Respawned in Marvel: The Ultimate Hunter System - Chapter 5

Chapter 5: The Anatomy of Grief and the Awakening of Aura

A month in New York City felt simultaneously like a fleeting second and a grueling decade.

For Veer, the transition from a malnourished, terrified exchange student to a Level 12 superhuman had become his new normal. The cheap Queens apartment no longer felt like a stranger’s house; it was his sanctuary, his training ground, and his laboratory. The scent of stale floor cleaner had long been replaced by the smell of high-protein meals and the faint, ozone-like crispness that seemed to linger in the air whenever he pushed his physical limits.

He sat on the edge of the roof of his apartment building, his legs dangling casually over the five-story drop. The city stretched out before him, a sprawling, chaotic organism of steel, glass, and concrete, glowing under the twilight sky. With his Perception sitting at a staggering 11, the city was a symphony of microscopic details. He could hear the subway rattling beneath the pavement three blocks away; he could smell the distinct combination of roasted garlic and burnt engine oil rising from the streets; he could track the flight path of a pigeon purely by the sound of its feathers cutting through the wind.

“Still nothing,” Veer muttered to himself, taking a bite out of a slightly bruised apple.

He had spent the better part of the last thirty nights scouring the underbelly of Queens and Brooklyn, looking for the fabled underground fight clubs. He needed money, and he needed a place to let loose without the moral dilemma of accidentally atomizing a civilian. But the criminal underworld of the Marvel universe was surprisingly well-insulated.

“If it were easy to find, the NYPD would have found them and shut them down,” he reasoned aloud, tossing the apple core directly into a narrow trash can in the alleyway below with terrifying, casual precision. “Or, more realistically, the NYPD knows exactly where they are because half the precinct is on the payroll of whatever mob boss runs the joint. God, I need to start following dirty cops after their shifts.”

He pulled up his system interface. It was a habit he had developed, a comforting ritual to quantify his existence in a world that was becoming increasingly insane.

—

Hunter: Lv12 (16/91)
Affinity: Enhancement
…
HP: 130/130 [Recovers 0.1% per minute]
AP: 12000/12000
Fatigue: 0%
…
STR: 9
AGI: 12
VIT: 19
INT: 9
PER: 11
…
Skill: None
…
[Quest]
[Library]

—

The progress of a single month was undeniable. Through a relentless, self-imposed regimen of extreme physical conditioning—which had quickly escalated from a thousand pushups to running the entire perimeter of Manhattan Island in the dead of night while carrying a backpack full of rocks—he had skyrocketed to Level 12.

His Vitality was his highest stat, and the effects were almost godlike. He didn’t really need to sleep anymore; a two-hour nap completely reset his brain. His cellular regeneration was so potent that when he accidentally cut his finger chopping vegetables, the wound knit itself back together right before his eyes within thirty seconds.

His school life, conversely, had become entirely peaceful. Flash Thompson and his gang of thugs treated Veer like he was radioactive. Whenever Veer walked down the hallway, Flash would abruptly remember he had to be literally anywhere else, turning corners so fast he occasionally slipped on the linoleum. The sheer, overwhelming fear Veer had installed in the bully with a single, one-percent tap was permanent.

But outside of Veer’s personal bubble, the universe was rapidly aligning itself with the comic book canon he remembered.

Just last week, the news cycle had been dominated by a tragedy that hit far too close to home for his classmates. A local man named Ben Parker had been gunned down on the sidewalk by a fleeing mugger. The school had held a moment of silence.

Following the funeral, reports of a bizarre vigilante dressed in a red and blue ski mask, swinging from building to building and stringing muggers up from streetlamps, began to flood the local police scanners. Peter Parker had begun his crusade.

Simultaneously, the global news networks were having an absolute meltdown. Billionaire playboy and weapons manufacturer Tony Stark had been ambushed and kidnapped by a terrorist cell in Afghanistan. The stock market was bleeding, and the world was holding its breath.

Veer, however, just watched the news with a bucket of popcorn, waiting for the inevitable moment an iron suit would blast its way out of a cave. His lack of intervention wasn’t born of malice; it was born of profound pragmatism. He wasn’t strong enough to fight international terrorists yet, and intervening in Peter’s tragedy would have robbed the universe of Spider-Man.

He stood up, stretching his arms above his head, the joints popping loudly in the quiet evening air. It was time to head inside. He had a very specific goal for tonight.

—

The next morning at Mid-Town High, the atmosphere was suffocatingly heavy. The collective grief of teenagers is a strange, dramatic thing, but for the few who actually knew Peter Parker, the worry was palpable.

