We're Different

By the time Leon left the restaurant and headed home, he'd completely lost the urge to buy a pot.

Because of what Aisha had told him.

"Agree? Agree to what? Maintain world peace?!"

"I've long let go of the past in the M78 Nebula, lady bodhisattva. Please spare this humble Taoist!"

Aisha: ...

With three English sentences and one Chinese sentence all mashed together, anyone else would need to hire several translators just to understand it.

But that didn't affect Aisha's comprehension. From her experience, whenever Leon wore a smiling face, whatever came out of his mouth was usually meaningless nonsense. When he got serious, though, it wouldn't be.

It was still bullshit—just the poisonous kind.

No matter how pretty it was, a middle finger was still a middle finger.

Ignoring it, Leon dropped his carefree act and sat back down across from Aisha.

Now that looked like a proper conversation!

Aisha nodded slightly, and Leon finally heard what this whole "agree or not" thing was about.

Fisk Real Estate Company.

That was the answer.

Rumor had it that the company had secured construction projects across several nearby blocks and was negotiating demolition and relocation with every household. But the terms they offered didn't seem very good, and their attitude and methods didn't look much like those of a legitimate company.

"How could they be legitimate? That'd be a miracle..."

Fisk. The moment Leon heard that name, it sounded familiar, though he couldn't remember why. Then Aisha mentioned the real estate company, its shady practices... and the fact that he lived in Brooklyn...

Wasn't that Kingpin?

Leon actually had some history with the man.

As the second-generation leader of a lively social organization, Wilson Fisk—better known as Kingpin—was more than ten times the man his father had been.

Old Fisk, a minor gang leader, had died miserably in the street. But young Fisk, who'd witnessed it all firsthand, hadn't reacted like everyone else.

Someone else might've been spiritually devastated, then resolved to study hard, escape that filthy, rotten place someday, and live a bright life beneath the sun.

He hadn't thought that way.

He believed his father's death had been entirely logical and scientifically sound.

Because he hadn't been strong enough! Ruthless enough!

And so, having drawn a world-shaking conclusion from his father's death, young Fisk threw himself wholeheartedly into the tireless construction of lively social organizations.

Laundry detergent, guns, human trafficking—if it was illegal, he did it!

At the same time, young Fisk drew inferences from one example to another and realized that one person's strength was limited. Not really, but still. So while relentlessly training himself until he became one of the strongest fighters among humanity—capable of punching through a wall—he began looking for other ways to grow stronger.

They were influence, money, and accomplices.

Thus, Fisk began his long campaign to unite New York's underworld. Along the way, he allied himself with all sorts of forces, including The Hand, earned the title of Kingpin of the underworld, and made enemies of Punisher, Spider-Man, Daredevil, and even the X-Men during his expansion.

Yet he was still alive and well. That said a lot.

Leon and Kingpin weren't old friends, of course. They were enemies too.

More precisely, if you fought crime in the Big Apple, it was genuinely hard not to provoke Kingpin. Leon didn't pick his targets. Every night, he'd use the Sky Dance Technique to take to the skies, then find some unlucky bastard and help redeem his soul. Under those circumstances, offending New York's most lively social organization was inevitable.

In all those fanfictions, Kingpin was always there to serve himself up to the protagonist. Compared to other supervillains, Kingpin's threat level as an ordinary man was limited, so he frequently died as an early-game mob meant to hand out experience.

But Leon didn't see it that way!

A man knew his own limits. Leon had a very clear understanding of his own strength.

Marvel always claimed Kingpin was an ordinary person, but Marvel physics... best not take it too seriously.

By the system's calculations, Leon estimated Kingpin's strength was at least 22. His agility probably didn't match his size, either. As for endurance, Leon figured it wouldn't be low. It was common knowledge that big people had more health. The same went for intelligence. He might not have been like Iron Man, hammering out his first-generation armor in a cave, but he was definitely smarter than the average person. Leon remembered that the guy seemed to speak several foreign languages fluently. He was clever—highly intelligent.

"With that kind of ability, why not go to college, improve yourself, and contribute to the country? Why run lively social organizations, sell laundry detergent, and spray blue-flamed rat-a-tat-tats around society instead?!"

Damn capitalism!

There was no need to think about it. In a head-on fight, Leon would definitely be the one serving himself up. Not to mention that Kingpin had an entire organization behind him, and swarming an opponent was standard practice for them.

Think of Bullseye, Elektra, The Hand's Five Fingers...

Heh. We're different.

Although he was only renting his place... and even if it got demolished, it technically had nothing to do with him, Leon still accurately grasped the heart of the matter.

"It seems that, for now, this guy really is the best target to fleece!"

To be fair, if he couldn't even handle Kingpin, an officially recognized ordinary person, how was he supposed to deal with those who could fly, burrow underground, use technology, mutate, come from heaven, or crawl out of hell later on?

Even from the standpoint of eliminating evil, ordinary villains couldn't even compare to Kingpin!

Sitting cross-legged in midair, Leon pondered for a long while.

Let's do it, brothers! Oh... cough!

Kingpin had to be dealt with, but Leon's current strength didn't allow him to carry out a decapitation strike. He wasn't even sure he could beat Bullseye.

Fortunately...

"Heh heh, this humble one happens to use cheats!"

Over the past few days, Leon had reached Level 2 and accumulated a large amount of Purification Points for draws. The problem was that the system level was too low. The prize pool contained nothing but trash, with very few useful items, and none of them were strong enough to bring about a qualitative change in his power.

Look at Iron Man's Mark armor. Without it, Stark was just an ordinary man who'd go down from a single bullet.

Put it on, though! Even Thanos would get a kick from you!

"It'd be nice if I could draw something like that!"

Wishful thinking. Iron Man's armor didn't look like white-, green-, or blue-grade equipment.

Then he'd upgrade the system!

The current prize pool was 90 percent white and 10 percent green. Wasn't that practically an insult?

Upgrade!

He had to upgrade!

Only by drawing blue or even purple equipment and skills could he truly rise up!

Leon looked at the sky outside the window. If he flew out at this hour, practically anyone could spot him. The Sky Dance Technique could let him fly very high, but there was an awkward issue: Leon's physical condition couldn't keep up.

If he flew too high or too fast, he couldn't adapt to the falling temperature and thinner oxygen.

Don't ask how Leon knew. The answer was rigor, caution, and self-harm!

As night fell, a resident of a certain neighborhood swore to his wife that he'd seen an alien flying through the sky. After smelling alcohol on him, his enraged wife gave him a vicious beating.

Afterward, his wife felt a little regretful and asked what the alien had looked like. He said, "The alien wore a black coat, a magician's top hat, and an eye mask. He was sitting on an invisible chair, eating noodles while he flew."

"Really! The noodles even fell onto my face!"