Time flew by like a white colt streaking across a gap.
It had been 17 years since he was adopted by Ben and May Parker, and Zhang Lan's 18th birthday was still three months away.
That was the remaining time to complete the system's activation mission.
After he fainted that day, Aunt May came out to take out the trash.
A careful woman, Aunt May always glanced into the trash can before emptying it, a small habit that saved his life.
Aunt May thought Zhang Lan was an abandoned baby, and when she found he was still breathing, her kind heart prompted her to rush him to the hospital.
The hospital diagnosed him as perfectly healthy, even better than a normal infant.
After staying in the hospital for a day and seeing he hadn't woken up, she took him home.
She decided to adopt this poor child.
Then came the commotion when Zhang Lan woke up, a story Aunt May often recounted.
Things had come to this; there was nothing to be done.
The so-called system was temporarily "down and out."
As for recharging energy?
After Zhang Lan "accidentally" touched an electrical outlet and his limbs twitched from the shock, he felt a bit lost.
Later, he discovered that ever since he started cultivating chakra at the age of three, the progress bar would jump to 1/100 every time his birthday passed.
In other words, if he did nothing, it would take him 100 years to fully recharge.
To hell with that!
It was unknown if he would even be alive then, so what use would the system be?
Moreover, the mission would fail after he turned 18.
Although the system didn't mention the penalty for failure, it stood to reason that if it couldn't boot up, wasn't it useless?
All Zhang Lan could do was cultivate diligently first, then think about countermeasures.
He could cultivate only a few things: chakra, his body, and the Three Body Jutsu.
Chakra cultivation was very stable—jogging, of course, led to steady progress.
Chakra, in short, is the physical energy extracted from cells combined with spiritual energy, forming chakra.
And after extracting chakra, "jutsu" can only be used through "hand seals."
As for physical energy, it was simply a matter of intense training.
He didn't know if it was due to the physique modification, but his stamina and recovery ability were extraordinary, far better than when he was an adult in his previous life.
Spiritual energy, for now, was completely sufficient; his spiritual energy was very abundant.
After all, in his previous life, he was a soul in his early twenties, in the prime of his youth, so he still had some spiritual energy.
Although Zhang Lan loved Naruto in his previous life, he wasn't so obsessed as to practice the twelve hand seals, let alone memorize the sequences of those ninjutsu.
Now, he regretted it immensely.
Currently, the only ninjutsu he knew was the Three Body Jutsu, the most basic ninjutsu in the anime, and it took him 0.8 seconds to cast these three ninjutsu.
That is, there would be a 0.8-second delay in casting ninjutsu.
Hand seals were just a fundamental skill, and one of the few that could be improved through sheer effort.
As for the legendary "Rasengan," a ninjutsu without hand seals, he could only scoff; after seventeen years, he was still only at the stage of bursting balloons.
Where was the protagonist's halo he was promised?
Transmigration novels were indeed just wishful thinking to deceive people!
Without Shadow Clones, he couldn't create multiple localized turbulent currents out of thin air and maintain a spherical shape, so Naruto's clever method wasn't suitable for him.
As for chakra's shape and nature transformation, let's just say the trees in the yard were bare even in summer, and he didn't feel anything special.
The only thing worth being happy about was the application of chakra; he could already control tree climbing, water walking, and external defense with ease.
As for more subtle control methods, he had no further cultivation techniques, so he could only practice these basic skills day in and day out.
Besides these tasks, Zhang Lan had two other major things to deal with.
Firstly, he wanted to write down all the Marvel plot details he knew from his previous life, no matter how small, because a bad memory is worse than a dull pencil.
Then, using his clumsy conceptualization skills, he would try to see if he could gain anything from it.
After all, having come to Marvel, was he just going to experience the life of an ordinary American?
He could have just gone abroad then—as if he had the financial means in his previous life.
Secondly, he was tentatively trying to write some famous works from his previous life into screenplays and publish them online.
Because in his previous life, he was a subtitle translator, familiar with the dialogue details of many famous blockbusters, this was the only golden finger he had pondered over for a long time after transmigrating.
After transmigration, if he didn't plagiarize some classic works from his previous life to show off, would it still be a complete transmigration?
He wasn't good at composing poetry, but when it came to film and television "creation" in the Marvel world, he believed he was unrivaled.
Naturally, he established a literary website, naming it "Zhang Lan Literature Network."
Yes, for no particular reason, without any special meaning, just using his own name as an endorsement.
Of course, in reality, he still used the name Lan Parker, the name Uncle Ben gave him.
The purpose of this website was merely to provide himself with a platform; he never intended to make it big, to make it like Qidian in his previous life, becoming the overlord of online novel websites.
This point was progressing very smoothly.
After successively publishing some introductory novels, attracting a certain amount of popularity, he was waiting for an opportunity to release the "Harry Potter" series, which was very sensational in his previous life.
On the first point, Zhang Lan perfectly demonstrated the level of a third-rate writer.
He found that with his current clumsy skill, he couldn't even defeat a single toe of those gods and demons that filled the sky.
As for local residents, hehe, the Hulk was a formidable character who used Loki as a hammer.
So, he was back to square one.
He needed a certain foundation of strength.
What could he do with the chakra energy that could only release twenty E-rank ninjutsu like the Three Body Jutsu?
He probably couldn't even defeat Captain America.
The most convenient way to increase his strength was to recharge that "system" that only offered a ten-minute trial.
—Those wicked capitalists! This was Zhang Lan's only comment on it.
