Trait Shop!

Between the skyscrapers, a massive green figure launched himself forward with astonishing leaping power! He headed straight for the falling red-and-gold figure.

But...

"Huh?"

Hulk was confused. Hulk had missed!

As he slid down the skyscraper, Hulk saw a little guy who had appeared out of nowhere, carrying Iron Man as he slipped down toward the ground.

Yes, Lu Wen had caught Tony before Hulk could! He thought this was a pretty good reason to charge extra.

Thud!

Near the bottom, Lu Wen kicked off the wall to absorb the impact and landed steadily on the ground.

He was fine, apart from a little soreness in his knees. That went away in a few seconds.

Thor, Captain America, and Hulk quickly gathered around. Hulk just blinked at Lu Wen, his thoughts a mystery.

"Buddy, if your knees could talk, I bet they'd have some very friendly words for you." Steve had watched Lu Wen's hardcore landing from start to finish and couldn't resist the quip.

Lu Wen shrugged at that and set Tony on the ground.

"Is he still breathing?" Thor asked, pulling Tony's faceplate open.

Tony was already unconscious. Perhaps it was the strain of passing through the portal, or perhaps it was exhaustion from concentrating too hard while pushing the nuclear missile.

Either way, a roar from Hulk woke him up.

"Ah! Hah... what's going on? What happened?" Tony looked around in panic. "Please, tell me nobody kissed me just now!"

Seeing that Tony was still as flippant as ever, Captain America breathed a sigh of relief.

"No. This friend you brought caught you! And... we won." With that, Steve let out a long breath.

"Oh... yay! Good job, everyone!"

"And thank you, my friend, for not letting me splatter into salted meat sauce."

Once Tony had recovered, he laughed, not forgetting to thank Lu Wen.

"No need to thank me. Just remember to pay extra when you settle up."

"Okay, absolutely! Have you ever had Turkish kebab? There's a place two blocks away. How about we try it together in a bit?"

Inside Stark Tower...

Loki finally recovered from the daze Hulk had slammed him into.

That damned monstrous strength-even with his Frost Giant bloodline, he still hadn't fully recovered. He had at least a dozen fractures throughout his body.

But Loki felt it was too late to retreat now. Those damned Midgardians and his dear, blasted brother were staring at him as though they wanted to eat him alive...

"Is it too late to have that drink now?" Loki felt a little awkward.

But before his awkwardness could ease, a man who looked rather like a beggar stepped out from behind the big green guy.

Smack! Smack!

Loki was stunned again.

Wait! Who the hell are you, buddy? You just walk up and slap me twice! Do I know you?

[Mission complete. Points have been credited to the host's account.]

Lu Wen called up the system panel for a look. Only after confirming that the system hadn't pocketed his reward did he relax.

Apparently, this wasn't the kind of bullshit system that skimmed off the fruits of its host's labor.

Ignoring Loki's murderous glare, Lu Wen walked over to Tony's liquor cabinet and picked a bottle that looked expensive. Making himself right at home, he twisted off the cap and gulped it down.

After all that fighting, he needed to wet his throat.

"Uh... nuclear missile boy, that bottle costs eighty thousand bucks."

"Cheapskate. Then deduct it from my fee when you pay me! But while we're on the subject, if you dare cheat me, I'll let you experience a nuclear explosion right in your face."

Without looking back, Lu Wen raised his middle finger at Tony for giving him a nickname.

"Thanks, I'll pass. I think I've already come pretty close to experiencing that."

Remembering what he had seen after passing through the wormhole, Tony's face instantly grew a little paler.

At a shawarma shop two blocks away...

Holding a grilled meat wrap that seemed similar to a roujiamo to him, Lu Wen looked at the six silent people before him.

Broken glass littered the shop's floor, and the staff were diligently cleaning up the damage from the battle. But they had been lucky! The shop hadn't suffered too much damage, so they could still put together a tableful of shawarma to serve the superheroes.

Munch, munch...

Honestly, it didn't taste very good! Perhaps it was because they had just been through an alien invasion. In any case, this shawarma wasn't particularly satisfying.

It was nowhere near as good as what he had eaten on a business trip to Turkey before his transmigration.

