READ NOVEL ONLINE Chapter 7: Chapter 7
{A/N: I'm not as happy with this chapter as the others I've made, but I needed to get some stuff done for the protagonist.}
1st POV
Walking through the bustling after hours crowd of the city I gaze around looking at all the people shambling between still open shops and bars. Walking through the centre of a group of people leaving a bar I bump into a few, apologising I turn and continue walking.
Taking out the phones I stole from them with my inventory I look down at the three flip phones sitting on my hand. Sighing I absorb the phones into myself and begin using a separate train of thought for each phone. So far, I had stolen seven phones, all of which are either flip phones or incredibly basic smart phones.
I don't know what I really expected it is 2008 after all, I was kind of expecting the technology in marvel to be at least the level from my previous universe. Ignoring the fact the tech is outdated, the few minutes I've been studying these phones has led to massive increase in my abilities.
Studying the transmitters and receivers I was able to figure out how to increase the effective wavelength of my Radio wave Manipulation skill causing it to evolve. I had also started decoding the phones software and massively levelled up my technology based skills.
Opening my notifications I looked at my levelled up skills.
[ Notifications ]
Skill {Radio wave Manipulation Lvl 54/100} has evolved into Skill {Electromagnetic Radiation Manipulation Lvl 54/100}
Skill {E.M.R Manipulation Lvl 54/100} has levelled up x45
Skill {Technology Manipulation Lvl 15/100} has levelled up x34
Developed Skill {Coding Lvl 1/100}
Skill {Coding Lvl 1/100} has levelled up x12
Seeing the notification for Radio wave Manipulation evolving I excitedly open the skill description.
[-Electromagnetic Radiation Manipulation Lvl 99/100
Grade (B-) (Passive/Active)
The user is able to interact, read, and manipulate Electromagnetic Radiation. The shorter the manipulated wavelength the higher both the difficulty and energy cost.]
Instantly I delegate half my thought trains to practising with different wavelengths using the new skill, the more I focused with my new skill the more of the E.M spectrum I could see. At the moment I could still barely control and see the Radio wave spectrum so it might take a while to advance to shorter wavelengths such as light.
Happy with my evolved skill, I turn to a random passerby on the street and tap their shoulder.
"Excuse, do you know where the nearest library is?" – Morgan
"Huh, oh the nearest library is two blocks away head that way and turn left on ****** street, you should see the library on your right."
Thanking the person for the directions I walk in the direction they gave me, arriving outside the library with relative ease. Unfortunately, the library was closed at the moment, annoyed I look around to check for a nearby alley and seeing one make my way over.
Absorbing all the phones and miscellaneous electronics currently inside me into my inventory, I look around before jumping towards the roof of a nearby building. Jumping between buildings I easily arrive on the roof of the library and liquefying myself I slide in through the vents.
Now inside the library I begin looking around, the library is three floors in total with thousands of books lining the shelves top to bottom. Off to the side is a elevator leading to a fourth floor with offices, conference rooms and reading rooms. Looking down the stairs towards the second floor I see a beam of light moving around between the shelves.
Seeing no notable security on the third floor where I currently am I begin slinking around. Grabbing book after book I absorb it into myself and instantly memorise its contents before using another tendril to place the books back onto the shelf.
The reason I chose to break into a library of all places was because I understand the value of knowledge, at the moment I was going through books on physics, mathematics, engineering, biology, history and basically any other subject I picked up.
Finished on the third floor I made my way down to the second floor, being careful to stay out of the guard's sight I continue through the books. I had considered using the internet to amass knowledge but with the internet speeds of 2008 I wouldn't get anything done
Looking through the history books of this world was basically the same as my previous world, boring, though there was mention of Captain America in nearly every book about WW2. Whilst reading through the books I begin to consider my future plans.
At the moment I've only received biology based technologies from the random system rewards, quite annoyingly I couldn't use the rewards at the moment because the technology of this world was so bad currently.
So, to fix this I've decided to first work on improving the technology of this world, and for that I needed knowledge.
Remembering the shop in my system, I stop for a second and marvel at my stupidity. Opening the shop menu I notice I now have 2pts, clicking the little question mark in the top right of the shop menu a new menu opens detailing how to gain points.
