Superpower Unlocked

The night was deep and silent.

The bedroom door was gently pulled shut as Becca, a mother burdened with heavy thoughts, tiptoed out of the room.

Ryan lay on the bed with his eyes closed, his breathing steady, looking like a well-behaved child already fast asleep.

[Daily Roleplay Experience +13 (Settled daily/Variable amount)]

[Emotional Acting Burst, Experience +2000]

Ryan's consciousness remained calm as he first scanned the amount of experience gained during his reunion with Homelander earlier that day.

He was very satisfied.

As expected of Homelander, the experience points he dropped were truly generous.

Unlike in the past, when he had to exert all his effort to act whenever Vought International surveillance personnel arrived, the experience he managed to squeeze out was at most a three-digit number.

Besides...

Ryan thought to himself, that Johnny who had once slapped Becca should have been wiped out by Homelander by now.

The matter of Johnny was merely a fleeting thought; he then shifted his focus to the skill panel manifested by his golden finger.

Rows of unlocked and locked skills appeared.

[Heat Vision · Level 1] (Naturally Awakened)

Upgrade Experience: 1/5000

Level 1 Effect: Controllable low-temperature scorching // Minimum power for heating milk -- Maximum power can penetrate ten-centimeter-thick walls, effective lethality against carbon-based organisms.

[Steel Body · Level 2]

Upgrade Experience: 172/10000

Level 1 Effect: Skin and muscle mimicry of steel, capable of resisting armor-piercing rounds, but causes internal impact and concussive damage.

Level 2 Effect: Skin, muscle, and bone advanced to high-strength alloy mimicry, fearless against conventional thermal weapon damage, effectively resisting impact and concussive damage.

[Super Vision · Level 1]

Upgrade Experience: 1/3000

Level 1 Effect: Extreme long-range vision, clear sight within one hundred meters, shallow x-ray vision (clothing, thin wooden boards, thin walls, etc.), ineffective against metal, thick concrete, etc. Only zinc can completely block his sight!!!

[Super Hearing · Level 1]

Upgrade Experience: 1/3000

Level 1 Effect: Hearing far exceeding that of an ordinary person, whispers within one hundred meters are clearly distinguishable, can identify subtle ambient sounds, and automatically lock onto the source of the sound.

[Unlockable Abilities: Super Smell, Super Strength, Super Stamina, Self-Healing, Flight, Weak Bio-force Field]

[Total Experience: 21213]

Ryan understood clearly that the unlocking thresholds and the experience required to upgrade each superpower were completely different.

Skills like Super Vision and Super Hearing only required one thousand points to unlock their Level 1 effects.

However, for a physical defense skill like Steel Body, he had spent a full three thousand points to unlock it back then just for a sense of security.

Over the past eight years, he had accumulated performance experience by playing the part of a good boy day after day. The current amount made him quite satisfied, but spending it felt even more exhilarating.

"Unlock Flight!"

[Flight · Level 1]

Upgrade Experience: 1/5000

Level 1 Effect: Stable flight, can take off/hover in place, free ascent and descent, flexible turning, resistance to light winds, maximum flight speed up to 50m/s (equivalent to 180 km/h).

While maintaining his sleeping posture, the corners of Ryan's mouth curled up slightly.

This speed was not slow at all. To put it in perspective, the maximum speed already far exceeded that of an ordinary car on a highway and was nearing the takeoff speed of a standard civilian airliner.

He couldn't compare himself to Homelander, but for a Level 1 flight skill to reach this scale, he considered it a stroke of luck.

[Total Experience: 19213]

Unlocking flight had cost two thousand experience points; it wasn't too expensive.

For his next step, Ryan put aside flight and turned his attention to upgrading his Steel Body.

He had unlocked flight to use in his future interactions with Homelander.

He clearly remembered that scene: in the original plot, in order to train Ryan's courage, Homelander had taken him to the roof and, confident and firmly believing that his son could also fly, pushed him off.

The result was self-evident.

Little Ryan was stunned by the fall.

Daddy Homelander's smile froze.

Therefore, so as not to disappoint Daddy Homelander, Ryan had long decided to unlock flight.

He would continue to provide Homelander with positive emotional feedback, just like coaxing a child, and from time to time, he would offer a little bit of worship and belonging stemming from their blood kinship.

Little Homelander, handled!

Of course, the vast majority of Ryan's actions were for the sake of experience points.

For eight years, he had calculated his plans countless times; he didn't care about the grudges between The Seven and The Boys, nor the political maneuvering between superhumans and humanity.

Having arrived in this world, he had only one vision.

To become Homelander, and to surpass Homelander.

The path to becoming a true superman was his golden finger: the Best Actor System.

To gain experience points, he had to become a true "best actor" recognized by the public.

Vought International's method of manufacturing superheroes did not align with his interests.

But he was merely a superpowered individual kept in captivity by the company, possessing no ability to resist, so to achieve his ultimate goal, he needed Homelander's protection.

In the future, he would use Homelander's power to assemble his own film crew.

Ryan had already thought it through; the first movie he would film in the future would certainly not be some idiotic plot about a superhero saving passersby or defeating bank robbers.

Acting like that lacked heart, and the experience points would inevitably be meager.

Furthermore, it did not align with his values.

Therefore, he intended to adapt Spider-Man and cast himself in the role.

The people of this world were accustomed to high-and-mighty superheroes, each one appearing righteous in front of the public, as if born to be gods looking down upon mortals.

But behind those fake stories, once the camera filters were stripped away from their flawless images of justice, what remained? Violence, hypocrisy, paranoia, and wretchedness.

Weren't they tired of the same old hero-saves-the-world scripts?

Thus, Ryan wanted to showcase the "human" side of a superhero.

The story of Spider-Man was just right.

However, this would require extensive adaptation, and he would also need to find a few people to play the supervillains.

"It would be best if superpowered individuals played the roles themselves, but that would require the support of Daddy Homelander; only he could suppress all opposing voices."

After all, the superpowered individuals manufactured by Vought International were always portrayed as glorious, righteous, and without a single flaw.

Ryan rolled over, still pretending to be fast asleep.

In the current state of the world, Homelander had not yet completely broken ties with Vought International, and he didn't know if the surveillance behind the cameras was still active; it was better to be safe than sorry.

He could not expose any behavior or actions that did not fit his current persona.

But since he had already made contact with Homelander, he would change things bit by bit, naturally, as they spent time together in the future.

Before that...

Ryan's gaze fell back onto the skill panel, finally resting on the Steel Body entry.

Regardless of his schemes, in this world filled with bizarre and varied superpowers, self-preservation was always the top priority.

Steel Body was the skill he most wanted to upgrade to the maximum level, which was also the reason he had been hoarding experience points.

Ryan guessed that a maxed-out Steel Body could very likely reach the level of Soldier Boy.

That was a special existence who had been imprisoned by the Russians for decades, unable to be truly killed no matter what kind of damage he sustained.

"So, Steel Body, upgrade!"