Veer was leaning casually against his locker, mentally calculating the physics of terminal velocity for a biology project he hadn’t started yet, when a familiar floral scent cut through the smell of teenage angst.

“Hey, Gwen,” Veer said, not looking up from the textbook he was pretending to read. “You look like you’re trying to solve a homicide, or worse, organize the spring formal committee. Which tragedy is it today?”

Gwen Stacy stopped next to him, clutching her ever-present clipboard against her chest like a shield. The dark circles under her eyes suggested she hadn’t slept well. She sighed, a heavy, exhausted sound.

“It’s Peter,” she said, her voice tight with anxiety. “Have you seen him at all? He’s completely dropped off the map since the funeral. I’ve called his house four times today, and it goes straight to voicemail. Aunt May said he leaves the house before dawn and doesn’t come back until late. I’m just… I’m really worried about him, Veer.”

Veer slowly closed his textbook and looked at her. “Well, his uncle was murdered in cold blood on a sidewalk over a few crumpled dollar bills, Gwen. I’d imagine that puts a slight damper on his enthusiasm for AP Chemistry. Grief is a full-time job.”

“I know that,” Gwen snapped mildly, rubbing her temples. “But isolating himself isn’t going to help. He needs his friends right now. He needs support.”

“Look on the bright side,” Veer offered, his tone completely dry, his face an unreadable mask of solemnity. “At least they didn’t have to drag out the inheritance process or put him in a nursing home. The American healthcare system would have just drained his aunt’s life savings anyway over the next five years. The mugger practically saved Peter a mountain of medical debt. In a twisted, capitalistic way, it was a financial mercy killing.”

Gwen stared at him. The hallway around them seemed to momentarily go quiet as her brain struggled to process the sheer, unadulterated darkness of what he had just said. Her mouth opened slightly in absolute horror.

“Veer! Oh my god!” she gasped, her grip on the clipboard tightening until her knuckles turned white. “That is… that is the most awful, insensitive, sociopathic thing I have ever heard! How can you even make a joke out of that? A man died!”

“I’m an immigrant with a mountain of debt, Gwen. I’m a pragmatist,” Veer shrugged casually, totally unfazed by her outrage. “Tragedy is just comedy with a body count and a lot of paperwork. It’s how the universe works. But seriously, leave the kid alone.”

“Leave him alone?” she repeated, still deeply appalled.

“Yes. He’s going through his dark, broody phase,” Veer said, leaning closer and lowering his voice as if imparting a great secret. “If you push him right now, he’s just going to lash out. Give him a week or two. He’ll probably start wearing tight spandex and aggressively fighting street crime in the middle of the night to cope with his profound guilt. That’s how these things usually go. You’ll see.”

Gwen shook her head slowly, looking at him like he had grown a second head. “You are completely insane, Veer. I don’t even know why I try talking to you.”

“Because beneath this terrifying exterior, I’m a fountain of excellent advice,” Veer smiled brightly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go fail a pop quiz in history.”

He offered her a polite nod and walked away, leaving Gwen standing in the hallway, completely bewildered by the interaction. Peter and Gwen were getting close, just like the movies dictated. The canon was safe. And Veer had successfully avoided getting roped into teenage emotional drama. It was a good morning.

—

When Veer returned to his apartment that afternoon, he immediately locked the door, closed the blinds, and sat cross-legged in the center of the living room floor.

It was time to stop relying purely on raw physical stats. The system was based on ‘Hunter x Hunter’. Physical strength was great, but without Nen, he was just a very durable piece of meat. If he ran into someone with magical abilities, energy projection, or mind control, his 19 Vitality wouldn’t save him.

He needed to unlock his aura. He needed to learn ‘Ten’.

“System. Open the Library,” Veer commanded mentally.

His vision shifted. The dingy apartment walls dissolved, replaced by the mental construct of an endless, circular library stretching infinitely upward. Glowing tomes floated in the air.

Veer willed his mind to seek out the foundation of all aura control. A simple, unassuming brown book floated down and opened itself before his mind’s eye.

The title read: The Principles of Nen: Ten.

Veer began to read. The knowledge flowed into him not just as text, but as a conceptual understanding. ‘Ten’ was the process of keeping the aura nodes open, but preventing the aura from leaking away from the body. It was the art of wrapping one’s own life energy around oneself like a shroud. It provided defense against emotional attacks, magical pressure, and physical blows.

As he finished the final conceptual page, the library vanished, returning him to his living room.

