[Translator’s Notes]
Hello, everyone!
😊 Welcome to another story!
This time, we’re diving into the Marvel Universe!
However, because of the MC’s system, you’ll also encounter plenty of things from other fandoms along the way.
Some of them come from existing canon or official works, while others are completely original ideas created by the author.
Because of this, the story might get a little complicated at times, but don’t worry, the main plot will still be centered around the Marvel Universe.
I hope you enjoy the story and everything this crazy journey has to offer!
Happy reading!
✨
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
New York City, Queens, 23 Prince Avenue.
A young man with black hair and dark eyes slowly regained consciousness.
“Did I… transmigrate?!”
Evan Mercer stared at his perfectly intact hands, barely able to believe what he was seeing.
In his previous life, he had been an assembly line worker in a shady factory.
He had no real family left to speak of, either.
Then, by sheer chance, he had saved a child’s father, only to watch with his own eyes as the machinery tore both of his hands apart.
According to his last memories, he should have been lying in a hospital bed.
Yet the hands attached to his wrists, along with the completely unfamiliar surroundings, told him that this was no longer the world he remembered.
“Ugh…”
Evan rubbed his still dizzy head and forced himself upright before stumbling over to the nearby couch.
Empty liquor bottles littered the floor, mixed in with packets and bottles of drugs he didn’t recognize.
Looks like the poor bastard whose body I took over wasn’t exactly living his best life either.
[Ding!]
[Host awakening detected. Starter Gift Pack issued!]
Just as Evan was sorting through his thoughts, a translucent screen slowly appeared within his mind.
━━━━━ SYSTEM ━━━━━
System: Emotion Gacha System
Host: Evan Mercer
Current World: Marvel Universe, Earth-1008611 (Cinematic Universe Variant)
Cards: None
Items: Starter Gift Pack (Special)
Emotion Points: 0
Instructions: The Host may spend Emotion Points to draw cards, fuse cards, deploy cards, and more.
Card Ranks: Cards are ranked from 1 Star to 10 Star, corresponding respectively to:
Normal Human → Superhuman → Surface → Sub-Skyfather → Skyfather → Universal → Multiversal → Megaversal → Omniversal → Transcendent.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
“The Marvel Universe?!”
Evan’s eyes went wide.
Everyone knew the Marvel universe was downright hostile to ordinary people.
Forget about the purple space warlord Thanos, the self appointed director of cosmic population control, eventually kicking off the Infinity War.
Even your average supervillain showing up tended to leave a body count behind.
Everything depended on how good his cheat was.
“Open the Starter Gift Pack!”
Considering just how dangerous the Marvel universe could be, Evan didn’t hesitate.
[Starter Gift Pack opened.]
[Congratulations, Host. You have obtained: 5 Star Card ×1, Yellow-Tier (𝐈) Chest ×1.]
“Open the chest.”
Evan couldn’t help feeling that this was getting a little ridiculous.
The moment he spoke, the screen transformed into an image of a vast, star filled universe.
Several streaks of white light shot across the darkness in a sequence that looked suspiciously like the gacha animation from a game he had played in his previous life…
[Congratulations, Host. You have obtained: 3 Star Card ×1, 2 Star Card ×2, 1 Star Card ×2.]
━━━━━ 🃏 Card ━━━━━
⭐⭐⭐ Fallen Storm Dragon’s Head
A Storm Dragon from a certain Western fantasy plane had its head severed by a celestial being during an accident.
The dragon’s severed head remains saturated with its fury and power.
(Fusible)
━━━
⭐⭐ Proliferating Flesh
An evil creature from a bizarre world.
Soft, springy, and slime like, yet possessed of overwhelming hostility toward living beings.
(Fusible)
━━━
⭐⭐ Magma Blood
The blood of a Magma Demon Lord from an abyssal plane.
Capable of absorbing and storing a certain amount of energy and possessing extremely powerful infectious properties.
(Fusible)
━━━
⭐ One Million legal US Dollars (Exactly what it says).
⭐ Luxury Clothing Store Mannequin (Exactly what it says).
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Ding!]
[Fusible items may be fused through the System interface to create more powerful entities.]
“This…”
Looking at the five cards, Evan finally relaxed a little.
He still hadn’t actually seen what any of them could do in practice, but at least now he had something to work with.
The One-Star luxury mannequin was basically useless, sure, but one million dollars of perfectly legal money?
That was very nice.
“Now let’s see that 5 Star Card…”
━━━━━ 🃏 Card ━━━━━
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Yellow Wind Sage
Origin: Black Myth: Wukong
The Yellow Wind Sage was originally an enlightened marten living beneath Mount Lingshan.
After stealing lamp oil from the Glazed Lamp, he fled Mount Lingshan and later became the demon king of Yellow Wind Ridge.
