Chapter 11
"I need to farm 165 OP, ideally today. What are my options?"
The criteria were simple: fast, cheap, functional.
No unnecessary frills or lengthy prep work, just things that actually earned points and did not rely on rare materials.
My brain, overclocked by the Intellect Potion and running at full capacity, immediately started firing off ideas, ranging from unexplored crafting territory like clay sculpting and advanced woodworking to more complex electronics and mechanisms, for which there were plenty of detailed guides online.
Most of those options I dismissed almost immediately: some lacked funding, some required expensive equipment or rare consumables, and some involved lengthy debugging that I had neither the time nor the energy for right now.
I also consciously steered toward practical, functional items, since my limited experience had already confirmed that the system awarded noticeably more OP for clear utility than for anything beautiful but useless.
Naturally, while I was running through ideas, I was also tearing through the internet: DIY forums, communities of homemade weapons and upgrade enthusiasts, mechanics, electricians, even chemists in their respective threads.
I was pulling inspiration and technical solutions from everywhere.
All I needed was one, maybe two items I could assemble quickly and cheaply, something the system would value generously, meaning at least 50+ OP, like the Bulbamet.
The Bulbamet, by the way, fit every one of my current criteria perfectly, except for one frustrating fact: it had already been built, and the system was not going to reward a repeat performance at the same rate.
I even considered more complex variations of the Bulbamet: a pneumatic version with a compressor, a multi-barreled modification, and even a Gauss-Bulbamet.
Yes, I actually found detailed instructions for that monster online too, and I was genuinely shocked they existed.
But everything kept running into the same wall.
I was not sure how the system would evaluate a conceptual repeat, even a technically superior one.
Formally, even a Legendary-rarity Bulbamet was still a Bulbamet at its core, which meant a real risk of a reduced multiplier on top of the material costs, especially for the Gauss version with its rare and expensive components.
The Bulbamet route was a dead end for now.
Especially since I had already found what I was looking for, and it once again involved PVC pipes, which were turning out to be a far more versatile and interesting crafting material than I had initially assumed.
On one of the DIY forum threads, I came across an enthusiast who was methodically documenting and demonstrating the creation of all kinds of "weapons," if that word even applied to what were essentially harmless shooting contraptions.
Given that I had five Bulbamets on hand that I could disassemble for fittings and fasteners if needed, and that the missing pipes would run me no more than two hundred dollars, I was immediately drawn to several of his designs.
For each of them, I was confident the system would be generous with OP: simple mechanics, obvious functionality, clean result.
The first option was a PVC Crossbow.
A lightweight crossbow where a PVC pipe served as the foundation for both the bow and the body, with the shot powered by an elastic cord.
The materials were straightforward: pipes I already had on the shelf, elastic cord, a wooden or plastic handle, a couple of metal brackets, screws, washers, and other small hardware for securing the joints firmly.
I would make the bolts from ordinary wooden dowels, adjust the geometry slightly, glue on light tips or just sharpen them, and they would be ready.
The whole process would take a few hours and produce something genuinely functional.
The crossbow was in.
The second option would logically have been a PVC Bow, but it was too simple to assemble and there was a real chance the system would evaluate it at a symbolic 10 OP.
I was conserving materials and had no interest in burning them on a deliberately thin result.
Skipping the bow, I settled on a PVC Water Gun instead.
Essentially a pump-action water gun, but more powerful than a typical toy pistol.
The build required a pipe, a manual or bicycle pump, a check valve, a nozzle from a garden hose, and PVC sealant or glue to keep everything pressure-tight.
The full parts list cost very little, assembled quickly, and the system appreciated exactly that kind of thing: a clear mechanism with obvious functionality.
I marked it mentally as the second required item.
I had briefly considered a third and more complex option, but one look at the guide was enough to kill that idea.
A PVC Pneumatic Turret was out.
Servos, a microcontroller for automation, solenoid valves, a compressed-air compressor, wiring, and debugging; it was a beautiful project, but the time cost and risk of failure were too high for where I was right now.
After watching a half-hour video where the guy made the whole build look effortlessly smooth, I soberly recognized: it could be replicated, but the margin for error was too wide and the resource consumption too high.
I could do it if I really had to, the way I had forced myself through the Marx Generator for the Intellect Potion, but not today.
The Crossbow and the Water Gun were enough.
If I needed more points, I would build two or three copies of each.
165 OP today was achievable.
Crafting sorted.
What was next on the agenda?
The budget to get out of Hell's Kitchen, and a scheme to convert the ores from the miracle box into real money.
On the housing front, things were relatively clear: I needed a private house with a garage extension and a large backyard, ideally screened from the neighbors.
