"Man, I finally worked my way up to a million a year, and just like that, I transmigrated here!"
On the school's sprawling lawn, Chen Xiao sat with his hands braced against the ground, staring blankly up at the sky as he sighed.
He had nothing against transmigration. He had even been a little excited when he first arrived. But once he learned he had transmigrated into the Marvel Universe, he could no longer smile.
People with powers were everywhere here. Some were born different, while others suddenly awakened extraordinary abilities after a car accident, a dose of radiation, or even a drop of strange rain.
These people were collectively called mutants.
More absurdly, alien visitors, gods straight out of mythology, demons crawling out of the abyss... species he had only heard of in comics and movies in his previous life all genuinely existed in this world.
Order crumbled, conflicts never ceased, and danger lurked everywhere. A superpowered showdown could erupt in any street or alley at any moment.
An ordinary person might turn around and walk straight into the fallout of a battle between superpowered people, dying without even a chance to cry for help.
Fortunately, after transmigrating, he had awakened a superpower and bound himself to a reliable golden finger. He would not have to struggle to survive in the cracks like those defenseless ordinary people.
"Vitas, what are you thinking about?"
A clear voice interrupted his thoughts.
The girl sitting beside him tilted her head to look at him, her long flaxen hair fluttering gently in the breeze.
Chen Xiao came back to his senses and smiled faintly. "Nothing. It just feels stifling. Apart from classes and self-study, we can't even leave the school."
The girl pressed her lips together, a hint of helplessness in her voice. "There's nothing we can do. Ordinary people are naturally wary of people like us. They avoid us. Everyone's scared to death when they see us."
She paused, her gaze softening a little. "You haven't been here long, so you might not quite understand yet."
"If the professor hadn't founded the X-Mansion and given us mutants a place to stay, plenty of us would have been dragged into secret laboratories and experimented on over and over like lab rats, or curled up in abandoned buildings on the outskirts of cities, never eating enough or sleeping soundly."
As she finished, a trace of genuine gratitude and respect surfaced in her eyes.
"You're right, Kitty," Chen Xiao agreed with a nod.
This seventeen-year-old white girl named Kitty was the first friend Chen Xiao had made after enrolling.
She was young, but her figure had already begun to develop curves. With delicate features and a bright, unspoiled smile, she was very popular at Xavier's School for Mutants.
That was right. Xavier's School was the academy founded by the wheelchair-bound Professor X from the X-Men, and all its students were young mutants who had yet to mature.
And Kitty was none other than the famous Shadowcat from X-Men: The Last Stand. Her ability allowed her to pass through solid objects and take others through matter along with her.
As for Chen Xiao, his name in this world was Vitas Chen, and he was only fifteen this year.
The original owner's father came from a Chinese family in Mexico, while his mother was a local white woman.
His mixed heritage had given him striking, handsome features: black hair, black eyes, a high nose bridge, and a well-defined jawline. Combined with his nearly six-foot height and a composure far beyond his years, he looked much older than he actually was.
Though he was still a high school student, he did not look out of place sitting among a group of older students.
It was Saturday, and there was only one outdoor interaction class. The teacher was Ororo Munroe, known as Storm, the X-Men's deputy leader, who had just returned from a mission.
At that moment, besides the older students' group Chen Xiao belonged to, two other groups of children occupied the vast lawn: a mixed group of middle and elementary school students, and another group of younger newcomers who had only recently enrolled.
Whoosh!
A fierce gale suddenly bore down from overhead, making it impossible to keep their eyes open.
The surrounding trees shook violently, and blades of grass surged like waves.
A woman in a skintight black combat suit descended from the sky, her silver hair white as snow.
Her cape snapped in the wind. A visible hurricane swirled around her, and arcs of deep blue electricity crackled through the air currents, sending a wave of pressure washing over them.
The display made the elementary school students tip their heads back and cry out, their eyes wide and round.
The instant her feet touched the ground, Ororo willed it, and the gale dispersed and the lightning vanished. A gentle smile immediately spread across her face. "Good morning, everyone."
Noticing the undisguised admiration in the children's eyes, she felt a faint stir inside. That entrance hit the mark.
"Good morning, teacher!" the children answered together, their voices clear and perfectly in unison.
The high school students were much more relaxed by comparison. One immediately raised a hand and asked curiously:
"Teacher, we heard you went out to capture a dangerous mutant this time. Was he really strong?"
"Isn't that obvious, Thaddeus Ross? If he weren't difficult to handle, why would Storm have to go herself? I just wonder what exactly he could do," a girl beside him chimed in.
"Teacher, can you tell us about the mission?" someone else asked.
The purpose of interaction classes was to help these children shed their shame and fear about being mutants. Ororo therefore nodded with a smile. "Of course. This mission was in Britain. The target's codename was 'Trock,' and he could turn invisible."
"He committed multiple offenses, specifically sneaking into the homes of young, beautiful women..."
As she described the details of the mission, Chen Xiao's mind had already wandered far away.
Sunlight spilled over him, pleasantly warm.
He could distinctly feel countless cells greedily devouring the energy bestowed by the sun, rapidly converting it into nourishment to strengthen him.
