The effect of the first emotions — and these were, I won’t lie, extremely positive emotions — subsided, leaving behind sober calculation and an itching curiosity.
Without hesitation, I mentally wished to enter, to plunge into this “system.” Surprisingly, the transition was utterly mundane, without special effects or fanfares.
As if I had been using this interface my whole life, and it was as natural an extension of my thoughts as a hand is an extension of the body.
But what I saw…
It baffled me, to say the least.
Right in the center of the translucent interface, floating in zero gravity, was a hammer, or rather its sketch.
Not a simple carpenter’s or metalworker’s hammer, but a real forge hammer.
A massive head of unknown metal, covered in intricate runic patterns that glowed with a soft, unearthly light.
The handle, wrapped in something resembling reptile skin, was adorned with complex curlicues that seemed to constantly change shape.
It resembled more a priceless museum exhibit or the weapon of some Asgardian god than a working tool.
My old, trusty metalworking hammer with an ash handle, perfectly fitted to my palm over years of work, would look like a pathetic beggar next to it.
And yet, in that second, I understood that I wouldn’t trade my reliable tool for any divine weapon.
My hammer was real, and this one…
this one was just a pretty picture for now.
Beneath the hammer, an inscription in a strict but elegant font read: “Forge the Universe!
Cost: 100 CP.” I mentally focused on it, and a small, even tiny, information package immediately poured into my consciousness.
Each attempt at Forging allows access to technologies from an infinite number of variations of the Multiverse.
And that’s…
it?
So I spend 100 CP, click the virtual hammer, and get a “technology”?
Too many unknowns.
How will I receive it?
As a real material prototype that will fall on my head?
Or as an information package implanted directly into my brain about how to create that technology?
Or maybe just a bunch of blueprints that I’ll still have to tinker with for years without having the necessary resources or equipment?
And what kind of technologies are these?
Kree bioengineering?
The magic of this world, which seems to exist according to clearly defined laws — is that technology or not?
The very word “technology” could be interpreted so broadly that my head spun.
Fine, I hope I’ll figure it out in time.
For now, more questions than answers.
Above the hammer were three tabs.
The first — “Forging the Universe” was currently active.
The second read: “Technologies.” Anticipating heaven knows what, I switched to it only to exhale in disappointment.
Empty.
Absolutely.
They even skimped on some leftover test technology as an example.
Tsk, tightwads.
The third tab — “Inventory.” Now that was interesting.
If it worked like in classic LitRPGs, it would be not just a help, but a real cheat in the real world.
Holding my breath from slight excitement, I switched to the inventory.
Before me stretched a grid of 5 by 5 cells — twenty-five slots total.
Not much, but it would do for a start.
I looked at the old laptop on the desk.
Touching it and mentally envisioning it moving into one of the cells, I focused on that desire.
Before my very eyes, pure, unadulterated MAGIC happened.
The laptop didn’t vanish in a flash of light; it simply…
dissolved, like a mirage, leaving behind only a dusty rectangle on the desk’s surface.
“Now…
I believe,” I muttered, gazing in shock at the empty spot, and then at the laptop icon hanging forlornly in the first inventory cell.
I mentally “clicked” on the icon, and a brief description appeared:
“Zuun Electronics brand laptop.
Rarity: Common.
Condition: 73/100.”
Whoa, the inventory also acts as a kind of simplified reference guide.
Handy.
With a new effort of will, I wished to return the laptop to its place.
A moment later, it materialized on the desk with a quiet, barely audible click.
Incredible!
It’s one thing to see system glitches before your eyes, and quite another when something happens that breaks all the laws of physics!
This changed absolutely everything.
The possibilities such a pocket storage opened up were truly limitless: from simply carrying heavy loads to…
anything at all!
I’d figured out the three main tabs.
There was one last visible element — in the upper right corner of the interface, a panel glowed: “0 CP.” The local currency needed for the “drops.” The main thing left to understand was: how do I earn it?
CP (Creation Points) — currency needed for Forging the Universe and unlocking technologies.
Earned by manifesting the user’s Spark of the Creator in the process of creating something.
“Yeah…
I don’t understand a damn thing, but it’s interesting,” as they say.
Well, I’m being dishonest.
In general terms, it’s clear: I need to create something with my hands.
The question is, what exactly falls under this vague concept of “something”?
For instance, would…
My gaze caught on an old wooden chair in the corner, one of whose legs was noticeably sagging.
Old habits took over.
I walked over and turned it over.
Sure enough, a screw had come loose.
There were no tools at hand, but the edge of a coin I found in my pocket worked well enough as an improvised screwdriver.
A couple of minutes, and the leg was as solid as ever.
The familiar feeling of satisfaction from a job well done…
and silence.
I waited for a system notification, a popup, any sign at all.
But none came.
Hmm.
It seems repairs don’t count as “creation.” The system needs something new, created from scratch.