In terms of neighborhoods, the obvious priorities were Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island, where houses fitting that description were most commonly found.
After studying the city map and running rough price estimates, I eventually settled on Brooklyn and Queens.
The monthly rent there ran slightly higher than on Staten Island, but the proximity to Manhattan was a real advantage, the neighborhoods felt more livable, and the logistics were simpler.
As for the prices themselves, I was unpleasantly surprised.
Renting my studio in Hell's Kitchen for five hundred a month, I had expected a private house with a garage and a yard in a decent neighborhood to cost maybe two or three times as much, not six to eight.
A two-story townhouse in Brooklyn for forty-five hundred a month.
Just brutal, and that was putting it charitably.
On top of that came a broker's fee of ten to fifteen percent of the annual rent, which was another few thousand gone.
Utilities, which were often not included.
Insurance.
A deposit ranging from several thousand up to ten.
The math worked out to a minimum of twenty thousand dollars on hand to comfortably rent a house for quiet crafting operations for at least three months, and ideally six.
I locked in the lower bound: twenty thousand.
Target amount established.
Now, how to bring the ores from the miracle box into the legitimate economy.
After a quick look at precious metal prices, I zeroed in on gold and platinum, running at roughly thirty-eight thousand and thirty-two thousand dollars per kilogram respectively.
There was almost certainly going to be some of both in the box.
What were my options for selling?
In practice, only one path made sense right now: pawnshops.
Up to around ten thousand dollars, they generally did not require documents or detailed proof of origin.
The problem was that they would not be enthusiastic about raw, unrefined ore, and would almost certainly undervalue it significantly.
That meant I would need to visit a smelter beforehand, since I had no workshop of my own, and have it melted into ingots or granules for a couple hundred dollars.
From there, I could work the pawnshops across the city.
Risky?
Absolutely.
Were there other options?
Online auctions, private collectors, metal dealers, reaching out directly to industrialists with an offer of rare earth elements.
But every one of those paths carried even more exposure at the starting stage than pawnshops: higher entry thresholds, more paperwork, more attentive eyes.
For now, pawnshops it was, multiple locations, all cash.
Basic operational security was non-negotiable: different locations on different days at different times, varied clothes and routes, no recurring patterns.
I was not a professional spy, but I liked to think I was not a complete idiot either.
Though the Ghost Orchid situation proved otherwise.
Fine.
No self-flagellation, just more careful from here on out.
Now that the immediate tactical analysis was wrapped up, a different kind of analysis was due.
A deep, thorough assessment of the situation I had been dropped into.
In theory, any sensible transmigrator would have handled this in the first few hours.
But the system had turned out to be too absorbing a toy, and the first few days had been spent in a tactical scramble for resources rather than any kind of strategic planning.
Now that the stakes had moved beyond mere survival into actual future development, ignoring this any longer would be equivalent to suicide.
Time to run through the mental card index.
Key players, factions, events, based on what I knew and remembered.
Global Level: Gods and Monsters.
The top of the food chain, in New York and on Earth.
Tony Stark, alias Iron Man.
Steve Rogers, alias Captain America.
Bruce Banner, alias the indestructible, super-strong green mountain of rage, alias the Hulk.
Thor, Asgardian and genuine God of Thunder and Lightning.
And the rest of the Avengers in descending order of global relevance.
These were titans whose collisions could wipe a city off the map.
Right now they were scattered and some did not even exist yet in any meaningful sense, but their unification was only a matter of time and the right catastrophic trigger.
Level of Ideologues: Mutants.
Two main, perpetually opposing forces.
Magneto and his doctrine of mutant supremacy.
Professor X and his dream of peaceful coexistence.
Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, judging by scattered online references, was operating successfully while disguising itself as an elite private academy.
The very fact that mutants were hidden from the public was alarming.
This was not a world where they were a recognized part of society.
This was a world where they were a ticking bomb.
There was no mention of Magneto anywhere online, which was somehow even worse.
It meant he was either lying low or had not yet launched his war.
There was a slim chance he simply did not exist in this particular reality, but either way, getting tangled in that conflict would be madness.
Level of the Streets: Heroes and Spiders.
My immediate world, the one happening outside the window.
Spider-Woman, and for my own convenience and mild ego satisfaction I was mentally calling her Gwen-Spider, was already active.
A quick analysis of the news confirmed that for now she was dealing with ordinary crime.
But her personal gallery of enemies was a classic of the Spider-Verse: Kingpin, who ran the criminal underworld; the Lizard, which gave me chills because in most Gwen-Spider realities that particular performance starred Peter Parker; Morlun, the energy vampire who hunted spider totems; Jackal, Kraven the Hunter, Vulture, Doctor Octopus, Goblin, and of course Venom.
