They spent a few more days enjoying themselves in New York City.
During those days, Daniel didn’t go anywhere special.
At first, he had planned to visit Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, but after giving it some thought, he ultimately decided against it.
The main reason was simple, he was a little nervous from that bald professor.
Professor Xavier’s telepathic abilities were far too powerful. Daniel worried that if he met the man face to face, every secret he carried would be laid bare.
His transmigration was the greatest secret he had, and he intended to take that secret to the grave.
Thinking about Xavier suddenly sparked a ridiculous thought in his mind.
"Come to think of it... does going bald actually make people stronger?"
Just look at the examples.
Professor X had lost all his hair and became a master in the field of psychic power.
Then there was a certain sorcerer who was also bald.
That one was even more terrifying.
She had protected Earth for centuries.
Not a single invader from another dimension had successfully conquered the world while she stood guard.
And if Daniel remembered correctly, Thanos only set foot on Earth after both the Ancient One and Odin had passed away.
Sometimes Daniel even suspected that Thanos simply wasn’t confident he could beat either of them, which was why he never came personally in the beginning.
"It’s 1988 right now. Xavier should still be pretty young. I wonder what his hair situation looks like. Has he already started going bald in the middle?"
Daniel was genuinely curious.
Unfortunately, curiosity wasn’t enough to overcome worry.
He didn’t even want to use his super vision to secretly take a peek.
What if Xavier sensed him?
That would be awkward.
Physical attacks?
Energy attacks?
Those didn’t scare Daniel in the slightest.
But telepathy, mind control, illusions, psychic attacks...
Those were a completely different story.
He couldn’t confidently say that he would be able to overcome those currently, but maybe in future he might.
Right now, if something went wrong and he got mentally controlled, the consequences would be disastrous.
Daniel had already been extremely careful with his strength.
At his current level, if he unleashed his full power, he could literally sink an entire continent.
There wasn’t a single person on Earth who would willingly take a punch from him at full strength.
And judging by how quickly he was growing stronger, Daniel felt that after another decade or two of sunlight absorption, he might not even dare sneeze casually anymore.
What if he accidentally destroyed the planet?
"Ugh..."
Daniel sighed dramatically.
"Growing stronger too fast isn’t always a good thing."
"Every day I casually soak up some sunlight and become stronger. I’m scared to use too much force because I might break something."
At this point, 99.999999999999% of everything on Earth was as fragile as paper in front of him.
"Having to constantly control my strength is exhausting."
Then a horrifying thought suddenly flashed through his mind.
"What if I get a girlfriend someday?"
His expression froze.
"What happens if I accidentally... turn my girlfriend’s brain into a stain on the wall?"
The image instantly appeared in his head.
A romantic moment.
Things getting heated.
Getting a little too excited.
Then...
Splat.
Daniel immediately shook his head.
The mental image was far too horrifying.
"No, no, no..."
"Please don’t tell me I’m going to end up as miserable as that big green guy."
He couldn’t help thinking of Bruce Banner.
The Hulk’s love life was basically a tragedy.
Then another thought surfaced.
"And how does Superman deal with this stuff?"
"That guy manages to date his girlfriend just fine and even lives a perfectly normal romantic life."
Daniel felt a little jealous.
"Am I some kind of defective version?"
"Or did he inherit memories and instincts that I didn’t get?"
The more he thought about it, the more plausible it seemed.
"Actually... that’s possible."
"When I first arrived, I only liked sunbathing. I couldn’t become stronger from sunlight."
"My powers awakened later."
Daniel quietly pondered the idea.
Eventually, he came to a conclusion.
"I can’t keep slacking off."
"I need to train more and get used to my strength."
He nodded seriously to himself.
"Otherwise one day I’m literally going to love my girlfriend to death."
A few seconds later, another thought hit him.
"Wait."
"Do I even have a girlfriend?"
"..."
Daniel suddenly felt the crushing loneliness of reality.
No.
He was still single.
A very single.... single guy.
Walking over to the mirror in his room, he admired his reflection for a moment.
The handsome face staring back at him was flawless.
The more he looked, the more satisfied he became.
Finally, he couldn’t help declaring dramatically.
"With a face this handsome, it’s a crime against humanity that I don’t have a girlfriend yet!"
"Those girls seriously have terrible taste!"
Of course, he conveniently ignored a few facts.
For example, how cold and distant he usually acted.
Or how unbelievably dense he was.
He wasn’t just a straight guy, he was a Vibranium-grade straight guy.
There had once been a girl who deliberately brushed her fingers against his palm while shaking his hand.
A completely obvious hint.
Daniel had immediately pulled his hand away and asked with genuine concern.
"Is your hand itchy?"
"Do you have some kind of skin disease?"
"Is it contagious?"
The girl had nearly cried on the spot.
Then there was another incident.
