11. A Bountiful Harvest

When Joss repeated the Diamond Stardust Fist stance for the seventeenth time, a total of three minutes and twenty-four seconds had passed before Captain America, Steve Rogers, and Iron Man, Tony Stark, finally arrived at the scene, fashionably late.

However, what they hadn’t expected was that the battle had already ended by the time they got there. Yet, the conclusion wasn’t marked by anyone's defeat; rather, every person present, friend and foe alike, sat collapsed on the ground, their faces etched with utter despair.

Jason still wanted to fight, but the mutation and enhancements he’d undergone with the serum had already consumed much of his vitality. After being dragged out by Joss for so long, he was completely spent and unable to move.

“Nick? Natasha? What on earth happened here?”

The two newcomers, already primed for battle, were left bewildered by the scene before them, but their reactions remained sharp. Steve moved to Nick Fury and Natasha’s side to question them in detail, while Tony leaped next to Jason, keeping a vigilant watch on the enormous monster that clearly wasn’t a friendly.

While Nick Fury and Steve explained the situation on one side, Joss, utterly exhausted, collapsed onto the ground. Even though he’d only been using the stance without any real power, the Diamond Stardust Fist was still a Saint Seiya technique, and after performing it over a dozen times with nothing but a mortal’s body, fatigue had thoroughly overtaken him.

But now that Captain America and Iron Man were here, Joss had nothing left to worry about. After all, one was Marvel’s own Kakashi who could hold his own against anyone, the other a pay-to-win player who could pull out a specialized suit for every opponent. As for Jason, an unremarkable mutant, even with some unknown serum, there was no way he could stir up further trouble.

Everything that followed would be handled by S.H.I.E.L.D., and just as he’d hoped, Joss became the only person from this round to officially join their ranks.

There was no helping it—since the assessment had been cut short, most people hadn’t finished the tests. Moreover, with a Hydra remnant appearing among the recruits—please don’t break up that sentence—the rest of the candidates were naturally not going to be cleared for use by S.H.I.E.L.D. until a thorough investigation had been completed.

But all that hardly concerned Joss. At this moment, he lay in his apartment, taking stock of his recent gains.

Aside from the hidden mission, Joss’s recklessness score had soared to fifty-two points—this mission was a bountiful harvest. First, he obtained five hundred units of what the system called the Source of Recklessness, but the next second, the system immediately deducted them all, claiming it was for an upgrade.

Besides that, Joss had acquired no less than six new abilities.

[Name: The Useless Omniscient]
[Rarity: N]
[Effect: You know every useless fact in this world.]
[PS: Did you know that urine is rainbow-colored under a microscope?]

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[Name: Chest Telepathy]
[Rarity: R]
[Effect: Regardless of distance, you can form a mental link with the person you know who has the largest bust.]
[PS: A useful ability for dates, unless you prefer the flat-chested.]

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[The Essence of Humanity Is...]
[Rarity: The Essence of Humanity Is...]
[Effect: The Essence of Humanity Is...]
[PS: The Essence of Humanity Is...]

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[Arrogant Smile]
[Rarity: N]
[Effect: You can smile arrogantly while speaking, without it interfering with your speech.]
[Set Bonus: If you also possess the Devilish Smile, nothing can stop you from smiling arrogantly or devilishly.]

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[Whoa, Reins!]
[Rarity: N]
[Effect: If you shout “Whoa, reins!” while moving in any way, you can forcibly stop your movement.]
[PS: If you plan to use this on a train or airplane, please make your final arrangements first.]

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[Name: This Is a Transformation Ability with Extremely Complex Prerequisites]
[Rarity: SR]
[Effect: At exactly 12:00:00 noon on a Thursday, during a torrential downpour in your area, if you eat ten durians within one minute, you can transform into someone else for one minute.]
[PS: As its name suggests, this transformation ability has extremely complex prerequisites.]

Gazing at the six new abilities on the system panel, if Joss had been dissatisfied with the system before, he was still just as dissatisfied now. With a system as erratic as if it had a screw loose, there was no way he could like it.

Of the six abilities, only one was an SR, guaranteed by the system’s upgrade. Of the five abilities earned after joining S.H.I.E.L.D., aside from one with a completely inexplicable rarity, all the others were N-rank. His luck was so bad it was almost catastrophic!

Even if you ignored the rarity, the abilities this time seemed even more absurd than before! What was all this nonsense?

Just look at that SR ability: let alone the heap of prerequisites, even if he somehow managed to meet them all, what could he even do with just one minute of being someone else?

Mystique’s shapeshifting was at least semi-permanent—one minute barely gets you through the front door if you’re infiltrating!

From the name to the PS, he’d already exhausted all the possible ridicule for this one. Joss found he had nothing more to say.

“Tch... But at least my earlier guess was right. The abilities given by this system may be utterly ridiculous, but if used well, their effects aren’t exactly useless.”

No matter what, this system was his only support now, so Joss had to rack his brain for ways to maximize—or at least make practical use of—its capabilities.

“Looking at these powers, most of them don’t amount to much, or their activation methods are just too strange. But if used in the right time and place, they could display considerable power.”

Take the Diamond Stardust Fist stance, for example. While it shone today, if he’d faced a stronger opponent, it would have made no difference in the end.

If, for instance, he’d been facing the purple-skinned titan just now, even if he’d performed the stance until he dropped dead, it wouldn’t have changed the outcome in the slightest.

This time, Joss had been able to stall until the Avengers arrived to clean up the mess, but if the titan attacked, who could possibly come to the rescue then?

Earlier, the Power of the Housefly was another ability with subtle effects. He’d been able to enrage Jason to such an extent because Jason’s fury toward him had already reached its peak, and he wasn’t the patient type.

If Jason’s anger toward Joss had been zero, then no matter how much he forced the issue, the result would still have been zero.

In short, today’s outcome owed as much to “luck” as it did to the abilities themselves—perhaps luck was the true MVP of the day.