Skill Card: Wrath of Man

"Don't take it too hard. I've been practicing Kung Fu since I was a kid, fighting since I was a kid, so I'm definitely a bit more experienced than you. But I've switched gears now—after all, landing in a world like this, bare-handed hand-to-hand combat is only going to matter less and less. Times are changing, and we've got to keep up..."

Hong Fei rambled on and on, talking to Frank from the moment they got in the car to the moment they got out, from the first floor to the seventh, barely pausing the whole way.

"Speaking of which, you probably don't have a fixed place to stay now, right? Why not crash at my place? Someone in the building's about to move out, and I can give you a friend's discount—thirty percent off! Absolute friend price!"

As he spoke, Hong Fei pulled a few jars of ointment from a cabinet, rolled up his sleeves, and moved to get to work.

Frank suddenly frowned. "Did you prepare this in advance?"

Hong Fei lowered his head, unconcerned. "Of course. Better safe than sorry. Don't you know your own temper?"

Frank dodged the ointment in Hong Fei's hand and said irritably, "What made you so sure you could beat me?"

Hong Fei looked up, blinked, and spread his hands.

Frank was left speechless.

The result was already out—wasn't it obvious?

But what bothered Frank was that before they'd even fought, Hong Fei had already prepared medicine for him. Didn't that mean he hadn't even considered Frank a real opponent?

Hong Fei's eyes shifted, and he quickly added, "Ah, you've misunderstood! I prepared the medicine ahead of time, sure, but back then, how was I supposed to know if it'd be for you or for me? What if I lost? Wouldn't it still be better safe than sorry?"

Master Hong was worldly-wise, and since he needed a favor now, he knew how to smooth things over. Frank graciously took the out and shut his mouth.

After applying the ointment to Frank's entire arm, Hong Fei stood up. "Once in the morning, once at night. Three days and you'll be healed. No moving it in the meantime, no exerting force. Lucky for you, you've still got the other hand—daily life won't be a problem."

Frank sniffed his arm. A thick smell of Chinese medicine.

"What exactly do you want to trade?"

"It's a bit complicated, even a little dangerous."

"Hah!" Frank let out a disdainful snort.

Hong Fei pointed at the coffee table in front of Frank. "There's a draft I wrote earlier in the black folder. Take a look."

In the bathroom, Hong Fei dried his hands, twirled his fingertip, and the white card appeared instantly.

The portrait on the front of the card was none other than Frank Castle.

Flipping the card over, Hong Fei saw a few lines of text. After a few seconds, the corners of his mouth curled up wildly.

[Passive Skill Card: Wrath of Man] (White)

[When you suffer severe injury, Attack and Defense increase by 20% for 30 seconds. After it ends, Speed decreases by 40% for 10 minutes.]

Overall, this skill wasn't great—the gap between the positive and negative effects and their durations was pretty wide.

But the key point was: this was a Skill Card!

A brand-new discovery he'd never noticed in the past month.

And this card had dropped from Frank.

His mind raced. In a short while, Hong Fei came to a few conclusions.

First, Skill Cards probably only dropped from characters like Frank who could independently be called heroes or villains. Otherwise, he would've gotten something long ago from all the people he'd taught a lesson to.

Second, Skill Cards were clearly divided into Active and Passive, and they also had color distinctions. The color likely represented the grade directly.

Third was the question: could a person drop only one Skill Card, or could they drop multiple different ones? He could test that once Frank's injury healed.

Finally, Skill Cards weren't usable right away—they had to be loaded into a Card Slot.

The first time he touched this card, he knew he had exactly one Skill Card Slot on him.

How to get more slots?

No idea.

But regardless, the discovery of Skill Cards was incredibly exciting.

With just his Kung Fu and the Shinigami Eye, Hong Fei's options were still limited. Adding Skill Cards, it felt like countless endless branches of possibility had suddenly appeared before him.

Truth be told, Master Hong had always been a bit anxious.

He was never the type to entrust his hopes—or his life—to someone else's hands.

Before, his martial arts were enough to protect him. Now, forget one Master Hong—even a hundred of him wouldn't cut it.

And as a martial artist, even when he was gaming in his spare time, he never once forgot his goal of becoming stronger. The Marvel Universe certainly held dangers he'd never faced before, but behind all those dangers, weren't there also unprecedented opportunities?

So what was there to say?

Roll up his sleeves and get to work!

Over the past month, he'd explored his abilities, recalled all kinds of information, beaten up gangster punks to do bad things, then tossed them at police station doors to do good things. While fleecing the gangs, he'd also churned out plenty of short-term and long-term plans.

Finding and convincing Frank was a temporary plan he'd organized after seeing the guy break out of prison.

What he needed Frank's help with next was the short-term plan.

Putting away the Skill Card, he smoothed his expression and left the bathroom. The moment he appeared, he heard Frank's cold voice.

"I didn't expect you'd want to be a terrorist."

"Hey, Frank, you can't say that!"

Hong Fei widened his eyes and quickly added, "The action plan you saw is just the surface. I actually have deeper considerations."

Frank pointed at the TV and said sarcastically, "Kidnapping an arms dealer can have depth too?"

The TV was playing Tony Stark's speech.

Without turning his head, Hong Fei continued, "Shallow! You only see the kidnapping in the action, but you don't realize I'm doing this to save him."

"Then why doesn't the plan send him straight back to New York? Why transport him somewhere else?"

Hong Fei lit the papers in the folder on fire and said matter-of-factly, "That's simple. There's no such thing as a free lunch."

Frank thought back to earlier and his expression soured.

"You know, the preliminary preparations for this plan require a lot of funds. To be honest, I've already applied for a loan. If there's no payoff, I'll go bankrupt soon, and then I might have to hand you over to the police for the bounty."

Frank: "You're really frank."

"I've always been honest."

Next, Hong Fei directly explained the action goal and mission requirements of the plan called "Save the Arms Dealer" to Frank. Frank's excellent military background and former intelligence network genuinely saved Hong Fei a lot of trouble, especially the latter—the information on various businessmen from all over the world that he contributed was something Hong Fei would have struggled to find quickly even with money.

By nightfall, Hong Fei was very satisfied with the rows of contact information before him.

"Frank, you're my right-hand man. Your value is at least equivalent to a billion dollars!"

Frank gave a cold smile. "I just hope you don't go back on your word."

"Don't worry. Once the operation is over, I'll definitely tell you all the details about the Big Bosses of New York's gangs."

"Good!" Frank paused, then said, "But I feel like you're not really after the money, are you?"

Hong Fei answered honestly, "No, money is definitely my goal, but it's not the only one. There are many things you can't do without money, and some things you can't do with it. You have to grasp both, and be firm with both, understand?"

Frank stood up directly and changed the subject. "Where's my room?"

Hong Fei pointed him to the second bedroom, then looked down at the few phone numbers Frank had written. After some thought, he picked up his phone and dialed.

One call after another, the length of his account balance began to shrink in jumps.

Three days later.

Hong Fei watched the bald man on his phone giving a speech on behalf of Tony Stark accepting an award. He looked up at Frank and said, "We should set off."

Frank gently moved his arms, his face expressionless, and just nodded slightly.

They packed their gear, took a taxi, and headed straight for the airport.

If everyone is interested, you can brainstorm through posts to suggest skill cards that characters in the plot might drop. The color grades of skill cards from low to high are: White, Green, Blue, Purple, Orange.

The format is roughly as follows:

[Main/Passive Skill Card: Skill Name] (Color)

Character:

Skill Effect: