I need to farm 165 CP, ideally by the end of today.
Options?
The criteria are simple: fast, cheap, functional.
No unnecessary frills or lengthy preparations — only what actually earns points and doesn’t rely on rare materials.
My brain, amped up on Intellect Potion and running at 110% capacity, immediately started throwing out ideas — from unexplored crafting spheres like clay modeling and advanced woodworking to building more complex electronics and mechanisms for which the internet had plenty of detailed guides.
Granted, I dismissed most options right away: some lacked funding, others required expensive equipment or rare consumables, and a few hit a wall with lengthy debugging that I had no time or energy for.
Plus, I deliberately focused on practical, functional items: my limited experience had already confirmed that the system hands out noticeably more CP for clear utility than for “pretty but useless.”
Naturally, while brainstorming, I was also digging through the internet: DIY forums, communities of homemade weapon and upgrade enthusiasts, mechanics, electricians, and even chemists in their specialized threads.
I sought inspiration and tech solutions from everywhere; all I needed was one, maybe two items I could assemble quickly and cheaply, and that the system would value “oh-so-highly,” meaning at least 50+ CP, like with that Potato Cannon.
Which, incidentally, perfectly met all my current criteria except for one annoying fact: it had already been crafted and would not impress the system for 50+ CP again.
I even considered upgraded versions of the Potato Cannon: a pneumatic version with a compressor, a multi-barrel modification, and even a Gauss Potato Cannon (yes, I found a detailed guide for that monster online too — I was shocked myself!).
But everything ran into the same problem.
I wasn’t sure how the system would evaluate such a thing — not cheating, exactly, more like a clever repeat.
Formally, even a Potato Cannon of legendary rarity and complexity remained conceptually a Potato Cannon, which meant there was a risk of getting a reduced multiplier.
Plus, there was the issue of buying and sourcing materials, especially for the Gauss version: some components were both rare and expensive.
So, for now, the Potato Cannon option was out.
Especially since I’d found what I was looking for, and it was PVC pipes again — which turned out to be a much more versatile and interesting crafting tool than I’d previously thought.
On one thread of the DIY forum, I stumbled upon an enthusiast who was step-by-step writing up and showing the process of creating various kinds of “weapons” if you could even call these essentially harmless shooting crafts that.
Considering I had five Potato Cannons on hand that I could, if needed, disassemble for fittings and fasteners, and I could buy the missing pipes — two hundred dollars would be more than enough, they weren’t expensive — I was immediately interested in several of his designs.
For each of them, I figured the system would generously hand out CP: simple mechanics, clear functionality, a neat result.
The first option — PVC crossbow.
A lightweight crossbow where a PVC pipe serves as the base for both the prod and the stock, with an elastic cord providing the shot.
Materials were simple: pipes (I already had some on my shelf), elastic cord, a wooden or plastic handle, a couple of metal brackets, screws, washers — and other small items for rigid fixation of the joints.
Bolts or arrows I’d make from ordinary wooden dowels: slightly adjust the geometry, glue on light tips or just sharpen them — and done.
The whole process would take a few hours, and the result would be quite functional.
So, crossbow — locked in!
The second option — logically I’d say “PVC bow,” but it was too simple to assemble: there was a high chance the system would value it at a symbolic 10 CP.
And I was saving my materials — didn’t want to burn them on a deliberately “thin” result.
So I ignored the bow and settled on a PVC water cannon.
Essentially a water “pump-action,” but more powerful than a typical pistol.
For crafting I needed pipe (of course), a pump — manual or bicycle — a check valve, a nozzle (a garden hose nozzle would do), and PVC sealant or glue to hold the pressure.
The whole set was cheap, assembled quickly, and the system liked that: a clear mechanism with obvious functionality.
I mentally locked it in as the second mandatory item.
Initially, I wanted a third, final, and most complex option, but after watching the guide I dismissed it almost immediately.
No way — building a PVC pneumatic turret.
Servos, a microcontroller for automation, solenoid valves, compressed air compressors, wiring, debugging — a beautiful project, but not at my current level in terms of time and risk.
After watching a half-hour video where a guy made everything look so smooth and polished, I soberly realized: I could replicate it, but the cost of a mistake and the resource investment were too high.
Theoretically, if I really wanted to, like with that same Intellect Potion for which I’d built the damn Marx Generator, I could manage it, but it would take god knows how much time and effort.
At this stage, I’d make do with the Crossbow and the Water Cannon; if needed, I’d build two or three copies of each and make up the missing points.
165 CP today — achievable.
Good, crafting sorted.
What’s next on the agenda?
A budget to get out of Hell’s Kitchen (still need to figure out where exactly), and a scheme for converting ores from the “cheaty” crate into real money.
