The first thing I saw was a list of disciplines. Eight of them, like skill trees in some RPG, only instead of virtual skills—completely real, potentially lethal knowledge. They didn't just hang in the air but seemed to be engraved with light against the dark background of the interface. Each had a short but meaningful description.
Herbology (Force of Nature)—a discipline focused on using plants to create healing and enhancing compounds. My first thought was skeptical. Herbology? Sounds like a subject name in a school for wizards, something for straight-A girls and botanists. I imagined endless hours of grinding some roots with a pestle in a mortar. But then it hit me. This is the Marvel world. A world where heart-shaped herb grows in Wakanda, giving super-strength, and where living trees wander somewhere in space. I immediately understood that this wasn't about daisies and plantains. Most likely, I'd have to hunt for some "moon daisy" that grows once every hundred years on a Himalayan mountain peak or "whispering moss" from the caves of Asgard. Promising, no doubt. Creating serums that increase strength or regeneration is a direct path to the big leagues. But there might be, to put it mildly, logistical problems. I'm a penniless student in Hell's Kitchen. I'd be lucky to scrape together subway fare, let alone an expedition to Tibet. So yes, tempting, but it's a game for the rich and influential. Let's set it aside for now.
Chemistry (Transformation of Matter)—the science of mixing substances to obtain new, often dangerous compounds. Now this was more like it. No abstract alchemy with miracle herbs, a philosopher's stone, and the transmutation of lead into gold. In theory—perfectly concrete formulas, reactions, and reagents. Chemistry is the basis of everything. From household cleaning poison to the most sophisticated poisons and explosives. It's the sticky webbing Spider-Woman uses to pin thugs to walls, and acid capable of burning through a bank vault. Dangerous? Absolutely. I'm no chemist, and one mistake, one wrong drop or an extra degree when heating, could cost me this wretched apartment, or even my life. I vividly imagined how a stray spark could turn my hovel into a small branch of hell with toxic smoke and bits of furniture on the walls. But the potential is enormous. And most importantly—accessibility. Many reagents, even in crude form, can be obtained from ordinary household goods. It's risky and dirty, but real. Definitely keeping that in mind.
Explosives (Controlled Chaos)—the art of creating and using explosive substances. The name spoke for itself. Straightforward and unadorned. Not "pyrotechnics," but specifically "explosives." I mentally pictured the headlines in the Daily Bugle: "Mysterious Bomber from Hell's Kitchen Strikes Again!". No, thank you. Attracting the attention of S.H.I.E.L.D., the FBI, and other guys in black was not in my plans. I am a builder by nature, not a destroyer. But… the cynical, practical part of my mind immediately threw up another thought. Explosives aren't just bombs. They're also smoke bombs for retreat, flashbangs for disorienting an opponent, and shaped charges for breaching armored doors. It's a tool. A powerful, terrifying, but still a tool. It was worth studying the recipes at least for general development and understanding how this crap works. To know what to expect from others. So I don't plan on creating them yet, but studying—absolutely.
Blacksmithing (Art of Metal)—metal processing for creating armor and weapons. Here, the craftsman in me woke up. The line vibrated, touching something deep inside. The smell of red-hot metal and coal, the deafening but rhythmic bang of the hammer on the anvil, the hiss of white-hot steel being plunged into water… I almost physically felt it. This was mine. Real, honest craft. But reality immediately doused me with cold water. A forge. In my one-room studio? Working with a rotary hammer here is already a problem with the neighbors, let alone a forge that would burn out all the wiring and cause a fire. This is a goal for the distant, very distant future when I have my own garage or workshop. A dream to strive for.
Weaponcraft (Thunder and Steel)—creating and modifying firearms. Hm. I'm in the USA. Here you can buy a gun in a supermarket around the corner if you have a permit, and sometimes even without one. Spending time and resources on creating a flintlock steampunk pistol that is inferior to factory models is stupidity. I'm no gunsmith, and my homemade pipe gun would likely explode in my own hands. But what if the recipes offered something… exotic? A railgun in rifle format? A plasma cutter? An electromagnetic accelerator firing ball bearings? Or even just a modification: creating a perfect silencer, non-lethal ammunition, smart sights. Now that's a different conversation. This direction heavily depends on what exactly the system offers. For now—on the "to look at" list, and who cares if every discipline is on that list, hah.
Electricity (Spark of Life)—taming the power of electricity to create amazing devices. In a world where Tony Stark lives, this direction is one of the key ones. Electricity is the language that modern technology speaks. It's both a weapon and a defense, and energy for future projects. From a simple taser to the most complex microcircuits, power sources like an arc reactor or even EMP generators. The potential is limitless. But the entry barrier, I suspect, is the highest. It's not just about connecting "plus" to "minus." It's physics, mathematics, circuit engineering. Although, considering exactly where the recipes will come from, I vividly imagined circuits where a step would be "charge from Thor's lightning" or "connect to the Tesseract." Definitely need to study this in more detail, but for some reason, I'm sure that without a base in other disciplines like Mechanics, I won't get far here.
