Chapter 4

The ladies left my apartment after finishing their coffee and I was a perfect gentleman. Did I start at Nat? Nope. Totally did not. Wow. That was a rush. The Black Widow in my apartment. Just damn.

Onto the system message.

System: You defeated a foe! Reward 200 exp and ongoing quest.

Ongoing Quest: Defeat a foe, whether that be a villain or a standard criminal.

Reward: 100 exp.

Damn that's nice. Oh another one!

System: Congratulations you have leveled up to 2! Your available stat point will be seen in your status window.

Well time to open that up. I wonder how many stat points I will get.

Stats

Name: Zachary Brown

Age: 18

Level: 2

Exp: 150/200

STR: 11

DEX: 9

AGI: 11

DUR: 6

VIT: 20

INT: 13

WIS: 13

Stat points: 7

Damn! A stat point for each stat. I could put them all in now or... yea I will save up until shit starts to kick off. Then and only then will I distribute them. It's 2007 now so I should be able to get a decent amount before things start happening.

Ok goals. 

1: Get strong.

2: Get smart.

3: Get Stark stocks.

4: Kick evil ass.

Yea that seems like a good plan. Well, nothin to it but to do it!

With that done I head to the gym to start the new year off right. Pumping Iron and running my ass off, followed by extreme stretches. Yoga is amazing if you were curious.

The year started good and sadly I didn't see Nat for the first couple weeks but when I did, oh boy. what a sight. Tight yoga pants along with a black tank top. Fit as hell and confident as all get out.

At the start of the session, she showed up with a smirk on her face. "Did you think I forgot about you?" She asked.

"Not at all. Teacher?" I asked. Not really sure how to address her. Phil has started to allow me to call him Phil, probably because Nat talked to him.

Just call me Nat. As you can tell this isn't like a regular dojo." She said confidently.

"Sounds good to me. I am your humble student for the next hour Nat." I said with a slight bow.

An evil smile showed on her face. "Good. Time to get hurt." 

"Wait what?" I say but before I could even comprehend what she was saying I was already on my back. Not complaining, ya know what I mean, but I don't think I even saw her move.

"Rule 1. Always alert. The only other rule is to do whatever you can to win. You are here to learn to be a badass fighting machine. Nothing is dirty. Nothing is off limits. In a real fight the enemy is trying to kill, so be prepared to kill." She instructed while helping me up.

"Yes mam!" I shout popping a smart salute.

For the next hour I got my ass handed to me. Dur even went up 2 from it. Gotta say it was fun. AS we cleaned the mat off from our combined sweat, I thanked her for her time, and she left. Obviously, she has more important things to do.

Phil came up to me. "You did good Zach. Not many people would stick it through for an hour."

"Thanks Phil. It was a great workout. Have a good one and see ya tomorrow." I say with a wave and head to the other part of the gym.

I finished up and went home exhausted from the day. I should see how my stats have done from the studying and exercise.

Stats

Name: Zachary Brown

Age: 18

Level: 2

Exp: 150/200

STR: 13

DEX: 12

AGI: 14

DUR: 10

VIT: 20

INT: 16

WIS: 17

Stat points: 7

Nice progress. I have upped the intensity of everything by quite a bit. Especially with my reading. I have a feeling being smart will be important. Actually, I might bump them up to 21 if they hit 20 soon.

I haven't run into any thugs or anything like that, so no exp. Makes me a little sad but I'm not going to run around and look for them. "Give me your wallet!" I hear. Of course, as soon as I think that there has been nothing going on.

I follow the noise to an alley right next to my apartment and see a guy with a knife threatening my neighbor again! Seriously what are the odds. Christine has horrible luck.

"Help!" She screamed While trying to pull away.

"Hey!" I shout. Grabbing the would-be thugs' attention. "Let her go and walk away."

"The fuck you think you're doing? Walk away bitch! This doesn't concern you." The dumbass snaps back.

Alright I guess it's time. "You don't really give me a choice here." I say before lunging forward.

He doesn't even have time to process my word before I'm on him. I try to grab his knife but it seems like he was able to catch up right before. Next thing I know there's a stabbing burning pain in my had. I look at my hand in disbelief, so does he. We're both shock at what just happened.

He stabbed me. He. Stabbed. Me! What the fuck! I rip my hand off the blade and grab him with my other hand by the hair. I proceed to pummel his face with the stabbed hand over and over again. He screamed at first but then it just turned into a low moan of pain.

Honestly it was the moan of pain that snapped me out of it. I didn't want to kill him afterall. I let go and he drops to the ground.

"Oh my god! Zach! Are you ok?" Christine asks me while trying to stop the blood from my hand.

"Oh just great. That's a lot of blood. I might pass out." I say weakly. I didn't pass out, close but the paramedics and police showed up quick enough. I was whisked away to the hospital faster than I could really comprehend. You lose sense of time when bleeding out and in pain. Ugh this sucks. I need Hulk level everything like pronto.

The hospital was nice. Steril ya know. Got that good antiseptic smell to it.... I can't wait to leave. Like sure the nurse I have is kinda cute, but no one really like a hospital. It is so depressing.