The first was more or less clear: I needed a private house with an attached garage and a spacious backyard, ideally not overlooked by neighbors.
For neighborhoods, the obvious priorities were Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island — that’s where houses matching my criteria were most common.
After studying the city map and estimating prices, I settled on Brooklyn and Queens.
Yes, monthly rent there was slightly higher than on Staten Island, but the proximity to Manhattan was appealing, and the areas felt more…
refined, I guess.
And logistics were easier.
What about prices?
Here I was unpleasantly surprised.
Renting this studio in Hell’s Kitchen for $500, I expected a private house with a garage and yard in a decent area to be two or three times more expensive, not six to eight times!
A two-story townhouse in Brooklyn for $4,500 a month…
Fuck, and that’s putting it mildly.
Plus, a broker’s commission of 10–15% of the annual rent — that’s another few grand; utilities, which were often not included; insurance; and a deposit — from a few thousand up to ten.
So in the end, I’d need AT LEAST $20,000 cash on hand to painlessly rent a house for quiet crafting for at least three months, ideally right away for six.
Floor threshold set: twenty grand.
Okay, target amount decided.
Now — how to legalize the ores from my future wonder crate.
Quickly running through precious metal prices, I settled on gold and platinum (roughly $38,000 and $32,000 per kilogram).
I figured something like that would be in the crate. Find the original chapter at g.com.
What sales options did I have?
Realistically, only one at the moment: pawnshops.
Up to about $10,000, they usually didn’t require documents or detailed proof of origin.
The catch was that they wouldn’t be very enthusiastic about accepting raw, unprocessed ore and would likely heavily undervalue it.
So I’d have to go to a smelter first (since I didn’t have my own workshop) and, for a couple hundred bucks, have them smelt bars or granules.
Then I could push those to pawnshops all over the city.
Risky?
Definitely.
What other options were there?
Online auctions, selling to private collectors or metal dealers, trying to reach out directly to industrialists and offering some of the rare earths.
But each of these paths was even riskier from the start than going through pawnshops: higher entry barrier, more paperwork and prying eyes.
So for now, I’d stick with pawnshops — and specifically the plural, getting paid in cash.
Basic precautions were mandatory: going to different locations on different days, at different times, changing clothes and routes, not creating a repeating pattern.
I wasn’t a super-spy, but I’d like to think I wasn’t a complete idiot.
Though…
I’d already left a trail with the Phantom Orchid — so idiot.
Fine, moving on without self-flagellation, just being more careful.
Now that the immediate priority of analyzing the most important things was taken care of, the agenda called for a different kind of analysis.
A deep, thorough analysis of the mess I’d gotten myself into.
In theory, any proper transmigrator should have tackled this in the first few hours.
But, alas, the system turned out to be too entertaining a toy, and the first days were spent in a tactical race for resources, not strategic planning.
Now, when not just survival but future development was at stake, ignoring this question would be tantamount to suicide.
So, let’s start with the card catalog in my head.
Key characters, factions, events.
From what I knew and remembered, of course.
Global Level: Gods and Monsters.
The top of the food chain on Earth and in New York specifically.
Tony Stark, aka Iron Man; Steve Rogers, aka Captain America; Bruce Banner, aka Indestructible Super-Strong Green Mountain of Rage, aka Hulk; Thor, aka Asgardian and actual God of Thunder and Lightning.
And the rest of the Avengers, in descending order of importance to the global plot.
These were titans, whose collisions could wipe a city off the map.
Right now they were scattered — some not even existing yet — but I knew their unification was only a matter of time and the right threat.
Ideologue Level: Mutants.
Two main, eternally opposing forces.
Magneto with his idea of mutant supremacy, and Professor X with his dream of peaceful coexistence.
Charles Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, based on fragmentary info online, was successfully operating but masquerading as an elite closed educational institution.
The very fact that mutants were hidden from the public was unsettling.
This wasn’t a world where they were part of society; it was a world where they were a ticking time bomb.
No mentions of Magneto — that was even worse.
Either he was lying low, or he hadn’t started his war yet.
There was a tiny chance he didn’t exist in this reality at all, but either way, getting involved in their conflicts was madness.
Street Level: Heroes and Spiders.
My current world, what was happening outside.
Spider-Guy — in my case, Spider-Gal.
I’d call her Spider-Gwen, for convenience and ego-stroking.
She was already active, but a quick analysis of the news confirmed: so far, it was just fighting ordinary crime.
