Hunter of Marvel - Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Training

The bathroom was small, the grout between the white tiles yellowing with age and neglect. Veer turned the shower dial all the way to the right, waiting for the pipes to groan and spit before stepping under the lukewarm spray.

The water hit his shoulders, shocking his system, washing away the lingering scent of vanilla perfume and the stale, confusing sweat of a night he hadn’t fully lived. He leaned his hands against the damp tile, letting the water run over the back of his neck, and closed his eyes.

The physical sensations of this body were still overwhelming. For fifteen years in his past life, he had worked as a police officer. Before that, he had been an IT engineer, sitting behind a desk, debugging code until his eyes bled, before deciding he needed a career that felt more tangible, more grounded in the real world. The police force had given him that reality, but it had taken a massive toll. His old body had been a map of occupational hazards: a perpetually stiff lower back from the heavy duty belt, a dull ache in his right knee from a chase gone wrong, and the constant, heavy fatigue of irregular shifts and high-stress environments.

This body had none of that. It was entirely unburdened. The muscles were untested, the joints smooth and fluid. He rolled his shoulders, feeling the effortless glide of cartilage and tendon. It was a blank canvas.

He reached for the cheap bar of soap resting on the wire rack and began to lather his arms. As he scrubbed, the reality of his situation continued to settle into his bones. He didn’t feel any overwhelming urge to mourn his previous life. To be entirely honest with himself, there wasn’t much to mourn. He had no family left back in New Delhi. He had no girlfriend, no wife, no children to leave behind. His police job had been a thankless grind—low income, high demand, dealing with the absolute worst aspects of human nature on a daily basis.

Compared to that bleak, solitary existence, this new reality was practically a gold mine. He was eighteen again. He was living in a foreign country, completely independent, with his whole life ahead of him. And, most importantly, he had a supernatural system designed to make him stronger. It was the kind of scenario middle-aged men daydreamed about while stuck in gridlock traffic.

But as the lukewarm water rinsed the soap from his chest, a darker, far more humiliating memory surfaced, breaking through the optimistic haze.

He finally remembered exactly how he had arrived in this body. Or rather, how the original owner of this body had vacated it.

Veer rested his forehead against the cool, wet tile, a groan of profound second-hand embarrassment vibrating in his throat.

Last night. Felicia Hardy.

The original Veer had been desperate. Desperate to keep her attention, desperate to prove he wasn’t just some boring, convenient high school kid. When she had shown up at his apartment with a bottle of liquor, he had panicked. He wanted to impress her, to ensure the night was memorable.

So, he had taken a shortcut.

He had rummaged through the medicine cabinet of his absent roommate and found a blister pack of little blue pills. Thinking more was better, the kid had washed down a highly irresponsible dose of Viagra with a massive gulp of whiskey.

Felicia had certainly been impressed. But she had been entirely unaware that halfway through the night, the lethal combination of excessive medication, alcohol, and extreme physical exertion had triggered a massive, catastrophic strain on the teenager’s heart.

The kid had died. Right there in the bed. A silent, agonizing heart attack masked by the heavy breathing of their intimacy. And in that precise moment of biological failure, the soul of a thirty-six-year-old former police officer from New Delhi had seamlessly taken the wheel, the body restarting under new management.

“Idiot,” Veer muttered to the empty shower stall, shaking his head. “Absolute idiot.”

It was a pathetic, absurd way to die. But it was the reason he was here. He turned off the water, grabbed a slightly scratchy towel from the rack, and dried off quickly.

Stepping into the bedroom, he opened the narrow closet and pulled out his clothes. Muscle memory guided him as he dressed for school. A plain gray t-shirt, a slightly faded pair of blue jeans, and a dark hoodie. He grabbed his worn canvas backpack from the floor, slinging it over one shoulder, and walked into the small kitchen area to grab an apple from the fridge.

He was halfway to the front door, his hand resting on the brass deadbolt, when he stopped.

He blinked, looking out the small window next to the door. The sunlight outside was bright, casting long, lazy shadows across the asphalt of the street below. The traffic was sparse. The neighborhood was quiet, lacking the frantic, aggressive energy of a weekday morning.

He mentally checked the calendar in his head.

It was Sunday.