A master of powerful sorcery, he can unleash the Samadhi Wind, a divine gale capable of shaking the Three Realms.
🔥 Rating: High Skyfather Tier (𝐕)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
“Holy crap. Jackpot!”
Excitement crept into Evan’s voice.
A 5 Star Card was straight up Skyfather Tier (𝐕).
That was insane.
High Skyfather Tier (𝐕) strength should be more than enough to guarantee his safety in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
After all, base Thanos was only around Sub-Skyfather Tier (𝐈𝐕).
High Skyfather Tier (𝐕) should put him somewhere in the ballpark of beings like the Ancient One and Odin.
[The Host may fuse material cards through the System interface to create Combat Cards.]
[The Host may directly obtain the power of a Combat Card or summon the Combat Card as an independent entity.]
[When not being personally controlled by the Host, summoned cards possess independent wills but remain absolutely loyal to the Host.]
“Good. Good. This is really good.”
Evan could barely keep the grin off his face.
In his previous life, he had always had the soul of a chaos gremlin.
Unfortunately, the crushing weight of reality had beaten that instinct out of him.
But now?
Now he had a System.
At long last, Evan could finally become the menace he had always dreamed of being.
And getting to cause trouble for people in the Marvel Cinematic Universe?
That just made it even better.
“First things first. I need to figure out where I am in the timeline.”
Evan rose from the couch.
With the Yellow Wind Sage’s power inside him, his body felt incredible.
The dizziness that had plagued him upon waking had vanished without a trace.
“Billionaire Tony Stark Missing for Three Months… Looks like we’re around Iron Man.”
The moment he stood, he spotted a newspaper lying on the floor.
Thanks to the Yellow Wind Sage’s power, Evan no longer looked anything like the sickly wreck he had been upon waking.
He felt better than he ever had in his life.
“System. Fuse.”
Having confirmed the point in the timeline, Evan immediately issued the command.
The System interface changed.
A massive furnace appeared at its center, surrounded by three floating cards.
Beside it was what looked like the instruction panel from an online game.
[Move cards into the furnace through conscious command. A minimum of two and a maximum of five cards may be fused at once.]
[More cards will produce more traits. Greater compatibility between cards will result in a stronger final card.]
With a thought, Evan sent Magma Blood and Proliferating Flesh into the furnace.
The Fallen Storm Dragon’s Head was a 3 Star Card.
That made it valuable enough that he wasn’t willing to throw it into an experiment just yet.
Magma Blood and Proliferating Flesh, on the other hand, were only 2 Star Cards.
If the fusion produced garbage, so be it.
The instant the two cards entered the furnace, boundless divine flames erupted around them.
Both cards melted into liquid like masses, flowed together, and gradually merged into one.
Then a brand-new card emerged.
[Fusion successful.]
━━━━━ 🃏 Card ━━━━━
⭐⭐ Molten-Blood Demon (Fusion Card)
A powerful card born from the fusion of Proliferating Flesh and Magma Blood, possessing a degree of growth potential.
🔥 Rating: High Superhuman Tier (𝐈𝐈)
━━━
Flesh Regeneration: The Molten-Blood Demon can rapidly recover from injuries.
It may also absorb flesh to accumulate power and strengthen itself.
Magma Manipulation: The Molten-Blood Demon can generate large quantities of magma and manipulate it in combat.
Molten-Blood Seed: The Molten-Blood Demon can separate portions of itself into Molten-Blood Seeds, converting creatures weaker than itself into Demonspawn possessing both flesh and magma traits.
By expending additional Molten-Blood Seeds, it can grant those Demonspawn the ability to convert other creatures into demons as well.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
“High Superhuman Tier (𝐈𝐈)… So around Captain America’s level?”
Evan immediately reconsidered.
“No, wait. Captain America is the last guy you should ever use as a sensible benchmark. That dude’s feats run on pure plot physics. Put him against practically anyone and somehow he still manages to make it a fifty-fifty fight…”
He rubbed his chin.
“Spider-Man’s probably a better comparison.”
His gaze drifted back toward the newspaper.
“Pretty sure it said Stark Industries is holding a press conference in a few days, too.”
A wicked smile slowly spread across Evan’s face.
“Mr. Stark… I think it’s time I prepared you a nice little surprise.”
“Heh heh heh…”
The more Evan imagined what that press conference might look like, the harder it became to suppress his grin.
Soon, he was openly cackling.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Translator’s Notes]
The power rating tiers and chest tiers can be a little unique and confusing, at least, they are for me.
😅
So, to make things easier to follow, I’ll add numbers to indicate each tier’s rank.
Hopefully, this will help avoid confusion while you’re reading the story.
If you have any feedback or suggestions, feel free to let me know!