In New York's Chinatown, a young guy wearing flip-flops and sporting a messy hairdo was swaggering down the street with an air of arrogance.
Suddenly, he stopped in his tracks, reached up to his head, and felt something warm and sticky. When he pulled it down to take a look, he realized it was a chicken bone!
The guy was instantly furious.
How could this be?
How could he tolerate such an insult?
He, Little Chen Haonan from Chinatown, had never suffered such a disgrace!
Immediately, he put his hands on his hips, not caring which household upstairs had thrown it, and took a deep breath before shouting out a string of curses:
"Who's the damn fool throwing chicken bones, huh?"
The building in front of him was an old, rundown one. Judging by the looks of it, it was probably full of old, weak, and helpless people, who wouldn't dare mess with him.
So he continued his tirade, not holding back in the slightest!
As no one responded, he got even more fired up, unleashing a flurry of fluent Cantonese curses.
Just as he was thoroughly enjoying his moment of triumph, a sharp pain shot through his left foot.
He let out a yelp, squatted down, and clutched his foot, only to find another bone!
As he was still in shock, his right foot suddenly hurt as well.
Looking down in fear, he saw that it was yet another bone!
The pain temporarily overpowered his anger, allowing his rational mind to regain control.
Suddenly, he recalled the eerie rumors circulating in the area over the past week.
Stories of a thief mysteriously breaking both hands after falling, a scammer inexplicably suffering a severe concussion from running into a wall...
Could it be?
He swallowed hard, glancing up at the building with a look of terror.
It was sinister!
Terrifying!
There was definitely something unclean there!
The more he thought about it, the more scared he became. Ignoring the pain in his feet, he scrambled away from the street as fast as he could...
...
Lynch casually tossed the bone in his hand into the trash, then picked up a glass of Coke beside his chair and took a big gulp.
"Ahh!"
Reclining back in his lounge chair, Lynch wore an expression of pure, lazy bliss.
"Is there anything better than eating fried chicken, drinking Coke, and sunbathing?"
Oh, right, and he also got to teach a lesson to some idle, no-good young man passing by.
It's been a week since Lynch arrived at Newyork.
After spending some time exploring, eating, and having fun, he rented a place on the rooftop.
For several days in a row, Lynch spent his days sunbathing and eating, while at night, he would stretch his muscles, help out where needed, and conveniently collect a small "activity fee" from the bad guys.
What else could he do?
Even Superman needs to eat, right?
Well, technically speaking, he doesn't.
Kryptonians living under a yellow sun don't physiologically need food.
But Superman does eat because, having grown up thinking he's human, he has a psychological need for food.
The same goes for Lynch.
And since money was no longer a concern, why not eat to his heart's content?
With a body as tough as steel, and no fear of an upset stomach, Lynch couldn't help but marvel at how delicious American junk food was!
Of course, Lynch wasn't just focused on eating.
He delved deeply into studying both his system and his current powers.
On the system side, he explored how to earn justice points and the process of exchanging templates.
At that time, the system was as follows:
"Superman System
Current Template: 100% of Child Superman, 5% of Teen Superman
Template Exchange List: Teen Superman, Superman, Silver age Superman, Golden Superman, Superboy Prime…
Justice Points: 49,135."
Lynch later discovered in Chinatown the reason for his sudden spike in justice points: people had started seeing him as a hero.
Even though he had revealed little information, it was enough to earn him a large amount of justice points.
This was because his heroic deeds had been recognized and spread by others, and the people inspired by his actions contributed some justice points.
While the individual points gained this way weren't large, they added up over time, leading to his sudden increase of 50,000 justice points.
Besides, directly combating evil also earned justice points.
For instance, Lynch discovered that taking down Iron Monger had netted him over 10,000 points.
To his surprise, even causing havoc at the military base had earned him justice points.
The system's explanation was that Lynch was a persecuted victim, and since those soldiers were accomplices, defeating them also counted towards justice points.
Lynch then tested how many justice points could be obtained from a single person.
The result showed that it was easy to get one or two points from an individual, but much harder to obtain more.
For example, Lynch saved a passerby who was nearly killed by a robber, earning him the highest single-person justice point gain of seven points.
Moreover, obtaining justice points was often a one-time deal, making it difficult to "milk" the same person repeatedly.
For instance, giving a homeless person ten dollars would earn two justice points.
But if Lynch gave him another ten dollars the next time, the person would not yield any points.
Even when Lynch increased the amount to a hundred dollars, the person only gave three points.
This meant that a person's justice value could only increase with bigger gestures; lower contributions would no longer generate justice points.
And so, the total amount of justice points available on Earth was relatively easy to calculate.
Taking the average of five points per person and multiplying it by the global population of six to seven billion, the maximum would be around 30 billion.
But in reality, getting this many justice points would be extremely difficult.
Not every place is like New York, where the whole city knows about a superhero's appearance almost immediately.
In many places, even if Thanos showed up, people might still be unclear about what was happening.
So, while Lynch could potentially earn a lot of justice points on Earth, the total amount wouldn't be endless.
At best, he could exchange for the "Silver age Superman" template, an invincible tier, but if things didn't go well, he might only reach the regular "Superman" template.
Additionally, only the "Teen Superman" and "Superman" templates could be exchanged in stages; the others had to be exchanged all at once.
And the price of exchanging a template would decrease based on the current template.
For example, Lynch, who had the "Child Superman" template and 5% of the "Teen Superman" template, saw that the cost of exchanging for the "Superman" template was reduced by the value of his existing templates.
The system's explanation was that these three templates were foundational, allowing for phased exchanges, with subsequent prices being adjusted accordingly.
Aside from the system, Lynch also focused on studying his abilities.
As a Superman, one of the top-tier powerhouses in the Justice League, his strength was undoubtedly immense.
Lynch speculated that a fully realized Superman would be on par with beings like Ancient One, Odin, Hela, and Dormammu—essentially at the "Skyfather" level.
Exactly who would be stronger would require an actual battle to determine, as the movies haven't linked the universes yet, making it as futile as comparing Godzilla fighting King Kong.
However, Superman would definitely be able to take on most of the Avengers. The only real competitors would be people like Captain Marvel, Scarlet Witch, Doctor Strange, and awakened Thor.
Based on their movie portrayals, these characters have shown impressive abilities, but even they have their limits.
After all, Captain America managed to wield Mjolnir and gave Thanos a good fight.
So Lynch figured that movies shouldn't be taken too seriously; only a real fight would settle the score.
After soaking up so much sun, Lynch felt invincible.
It helped that the big players weren't making appearances, which allowed him to gradually realize just how powerful he had become.
Under the yellow sun, Lynch felt himself getting stronger every single second.
His strength, speed, endurance, senses, and mind were all growing more powerful...
Lynch's earlier declaration of being "unrestrainable" wasn't just bravado—it was a fact.
Unless S.H.I.E.L.D. deployed some unknown weapon, Lynch, situated in New York, had little to fear from Earth's current level of technology.
It was at this point that Lynch began to understand what Superman meant in one story when he said he lived his life with great caution.
Lynch often mused that if it weren't for Superman's innate bio-electric aura that makes everything around him as strong as him like a part of himself then, he might destroy everything around him.
Whenever this thought crossed his mind, the background music "Invincible, how lonely it is..." should have played.
Knock, knock, knock.
A knocking on the door interrupted Lynch's sunbathing. He turned his head and saw a beautiful silhouette through the door.
Lynch smiled slightly and set his Coke aside.
Finally, after waiting so long, they've come to find me?