The vault was a tomb of cold steel and the intoxicating, papery scent of old ink and linen. Outside those massive doors, the world was screaming. Red strobe lights pulsed against the stacks of cash, casting long, rhythmic shadows that danced like ghosts against the walls. Rosen didn't care about the noise. He didn't care that half of Kingpin's private army was currently sprinting down the hallway with enough hardware to start a small war.
He was busy.
He grabbed a stack of hundreds—thick, rubber-banded bricks of "dirty" money—and watched as they vanished into thin air the moment they touched his palm. It was like feeding an invisible beast.
"God, I love this cheat," he muttered, his breath hitching with a mix of adrenaline and pure, unadulterated greed.
A week ago, Rosen wouldn't have been caught dead within five miles of Hell's Kitchen. Back then, he was just Rosen, a seventeen-year-old Chinese-American kid living in a cramped apartment in Queens. He was the kind of guy who'd just scraped through high school with a GPA that made his parents sigh and a future that looked like a lifetime of working behind a counter or, if he was lucky, a dead-end office job. College? Forget about it. The rejection letters had been piling up like autumn leaves.
But that Rosen was gone. Or at least, the "soul" inside the driver's seat had changed.
He was a transmigrator—a word that usually belonged in the trashy web novels he used to read late at night back in his old world. He'd woken up in this body, in this New York, and realized within twenty-four hours that he'd pulled the short straw. He wasn't just in any New York; he was in the Marvel Universe.
He'd seen it on the news: Tony Stark, the billionaire playboy and "Merchant of Death," grinning for the cameras while showing off some new missile that could probably level a city block. It was 2007. The world felt "normal" to the average person, but Rosen knew better. He knew about the aliens, the gods, the mad titans, and the half-count of the universe that was destined to turn into dust.
In his old world, things were quiet. No supernatural disasters, no masked vigilantes, no "Hulk-outs." He'd never even been in a fistfight, let alone killed a chicken for dinner. Transitioning from a peaceful civilian life to a world where a "bad day" meant a skyscraper falling on your head wasn't exactly easy.
But then, the System had arrived.
The Golden Finger: Warcraft Hero System
It appeared as a low-poly, semi-transparent interface in his mind, smelling faintly of nostalgia and old-school RTS games. The Warcraft Hero System.
Back on his original Earth, Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and The Frozen Throne had been his life. He'd spent thousands of hours mastering the micro-management of Orcs, Humans, Undead, and Night Elves. Now, that game had become his lifeline.
The system was brutally simple: it allowed him to acquire hero skills and items from the game. No quests, no leveling up through tedious monster grinding, no "Save the World" morality meters.
It was purely, shamelessly Pay-to-Win.
The skills were divided into a roulette. You pay the fee, you spin the wheel, and you get a skill. Simple. If you draw the same skill twice, it levels up. Three times? You've maxed it out.
And the ultimate skills? Those were the real prizes. If he managed to max out all three basic skills of a specific hero, the "Ultimate" would unlock automatically, granting him the full, terrifying power of a Level 10 Hero.
But the "Shop" was where the real sticker shock happened.
The System divided its inventory into a Regular Store and a Special Store. The Regular Store was basically his corner pharmacy—if the pharmacy sold Life Potions, Mana Potions, and Town Portal Scrolls. The mechanical mouse he'd used to scout the vault? A cool five grand ($5,000) from the "Human Shop" tab.
The Special Store was a different beast. It refreshed once a week, offering gear like Boots of Speed, Circlets of Nobility, or even summoning items like Dragon Eggs. Last week, the shop had mocked him with the Skull of Gul'dan. The actual, demonic skull of the most powerful orc warlock to ever live.
The System's description had been tantalizing: Immediately become a master of demonic arts. Unlocked potential. Near-infinite mana. The price? One billion dollars. Cold, hard cash.
"Yeah, okay," Rosen had thought at the time. "I'll just check under my couch cushions for a billion bucks."
The prices were a thousand times higher than the game. A Circlet of Nobility—a basic item that gave a small boost to all stats—was a staggering $180,000. A Life Potion? $15,000.
