potato cannon. It would be a ridiculous, almost childish project. But in this new world, it was something more than that. It would be my first real act of creation, something more complex than folding paper. It was my first true step forward.
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