That was an important and rather unpleasant clarification.
My gaze wandered around the room in search of inspiration and landed on a student notebook lying on the corner of the desk.
Drawing or…
origami?
Taking the notebook and finding a ballpoint pen in the desk drawer, I first tried to draw something.
I wasn’t an artist by any stretch, and neither was John.
After a few crooked sketches, getting no response from the system, I tore out a page in frustration.
Paper.
What can be made from paper?
The answer had come to me even earlier when I was choosing.
Origami.
I started folding the classic everyone knows — a crane.
Something a little more complex than a simple paper airplane, but not some abstruse legendary dragon that only a handful of people in the world could fold.
After a couple of minutes of slow, careful work, the paper crane was ready.
It stood crookedly on the desk, pleasing to my eye, but even more pleasing was the system notification that popped up!
[Created simple art piece: Origami.
Complexity: Minimal.
Received +1 CP!]
“Loot drop!” I couldn’t help the legendary gamer phrase.
The first point in the piggy bank of my future greatness!
I only needed to make ninety-nine more of the same cranes, and then I could spin the wheel…
actually, strike with the hammer!
As long as there were enough sheets in the notebook.
Motivated by the first success, I forgot both about exploring the internet and about making plans for the future.
The goal was one, simple and clear — to earn the first hundred CP.
The entire world shrank down to my hands, painstakingly folding paper, and the brief flashes of system notifications.
[Received +1 CP!]
[Received +1 CP!]
…
[Received +1 CP!]
[Attention!
The CP gain limit for creating simple Origami has been reached!]
The last message hit me like a punch to the gut, instantly cooling my enthusiasm.
I had only managed to get a measly 10 CP from the cranes.
Ten!
And I had already set myself up for a meditative grind, like in that fairy tale about a thousand cranes for a wish to come true…
Well, I guess I won’t have it easy.
At least, the notation “simple” origami hinted that pretty unambiguously.
Therefore, if I made something more serious, there was a chance I could start farming CP again.
I had to go online after all, though for a completely different reason than I had originally planned.
After spending half an hour browsing websites and video tutorials, I regretfully concluded that my skills definitely weren’t enough to create a conditional Elephant, let alone a Dragon, whose diagrams required a hundred steps.
And not just steps, but steps backed by scary terms like “bird base” with additional folds, “reverse folds,” “rabbit ear fold,” “wet folding.”..
This was some kind of higher mathematics, not handicrafts.
But a way out was found.
An elegant one, and as it seemed to me, perfectly suited for farming — modular origami.
The most obvious option was the kusudama, a paper ball.
The “Elektra” kusudama, according to the guides, required 30 identical modules.
The complexity of each module was not much higher than the crane, but their combination should give the desired result.
I tore out another sheet from the notebook and got to work.
And immediately ran into a problem.
My fingers, used to rough work, to heavy tool handles, felt like clumsy sausages.
I cursed under my breath when, for the umpteenth time, I couldn’t make a clean, sharp fold.
I, a person who could put together a furniture panel blindfolded or carve a perfect table leg, couldn’t handle a lousy piece of paper!
Absurd!
With great difficulty, after ruining a couple of sheets and wasting a ton of nerves, I finally got the hang of it.
According to my calculations, creating one kusudama would take about half an hour.
But there was another hitch — the notebook pages were running out fast.
I’d have to go to the store.
Fumbling through the pockets of my shorts and the desk drawers, I scraped together a couple of crumpled dollars and a 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 the Indian cashier, I picked the simplest pack of office paper.
Walking back through the deserted night streets, lit by sparse streetlamps, I felt like a complete idiot, because the potential risks of going out on a night street in this bad neighborhood were absolutely not worth it.
I didn’t dare step outside to take out the trash, but I risked it to buy paper — how funny would it be if this came back to bite me (just kidding)…
Hell’s Kitchen at night was a completely different place than during the day.
It shed its mask of an ordinary poor neighborhood and showed its true face.
From a dark alley came the clatter of an overturned trash can and angry hissing from a cat.
On the corner, under the flickering neon of the “Joe’s Pizza” sign, stood a group of guys in baggy clothes.
They weren’t doing anything illegal, just smoking and talking quietly, but they exuded an aura of lurking threat.
I quickened my pace, trying to avoid eye contact.
In this world, one wrong look could be enough to get a knife between the ribs.
The air was thick and humid, smelling of rotting garbage, cheap food from all-night eateries, and exhaust fumes.
Somewhere in the distance, a siren wailed again — the indispensable soundtrack of this city, and this district in particular.
I suddenly became acutely aware of my vulnerability.
In my old body, I wasn’t Hercules, but I could hold my own.
Ten years of physical labor had done their job.
Now I was in the body of a scrawny student who, judging by the memories, had last been in a fight in middle school, and it didn’t go well.
Any of those guys on the corner could break me in two.
And no Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, who I’d remembered earlier, would come to help.