Since Otto Octavius was scheduled to present his mechanical arms on October fourteenth, just a month away, I strongly suspected he would be her first serious opponent.
And that event would be the starting pistol for a whole wave of powered criminals flooding into New York.
But Gwen was not the only figure at this level.
Hell's Kitchen, my neighborhood, was the Devil's territory.
Daredevil.
Blind lawyer Matt Murdock by day, vigilante by night.
His war against Kingpin and the Japanese ninja clan known as the Hand was the shadow side of the city, invisible to ordinary people.
In a very real sense, I was living in the epicenter of that conflict through no choice of my own.
Yet another reason to leave.
Level of Science and Space: Pioneers.
The Fantastic Four.
Their space expedition was launching on September twenty-second, just days away.
How long they would be in orbit was unknown, but their return would be a sensation.
And with them, two threats of completely different scales would enter the world.
The first was Victor von Doom: genius, billionaire, King of Latveria, powerful sorcerer.
His exact version and threat level could vary, but he would always be one of the most dangerous individuals on the planet.
The second threat was absolute.
Galactus, the Devourer of Worlds.
He and his herald, the Silver Surfer, were somehow closely tied to the Fantastic Four.
If Doctor Doom's arrival represented a political and technological crisis, then Galactus was the end of the world outright.
And I had no idea what, if anything, I could do about it, or whether it was even worth trying.
Reference Point: Genius, Billionaire, Playboy, Philanthropist.
Tony Stark, obviously.
His arc of becoming Iron Man was, in theory, the event that kicked off the entire chain leading to the Avengers, the Chitauri invasion, and the mad titans who enjoyed snapping their fingers.
When exactly he would be shipped to Afghanistan was unknown.
There was no mention of the Jericho missile program anywhere online, which suggested it was classified at the highest level.
Monitoring news related to Stark Industries was my highest current priority.
His kidnapping would be the gong sounding the start of a new era.
Hidden Forces: Shadows and Conspiracies.
S.H.I.E.L.D., with Nick Fury at its head, and Hydra, which had metastasized into its structure like a cancer.
The gray eminences waging their invisible war.
And then there was magic.
Doctor Stephen Strange was still a brilliant neurosurgeon saving lives in an operating room, his hands intact and steady.
His upcoming car accident would be a doorway into a world where the laws of physics were merely a polite suggestion, and he was set to play a critical role in events of global and cosmic significance, having apparently saved the world at least twice.
He needed monitoring too.
The Ancient One was somewhere in Kamar-Taj, training acolytes.
And all of this was just the visible surface of the iceberg.
Blade and the vampire clans prosecuting their millennia-old war in the dark.
Captain Marvel and the eternal conflict between the Kree and the Skrulls somewhere in the depths of space.
The Celestials, who had seeded life across the universe.
The 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 on the planet.
And dozens of other hidden organizations, ancient cults, and alien races besides.
This world was a multi-layered, chaotic mess of compounding threats.
Trying to grasp all of it at once was a road to madness.
I did not need to know everything.
I needed to know enough to survive and keep getting stronger.
All I wanted right now was enough time to build up.
My strength lay in constant amplification, slow by current standards, but that would not last.
My progression was not arithmetic, it was geometric.
And who knew which skill, blueprint, or Legendary-tier item would finally let me step out of the shadows and become a real player on this insane chessboard.
Until then: silence, development, and information.
I closed the incognito browser, which was running through a secure tunnel, and leaned back in my chair, exhaling a long breath of accumulated stress and mental fatigue.
The effect of the Intellect Potion was fading, and I suddenly felt dull and heavy in the way you do after a sleepless night.
But looking at the notes I had been keeping for the past several hours, capturing the most important and actionable thoughts, I realized things were not actually so bad.
The pseudo-NZT-48 had done its job.
I had answers to the questions that had been gnawing at me, and my immediate decisions were cleaner and simpler for it.
And despite the creeping headache that was the Potion's small parting gift, I was ready to start creating and earning OP.
I needed that miracle box badly enough that almost everything else depended on getting it.
I slapped myself lightly on both cheeks, pulled myself together, and opened a regular browser to the tab with the step-by-step guide to building a PVC Crossbow.
I would wait out the headache for half an hour or so, and during that time I could walk over to the hardware store and pick up the few remaining parts for both the Crossbow and the Water Gun: cord, a couple of fittings, glue, small fasteners, and the like.
Come back, and start farming.
165 OP today.
Closed.
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