However, her personal rogues’ gallery was classic spider-folk: Kingpin, running the underworld; Lizard — and here a chill ran through me, since in most realities with Spider-Gwen, that performance was put on by Peter Parker; Morlun, an energy vampire hunting spider-totems; Jackal, Kraven the Hunter, Vulture, Doctor Octopus, Goblin, and of course Venom.
Since Octavius was presenting his manipulators on October 14, only a month away, I suspected he would be her first serious adversary.
And that event would be the starting point for a whole array of meta-criminals appearing in New York.
But Gwen wasn’t the only one at this level.
Hell’s Kitchen, my neighborhood…
that was the Devil’s territory.
Daredevil.
Blind lawyer Matt Murdock by day, vigilante by night.
His war with Kingpin and the Japanese ninja clan “The Hand” was the city’s shadow side, invisible to ordinary people.
To some extent, I was living, unwittingly, in the epicenter of this war.
Another incentive to leave this area…
Science and Space Level: Pioneers. The source of this chapter is novelping.com.
The Fantastic Four.
Their space expedition was launching on September 22, literally a few days away.
How long they’d be in orbit was unknown, but their return would be a sensation.
And with them, two threats of completely different scales would come into the world.
First — Victor von Doom.
Genius, billionaire, king of Latveria, powerful sorcerer — his version and threat level could be anything, but he was always one of the most dangerous people on the planet.
The second threat…
absolute.
Galactus, the Devourer of Worlds.
He and his herald, the Silver Surfer, were for some reason closely tied to the Four.
And if Doom’s appearance was a political and technological crisis, Galactus’s arrival was the apocalypse.
And I had no idea what I could do against that or if I even should…
Starting Point: Genius, Billionaire, Playboy, Philanthropist.
Of course, Tony Stark.
It was with his arc of becoming Iron Man that, in theory, the whole epic with the Avengers, the Chitauri invasion, and Mad Titans who liked to snap their fingers should begin.
When would he fly to Afghanistan?
Unknown.
There wasn’t a single mention of “Jericho” missiles in the network.
It could be a top-secret project.
But monitoring news related to “Stark Industries” was my highest priority.
His kidnapping would be the gong heralding a new era.
Hidden Forces: Shadows and Conspiracies.
S.H.I.E.L.D.
with Nick Fury, and HYDRA metastasizing within its structure.
They were the gray cardinals waging their own war.
Magic.
Doctor Stephen Strange — brilliant neurosurgeon — was still saving lives in the OR, his hands in perfect order.
His upcoming car accident would be the portal to a world where the laws of physics were merely suggestions, and he also played an important role in global events and had, I think, saved the world a couple of times.
I needed to keep an eye on him too.
The Ancient One was somewhere in Kamar-Taj, training acolytes.
And all that was just the tip of the iceberg.
Blade and the vampire clans waging their millennia-long war in the night.
Captain Marvel and the eternal Kree-Skrull conflict somewhere in the depths of space.
The Celestials who created life.
Guardians of the Galaxy.
Shang-Chi, the Ten Rings, and the mystical forces of K’un-Lun.
The Hellfire Club, a secret society of the richest and most influential people.
And dozens of other hidden organizations, ancient cults, and alien races.
This world was a crazy, layered pie of threats.
Trying to grasp everything meant going insane.
I didn’t need to know everything.
I needed to know enough to survive and grow stronger.
All I wanted for now was time to level up.
My strength was in constant, albeit relatively slow, enhancement.
But that was for now.
My progression wasn’t arithmetic; it was geometric.
And who knew what skill, blueprint, or Legendary-level item would finally allow me to step out of the shadows and become a figure on this crazy chessboard myself.
Until then — silence, development, and information gathering.
Closing the incognito browser with secure tunnel encryption, I leaned back in my chair, exhaling all the accumulated stress and fatigue from a job well done mentally.
The Intellect Potion’s effect had worn off, and I suddenly felt stupid and heavy, like after a sleepless night.
But glancing at the notes I’d been keeping for the last few hours, recording the most important and useful thoughts, I realized it wasn’t all that bad.
The pseudo-NZT-48 had done its job: I’d gotten answers to nagging questions and simplified my immediate decisions.
And even despite the approaching headache — a minor crash from the Potion — I was ready to start creating and earning CP.
I desperately needed that wonder crate with ores — too much depended on it now.
Slapping my cheeks and steeling myself, I opened a regular browser — on the tab with the step-by-step guide for making a PVC crossbow.
I’d wait out the headache for half an hour or an hour; in that time I could go to the hardware store and grab the missing supplies for the Crossbow and Water Cannon — cord, a couple of fittings, glue, small fasteners, and such.
When I got back, I’d start farming.
Today I’d close 165 CP.
And tomorrow I’d start earning money.
Then — everything else, according to plan and ramping up.