Matt Murdock was a hero to some extent, but he wasn’t all-seeing and all-powerful.
He dealt with gangs and killers, not saving every idiot who decided to take a walk through a nighttime neighborhood.
This walk sobered me up better than any cold shower.
I didn’t just need a “technology” from the system.
I needed power.
Or at least something that would help me protect this fragile new life.
Back in the apartment, I set to work with renewed zeal.
Forty minutes of concentration, grinding teeth, and quiet cursing, and the first kusudama was ready.
It came out a bit lopsided, but perfectly recognizable.
[Artwork Created: Origami.
Difficulty: Medium.
Received +3 CP!]
Excellent!
Medium difficulty counted, and a reward of three points was a nice bonus.
Sure, in the same 40 minutes I could have made more paper cranes if not for the limit, but the main thing was different — the CP farming had gotten off the ground.
Glancing at the clock on my laptop — two in the morning — I realized what I’d be doing for the next few hours.
The thought of college flickered and died.
Thursday, a school day…
No matter how much I considered this college a waste of time, it could be a source of information.
Mary Jane studied there, and Harry Osborn might be picking her up.
These weren’t just extras anymore, but key, if secondary, figures.
So visiting college was worth it.
But for now — grind!
The next few hours flew by like a blur.
My hands mechanically folded modules and connected them into finished spheres.
To keep from going insane from the monotony, I turned on a news channel on the laptop.
I got so used to it that one kusudama took no more than twenty minutes.
I assembled the first ten by half past five in the morning.
But the eleventh ball greeted me with another unpleasant surprise.
[Artwork Created: Origami.
Difficulty: Medium.
Received +1 CP!]
[Attention!
The CP gain limit in the area of creating Medium difficulty Origami has been partially exhausted!
For the next 9 items, +1 CP will be awarded each.]
So, now I have 10 + (10 * 3) + 1 = 41 CP.
And I can squeeze another 9 points out of these paper balls.
Total — 50.
Exactly halfway.
Not bad at all.
Besides, I could fold modules during class at college.
So there was no point in suffering here and now, especially since I was starting to get irresistibly sleepy.
John’s memory told me that tomorrow there were three classes, starting at 10:15.
It’s a half-hour walk to college.
So I had three or four hours for sleep.
Crashing onto the couch, before entering the realm of Morpheus for the second time in these crazy twenty-four hours, I thought.
My life hadn’t just been turned upside down, it had done a somersault through my ears.
A Marvel world, a strange, not-too-generous system, a new body…
Remembering my old, orderly life, I felt a pang of longing.
There, I created things you could touch, things that served people — though mostly myself, if I’m honest.
A sturdy table, a reliable roof.
A tangible, real result.
And here?
I was creating fragile paper crafts for ephemeral points to get some unknown “technology.” There was a kind of cruel irony in it.
As if I’d traded real craftsmanship for a video game with a dubious prize.
What if this version of Marvel was one of the darkest?
What if Galactus was already heading for Earth?
Or, God forbid, this was the universe of the zombie apocalypse?
I’d rather be in Warhammer than Marvel Zombies…
As I pondered cosmic horrors, the sound of a breaking bottle and a drunken shout came from the street below.
The thin walls didn’t block the noise.
I felt a cold draft from a gap in the window frame.
A gust of cold air sobered me up a bit, and my thoughts returned to making sense of what had happened to me, particularly regarding the process of creation.
My fingers still remembered the feel of the paper, the monotonous, precise movements.
I’d made hundreds of identical modules overnight.
And with each new fold, a dull irritation grew within me, turning into quiet rage.
It was wrong.
Creation, in my understanding, had always been a meaningful process.
You take shapeless material — wood, metal, clay — and you put your labor, your skill, a piece of your soul into it, to create something useful.
Something that would serve.
A chair to sit on.
A plate to put food on.
A tool to work with.
It was a dialogue with the material.
But what I was doing now was a travesty.
Soulless, mechanical work for virtual points.
These paper spheres, these kusudamas, were empty inside and out.
They served no function other than aesthetic, and even that was questionable.
They were fragile and meaningless.
And the system was rewarding me for creating this trash.
I felt like a monkey in a lab pressing a lever for a banana.
Was this really my “Spark of the Creator”?
In folding paper according to someone else’s pattern?
The thought was insulting.
No, I definitely had to save up these damn hundred points as soon as possible and get the first technology.
To start creating something real.
Something that would have weight, strength, and meaning.
Something I could proudly call my work.
But even so, before worrying about great creations and equally great dangers like World Devourers, I needed to get through tomorrow in this cardboard box in the most dangerous part of the city.
And that thought, here and now, was far more sobering than any Galactus.
I pray to all the gods who, here, unlike in my world, aren’t just empty words, that this version turns out to be…
well, at least not the one where everything is doomed to annihilation.
With these encouraging thoughts, I fell asleep, looking forward to the new day.