One day when Carol wasn’t around, Daniel happened to spend time alone with a pretty young woman.
Trying to be gentlemanly, he walked her home.
When they arrived at her house, she smiled and invited him inside.
"I haven’t cleaned up much," she said casually. "Hope you don’t mind."
The implication was obvious.
Any normal man would have understood.
Daniel, however, looked past her shoulder into the house.
The living room was indeed a little messy.
So he nodded seriously and said, "Yeah, it is pretty messy."
Then he turned around and left.
While walking away, he even thought to himself.
’If your house is that messy, why invite people inside?’
A true mystery.
Honestly, he deserved to be single.
Every day he blamed Carol, claiming she never let him spend time with girls.
Yet he never stopped to think about what he himself had done.
...
After packing up his things, Daniel headed downstairs.
Carol had gotten up unusually early today.
At the moment, she was downstairs happily chatting with Susan.
Recently, Carol and Susan had become very close.
Whenever they had free time, they would sit together and talk.
And once they started talking, it would easily last over half an hour.
The main reason was that Susan also had a younger brother.
Even more coincidentally, Susan was roughly the same age as Carol, and her brother happened to be three years younger than her as well.
The two women constantly marveled at this strange coincidence.
Every day they exchanged experiences on the proper way to deal with younger brothers.
Their conversations usually went something like this...
Carol would sigh dramatically.
"My little brother grew up."
"He’s not cute anymore."
"And he doesn’t listen to me now."
Susan would immediately nod in agreement.
Then they’d move on to sharing embarrassing childhood stories about their brothers, laughing so hard they nearly couldn’t breathe.
Whether Susan’s stories about her brother were true or not, Daniel couldn’t say.
But whenever Carol told stories involving him, Daniel felt thousands of horses stampeding through his heart.
The events had happened, that part was true.
The problem was who the actual culprit had been.
For example, Carol loved telling the story about the time the two of them got caught sneaking food.
The problem was that Daniel hadn’t been involved at all.
Carol had been the greedy one, she got caught by herself.
Then somehow Daniel got dragged into the story and became her accomplice.
"You’re finally up."
Carol glanced at him and casually greeted him before immediately turning back to Susan.
Daniel ignored her.
Instead, he smiled at Susan.
"Morning."
"Morning."
Susan returned the greeting with a cheerful smile.
"Oh right, where’s Johnny?"
"I haven’t seen him today."
Daniel had become fairly good friends with Johnny recently.
Mainly because Johnny owned a huge collection of movies starring Al Pacino.
Daniel had never watched many of them before.
Recently he’d started going through the collection and found them surprisingly entertaining.
"No idea where he went."
Susan shrugged.
"Probably out causing trouble somewhere again."
Johnny was Susan’s younger brother.
The first time Daniel and Carol met him, they had both been shocked.
The guy looked way too much like Captain America.
Carol had practically exploded with excitement.
She rushed over and immediately asked for an autograph.
While doing so, she proudly told Daniel.
"See? I told you when we were kids! Captain America must be secretly retired somewhere!"
Later, Susan explained that this was actually her younger brother.
Only then did Carol finally realize her mistake.
Daniel had laughed at her for weeks afterward.
Truthfully, he’d been shocked too.
The only difference was that he’d remembered Steve Rogers was still frozen in ice at this point in history.
That realization had saved him from embarrassing himself.
Meanwhile Carol had charged straight in.
Thinking back on it, Daniel silently praised his own intelligence.
Luckily he’d reacted in time.
With his speed, if he had made the same mistake, he would’ve reached Johnny before Carol did.
Then he would’ve been the one getting laughed at.
Oh, and one more thing.
When Daniel transmigrated, Avengers: Infinity War had only just been released.
So, he didn’t know much about the story that came afterward.
Nor did he know about Carol’s future role in everything.
Sitting on the sofa, Daniel waited boredly for Carol and Susan to finish chatting.
Eventually, Susan invited them to join her for breakfast.
While they were eating, Carol suddenly spoke.
"Daniel, we’re heading back."
"Oh?"
Daniel blinked.
He genuinely hadn’t been paying attention to the date.
Carol rubbed her fingers together in a money counting gesture.
"We’re running low on this."
"And we’ve already been away from home for almost a week."
"Fair enough."
Hearing their conversation, Susan immediately looked disappointed.
"You’re leaving already?"
"Yeah."
Carol nodded.
"We’ve been out for quite a while."
Susan sighed.
"That’s a shame."
"I’ll miss you guys."
As she said it, her eyes lingered on Daniel for a few extra seconds.
The rest of breakfast passed beneath the quiet atmosphere of an impending farewell.
More extra Chapters if we reach 800 stones.
And, if you want some extra Chapters, be sure to check out my Patron page, it’s 25 Chapters ahead of webnovel and the Chapters are also long so you can check it out.
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