Mechanics (Movement and Logic)—designing and creating complex mechanisms and automatons. Now this—yes. This is mine. It's not about fixing stools, but creating something truly complex. Mechanics is the skeleton of any device. It's gears, levers, drives, hydraulics. It's the foundation for everything else. Want to make a cool gun? You need mechanics. Want to assemble a robot assistant? Mechanics. An exoskeleton? Her again. Unlike blacksmithing, you can start small here. Take apart old tech, rummage in junkyards, create something from scrap materials. This is a direct and understandable path for me to create useful gadgets and tools that will make my life and work easier in other areas. Again, it all comes down to resources and a workshop, but you can start on your knee, provided the recipes allow it. This is the foundation.
Therapeutics (Technology of Healing)—a combination of chemistry and mechanics for creating healing devices and potent medicines. I mentally bowed to this discipline. This is a joker. An ace up the sleeve. In a world where things are constantly exploding, collapsing, where heroes and villains clash in battles that level entire blocks, the ability to heal is not just a useful skill. It's survival, money, influence. The chance to stitch your own wound without going to a hospital where they'll start asking uncomfortable questions. The chance to create a regenerative gel or a stimulant that puts you on your feet in a couple of hours rather than weeks. This is where the real gold is buried. But it's also the greatest danger. A person capable of performing medical miracles will immediately become a target for everyone: from the government to criminal syndicates. They'll either try to control you or simply kill you so you don't fall to the enemy. The complexity here is also extreme—you need to understand chemistry, mechanics, and apparently biology. This is a goal for the future. Very important, but not a priority.
So, having briefly skimmed the disciplines and headings, I proceeded to the most important and responsible stage—choosing a recipe! Opening one discipline after another, I carefully read the again-abbreviated descriptions of the recipes and noted the most interesting and potentially useful ones. There were several dozen recipes in each discipline, which pleased me, because if the count were in the hundreds... I fear even one night wouldn't be enough to adequately cover them all, but as it was, there were only about 200-250 recipes in all disciplines combined.
To start noting the useful ones, and so as not to get confused, I wrote the names in a notebook, deciding to go in order, starting with Herbology. Here, 7 recipes caught my eye, each useful and functional in its own way: a healing balm, a persuasion elixir, fatigue pills, a restorative agent, a miracle cure, an acceleration potion, and an intellect potion. Despite the seemingly obvious names, the descriptions for things like the persuasion elixir or fatigue pills surprised me, which is why I added them to my wish list. The persuasion elixir temporarily increased the charisma and eloquence of whoever drank it, while the fatigue pills removed that very fatigue—ideally, they should be called anti-fatigue pills.
Reading the resulting list again, I crossed off the healing balm and restorative agent. These are less effective healing analogs of the miracle cure. I marked the Intellect Potion with an asterisk, which, according to the description, temporarily sharpened the mind, allowing one to solve complex problems or notice things previously hidden. A sort of NZT-48 on a budget. In the end, 5 recipes remained, the problem with which was that I didn't understand if they required magical herbs that I would be unlikely to obtain... Anyway, analysis done, moving on to Chemistry!
Here, setting aside a pile of poisons of various degrees of dubiousness and lethality, and a pile of options aimed at neutralizing or enhancing magic, I eventually settled on only 3 recipes: Acid Mixture (a caustic acid capable of corroding armor, weapons, and flesh), Elixir of Fire Resistance, and Will Paralysis Poison (a strong neurotoxin that completely paralyzes the victim for some time without killing them). Based on the brief descriptions of both the discipline and the recipes themselves, I dare hope that magic isn't heavily involved here, although...
"The line between science and magic again blurred as I examined the 'Elixir of Fire Resistance.' The description read: 'A compound that makes the skin temporarily immune to high temperatures by forming an unstable energy field.' It sounded scientific enough, but what exactly is an 'unstable energy field'? Is that something from Tony Stark's lexicon or Doctor Strange's? If it requires, say, powdered scales from a mythical salamander, it's magic. If it's achieved by mixing rare-earth metals and irradiating them at a specific frequency, it's science—however complex. The system mixed these concepts, calling everything 'technologies.' Perhaps for the system, there was no difference. As Arthur C. Clarke said, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. I'll just have to get used to this blurred boundary. The main thing is that the ingredient list shouldn't include items like 'add a pinch of faith and a drop of luck.' I might have problems with those. Anyway, moving on to the Explosives discipline!"
"Molotov Cocktail, Dynamite, Flamethrower, Mine, Chlorine Gas Grenade... I threw all of these and more into the scrap heap! I don't need lethality yet. In the end, only two—actually, just one—recipe caught my interest: the Stun Grenade. A non-lethal device that disorients and deafens everyone within range with a bright flash and a loud bang. According to the description, it's a useful thing. The second recipe is Plastic Explosive—a powerful and controlled explosive that can be attached to any surface—and specifically because it can be controlled, I marked it with a question mark, but it's still more of a no than a yes. Next up is Blacksmithing."
