In a cramped house in a poor neighborhood of Queens, New York.
Ben Shaw stood in the tiny bathroom, shirtless. His thin frame was clearly visible in the reflection of the worn mirror.
To put it bluntly, he looked scrawny.
His one advantage was his face—handsome features and bright, dark eyes.
But his skin was very pale.
It wasn't a healthy fair complexion; it was the pallor of malnutrition.
Ben still remembered: after work, he followed the usual routine—ate, showered, checked his phone—and fell asleep from exhaustion. When he woke up, he realized he was someone else.
Same name, different life.
His previously ordinary, uneventful life was gone. Now he was in New York, USA. An Asian kid under eighteen, living alone in the city—because his parents had been runners.
Two fools who'd come to the United States from the East chasing so-called freedom and democracy.
They brought him here when he was ten.
After years of scraping by, his mother was accidentally caught in a street-gang shootout and was killed by a stray bullet.
A year later, his father died of a myocardial infarction from overwork.
He was left alone as a teenager, with an old house of less than 70 square meters and a bit of savings.
The inheritance wasn't much—about five thousand dollars. His mother hadn't bought insurance, the shooter was never caught, so there was no compensation. His father died on the job, but without a signed labor contract. His boss still had to pay a few thousand in compensation; otherwise, Ben wouldn't even have had that.
Most of their savings had gone into buying the house, so there wasn't much cash left.
After sifting through this body's memories, Ben felt numb.
Worse, he found things in those memories that scared him.
Tony Stark.
A billionaire celebrity exploding in popularity in New York and across the U.S. And mutants—despised and feared by mainstream society.
The infamous, lethal universe was real here.
The moment he processed those memories, Ben wanted to go home. United States. New York. Marvel Universe. Add them all together, and you get one result: danger.
It was too dangerous. He was still under eighteen. He just wanted to go back.
Even without the Marvel Universe "buff," what did it mean for an Asian teenager with no background and no money to survive in New York?
From memory alone, he'd "seen" himself bullied dozens of times.
What could he feel but despair?
Ben sighed. Life wasn't easy.
At that moment, he saw a small black shape crawling leisurely across the old, grimy sink. He grabbed the nearly empty shampoo bottle and smashed down.
With a bang and grim precision, the "old friend" cockroach didn't even squeak before it was crushed to pulp.
Before Ben could lift the bottle, he froze. A marble-sized orb of blood-red light appeared in front of him, pulsing faintly.
In the next instant, the blood-red orb shot into his chest and merged with his heart.
Startled, Ben frantically touched his body, terrified something filthy would burst out of him like an alien parasite.
But as he stood there, still shaken, a warm current rose from his heart and spread through his body.
Like soaking in a hot spring—distinctly warm and soothing.
It didn't last long—less than a second. If he weren't sure it had really happened, he could've dismissed it as an illusion.
Ben frowned, calmed himself, raised his hands to study his palms, then looked into the mirror. His unhealthy pallor had turned rosy.
"What is this?"
He glanced at the shampoo bottle and the squashed roach on the sink, then picked the bottle up.
His eyes lit up.
"It's lighter."
He was sure the bottle felt lighter than before—as light as cotton.
What did that mean?
He recalled the blood-red light that appeared after he killed the roach, how it had flown into his chest—then the bottle felt lighter. A hypothesis formed.
He decided to test it immediately.
In this infamous Queens slum, the roads were crumbling, houses dilapidated, garbage piled everywhere.
Homeless people crowded the streets.
Every year, some intersection saw disaster.
Every week, dozens of low-income families lined up for government aid.
The poverty, filth, and chaos were obvious. Ironically, just a few subway stops away, three or four kilometers down the road, was Park Avenue—one of New York's wealthiest neighborhoods.
There stood the tallest residential buildings in the world, with a dozen—sometimes dozens—of billionaires in a single tower.
Luxury everywhere. In contrast, Ben's neighborhood was rats, garbage, and roaches.
So Ben's house never lacked "comrades." With a careful search, he found plenty of roaches in the dark corners. They'd always been a headache. Now, he saw them the way a beggar sees money.
Without hesitation, he went to work, stomping those on the floor and swatting those on the wall with a slipper.
As he'd guessed, each time he killed one, a small blood-red orb appeared and shot into his chest like a meteor.
Each time, the hot-spring warmth returned. Paying careful attention, he felt dramatic changes in his body.
Bones, muscles, organs—even his cells were shifting. The sensation was vivid and extraordinary.
It still only lasted about a second.