His bones grew denser, his muscles tougher, and his neural responses faster. The speed of this transformation was inconceivable.
"Ding! Your continued absorption of sunlight has prompted every cell in your body to complete another round of evolution. Constitution +3, spirit +1, strength +4..."
Just as the notification faded from his mind, a pale blue, translucent interface suddenly appeared before his eyes:
Host: Chen Xiao (Vitas Chen) Race: human Bloodline: Kryptonian Superman (Bronze Age) Constitution 205; spirit 105; strength 230; agility 221 (ordinary human baseline: 10) X-Gene ability: Energy Berserk (beginner)
His gaze swept over the values on the panel, and Chen Xiao felt a jolt. No wonder Superman is called the most outrageous being in the DC Universe. That's really no exaggeration.
On the day he transmigrated, he had activated the system and drawn the Kryptonian Superman template.
Though it was only the Bronze Age version, and he had only been integrating with it for seven full days, a few days of basking in sunlight had already sent his physical capabilities soaring to twenty times those of an ordinary person. With a squeeze of his bare hand, he could crush steel rebar and flatten iron buckets.
His strength was not the only thing that had skyrocketed. All five senses had improved across the board: he could see through thin walls as though they were sheets of paper, hear the rustling of ants crawling a hundred meters away, and react fast enough to dodge sideways the instant a bullet left the barrel. His physical coordination far surpassed even that of a gymnastics champion.
Such combat power already left the vast majority of the mutants before him far behind.
There were many mutants at Xavier Institute, but those who could truly fight were few and far between. Most students had only awakened basic abilities such as fire control, levitation, or mind reading. They could barely protect themselves, much less carry out missions. The doors to the X-Men had always opened only to a select few outstanding students.
The school had never been founded to train warriors in the first place. It was a haven Professor X had built to shelter young people who were ostracized, feared, and avoided by their families because of their powers. It taught them literacy and arithmetic, shared meals and conversations with them, and helped them slowly temper their restless energy into a steady sense of security.
The original Vitas Chen was one such example. During an argument with a classmate in middle school, his emotions erupted and triggered his X-Gene on the spot. A dazzling streak of white light struck the other boy, instantly breaking three of his ribs. There were too many witnesses, and the entire school learned what had happened. From then on, no one dared approach him. Even his own younger brother hunched his shoulders and took a detour whenever he saw him. During that period, he seemed to have had his backbone pulled out, his shoulders slumping even as he walked. Then one day, Cyclops suddenly appeared and handed him an invitation bearing the school crest. Clutching that sheet of paper, he practically plunged headfirst into Xavier's.
And Chen Xiao had transmigrated at the very moment Vitas stepped through the school gates.
But he had no interest in this body's past. Digging endlessly through old history was useless. His attention was on the body currently growing and developing, and on how many more strength points he would gain after the sun rose tomorrow.
After all, this place listened to fists, not reason.
At that thought, he could not help secretly rejoicing. Drawing the Superman template that let him "level up just by sunbathing" had truly been a stroke of incredible luck.
He was indeed still weak now. His Man of Steel had yet to solidify, his Heat Vision had yet to ignite, and even flight required a running start and a push off the ground. But this was Superman's template, not an ordinary Kryptonian soldier's. With different starting points, their ceilings were not even in the same dimension.
In the DC Universe, "Superman" and "Kryptonian" might sound similar, but their fates were worlds apart. The former was an evolving being who could transform all the way into Silver Superman and Golden Superman; the latter was, at best, a high-spec alien soldier.
After watching so many movies, Chen Xiao had long since gotten a thorough grasp of several main DC storylines. Following the comics' development, Superman's power fell into three major stages: Bronze, Silver, and Golden. These three colors were not a ranking of levels, but interpretations of the same character in different eras, like spring buds, summer shade, and autumn fruit on the same tree, each with its own character.
The early Silver Superman was even more formidable than the Golden version in certain areas. Golden Superman, meanwhile, could tear through the membrane of the multiverse with a punch, reshape the laws of physics between breaths, casually create fifth-dimensional life, and rewrite causality as easily as correcting a typo.
Even the most immature Bronze Age version, at his peak, possessed strength measured in millions of tons, bursts of speed exceeding a hundred times the speed of sound, and a body that would not be scratched by a nuclear bomb exploding in his face. He also had Heat Vision that burned through steel plates, X-Ray Vision that saw through everything, hearing that picked up heartbeats across the globe, and lungs that could exhale hurricanes... he was a walking god.
Of course, his weaknesses were etched just as deeply into his bones. Bronze Age Superman had practically no defense against magic, and once a curse locked on, there was no dodging it. As for kryptonite? He would pretend it did not exist for now.
As his thoughts churned, time quietly slipped by.
"That's all for today. You're free to do as you like." Storm, Ororo, clapped twice, bringing the interaction class to a close.
"Goodbye, teacher!"
"Holt, see you on the court! No powers allowed!"
"Lanster, I just baked some cream bread yesterday. Want a bite?"
"Meister,"
Before the voices had even faded, the classroom burst into life: some headed off together to play ball, some gathered to bake, and others crouched in corners to gossip... laughter, shouts, and the ding of an oven all mingled together.