"Axes, swords, shields, armor, gauntlets, helmets, and even boomerangs... Various properties, indistinguishable from magic and likely being exactly that, with a huge selection of recipes. I didn't take note of anything from this list for the simple reason that I'm unlikely to be able to create any of it in my current reality. For example, Molten Glass Armor—a unique armor created using volcanic glass that protects perfectly against fire—it's physically difficult for me to imagine how to make armor out of glass, and what even is volcanic glass? Or the Boomerang Shield—an aerodynamically balanced shield that returns to the owner after being thrown—would I need to train to use it like Captain America? Or is it a conceptual property hard-coded into the shield during its creation, triggering regardless of the owner's skill? Questions... So many questions that I can't adequately answer yet, so moving on to Weaponcraft."
"Things here were much the same as with Blacksmithing. It's physically difficult to imagine where and how I could currently assemble a Harpoon Gun—which fires a steel harpoon attached to a cable, allowing one to pull in enemies or objects—or an Elephant Gun, a large-caliber rifle with monstrous stopping power. After skimming the impressive list of rifles, shotguns, revolvers, and various exotics, I settled on just one recipe: the Tesla Gun. It fires concentrated bolts of lightning, dealing massive area-of-effect damage and being especially effective against machinery and electronics. I certainly won't be choosing it, but noting a Gauss rifle on steroids doesn't hurt, especially since the next discipline is Electricity, and I think there will be more interesting options there than Big-Gun-Go-Boom."
"Excluding the truly lethal stuff and simple analogues of a taser that I could buy at a store, like the Shock-Staff—a staff capable of hitting enemies with electrical discharges on contact—I narrowed my choice down to only three recipes, one of which sounds too imbalanced even by description, but dreaming doesn't hurt: the Mechanical Spider-Shocker—a small automaton that runs up to an enemy and hits them with a powerful electric discharge; the Protective Field Generator—a device that creates a small power barrier capable of stopping bullets and arrows; and the imbalanced Teleportation Beacon—a complex device that, once installed, creates an anchor point to which you can teleport using a special remote. Naturally, the Protective Field Generator looks like the most obvious choice, if you set aside the Beacon, which I'm unlikely to be able to create, and it sounds like something... magical. Brr, that word makes me twitch. Oh well, the next discipline is Mechanics!"
"There were quite a few recipes here, almost as many as in Blacksmithing, but most of them are highly specialized automatons. I'm unlikely to even assemble a regular Spider Automaton—a mechanical assistant capable of fighting and carrying loads—let alone something like a Medical Spider, an advanced automaton programmed for first aid and capable of injecting healing balms. I suspect those balms would come from Herbology or Therapeutics, and it's hard to trust first aid to a robot assembled on a workbench—assuming I could even assemble it. Anyway, automatons can go into the scrap heap. I'm noting the following interesting recipes: the Mechanical Dagger—a dagger with a complex spring mechanism that 'shoots' the blade forward, increasing attack range; Binocular Goggles—an optical device for observing distant objects; the Gyroscope—a complex device that can be built into weapons or armor to improve balance and accuracy; and the Exoskeleton—the pinnacle of mechanics, a power frame that not only protects but also significantly increases the wearer's physical strength. The latter is again just to drool over a steampunk version of Iron Man's armor on a budget, hah. As for the Mechanical Dagger, it's nostalgia for the Assassins' hidden blade, and Binocular Goggles aren't really needed given I can buy regular binoculars—fine, I won't cross them off anyway. In theory, the most useful thing in this discipline is the Gyroscope, but I have no idea how it works, so I'll just mark it with an asterisk and move on to the last and most interesting discipline for me—Therapeutics!"
"I skipped dozens of variations of Healing Potions that actually differ only in name, especially since their analogues exist in Herbology, and in the end, I was left with only four relatively interesting recipes... Not much, but it's a sin to complain; a truly difficult choice lies ahead. For now, in Therapeutics, I've settled on the following: the Necromizer—a chemical compound that causes a chain reaction of decay upon contact with the undead; the Muscle Stimulant—a powerful steroid that temporarily increases strength and endurance to superhuman levels without side effects; the Vivisector—a rarest and most complex device that, when applied to the newly deceased, can jumpstart their heart and bring them back to life; and the Purity Serum—a medicine capable of curing the most terrible diseases and even lifting some curses by acting on them at the cellular level."
"I kept the Necromizer just in case a zombie apocalypse happens—this is Marvel, after all, you can't be insured against anything... Among the other three options, the Vivisector looks the most interesting, but the Purity Serum, essentially a maxed-out Healing Potion, is also attractive. However, I likely won't be able to create either the Vivisector or the Purity Serum, so the asterisk goes to the Muscle Stimulant."
"Scanning the list again and marking the most interesting and obvious options with asterisks—those that don't look like 'an atomic reactor in a garage'—my final choice turned out not to be that large: the Intellect Potion, Will Paralysis Poison, Stun Grenade, Protective Field Generator, Gyroscope, and Muscle Stimulant. Only six options that I could theoretically—for now, only theoretically—do something with, and even then, I'm not sure what level of technology the Protective Field Generator and Gyroscope require... Why only one recipe to choose... This is too hard! Well, actually, the choice is quite obvious."