Suppressing his excitement, he ignored the scattered remains and returned to the bathroom. He tossed the slipper aside, studied his reflection, and focused on his physical changes.
First, his senses—sight, hearing, smell. His vision had been decent before, but now everything was sharper. He could even make out tiny fractures in the mirror he'd never seen before.
His hearing extended farther. Over the noise of passing cars, he could pick up footsteps and conversations on the street, and even neighbors arguing in surrounding apartments.
His sense of smell, too, expanded—damp mold, stale stench, all of it.
When he consciously focused, he could dampen these heightened senses.
His thoughts were clearer and faster as well.
That told him his neural pathways had strengthened. The senses are tied to the brain; without a stronger nervous system, he wouldn't be able to control the sudden upgrade.
Next, he looked at his bare torso.
His formerly ordinary body now showed the outline of muscle.
He went to the living room, tried lifting heavy objects, did standing jumps, then jogged laps around the small space.
Conclusion: he could easily lift the heaviest thing in the apartment—a double bed, around a hundred kilograms.
He held it up with ease. He even did squats while holding it. After more than ten minutes, he was only slightly winded.
That put his strength and endurance far beyond normal.
For reference, elite weightlifters max out near 500 kilograms for a second or two—and they weigh over 100 kilograms with year-round scientific training.
Ben, who used to struggle, now handled roughly 100 kilograms with ease, doing squats for over ten minutes without muscle or joint pain.
His true limits were unknown.
As for speed, the cramped space made measuring impossible, but by his own rough sense, it had improved significantly.
Strength and endurance up meant speed and explosiveness would rise too—the body is an integrated system. If strength and stamina jump but speed and power don't, that'd be a contradiction—unless his body had mutated into something inhuman.
After the tests, Ben felt ravenous.
It made sense: the stronger the body, the more energy it needs. Without enough intake, you can't sustain it.
He'd been malnourished before. After a sudden upgrade and a round of testing, of course he was starving.
He opened the old secondhand fridge. Not much food. He grabbed what he'd planned for tomorrow, threw together a simple meal, and dug in.
A big pot of rice, some frozen chicken legs, wings, beef, and potatoes
In the U.S., meat is often cheaper than many vegetables; potatoes are the budget staple.
Given his family situation and personality, Ben had planned on potatoes as the main staple, with cheap meat on the side.
That meant mostly frozen chicken legs, wings, and cheap beef.
Even then, he couldn't afford meat every meal.
The biggest dietary issue for low-income Americans is vitamin deficiency.
Imbalance brings illness—and Ben had it even worse.
It was hard for an Asian teen like him to find steady work.
If he didn't keep his food costs low, he'd go broke fast.
Hence the malnutrition.
For now, he didn't care. He ate the whole pot of rice, the chicken, the stewed potatoes and beef—finally full.
After washing the dishes, he thought it through.
"Conclusion: after killing a living thing, its life essence is somehow extracted and used to strengthen me—and the upgrade seems comprehensive.
A small life form caused a big change, probably because I was in such poor shape to start with."
"The incremental boost from stacking cockroach kills may diminish as my baseline improves."
"What is this—Abomination? Gluttony?"
"Does the 'amount' of life essence depend on the size of the lifeform, its vitality, or both?"
"This world is full of beings with strong vitality.
Humans already have tough life force; then there are mutants, vampires, werewolves, demons—the list goes on.
Looks like my path might be… hunter."
In this chaotic, thrilling universe, without a sudden golden finger, he would've focused on getting back home to the East. But now that he had it, he'd never forgive himself for wasting it.
What man doesn't want to become stronger and live brilliantly?
Ben was already prepared to kill. In his past life, he'd been law-abiding because of the system around him. In this chaotic universe—in a place like New York—he didn't feel moral restraint about killing certain scum.
Of course, he wouldn't harm innocent people. He had a moral baseline, even if flexible: he'd target those who deserved it.
In a world with Olympians, Jotun giants, Dark Elves, and a multiverse of powerful races, he didn't need to become a monster to gain power.
Cannibalism? Don't be ridiculous—he wasn't that kind of demon.
Right now, he needed to improve his life and find ways to grow stronger, so he could hunt more powerful targets later.
"Maybe I should start by finding a few pieces of trash to kill—test this life-essence ability."
He turned off the faucet, put the dishes away, wiped his hands with a dry towel. His eyes narrowed, a cold glint flashing as faces of past bullies surfaced in his mind.
In a place like this, a few vermin disappearing wouldn't draw much attention. He could practice, avenge the body's former owner, and pick up some cash to improve his life.