‘Ding!’

[Skill Registered: Ten Lv0 (0%)]
[Requirement for Level Up: Deep Meditation and Aura Circulation.]

Veer let out a long, heavy groan, letting his head drop back.

“Meditation,” he grumbled, running a hand over his face. “Of course it’s meditation.”

With his personality—a mind that was constantly running a hundred miles an hour, analyzing threats, making dark jokes to cope with silence, and possessing an Intelligence stat that essentially gave him hyper-awareness—sitting still and doing absolutely nothing was his own personal version of hell.

“Alright. Fine. Let’s get Zen,” he sighed.

He closed his eyes, rested his hands on his knees, and tried to clear his mind.

It was a disaster.

For the first ten minutes, his brain refused to cooperate. He thought about the rent being due. He thought about whether Tony Stark had access to decent Wi-Fi in the terrorist cave. He thought about what would happen if he threw a handful of sand at Flash Thompson at mach speed.

‘Focus,’ he commanded himself, forcing his breathing to slow. ‘Inhale. Exhale. Feel the energy.’

He turned his Perception inward. He ignored the sounds of the New York traffic outside. He ignored the ticking of the wall clock. He focused entirely on the center of his chest, where the System indicated his 12,000 AP pool resided.

Slowly, the chaotic noise in his head began to recede. It was replaced by a deep, resonant hum, like the vibration of a massive tuning fork buried in his soul. He visualized the pores of his skin—the aura nodes—opening up. He pictured the energy leaking out, and then, using sheer willpower, he visualized pulling that energy back, wrapping it tightly around his skin like a second layer of clothing.

‘Ding!’

A faint sound echoed in his mind.

[Ten: Lv0(1%)]

Veer didn’t open his eyes. He realized the metric. One minute of successful, deep meditation equaled one percent of proficiency.

“Just a hundred minutes,” he thought, anchoring his mind to the hum of his aura. “I can do this. I’ve stood in line at the DMV in India. This is nothing.”

The next hour and forty minutes were agonizingly slow, but Veer held on. He felt the energy around him growing thicker, shifting from a conceptual visualization to a tangible reality. The air around his skin began to feel warm and dense.

‘…98%… 99%…’

‘Ding!’

[Skill Leveled Up: Ten Lv1 (0%)]
[Aura Nodes Permanently Opened. Basic Aura Shroud active.]

Veer snapped his eyes open.

He didn’t need a mirror to see it. He could ‘feel’ it.

A faint, translucent white mist was clinging to his body, following the contours of his skin perfectly. It wasn’t wildly flaring out into the room; it was contained, steady, and incredibly dense. It felt like he was wearing a perfectly tailored suit of warm, liquid armor.

“Incredible,” Veer whispered, holding up his hand. The white aura moved with his fingers, leaving faint, ethereal trails in the air.

He had successfully harnessed his AP.

But seeing it wasn’t enough. He needed to understand its practical application. He needed to test the limits of his new defense.

Veer stood up and walked over to his small toolbox under the kitchen sink. He pulled out a heavy, solid steel framing hammer.

He walked back to the living room, took a deep breath, and laid his left hand flat on the cheap coffee table.

“Alright. For science,” Veer said.

He raised the hammer in his right hand and brought it down hard, aiming squarely for the back of his left hand.

‘BAM!’

The coffee table cracked violently underneath the force of the blow, the cheap laminate splintering.

Veer winced, pulling his hand back. “Ow. Okay, that stung.”

He looked at the back of his hand. There was no broken bone. There was no shattered tissue. There was only a dull, throbbing red mark that his 19 Vitality was already beginning to soothe.

The aura had acted like a highly advanced shock absorber. It hadn’t negated the pain entirely, but it had distributed the kinetic energy of the heavy steel hammer so efficiently that what should have been a crippling, bone-crushing strike was reduced to the equivalent of a hard slap.

“Impressive,” Veer noted. “But blunt force is one thing. What about piercing damage?”

He walked into the kitchenette and retrieved his sharpest chef’s knife. It was freshly sharpened, capable of slicing through a tomato without bruising the skin.

He returned to the living room. He held his left forearm out, gritted his teeth, and slashed the blade across his skin with a moderate amount of force.

‘Sshhk.’

Veer hissed sharply through his teeth.

A line of bright red blood instantly welled up on his forearm. The knife had cut cleanly through the thin layer of Level 1 ‘Ten’ and sliced into his flesh.