Veer let out a slow, breathy laugh, dropping his backpack onto the small entry table. The ingrained routine of the teenager’s life had almost marched him all the way to an empty high school building.

“No school today,” he said to himself, tossing the apple into the air and catching it.

He looked around the quiet apartment. He was already dressed. He was wide awake. The humiliating memory of his predecessor’s demise had left a strange, restless energy thrumming in his veins. He didn’t want to sit on the couch and watch television. He didn’t want to overthink the existential mechanics of his reincarnation.

He wanted to see the System work.

Leaving the backpack behind, Veer unlocked the front door and stepped out into the hallway.

The air outside the apartment building was crisp, carrying the distinct, layered scent of New York City—a mixture of hot asphalt, exhaust fumes, and the faint, sweet smell of a nearby bakery. He navigated the cracked sidewalks with his hands buried deep in the pockets of his hoodie, taking in the neighborhood with fresh eyes.

It wasn’t a wealthy area. The brick facades of the apartment buildings were stained with soot, the fire escapes rusted and cluttered with potted plants and drying laundry. Iron bars covered the windows of the corner bodegas. It was a working-class neighborhood, gritty and unpolished. During the day, it was perfectly fine. People walked their dogs, kids rode skateboards down the sloped driveways, and shop owners swept the pavement out front. The crime rate under the sun was relatively low.

But his inherited memories warned him that when the sun went down, the dynamic shifted. The shadows stretched, the quiet alleys became blind spots, and unless you had a reason to be out, you locked your doors. Only God, or sheer dumb luck, saved the people who wandered the wrong streets at night.

Veer walked for about ten minutes, letting the rhythm of the city wash over him, until he reached the local park.

It was exactly what he expected from the neighborhood. It wasn’t a lush, sprawling oasis of nature. The grass was patchy and brown in spots, the concrete walking paths were spider-webbed with cracks, and the chain-link fences surrounding the basketball courts were bowed and rusted.

Still, it served its purpose. A few elderly men in heavy coats sat on the wooden benches, their faces tilted upward to catch the morning sunlight. A couple of people were jogging along the perimeter, their earbuds firmly in place, entirely ignoring their surroundings.

Veer bypassed the crowded areas and walked toward the far end of the park, near an old, graffiti-covered handball court that stood entirely abandoned. An overgrown row of bushes provided a decent visual barrier from the main walking path.

He stopped in the center of the cracked concrete, taking a deep breath of the cool air. He rolled his shoulders, feeling a slight stiffness in his neck, and brought his hands up.

He didn’t know martial arts. During his time on the police force, he had learned basic restraint techniques, crowd control, and standard-issue brawling. He knew how to throw a punch that hurt, but he was no master.

He settled into a loose, comfortable stance. Keeping his breathing even, he threw a casual, probing jab into the empty air. It wasn’t particularly fast or strong; just a test of the joints, a way to gauge the movement of his new body.

He waited. He watched the space in front of him, waiting for the blue holographic panel to appear.

Nothing happened. No chime in his head. No notification.

Veer frowned. He threw another punch, slightly harder this time. Still nothing.

“Alright,” he muttered, adjusting his footing. “Let’s see what you actually want.”

He planted his back foot firmly against the concrete, twisting his hips and engaging his core. He pulled his right fist back to his jaw, took a sharp breath, and threw a straight cross with absolutely everything he had. He snapped his elbow, pivoting his shoulder, driving the knuckles into the empty air with a sharp, aggressive exhalation.

A satisfying, heavy whoosh sounded as his fist displaced the air.

Instantly, the familiar, sharp chime echoed inside his skull.

The blue, semi-transparent holographic panel flickered into existence right before his eyes, displaying a single, neat line of text.

[Action Registered. +0.01 EXP]

Veer lowered his fist, staring at the glowing numbers. His face slowly darkened as the mathematical reality of the system settled in.

Zero point zero one.

That meant it took exactly one hundred maximum-effort punches just to earn a single point of Experience. For level zero, requiring only one EXP to level up, that wasn’t insurmountable. But what about level ten? Level fifty? The exponential scaling of required EXP would be staggering. He would eventually need to throw tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of punches just to make a dent in his progress.

“Well,” Veer sighed, running a hand through his dark hair. “I guess they weren’t kidding about the grind.”