But watching Thor take huge mouthfuls, Lu Wen felt that this god of hammers was enjoying the food more than anyone else there.

"Buddy, if you don't mind, could you pay me what we agreed on first? I want to buy some clothes. I look worse than a homeless guy in the subway right now."

Having eaten his fill, Lu Wen held out his hand to Tony for payment!

He didn't think his request was unreasonable! Never mind that they had already agreed on the payment-just look at his current appearance...

Shoe soles with half the forefoot worn away, jeans scraped into tatters, a shirt burned full of holes of all sizes by lasers, and black soot on his skin... he looked every bit the homeless man!

Tony swallowed hard, forcing down the shawarma that had overcooked after being left unattended during the alien invasion, and took a look at Lu Wen's current state...

"All right, nuclear missile kid, I think that's an excellent suggestion! Let's get out of here right now. What do you say, guys?"

"I agree!" Natasha was the first to approve.

"Me too. We need to head back and deal with the follow-up work." Captain America, who had been propping up his face with one hand, also sat up straight and agreed.

"But I'm not full yet..."

Everyone turned to Thor, whose cheeks were bulging with food.

"What is it...?"

"Nothing. Boss! Two more to go."

The Battle of New York had ended, and every major news agency sprang into action, putting out report after report in a very short time!

Lu Wen wanted no part in all that wrangling. He had no legal identity to begin with, so when people from the various relevant agencies came looking, he had Tony find him somewhere in Stark Tower to stay for the time being.

Tony didn't ask many questions and readily granted his request. He was so welcoming that it felt a little off...

It was also possible that the cleanup ahead would keep Tony busy, leaving him no time for a detailed conversation just yet. But that was fine. They could wait until things settled down.

Sitting in a lounge inside Stark Tower, dressed in a suit JARVIS had arranged after taking his measurements, Lu Wen called up the system panel to check his gains.

The system panel was very tidy. Like tabs in a computer browser, its five sections were arranged horizontally: Personal Panel, System Bounties, Dimensional Marketplace, Trait Shop, and Storage Space.

[Host number: 0527!]

[Points: 104670]

[●--]

"Tsk... it doesn't even have a detailed stat display? How bare-bones."

Looking at the personal panel, which contained nothing but an identification number, a string of digits, and six trait slots, Lu Wen couldn't help complaining.

He had wanted to see how high his stats were now.

That string of digits was his current point balance. Apart from that, the entire panel was as clean as a freshly formatted hard drive.

Lu Wen stared at the number for a few seconds, then switched to the Trait Shop page and glanced over it. His eyes instantly lit up when he saw the note at the top!

This was interesting...

Simply put, once he arrived in a world, the shop could scan its entire structure and convert that world's distinctive features into traits!

Take the Marvel Universe he was currently in! From all the mighty gods down to human heroes like Falcon, every character's abilities could be turned into traits for exchange in the shop!

Rather than a dizzying jumble of traits to sift through one by one, the Trait Shop displayed images of individual heroes and villains. Clicking an image showed all that character's abilities!

Spider-Man, for example, offered traits such as Spider-Strength, Spider-Endurance, Spider-Adhesion, Spider-Sense, and so on to choose from.

The abilities were then divided into seven grades according to their strength: gray, white, green, blue, purple, gold, and red!

Even within Spider-Man's image, opening it revealed traits in several different colors, such as white Spider-Adhesion or purple Spider-Sense...

And the same trait, such as "Super Strength," could be assigned different color grades on different characters' image pages, depending on how strong each character was.

Personally, he found this selection method much more convenient than lumping all traits of the same color together and dividing the pages only by grade, forcing him to sift through a whole pile to find one.

Every ability also offered a choice between a temporary or permanent exchange! Temporary ones offered two units, minutes at the shortest or hours, with the duration freely selectable!

Of course, stronger ones cost more, and a permanent version of a trait cost more than a temporary one!

After purchase, temporary traits would disappear immediately upon being unequipped, while permanent ones would not.

Traits could also be sold through the Dimensional Marketplace panel at a price of his choosing, but the system took a five-percent commission in points.

Unfortunately, this was limited to ability traits; there was no item exchange! Unlike the systems in other novels he had read, it couldn't exchange for items from various worlds.

"All right. Having something is better than nothing."