Half an hour later, Daphne wheeled Mark into a rundown stretch of neighborhood.
The buildings lining the street had walls stained and peeling, covered in sloppy, half-legible graffiti.
Trash cans sat overflowing or tipped over on the sidewalk, with plastic bags, crushed cans, and rotting garbage strewn everywhere, giving off a rank smell that nobody had bothered to clean up.
Abandoned cars lined the curb, windows shattered, bodies rusted through, interiors stuffed with garbage.
Tucked in a corner of the street, Mark spotted a few tents made of scavenged cardboard, homeless men and women of every skin tone huddled inside, two or three to a tent.
*My mother in this life actually lives in a place like this?*
Mark raised a tiny hand and pressed it over his nose, trying to block out the stench.
He was starting to understand why Rosalie was so desperate to get Tony Stark to acknowledge him as his son.
She clearly couldn’t stand the thought of her child growing up stuck somewhere like this for the rest of his life.
Rosalie’s building turned out to be an old five story rent-controlled walk-up, its exposed red brick exterior showing its age.
She lived on the third floor, and once she opened the door, the apartment inside was surprisingly clean and tidy.
“Rosalie, if the baby starts fussing, it’s either hunger or a wet diaper.
Make sure you check it carefully…”
Daphne helped Rosalie put things away while patiently walking her through the basics of infant care.
“I live right upstairs anyway, so if anything comes up with the baby, just come find me anytime.”
By the time Rosalie was settled in, night had fallen.
To thank Daphne for everything she’d done, Rosalie cooked up a hearty dinner herself.
Over the following days, Rosalie officially began her journey as a first-time mother.
With zero experience, she was constantly forgetting things and making mistakes.
Fortunately, Mark was no ordinary infant, and his willing cooperation lightened her load considerably.
“Oh my god, Mark is so smart!
I’ve never seen a baby this well-behaved before!”
Daphne, who came by after her shifts to help out, was consistently amazed by how Mark behaved.
“Really?
Isn’t that normal for babies?”
“Of course not!
The babies I’ve seen at the clinic were an absolute handful…”
Rosalie had genuinely believed every baby was as easy as Mark.
It was only after hearing Daphne’s stories that she realized just how lucky she was.
She planted an adoring kiss on Mark’s cheek.
“Baby, you really are the best gift God ever gave your mommy!”
A month slipped by.
**[Sunlight Points: 100]**
*Finally scraped together a hundred Sunlight Points!*
Watching the number tick up in his mind, Mark was so thrilled he nearly cried.
*These points did not come easy.*
Rosalie had taken Daphne’s warning to heart, and the moment she noticed Mark sitting in the sun too long, she’d whisk him straight into the shade.
Even when Mark faked a crying fit in protest, it did no good whatsoever.
The only times he’d managed to soak up extra sunlight were the rare moments Rosalie got absorbed in something else and forgot to keep an eye on him.
On top of that, a stretch of rainy weather had slowed him down even further.
All told, it had taken him over a month just to scrape together this hundred points.
*Level up Super Brain!*
Mark immediately poured all one hundred points into the only power he’d unlocked so far.
**[Super Brain LV0 → LV1]**
As the power leveled up, Mark felt his mind clear all at once.
Before this, basic arithmetic past the number ten had taken him ages to work out, counting on his stubby little fingers the whole way.
Many of his memories from his past life had grown hazy too, foggy enough that it felt almost like early-onset dementia.
But now, with Super Brain at level one, his intelligence had jumped straight up to that of an average adult.
The memories that had been a blur before came back into sharp focus.
*And this is just level one.
If the boost is already this dramatic, once I keep leveling Super Brain up, my processing power might eventually rival a supercomputer!*
Mark clenched his tiny fists, his mind buzzing with anticipation.
Of course, Super Brain only boosted his raw computational ability.
It wasn’t about to turn him, a baby with barely any life experience, into some all-knowing sage overnight.
Those were two entirely different tracks of intellectual development.
Even Tony Stark himself, despite having an IQ nobody could match, still managed to do plenty of foolish things in his day-to-day life.
Another perk that came with leveling up Super Brain: Mark no longer needed nearly as much sleep as a typical infant.
Nights in this neighborhood were anything but peaceful.
Drunks and thugs regularly caused a ruckus in the dead of night, belting out crude songs at the top of their lungs.
Cars and motorcycles roared up and down the street, engines screaming.
One night, not far off, a full-blown gang shootout had broken out, gunfire echoing on and off for nearly half an hour straight.
Under conditions like that, Mark’s sleep quality had naturally suffered.
But now that Super Brain had leveled up and cut down his need for sleep, things had gotten considerably more bearable.
Once Mark turned one month old, Rosalie went back to work, heading out to film shoots across Hollywood.
Her savings had never amounted to much, and she still owed money to Thomas Clinic.
If she kept burning through what little she had left, she and Mark would soon struggle to even cover rent.
Rosalie hired Daphne on full time to take care of Mark, paying her three thousand dollars a month, more than she’d been making at the clinic.
Daphne didn’t hesitate for a second before quitting her job there.
Compared to Rosalie, Daphne was, admittedly, far more skilled at this.
She got the formula’s temperature and thickness exactly right every time, and her hands were gentler when changing diapers, sparing Mark the discomfort Rosalie’s clumsier attempts often caused.
The one downside was that Daphne kept an even closer eye on him than before.
The moment he’d been in the sun more than five minutes, she’d wheel his stroller straight into the shade without fail.
*Daphne, I am begging you, please dial back the diligence just a little!*
Mark practically wanted to cry.
But crying got him nowhere.
As a trained caregiver, Daphne was nowhere near as careless as Rosalie had been.
Leveling Super Brain up to level two required two hundred Sunlight Points.
Under Daphne’s watchful eye, it took Mark a full six months this time to finally gather enough.
**[Super Brain LV1 → LV2]**
Mark’s Super Brain leveled up once again.
He could feel his mental processing power surge upward yet again.
Problems that had once stumped him now resolved themselves after barely a moment’s thought.
Even memories from his past life that he’d lost entirely came flooding back with startling clarity.
If level one Super Brain had put him on par with an average adult, level two now put him in the same league as the top students he remembered from his past life.
*If I’d had a brain like this before I died, getting into a top university would’ve been child’s play.
I wouldn’t have ended up stuck at some third-rate college…*
Mark thought with a pang of regret.
Having felt firsthand just how much smarter each level of Super Brain made him, Mark was now more eager than ever to push the power even higher.
Leveling Super Brain up to level three would require four hundred Sunlight Points.