Before committing to a marathon of air-boxing, he decided to test the parameters of the system. The instructions had explicitly mentioned training, and anything can be training.

He dropped down onto the cold concrete, placing his hands flat against the rough surface, shoulder-width apart. He kicked his legs back, straightening his spine into a perfect plank position.

He lowered himself slowly, feeling the unfamiliar weakness in his triceps and chest, until his nose hovered an inch above the ground. Then, with a sharp exhale, he pushed himself back up, locking his elbows.

[Action Registered. +0.01 EXP]

He stood up, brushing the dirt from his palms, and immediately dropped into a deep squat, pushing his hips back and keeping his chest up, before driving through his heels to stand tall.

[Action Registered. +0.01 EXP]

He lay flat on his back on the concrete, hooking his feet beneath the lowest bar of the nearby chain-link fence for leverage. He crossed his arms over his chest and pulled himself up into a full sit-up.

[Action Registered. +0.01 EXP]

The system was fair. It didn’t discriminate between muscle groups. Any compound, full-body exercise executed with proper effort was rewarded equally.

However, as he stood back up, another notification pulsed gently at the edge of his vision. He focused on it, opening the main status window.

Fatigue: 4%

Veer’s eyes narrowed. He had thrown one full-power punch, completed one pushup, one squat, and one sit-up. Four actions. Four percent fatigue.

The math was incredibly straightforward, and brutally unforgiving. Every single movement executed at maximum effort cost exactly one percent of his total stamina. His physical limit, before his body simply refused to function, was exactly one hundred repetitions.

“So, breaking the human limit isn’t just a matter of willpower,” Veer noted quietly, staring at the blue screen. “The system hard-caps the energy output. To get stronger, I have to drain the tank entirely.”

He closed the interface with a thought. There was no point in delaying the inevitable. The morning air was cool, the park was relatively empty, and he had a tank to empty.

He decided to start with the legs. The foundation.

Veer positioned his feet, took a deep breath, and began to squat.

One.

Two.

Three.

He maintained a steady, robotic rhythm. Down, parallel to the ground, and up. The first ten reps were easy, a simple warm-up that barely elevated his heart rate. But by the time he hit twenty, the reality of his eighteen-year-old body set in. This kid did not work out. He was naturally lean, blessed with a fast metabolism, but his muscles were entirely untrained.

At twenty-five, a deep, uncomfortable burn began to spread through his quadriceps.

At twenty-eight, his breathing grew ragged, small clouds of condensation puffing from his lips into the cool air.

When he pushed up from the thirtieth squat, his knees trembled violently. He locked his legs, gasping for air, his hands resting heavily on his thighs. He didn’t need to open the menu to know where he stood; he could feel the system’s metric mirroring his physical state.

With the four initial test actions and the thirty squats, his fatigue meter had hit thirty-four percent. His legs felt like they were filled with wet sand.

“Don’t stop,” he whispered to himself, the commanding tone of a veteran police officer taking over the weak will of a teenager. “Don’t let the lactic acid settle. Keep moving.”

He couldn’t do another squat without compromising his form, so he changed the targeted muscle group. He dropped to his knees, then planted his hands on the concrete, assuming the pushup position.

His chest heaved as he lowered himself.

Thirty-five.

He pushed up. It was immediately significantly harder than the first test pushup. His core, already tired from stabilizing his squats, shook under the strain.

Thirty-seven.

Thirty-eight.

By the time he reached forty-two, his triceps were screaming. The rough concrete bit into his palms, and a bead of cold sweat tracked down the side of his face, stinging his eye.

He gritted his teeth, pushing through the agonizing burn.

Forty-four.

Forty-five.

He lowered himself for the next rep, but as he tried to push back up, his arms simply gave out. His elbows flared, his triceps failed, and he collapsed chest-first onto the cold, hard ground with a heavy thud.

He lay there for a moment, pressing his cheek against the concrete, dragging oxygen into his burning lungs. Forty-five percent fatigue. He wasn’t even halfway there.

“Up,” Veer commanded himself, his voice a harsh rasp.

He rolled over onto his back, wincing as the cold ground seeped through his hoodie. He shuffled backward until his shoes hooked under the chain-link fence again. He laced his fingers behind his head and braced his core.