Reading through the entire menu in less than a second, I sigh, as much as my enhanced intelligence has helped, I still make silly mistakes. The basic method for getting points for the shop detailed in the menu is crafting items, depending on the quality of the item I produce the system will reward me with differing amounts of points. Another method for earning points is through quests or repairing something, though compared to creating something repairing gives far less points giving only 10% of the points I would receive if I created an identical object.
Opening my settings menu, I scroll through the pages till I find a notification for point notifications and turn it on. Finished with this floor I close all my menus and make my way down to the first floor. Hearing the security guard walking up the stairs, I use the typhons ability to mimic objects and turn into a book using psionics to place myself on a shelf.
After about a minute the guard gets to the top of the stairs and proceeds further into the floor, seeing the staircase clear I un mimic the book and move down the stairs. Looking around the first floor half the space is taken up by bookshelves, on the opposite end of the room from the bookshelves is a metal gate blocking the door next to which a few desks are set up.
In the corner I see a few large computers lined and hanging from the ceiling I see some security cameras. Feeling the cameras out with E.M.R manipulation they don't seem to be wireless, slinking across the ceiling by embedding small tendrils into the ceiling I make my way over to the camera.
Merging with the camera I gain access to the camera network and forcefully trip the fuse connected to it. With the cameras now disabled I drop down onto to the floor near the bookshelves and continue reading. Looking through the books on this floor a majority of them are on coding, hacking and human languages.
Whilst reading through the books I extend a tendril towards the computers in the corner and partially merge with them. Disconnecting the monitors I turn on the computers and access the internet, surfing through the internet I try to find a connection to a government database. Luckily for me the cybersecurity in 2008 isn't able to contend against my enhanced intelligence and I easily find an access point to the government database.
Maundering my way through the firewalls in the database I construct myself a identity for my human form. Taking a bit longer to construct a detailed history I manipulate information from people who have recently died, changing certain parts of it I eventually establish a full history with physical timestamps in the database to give more validity to my new I.D.
Thinking it over a bit I check scanned maps in the database and find the nearest airport. Creating a ticket for myself I now have a way to America. As an added measure I give myself full citizenship in America before leaving the system. Unmerging from the computer an hour has easily passed with the slow internet speeds available.
Moving away from the computer now with far more information than before I make my way back up the stairs not running into the security guard this time. Making my way back to the vent I entered through I climb out back to the roof.
Now back on the roof I head to the alley from earlier and retake my human form. Walking out of the alley I look around for a bit to get my bearings, comparing the buildings around me with the ones in the maps I have. Figuring out where I am, I walk to the main street and flag down a Taxi.
Stepping into the taxi I turn to the driver and ask him to drive to the airport. Sitting in the taxi I lean against the window looking out at the city, even knowing this is a major city and very up to date with the times I'm quite disappointed with what I see. After reading through all the books in that library my technological improvement skill, now with lots of information to feed off of is having a field day constantly sending blueprints and improvements to my mind.
Using one of my thought trains I set it to filter through and organise the information from the skill and form a mental library of blueprints.
Zoning out for a bit I enjoy the relative peace of the taxi ride, fifteen minutes later the taxi arrives at the airport and I pay the driver before stepping out of.
One thing I know for certain stayed the same about me through both lives is my hate for navigating airports. After another fifteen minutes of walking around the airport I find the correct check in counter and receive my ticket. Making my way to the security stations I notice someone restocking the newspaper outside one of the shops, walking over I pick up the new paper and discreetly absorb it.
Making my way to the security station I stop outside and look at the x-ray machines. Seeing as I'm made of goop and have no bones it's probably not a good idea to go through. Changing course, I head towards the toilet and liquefying myself I slide through the vents, using E.M.R manipulation to send out pulses like a radar.
Easily navigating through the vents, I head to the toilets on the other side of the security station and reform my human form in a cubicle. Walking out of the toilet I make my way towards the gate and board my plane.
Resting on the plane I take out the newspaper I stole earlier and look at the headline {Billionaire Tony Stark Missing in Afghanistan}. 'Huh, I guess I know where in the timeline I am' thinking this I flip through the rest of the paper before getting bored after not finding anything interesting.
Placing the newspaper back in my inventory I consider my plans. Now that I know where I am in the timeline my best option will be to by up shares in Stark Industries, even if I make my own company having partial say in the operation of a rival company is useful.
Other than that, I should begin working on some products for my company, allocating all my free thought trains I begin working on mentally creating blueprints for improved computer components. From what I've seen so far during my time on this earth, in order to make any of the items I want I'm going to need faster more powerful and more efficient computers.