But was it worth it? Absolutely. In this world, $15,000 wasn't just for a "healing item"; it was a literal second chance. The Life Potion didn't just mend a scratch; it could regrow tissue, purge toxins, and pull someone back from the brink of a terminal illness. In a world of superheroes and villains, that was a bargain.
The Template: Becoming the Hunter
The only reason Rosen was standing in this vault right now was because of his Novice Gift Package. The System hadn't left him completely high and dry. It had given him a random Hero Template, one basic skill, and an exclusive weapon.
He'd rolled the dice and come up with The Watcher—better known as Maiev Shadowsong, the relentless Night Elf warden.
The moment he'd accepted the template, his body had changed. It wasn't a flashy transformation; he didn't grow six inches or sprout muscles like the Hulk. Instead, he felt dense. He felt efficient. His senses sharpened until he could hear the hum of the electricity in the walls and the heartbeat of a mouse three rooms away.
His stats were now far beyond any "peak" human:
Strength: 18 (Physical power, damage resistance, and healing factor)
Agility: 20 (Running speed, reaction time, and combat reflexes)
Intelligence: 15 (Mental will, mana capacity, and recovery)
To put that in perspective: an average American male had a Strength and Agility of about 3.
Even Captain America, the legendary super-soldier currently turned into a human popsicle somewhere in the North Atlantic, was estimated by the System to have a Strength of 12 and an Agility of 15.
Rosen, at seventeen, was already 1.5 times stronger and faster than the pinnacle of human evolution.
And then there were the skills. He'd started with Blink, the iconic short-range teleport. But the real kicker was the racial talent: Shadow Fade. Because he had the Night Elf template, he could literally melt into the darkness as long as he stood still. It wasn't just "hiding"; it was a supernatural erasure of his presence.
The Grind for Green
That was the catch, though. The Marvel Universe wasn't going to wait for him to be "ready." 2007 was the calm before the storm. Iron Man, Thor, the Abomination—they were all coming. If Rosen wanted to survive, he needed more skills. He needed to max out his stats. He needed that Level 10 overlay.
But the System didn't take credit cards. It didn't take Bitcoin. It didn't take "System Points" earned from heroic deeds.
It wanted cash. Greenbacks. Benjamins. Dollars that had been touched, traded, and circulated.
"The ultimate pay-to-win mobile game," Rosen had scoffed. "And the only way to play is to be a high-stakes thief."
Robbing a bank was out. The federal government, the FBI, and whatever shadow organizations were lurking (looking at you, SHIELD) would be on him like white on rice. He didn't want to be a "Most Wanted" fugitive before he even had a decent offensive skill.
But robbing the Kingpin? That was a different story.
Wilson Fisk didn't call the cops. He didn't file insurance claims. He dealt in black money—money that didn't exist on any ledger. If Rosen took it, Fisk would send assassins, not lawyers. And honestly? Rosen liked his odds against assassins better than he liked his odds against the IRS.
Back in the Vault
THUD. THUD. THUD.
The sound of a heavy battering ram hitting the outer security door echoed through the vault. Rosen didn't flinch. He was currently standing in front of a pallet of hundred-dollar bills, his hands moving in a blur.
Every time he touched a bundle, it was "converted" into his System balance.
[System Balance: $45,000,000... $52,000,000... $60,000,000...]
The numbers were ticking up like a crazy odometer. He could feel the sheer power of the money—the potential for six new skill draws, or enough potions to survive a small nuclear blast.
"Almost there," he whispered.
He could hear the shouting now. "Get that door open! Fisk wants his head on a platter! Move, move, move!"
Rosen glanced at the door, then back at the remaining piles of gold and cash. He had maybe two minutes before the "Emperor of the Underworld's" private army came through that door with everything from submachine guns to high-caliber rifles.
He didn't feel the fear he thought he would. He didn't feel like the scared kid who'd failed his history midterms. He felt cold. He felt calculated. He felt like a Level 1 Hero about to turn a mob boss's bank account into a personal playground.
After all, he was a man with a cheat!