Sit-ups.

Forty-six.

He pulled his torso upward. The abdominal muscles, neglected for eighteen years, cramped almost immediately in protest.

Forty-seven.

Every single repetition felt like a monumental battle of attrition against his own anatomy. The system wasn’t just measuring the movement; it was measuring the toll the movement took.

When he completed his tenth sit-up, pulling his chest to his knees for the fifty-fifth time that morning, a sharp, searing cramp ripped across his stomach. He fell backward, hitting the concrete flat on his back, staring up at the clear blue New York sky.

Fifty-five percent.

He couldn’t do another pushup. He couldn’t do another squat. He couldn’t lift his torso off the ground. Every major muscle group in his body felt like it had been tenderized with a meat mallet.

But he still had his arms. And he still had forty-five percent of his tank to empty.

Veer rolled onto his side, planting his palms against the ground, and pushed himself up. It took him three separate, agonizing attempts just to get his feet underneath him. He swayed on his feet, his vision swimming slightly at the edges.

He dragged himself a few feet away from the fence, returning to the center of the abandoned court.

He brought his hands up to his jaw. They felt like they were wrapped in lead.

He threw a punch.

It was pathetic. The speed was atrocious, the form was sloppy, and the kinetic force behind it wouldn’t have bruised a peach. It was the sluggish, desperate swing of a profoundly exhausted man.

He waited for the blue screen. He waited for the system to reject the pathetic effort.

[Action Registered. +0.01 EXP]

Veer let out a breathy, painful chuckle.

He understood. The system didn’t demand a specific metric of force. It didn’t care if the punch shattered concrete or merely bruised the air. The system’s only demand was absolute, unyielding effort relative to his current physical state.

Because he was exhausted, because throwing that weak punch required everything he had left in that specific moment, the system accepted it.

“Good,” he rasped, his voice raw. “That’s… that’s fair.”

He squared his shoulders, digging his worn sneakers into the concrete, and began to swing.

Fifty-seven.

Fifty-eight.

The world narrowed down to the space directly in front of his fists. The sounds of the distant traffic, the chatter of the old men on the benches, the rustling of the wind through the dead leaves—it all faded away into a dull, rushing static in his ears.

Sixty-five.

His arms felt disconnected from his body, operating purely on stubborn, spiteful momentum. Sweat poured down his face, soaking the collar of his t-shirt beneath the hoodie.

Seventy.

Every time he extended his arm, a sharp, localized pain shot through his shoulder joint.

Eighty.

His breathing sounded like a broken bellows, loud and ragged in the quiet park. He was no longer throwing proper punches; he was just hurling the dead weight of his arms forward, fighting the overwhelming urge to simply lie down and sleep.

Ninety.

The mental fortitude forged over fifteen years of grueling police work was the only thing keeping him upright. An eighteen-year-old high school kid would have quit thirty reps ago. But the thirty-six-year-old man inside the teenager refused to surrender to the pain.

Ninety-five.

Black spots danced across his vision. The edges of the handball court began to blur and smear into a gray void.

Ninety-eight.

He threw a right cross, entirely losing his balance. He stumbled forward, catching himself at the last possible second, his knees buckled and shaking.

Ninety-nine.

He dragged his left arm back. It felt like moving through wet concrete. He locked his jaw, squeezed his eyes shut, and thrust his fist forward one final, desperate time.

The moment his arm fully extended, a notification chimed.

[Action Registered. +0.01 EXP]

And then, the invisible tether holding him upright simply snapped.

Fatigue reached one hundred percent.

Veer didn’t stumble. He didn’t try to catch himself. His central nervous system simply shut down the connection to his muscles. He collapsed entirely, falling forward and hitting the cold, cracked concrete of the handball court with a dull, heavy thud.

He lay there, completely paralyzed, staring blankly at a stray blade of brown grass growing through a crack in the pavement. He couldn’t move his fingers. He couldn’t twitch his toes. He was entirely, fundamentally drained. Luckily, his consciousness held on; he didn’t faint, though the world spun lazily around him.

In the center of his blurred vision, a bright blue holographic screen flared to life, illuminating the concrete inches from his nose.

[Total EXP: 1.00]

[EXP Requirement Met.]

[Level Up!]