25 hours Later
Landing after a long flight I had finalised a few designs for improved circuit boards, I had also tinkered with designs for new batteries, CPUs, GPUs, and RAM. Above all what I'm most proud of is the new graphics card design I came up with that's equal to if not slightly better to that available in 2020.
Stepping off the plane I made my way through customs easily, stepping out of the airport I breathed in the air, and gagged. I'm not sure if this is the same as my previous universe but this version of New York was filthy, looking out over the cityscape I saw huge clouds of smog floating off the streets. Garbage seemed to flow from the poorly maintained gutters and sewage systems and the sky was dark with an unnatural mist.
Looking further past the city I saw massive factories lining the banks of the Hudson River spilling massive amount of waste material into the city's water.
Looking out at this city I was disgusted, ignoring my quest notifications I stood there in the doors of the New York city airport pondering whether I really wanted to be here or not. Deciding I can fix the city later I took a closer look at the colossal buildings dotting the skyline.
Among the random buildings I saw iconic buildings like the Oscorp Tower, Fisk tower and Frost International. Stepping down the stairs in front of the airport I began making my way towards Oscorp tower, even though I didn't know it existed on my way here I can probably sell the rights to my improved CPU to Oscorp for some legal startup money.
The improved CPU I designed uses the same functioning principles as other human tech but has a higher energy efficiency and faster run times.
Walking down the streets of New York I finally open the notifications from earlier starting with the skill notifications.
[ Notifications ]
Skill developed {Polymath Lvl 1}
Skill {Enhanced Intelligence Lvl 43/100} has levelled up x47
Skill { Technological Improvement Lvl 1/100} has levelled up x 68
The skills that levelled up were pretty straight forward, I probably got the Polymath skill when I raided the library earlier. Closing the skill notifications I open the quest notifications.
[ Notifications ]
Quest – {Centre of the action} – Completed
New Quest – {The City of Waste} – Added
Clicking on the completed quest I accepted the rewards when the menu opened.
-Centre of the Action
You are in the Marvel Universe most events in comics and movies occur in America not Australia
Objective: Completed, Bonus Completed
Rewards: Skill – Coding (Random Universe), 50xp, ???
Accept Rewards {Y/N}
[ Congratulations! ]
You've received:
Skill – Coding (Space Engineers)
(Bonus) - Recipe – Gender Change Potion (Terraria) {A/N: I added this as a joke to my item wheels, out of literally all the potions from terrairia I got this one.}
'Uhm, that's a weird bonus reward.' Unsure what I'm meant to do with my new recipe I dismiss it as a junk reward and focus on the new skill. Claiming the skill my mind is flooded with knowledge on all sorts of different coding languages and I feel the knowledge I gathered earlier feed the skill. Thinking about it I remember the game space engineers was set slightly ahead of the modern age and focused on a universe in which humanity learned to properly use the space age technology developed in the early 21st century.
Decently happy with my rewards I open the last notification lined up and my status menu.
[ Quests ]
-The City of Waste (*New*)
You've just arrived in New York city, the home of events in the marvel universe only to discovered it's a polluted and garbage covered mess.
Objective: Devise a method to keep the city clean, devise a method to clean up the pollution, devise a method to cleanly meet the city's needs.
Bonus: Beautify the City
Rewards: 3 Blue Tech, 5 Green tech, 5 White tech, 200xp, ???, ???
Looking at the new quest I'm glad the system gives me quests based on my intent because those rewards look nice, besides if I already have a few ideas for cleaning the city. Opening my status, I check my level up.
[ Status ]
Name – Morgan
Gender – Female
Species – Chimera (Typhon, Symbiote, Mecha morph, Dragon)
Age – Physical (?) Soul (18)
Lvl – 5 (20/25xp)
Health – 2,750/2,750 (1% per minute)
Energy – 4,300/4,300 (1% per minute)
STR – 280 (C+) +40
VIT – 350 (C+) +40
CON – 480 (B-) +40
AGI – 230 (C+) +40
DEX – 235 (C+) +40
WIS – 400 (B-) +40
INT – 780 (B+) +40
SEN – 295 (C+) +40
LCK – 3640 (A) +40
Free Points: 400
Looking over my stats I'm building up a good stockpile of free points, I'll probably hold onto the free points for a bit longer as I haven't decided what type of build I want.
Closing the last of my menu's I turn my focus onto New York city ahead of me.