Chapter 247: System Upgrade Complete
Wouldn't it be nice if things could just stay like this forever, Ethan thought, settled into a lounge chair on the balcony, soaking up the sun with a steaming cup of tea in hand. The fragrance curled up around him, easy and warm.
He gazed out at the skyline, filled with a rare, settled contentment.
Bright and early that morning, Tony had practically sprinted off with the Destroyer's head clutched to his chest like a kid with a new toy, eager to get back to his lab and start tearing it apart.
Which, honestly, worked out great for Ethan. It meant he finally had an excuse to step back from the mountain of logistics that had been eating his life alive and actually enjoy some downtime.
These past few months had been nonstop. One crisis after another, barely a minute to breathe.
Now, finally, he had a moment to just sit.
Thanks to his and his family's efforts, Hell's Kitchen had clawed its way out of the chaos and darkness of its old days and was finally running like something resembling a functional neighborhood.
Watching the crowds moving below, Ethan let himself smile.
He could feel it — Hell's Kitchen was healing. The blank, hollow looks on people's faces had been replaced by something that actually resembled hope.
Of course, none of it would've happened without his family doing the real work. If not for them, Ethan wouldn't have the luxury of being this hands-off about it.
All he could really do was keep getting stronger so he could protect what they'd all built together. Anyone stupid enough to try to upend the peace in Hell's Kitchen now was getting a one-way trip to an actual hell.
Watching the crowd shuffle by below, a thought occurred to him: Things have settled down a bit. Maybe it's time for some kind of festival. Or an event. Something to burn off all this pent-up energy these people are carrying around.
Because let's be real — not everyone in Hell's Kitchen was exactly a model citizen.
A lot of them had grown up on a steady diet of live fast, don't take crap from anyone, and that wasn't the kind of thing that unwound overnight.
Plenty of them still had violence baked into their bones. Sure, Ethan's presence kept a lid on it for now, but that kind of pressure didn't just evaporate. Eventually it would need somewhere to go.
So it made sense to build a release valve. Somewhere safe for all that restlessness to burn off.
Maybe a fight tournament. Or a street race. Not a bad idea. I'll run it by Wanda and the others, he thought.
Just then, a crisp chime rang out in his head.
「DING! System upgrade complete!」
「New feature unlocked: Bond Module!」
「System Notice: Following this upgrade, the Add Family function will no longer level up further — only the Exclusive Skill will continue to advance.」
「System Notice: To upgrade the System any further, the Host must acquire Infinity Stones.」
[ Infinity Stones: 2/6 Active · Space Stone · Reality Stone ]
Ethan frowned at the notification.
Reality Stone? When did I ever get my hands on a Reality Stone?
The good mood from the upgrade evaporated instantly.
System. What's the deal with the Reality Stone? he asked silently.
No response. He asked again. And again. The System stayed dead silent, which only made him more unsettled.
The only theory he could land on was that the Reality Stone had been baked into the System from the very beginning.
Or — worse thought — someone had reset his memory. Deleted something.
Who could even do that? And why?
That question dragged him straight into the bigger one he'd been avoiding for a while now: where did the System actually come from? Why did it need Infinity Stone energy at all?
Who had made it. Why it had picked him. What it actually wanted from him.
For a second he wondered if the System itself had somehow evolved out of an Infinity Stone — then shook the thought off almost immediately.
The TVA had a whole drawer full of Infinity Stones sitting around, and even all six of them together didn't come close to matching what the System could do. Ethan was confident that with his current strength, he could take a Thanos holding a full Infinity Gauntlet and win.
And the thing was, Infinity Stones existed in every multiverse — practically a dime a dozen. His System was one of a kind.
Then he thought back to the Homestead — the module that had appeared the moment the System finished absorbing the Space Stone's energy.
A thought hit him hard enough to send a jolt of excitement through his chest: Wait. Does the System spin off a unique module or ability every time it fully absorbs an Infinity Stone?
The idea took hold fast. He thought it through — the Reality Stone lined up with the Gacha function, didn't it? All those Devil Fruits, Growth Templates, even the Senzu Beans — they were all things conjured into physical existence out of nothing.
And the Space Stone lined up with the Homestead.
But then he shook his head again. He knew for a fact the Reality Stone's power in canon wasn't anywhere near strong enough to account for what the Gacha could do.
And there was still the new Bond Module to explain. Which Stone did that map to?
The core function of his Friendship System was pulling skills directly off his friends' skillsets — and that wasn't a capability any Infinity Stone, on its own, had ever been shown to have.
Maybe, he considered, it wasn't about the Stones granting abilities directly at all — maybe the System just needed the energy to keep running, and each Stone only provided so much fuel before running dry. That would explain why it kept pushing him to collect more.
The whole sudden shift left him uneasy.
He knew full well that everything he had — his strength, his skills, all of it — existed because the System had given it to him. Which meant if the System ever vanished, would all of it just vanish with it?
And what about the people close to him? If some of those bonds only existed because of the System in the first place, would they slip away too, the day it disappeared?
And underneath all of that sat the question he had even less of an answer for: could he ever go back? Back to the world he'd come from — the one that was both familiar and, at this point, a stranger to him?
The questions circled in his head with nowhere to land.
All he could do was keep guessing, keep following the System's breadcrumbs, and keep moving forward.
But he held onto one belief: if someone really had built this System, then someday, once he was strong enough, whoever was behind it would have to show themselves. And when they did, he'd finally get his answers.
Until then, he'd keep doing what he always did — following the System's lead and getting stronger.
That was the only way to eventually pull back the curtain on the mystery and find the truth for himself.
With that settled in his mind, Ethan slowly opened the new Bond Module.
Time to see exactly what kind of surprise this one had in store for him.
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