As the old saying went, take a chance, and your bicycle could become a motorcycle.
Thirty thousand Presence was equivalent to six attribute points.
Li Ang leaned against the back of his chair, pressing his clasped hands against his chin in imitation of Sherlock's thinking pose. "Let's do the math... as long as I pull something that improves me more than six attribute points would, I come out ahead!"
At that thought, Li Ang gritted his teeth and stamped his foot. "Let's do it!"
It felt like squatting at the entrance to an alley, gritting his teeth, and saying, "Two thousand it is."
[A wise choice]
As the system's voice finished, the slot machine's handle swung down, and its three reels began spinning rapidly, the three symbols constantly changing.
When the symbols slowly came to a stop, the expression on Li Ang's face instantly froze.
[Gold coin, gold coin, gold coin]
"Damn, talk about rotten luck!"
The very first pull gave him nothing good. As white light lit up the screen, a pair of overalls floated out of the slot machine, complete with a proper inspection animation.
The pants spun around on the screen as though mocking him.
"Are you kidding me?! Does a pair of overalls really need an inspection animation?!"
Li Ang rolled his eyes and pulled the lever again.
Clatter-
Sure enough, three more gold coins.
Again... and again. It wasn't until the ninth pull that something different finally appeared.
Two gold coins slowly settled into place. Just as Li Ang thought it would be the same as before, the third reel landed on a diamond!
"Huh?" Li Ang's eyes widened, a flash of pleasant surprise crossing them as green light rose from the screen.
[Six attribute points]
"Huh?!" Li Ang looked delighted. He had broken even in one go!
He opened his inventory and looked over the white items he had pulled earlier: overalls, rainbow hair dye, a nuclear-powered lighter, ultra-thin sperm blockers...
Of those things, only the rainbow hair dye was useful.
Using it would turn his hair rainbow-colored, but Li Ang didn't want to fly around with a head of multicolored hair.
With one pull left, anything he got would be pure profit!
His earlier gloom vanished. Li Ang tossed his head flamboyantly. "I told you, no kid cries every single day!"
"Last pull! Time to take off!"
As the lever came down, the first symbol was a diamond, but the second was a gold coin. Then the third slowly settled into place.
A diamond!
"Holy shit!"
Delight flashed in Li Ang's eyes as blue light flickered, and a stone appeared before him.
"What the heck is this? You can even pull stones?" Li Ang tilted his head, three question marks floating above it.
Only when the stone turned around and Li Ang saw the chicken-shaped pattern on it did delight finally show on his face.
[Rooster Talisman ×1]
Li Ang immediately took the Rooster Talisman out of his inventory. It felt a little cool in his hand, but looking at those familiar markings, there was no mistaking it!
"You can even pull talismans?" Li Ang toyed with the talisman in his hand.
The Rooster Talisman's power was levitation, or flight, which was somewhat redundant for Li Ang as he was now. But it could also make other objects float.
It all depended on the user's will, making it closer to telekinesis.
Holding the Rooster Talisman in his hand, Li Ang looked at the lemonade nearby. The next second, it began trembling, then floated into the air!
"Just as I thought!" Li Ang smiled. This counted as another ability he could put to use.
He took the lemonade as it floated over and had a sip, then heard JARVIS remark, "That defies science..."
"You'll see plenty more things that defy science in the future." With that, Li Ang closed the slot machine and prepared to allocate his points.
Including the attribute points he had just pulled, converting his Presence brought his total to 26!
As Li Ang considered his options, he asked the system, "Is there an upper limit to how many attribute points I can allocate?"
[There is no upper limit.]
The system's words made Li Ang sigh in relief. With no upper limit, he would eventually be able to tear Thanos apart with his bare hands.
He hadn't forgotten what the Purple Sweet Potato Spirit would do later: seize the Infinity Stones and kill half of everyone with the snap. That was the Stones' power over the rules, and he had no desire to gamble on those fifty-fifty odds.
After some consideration, Li Ang decided to allocate most of his attribute points to Man of Steel. It governed his physical strength, including things like power and flight speed.
Heat Vision meant exactly what it said, while Enhanced Senses was related to X-Ray Vision and Super Hearing.
With his current hearing, if he concentrated, he could hear everyone in all of New York and sort through all kinds of information.
"I wonder if maxing it out would let me reach speeds like The Flash?"
With a mind to give it a try, Li Ang put 16 points directly into his physique and split the remaining 10 evenly between Heat Vision and Super Senses.
With that, Li Ang's panel now read:
[Master: Li Ang] [Presence: 893 (each upgrade costs 5,000 Presence)] [Abilities: Man of Steel lv:22, Heat Vision lv:8, Super Senses lv:8, Gravity Capture Net (cannot be upgraded)] [Inventory: Rooster Talisman, overalls, rainbow hair dye, nuclear-powered lighter, ultra-thin sperm blockers.]
His physical strength was far in the lead. Once he confirmed the allocation, that tingling sensation from before spread through his entire body again!
The pleasure ran from the crown of his head all the way to his fingernails!
"Holy crap..." Li Ang couldn't help slumping limply in his chair, unable to understand why a damn level-up felt like successfully getting off ten times and then having all the pleasure flood in at once.
Just as Li Ang lay in his chair enjoying himself, JARVIS spoke.
"Please forgive me for taking the liberty of scanning you, Mr. Li Ang, but I must say, your current condition is rather unusual. In that instant just now, your dopamine nearly went off the charts, your endorphins cut off every pain signal, and even your adrenaline joined in. The crucial point, however, is that I detected no external stimulus or source of danger. Have you... been ambushed by something good?"
You know quite a bit. Li Ang didn't answer, enjoying himself with his eyes closed. Only after the sensation faded did he open them.
"What do you think?"
JARVIS immediately answered.
"This seems more like a defense mechanism in your body. Your muscles were twitching abnormally, and your brain blocked the signals, presumably to block out the pain."
Blocking out pain-that was something Li Ang had never considered.
Is he right? Li Ang asked the system silently.
[Yes. The energy injected during physical enhancement is extremely powerful. Without pain blocking, it would be like filling the gaps beneath all ten fingernails with toothpicks, then doing push-ups on your fingers, only ten thousand times more intense.]
Imagining it, Li Ang shuddered.
"All right, that's decent of you." Li Ang gave a thumbs-up, leaving JARVIS somewhat puzzled.
"What are you doing?"
"Expressing approval." Li Ang felt he needed to test his current abilities.
He braced himself against the sofa to sit up, but the moment he exerted force, the sofa crumbled in his grip like a crumbly piece of sachima!
"Holy crap!" Startled, Li Ang quickly floated up. Only then did he see that it wasn't just the sofa-even the floor had cracks spreading outward.
The improvement had been too great. Li Ang was still holding back his strength the same way as before, and the sofa simply couldn't withstand it.
Staring at his hands, Li Ang estimated that the difference between his current strength and his previous strength was probably like the difference between an adult and a child.