Well, they numb my hand, that shit hurts by the way. They shove a needle around all four sides and inject numbing agent so they can stitch you up. Sucks super bad. After the stitches they let me leave. All in all, it took about 4 hours.

I get up and go to pay, I do have insurance from the library, but I find that Christine has already paid for me. Oh, and guess who is standing next to her! If Nat was guessed, then give yourself a pat on the back.

Ugh I don't really want to deal with this right now.

The see me and wave me over.

"Hey Zach!" Christine says cheerfully. 

"Hey. How are you? This is the second time you know?" I say with concern.

"Yea... I seem to be a trouble magnet." She looks down sadly.

"It's ok. At least your safe. that's all that matters." I reply.

"Hey Zach." Nat nods to me.

"Hey Nat." I nod back.

"We are gonna up your training." She says and walks away, taking Christine with her.

"Yea sure. Makes sense, I guess." I mutter.

I go to the receptionist at the counter to pay only to find that one of the two lovely ladies in my life already did! Oh yea! Pay my bills and I will love you forever. I ask which one paid and she said the redhead! Nat! It is fate! I knew she cared.

After leaving the hospital I head home to wallow in self pitty. I mean my hand really freakin hurts. The numbing agent is wearing off and it just aches!

I get in the house, lock the door behind me and flop down on the couch.

Ting!

Of yea... I just defeated a mugger. 100exp!!!!

System: Congratulations you are now level 3!

Stats

Name: Zachary Brown

Age: 18

Level: 3

Exp: 50/400

STR: 13

DEX: 12

AGI: 14

DUR: 10

VIT: 20

INT: 16

WIS: 17

Stat points: 14

Ewwwww. My exp needed for every level doubles. That's gonna make it hard to keep going up.

Hmm now that I think about it... I have a perfect way to increase myself right now! My Vit! I cant naturally increase that so let's just use stat points! Perfect. I assign 1 to Vit to see what happens.

Ting!

System: For passing the threshold of 20 a fundamental change has occurred in your body. Life span stays the same, but regeneration rate has doubled! Congrats you have a healing factor now! This is the most basic of healing factors.

Nice! ok so let's bump it up to 30.

Nothing. Looks like it's after an interval of 10 maybe?

I add one more point to it.

Ting!

System: For passing the threshold of 30 a monumental change has occurred in your body. Life span stays the same, but regeneration rate has quadrupled! For those not good at math that means you now heal 8 times faster. You are truly becoming super human!

Wow I can already feel it healing. It's odd, itches. I pull my stats up to check it.

Stats

Name: Zachary Brown

Age: 18

Level: 3

Exp: 50/400

STR: 13

DEX: 12

AGI: 14

DUR: 10

VIT: 31

INT: 16

WIS: 17

Stat points: 3

Abilities.

Healing factor x 8: Your body heals at a rate 8 times faster than a normal human.

Oh shit I have abilities now. What else will I get? Well that is for future me to find out. Now I am going to sleep.

I wake up bright and early. My hand doesn't hurt or itch at all anymore. I unwrap the bandage and see a line in the front and back of my hand. Stitches are almost gone. Its obvious that I heal way too fast now.

Oh well not like I'm gonna hide anything from Shield or the avengers, much less Nat. I never liked the way people hid things anyways. Always seemed so cheap. I mean keep yourself around the main characters or just don't make big waves at first. No need to hide. That makes you look weak.

I eat a nice breakfast of eggs and toast with a banana. Oh and coffee, can't forget the coffee. Ah I would commit war crimes if I didn't have my cup of joe in the morning.

Well with breakfast done its time to go to work. I have an hour, but I like being early. As I open the door Nat is standing there with hand up about to knock.

"Hi Nat. Uhm wanna come in?" I say awkwardly.

"Yea sure." She says while walking in. "I know you are headed to work I just wanted to stop by and see how you're doing."

"Oh I'm good. ready to get back to normal ya know." I say holding up my hand.

Wait my hand. Oh shit. It's practically healed and this is really early to let her know. I was expecting like a couple days from now to make it more reasonable. Oh well.

"Your hand is healed!?!" She screams out.

"Well I didn't want to really do this so soon but... You could say I'm a mutant I guess. Would you like to know more?" Honestly, I'm feeling a little vulnerable right now.

"Wait a mutant? Like the X-men?" She asks.

"Yup! Oh that makes things so much easier." I sigh out.

"Ok well what is your power?" She demands with her hands on her hips.

"I call it my system. Turns my life into a game I guess. The only thing I can do is upgrade my stats. Like an RPG." I continue excitedly. "Actually Maybe I can show you."

I pull open my phone and show her the System app. "Can you see this?" I ask.

"Yes..." She sounds awkward.

"Ok so see here. all these past notifications are my ability working and here is the description for everything." I say handing her the phone.

She starts scrolling through, absorbing everything she's reading. After a couple minutes she stops.

"Well this is gonna change some things." She sighs. "We need to go to my work and see my boss. I can guarantee you will be safe, I will not leave you. Not just because of Christine but because you are genuinely a good guy."