He watched in fascination as his massive Vitality stat kicked in. The bleeding stopped almost immediately, the cellular regeneration pulling the edges of the shallow cut together, sealing the wound into a faint pink line within a minute.

“Fascinating,” Veer murmured, wiping the blood off the blade with a paper towel.

The test confirmed a crucial theory he had been harboring. His stats—Strength, Agility, Vitality—did not make him bulletproof like Superman. Vitality increased his stamina pool, the speed of his healing, and his total Hit Points. It made his organs incredibly efficient. But it did not turn his skin into titanium. If someone shot him with a normal gun right now, the bullet would absolutely pierce his skin and embed itself in his flesh. He would survive it easily, and heal quickly, but he would take the damage.

The only way to truly become invulnerable was ‘Ten’.

‘Ten’ was the armor. The higher the level of the skill, the denser and more impenetrable the aura shroud would become. Level 1 was enough to stop a hammer from breaking a bone, but not enough to stop a sharp edge from parting the energy.

“Which means,” Veer said to the empty room, looking at the faint pink scar on his arm, “Level 1 is absolutely useless against a mugger with a Glock. I need to grind.”

He looked at the clock. It was only 6:00 PM. He had the entire night.

Veer sat back down in the center of the living room, crossed his legs, and closed his eyes. He re-engaged the aura, pulling the translucent white shroud tighter around his body.

‘Inhale. Exhale.’

He found the meditative state much faster this time, his mind already accustomed to the frequency of his own life energy. But as the first few minutes ticked by, he realized the system scaling had kicked in.

‘Ding!’

[Ten: Lv1(1%)]

Veer did the mental math. It had taken five minutes of deep meditation to earn a single percent.

The grind had become exponentially harder. It was five times slower than the initial awakening. To reach Level 2, he would need to meditate perfectly for five hundred minutes. That was over eight hours of sitting perfectly still, doing absolutely nothing but focusing on his aura.

For a man with his restless energy, it was a daunting, almost maddening prospect.

“Eight hours,” Veer thought, a dark smile playing on his lips in the real world. “I could watch the entire Lord of the Rings extended edition in that time. But I guess if I want to survive a drive-by shooting in Brooklyn, I better get comfortable.”

He sank deeper into his mind, ignoring the cramping in his legs, ignoring the profound boredom that threatened to break his concentration. He treated it like hauling bricks under the Uttar Pradesh sun. It was work. It was survival. You don’t complain; you just put your head down and do the time.

Hours bled into one another. The sounds of the city shifted from the chaotic evening rush hour to the sporadic, lonely sirens of the deep night. The temperature in the apartment dropped, but Veer didn’t feel it; the aura wrapped around him kept him perfectly insulated.

His mind occasionally drifted to dark, amusing places to keep himself sane. He wondered if he could patent Nen and sell it to Tony Stark for a billion dollars once the man returned from the desert. He wondered if punching Captain America’s shield with a Nen-enhanced fist would break the shield or shatter his own arm into dust.

‘…98%… 99%…’

The sun was just beginning to peek over the New York skyline, painting the edges of the drawn blinds in a pale, grayish blue, when the final notification rang out.

‘Ding!’

[Skill Leveled Up: Ten Lv2 (0%)]

Veer collapsed backward onto the carpet, letting out a massive, exhausted breath. His physical fatigue was still at 0%, but mentally, he felt like he had just tried to memorize a phone book.

He lay there for a moment, just staring at the ceiling, feeling the difference.

The aura shroud had changed. It wasn’t just a mist anymore. It felt distinctly thicker, like a layer of invisible, flexible Kevlar hugging his skin.

He pushed himself up, his eyes locking onto the chef’s knife still resting on the coffee table.

Without a moment’s hesitation, he grabbed the handle, held out his right forearm, and slashed the blade across his skin with the exact same force he had used eight hours ago.

‘Scccrraape.’

It didn’t sound like a cut. It sounded like metal dragging against a tough, synthetic rubber tire.

Veer looked at his arm.

There was a faint, white indentation line on his skin where the edge had dragged, but no blood. The blade had completely failed to pierce the density of his Level 2 ‘Ten’.

Veer started to laugh. It was a raspy, triumphant sound in the quiet morning light.

“Okay,” Veer grinned, tracing the unbroken skin. “Knives are officially obsolete. A normal mugger can’t do anything to me now.”

He tossed the knife back onto the table, his mind already racing with the implications.

“Now,” Veer mused, a dangerous glint in his dark eyes, “I just need to find some idiot with a gun to see if I’m bulletproof yet. I should probably take a walk through Hell’s Kitchen tonight.”