After multiple attempts, Zhang Lan confirmed that electrical energy and other forms of energy from technological products were not recognized by the system.
Or rather, the system was very picky; it couldn't adapt to Earth's "food."
Currently, the only thing that could charge the system was the chakra he had been diligently cultivating.
Zhang Lan had always been conflicted, wondering why his chakra reserves were so low despite his strong physique and some spiritual foundation.
After prolonged research, he discovered that at midnight every day, the chakra he had painstakingly cultivated would mysteriously disappear.
Eliminating all impossible phenomena, what remained was the sole fact:
—It was that wicked system, absorbing his chakra.
So, Zhang Lan's chakra always remained at a level sufficient to release 20 E-rank ninjutsu.
Therefore, he initially concluded that the system's sustenance must be supernatural energy.
Things like Earth's electricity, rocks, and soil had value, but the system wouldn't consume them.
If this were the real world, Zhang Lan would be helpless, but this was the Marvel world, and there were many potential sources of sustenance.
The simplest and clearest was the Tesseract, which is the Space Stone among the Infinity Stones.
Zhang Lan investigated extensively, which meant searching online for information, and tragically discovered that Captain America had been buried under ice for nearly 70 years.
In other words, Captain America was about to be dug up, but at least he hadn't been yet.
So, that was out of the question.
After much thought, and applying the elimination method again, only one viable plan remained.
That was the cosmic energy storm that gave birth to the Fantastic Four.
Adhering to the law of conservation of energy, it was impossible for Reed and the others, as ordinary people, to mutate such powerful abilities with no or minimal consumption.
This was unscientific and did not conform to the laws.
Although there were so-called gods in Marvel, in Zhang Lan's eyes, they were just a group of relatively technologically advanced aliens.
Even in Marvel, the appearance of every superhero had a logical explanation.
The Hulk's gamma rays.
Captain America's super-soldier serum.
Spider-Man's powers came from a biological spider gene virus developed by his father using his own genes.
Therefore, Zhang Lan concluded that the cosmic energy storm must contain extremely terrifying energy, which allowed the Fantastic Four to evolve superpowers within just a few days.
Now the problem was, he was just a child adopted by an ordinary couple, and even an East Asian boy.
How could he convince Reed and his team to take him into space?
What he could rely on at the moment seemed to be only his familiarity with future plotlines, a sort of disguised "prophetic" ability.
After much deliberation, Zhang Lan decided to avoid revealing this ability whenever it wasn't absolutely necessary.
One had to know, this was the Marvel world, and while there were many powered individuals, truly useful abilities were controlled by high-level organizations.
Iron Man was held by Tony Stark, whose identity was the son of Howard, one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s founders, and the strongest military weapons supplier in the United States.
His status and position were naturally ineffable; he was someone who dared to joke with senators in the U.S. Congress.
Captain America was a soldier in the military, the spiritual leader of the army, naturally backed by the government.
Black Widow, Hawkeye, and others were high-ranking S.H.I.E.L.D. agents.
As for the Hulk and Thor, the former currently had no rivals on Earth, and the latter was an alien prince.
In summary, highly valuable abilities would be coveted.
And the pseudo-"prophetic" superpower Zhang Lan now possessed was something no organization could afford to give up.
Imagine, what politician or leader wouldn't enjoy the feeling of having everything under control?
It could be said that if Red Skull had had a prophet by his side back then, the world might all belong to Hydra now.
However, there were exceptions, and Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. would be a good partner.
If Zhang Lan truly had prophetic abilities, he wouldn't mind cooperating with organizations like S.H.I.E.L.D., as it would merely be mutual exploitation.
S.H.I.E.L.D. needed his prophetic intelligence, and he could use S.H.I.E.L.D. to accomplish things he couldn't do alone.
Things like the location of Reed's research team, and even the future Tesseract, would become accessible.
The problem was, he didn't have prophetic abilities.
He only knew some plotlines, and these plotlines were precious information he relied on for survival in the future; he wouldn't just sell them to any organization.
He was also hesitant about how to choose.
Currently, he could still use this information to seek benefits for himself, as it was difficult for one person to fundamentally change the world's direction.
But if S.H.I.E.L.D., Hydra, or the U.S. government got hold of this information, then—
Would the future Marvel still be the Marvel he, Zhang Lan, was familiar with?
After weighing his options, Zhang Lan made up his mind.
And now, he had thought of a compromise plan, which he had implemented quite well, and he was waiting for the moment to reap the fruits.
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Please don't vote for this book with recommendation tickets anymore.
My new book, "Naruto: Playing a Fake Main God," has been released.
I'm asking for everyone's collection and recommendation ticket support!
A quick note: This book was originally planned to end at 1 million words to start a new one, but because the outline is too long, it's already at 800,000 words.
If I were to finish the remaining 200,000 words now, it would be a bit rushed, so I'm holding a special event.
The event is simple: a base of 80 recommendation tickets per day, or a base of 10 monthly passes, or a reward of 5000 Qidian coins.
For every time the base is exceeded, one chapter will be added, and the maximum word count for completion will increase by 10,000.
For example: If in one day, Xiao Lan receives 160 recommendation tickets, 20 monthly passes, and a 10,000 Qidian coin reward, then 6 chapters will be added, and the maximum word count for completion will increase by 60,000, reaching 1.06 million words.
To show my sincerity, Xiao Lan will deliver five chapters tomorrow.
The final word count of this book depends on all of you!