Hell's Kitchen was not the best place in the world to be.
One of the neighborhoods of New York City, with the reputation of being the most dangerous of all, having things that only residents could describe.
Not even her night protector, Daredevil, was able to deal with all her horrors alone. That's what the Defenders existed for.
But for Ethan none of this mattered, not when he had nowhere else to go. And in the search for a relatively safe place, Hell's Kitchen turned out to be the best option.
A cursed neighborhood, where only the brave dared to step and the residents turned a blind eye to the bizarre things that happened during the night. A place for the desperate, aimless and fearless.
And ironically, the best place where a desperate fucker like Ethan could be.
He didn't have a family that would look for him, at least not in this universe, he didn't have better housing options and obviously, he didn't have the power to choose where he would end up. He could only let himself be guided by fate.
And fate took him to Hell's Kitchen.
At that moment, Ethan was inside an old building that would be demolished in a few months. The place for the homeless, drug addicts and for Ethan.
In a dark corner further away from the junkies, Ethan called the system to clarify some doubts.
[ Did you call me? ]
"You said that these templates provide me with the skills and capacities of the characters they represent, right? "
[ Why are you asking me about something you already know? ]
"How can I use these skills? And now that I ask, how can I increase my fusion rate with the templates? "
The fusion rate was something that intrigued Ethan a lot. According to the description, it represented how much of the template in question he had absorbed and how much of the potential of this character he could use.
And if it could be measured, then it could be increased. And if Enerjak really was as strong as the description of the system made it seem, then he should worry about increasing this rate as soon as possible.
Especially knowing that at marvel, things can go from 0 to 1000 very fast.
And the skills were even more important. Ethan, like anyone else with the minimum knowledge about fiction, knew a lot about the concept of superhuman abilities and its various variations.
In the description, it was said that Enerjak had abilities such as super strength, flight, super speed, magic and others. But only one caught Ethan's attention.
Reality manipulation.
The supreme power of any fiction.
The power to manipulate laws, rules and universal concepts, concepts that have existed since the beginning of the universe. The ability to manipulate the very fabric of reality to be able to accomplish everything you want.
This ability alone was enough to make someone omnipotent. If Ethan could learn how to use this skill, then nothing in that damn world could stop him.
So he could finally settle down and have a quiet life without any worries.
So he could-
[ Is the internal monologue over or will I have to wait another hour for you to finish? ]
Once again, Ethan found himself wandering again.
[ As I was saying, you can use all the skills of your current template as long as you know what skills it has and how you can use them, but this is also limited by the fusion rate ]
"How limited in the case? " He asked now with all his attention on the system.
[ Well, in your case, you have the powers of Enerjak. In fact, because you have his template, it's as if you were a new incarnation of Enerjak. But due to your low fusion rate, you don't have all his skills. Or rather, you have, but you can't access ]
[ For example, Enerjak is an omnipotent and omnipresent being in its complete form, but you will only have these skills when you fully assimilate the template ]
[ The same applies to the rest of your skills. You can use them the way you want and when you want, but they will be limited by your fusion rate and your own mastery with these powers ]
Ethan silently processed these words as ideas and theories formed in his head.
In a nutshell, because of his current fusion rate, it was as if he were a nerfed version of Enerjak. He had the same powers, but he couldn't use them with the same mastery and skill as the original.
And because of that, some of his skills could not be accessed at the moment, even if he didn't have them yet. And this probably also included reality manipulation, because it was a catastrophic skill, and also because I still didn't know how to use it.
This left him a little discouraged, but he was already someone used to disappointments, so he just accepted the facts as he always did. Still, it didn't mean there were no other opportunities.
He still had skills such as telekinesis, telepathy and enhanced attributes, which were skills with which he was most familiar and could master more easily, as they were very simple skills in their essence.
That, of course, in theory. It's one thing to know how to use these powers, another thing to use them in practice. But this could be for another time, because now he had more important things to do.
"You said a lot, but you still haven't explained how I can increase my fusion rate"
[ This subject is now a little more complex ]
"Why? "
[ Fusion rate not only represents how much of the template potential you have absorbed, but also represents how much of the character's essence you are absorbing. For each time you increase it, it's as if a part of the character's essence was integrated into your soul ]
"Could you explain better? " Ethan asked, because that didn't make sense in his view.
[ Let's sume your template is a suicidal serial killer without any kind of love for life itself. The more you increase your fusion rate with this character, the more traits of him you will acquire. For example, your desire to kill, your lack of empathy for the lives of others, your tendencies to put yourself in life or death situations, etc. ]
[ But don't confuse things. You won't be possessed by the character or becoming him little by little. These traits that you gain from the templates are being integrated into you little by little, but so that your original personality always prevails in relation to the personality of the template ]
[ For example, if you are a pacifist and your template is an aggressive and violent extremist soldier, you will at most begin to accept more the idea of hurting and even killing others in necessary cases, but you will still be the same pacifist as before ]
Now it did make sense, Ethan thought.
"You still haven't explained how I can increase the rate," Ethan recalled, already annoyed by the system continuing to make meaningless turns.
[ I was about to get there, but since the little prick can't wait... ]
[ To increase the rate, the easiest way is to train, either by training the character's skills or another type of related training, or start taking actions similar to the character in the template ]
"Similar attitudes? "
[ Yes. As mentioned before, the fusion rate also represents how much of the character's essence is being integrated into you. If you want to increase it quickly, you can start taking similar attitudes to the character or start adopting some of his characteristics. As a way of speaking, actions, personality, style, etc. ]
That was the information Ethan wanted, a quick way to increase his fusion rate and be able to access more of Enerjak's total power.
The faster he got stronger, the better for him. But this raised a simple, but very important question...
"System, what was Enerjak's nature? I mean, was he good or bad? "
[ That's hard to answer. He is classified as an evil entity because all his avatars went crazy with power and were willing to commit various atrocities simply because they could. So, as they are a representation of him in our world, you can say that he was not the best type of person in existence ]
"What kind of atrocities? " Ethan asked, afraid of the answer.
[ Well, Knuckles while Enerjak wanted to create a reign of slavery and oppression because he believed that the only way to establish true peace was to destroy all technology and create a world without it. And Dimitri was a crazy man obsessed with domination who wanted above all to dominate everything and everyone below him ]
Ethan just let out a sigh of disappointment seeing that.
He certainly wouldn't do that. Ethan was just a normal person at the end of the day, a boy he had never killed before and who avoided thinking about this possibility. No way he would dream of doing it even if his two " predecessors"
Still, at least now he had the bases to start with. I had theories to test, I had powers to train and above all, I had time to spend.
The only advantage of being a stranger without archenemies or a gallery of villains wanting your head.