Corin lay in the bathtub studying the system and his talents. From time to time, he released heat vision to raise the water temperature a bit. It felt great.
He opened the status panel
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[Name: Corin]
[Age: 29]
[Stamina: 22255]
[Energy: 103%]
[Current Account: 505.1 billion USD]
[Owned Talents: Deadpool-Level Regeneration, Dynamic Vision Lv2, Jeet Kune Do Mastery, Demigod Body, Formless Mask, Danger Sense Lv2, Precision Throwing Lv2, Sketch Mastery, Steel Body Lv5, Magnetism Control Lv5, Heat Vision Lv3, Sling Ring Portal Lv1, Freeze Breath Lv4, Charging Physique]
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Seeing that his age had unknowingly become 29, Corin could not help but sigh at how fast time had passed.
It felt like he had not been in this world for long after transmigrating, and yet he was already almost thirty.
"As long as I have money and the system, lifespan probably won't be much of a problem."
Pushing aside those random thoughts, Corin continued studying his talents.
What he did not know was that when he upgraded to the Demigod Body, his lifespan had already far surpassed that of ordinary people.
Right now, if he wanted to upgrade his main talents: Magnetism Control required Uru metal. Steel Body required vibranium. Demigod Body required six types of Infinity Stone energy. He was still missing four. Heat Vision and Freeze Breath did not require extra materials, but he did not have enough money.
There were two choices in front of him.
One was to level up all his existing talents and see if that would unlock something interesting.
The other was to exchange for new talents in the system store and continue expanding his range of abilities.
And Corin's mind was full of new talents and new skills.
With more than five hundred billion in his balance, he should at least be able to exchange for something decent.
So Corin flipped through the system store, his eyes fixed on the high-priced talents.
He had never been this wealthy before.
As he looked, he noticed a pattern.
The expensive talents in the system store either had power that was obvious at a glance or completely surpassed ordinary people's understanding of strength.
For example, if Freeze Breath was upgraded to max level, it could freeze molecular motion, which was basically Freeze time in another way.
Or if Heat Vision was upgraded to max level, it could gain the power to pierce through a planet.
Abilities with that kind of destructive power were naturally outrageously expensive.
Then there were talents like [Law of Causality → Words Become Reality], which required five hundred billion dollars just to exchange.
Seeing that inevitably made him think of some talents that had ridiculously low starting prices.
But Corin knew that with the talents in the system, if you were fooled by the initial low price and thought the talent was cheap, you were falling into a trap.
Because once you exchanged for a talent, its upgrade interface would unlock, and that was when the real money burning began.
This meant that some talents looked affordable to buy, but impossible to level up.
Not to mention that when a talent was close to max level, it often required rare materials plus a huge amount of money to complete.
Some of those materials he had never even heard of. That alone showed how precious they were.
In short, cheap talents were not necessarily weak, but expensive talents were definitely strong.
The Law of Causality series also had abilities involving space and time, and their prices were extremely high.
Corin vaguely felt that even if he exchanged for them, he might not be able to afford upgrading them.
And here was the problem. These seemingly god-tier abilities were often pathetically weak at low levels.
The cost-performance ratio was not high.
So with his current financial strength, Corin still did not dare to exchange for those sky-high starting abilities, even though they looked very tempting.
Suddenly, his gaze was caught by a talent:
[Black Emperor → Energy Absorption and Release. 8 billion USD]
"This seems kind of similar to the Charging Physique the system gave me."
Except Charging Physique could only absorb pure energy, like the electricity he had already tested.
But in his memory, the Black Emperor's ability could absorb energy in any form and release it freely.
'Is this not a perfect upgraded version of Charging Physique?'
The kinetic energy of bullets, the thermal energy of explosions, even the atomic energy of a nuclear submarine could all be absorbed.
If he had this, he would not need to worry about running out of energy in future battles.
Bullets, heavy punches, energy cannons, even the impact of falling to the ground.
He could draw energy from all of it.
The more he got hit, the more energy he would have. And he could release it freely, control the output. Would that not make him a perpetual motion machine?
"Good stuff!"
Corin's eyes lit up.
The Black Emperor talent perfectly covered his current shortcoming of being limited by energy.
Some might ask, since he already had Charging Physique, would getting the Black Emperor ability not be redundant?
Not at all. Charging Physique was just a built-in setting that came with the energy indicator after the system appeared.
After all, only consuming energy without replenishing it would be unreasonable and would violate energy conservation.
It only allowed Corin to recharge energy through his body. It did not mean he could absorb every form of energy.
At least for now, there was only one charging method he had mastered. Getting electrocuted.
He could not possibly run to a power plant every time he ran out of energy, so this Black Emperor talent was practically tailor-made for his current situation.
From now on, Corin would not have to worry about insufficient energy.
No guns? No cannons? The enemy will provide them.
With the principle of choosing what was suitable instead of what was expensive, Corin thought it over and decisively made his choice.
"Exchange!"
[-8 billion USD. Exchange successful! Account balance: 497.1 billion USD]
As soon as the system notification sound ended, Corin felt the bathwater, which he had just heated to near boiling, suddenly drop in temperature.
In the blink of an eye, it fell to normal body temperature.
And he clearly saw faint, trembling transparent ripples in the water flowing into his body.
That was the heat energy of the bathwater being devoured.
This phenomenon made Corin think of something interesting.
"If I release heat vision to heat the water, then absorb the energy back into my body."
"Or just fire heat vision at myself directly…"
"What would happen?"
With his tough Steel Body as backup, Corin began a bold experiment.
He raised his hand, aimed his eyes at his palm, and released heat vision.
Zzz!
Buzz!
The highly concentrated, penetrating heat vision instantly struck his palm.
At the same time, the air around his hand slightly twisted and trembled. The energy of the heat vision was absorbed by his palm just like that.
In less than two seconds, Corin realized something was wrong.
Because he had just exchanged for the new talent and had not upgraded it yet. The heat vision was too powerful and quickly exceeded the threshold of energy absorption.
A thin wisp of black smoke slowly rose from his palm.
"Hiss!"
Glug! Glug!
He stopped the heat vision, shook his slightly stinging hand, and plunged it into the water.
It was like putting a red-hot iron into the bathtub. A sound rang out. Steam rose in a cloud, and the water in the tub began to boil with bubbles.
This time, however, his body did not absorb the heat from the water.
"I knew it."
Looking at how limited the absorption was at the beginner level of Energy Absorption and Release, Corin knew that an unupgraded talent was basically unusable.
He immediately opened the talent upgrade interface:
[Energy Absorption and Release LV2 (Fuel-Air Bomb Array Equivalent Absorption/Release) 20 billion USD]
[Energy Absorption and Release LV3 (Tactical Nuclear Weapon Equivalent Absorption/Release) 80 billion USD]
[Energy Absorption and Release LV4 (Strategic Nuclear Weapon Equivalent Absorption/Release) 320 billion USD]
"Hiss!"
Knowing upgrades were expensive was one thing. Seeing just how expensive they were still made Corin suck in a cold breath.
"Other strategic-level abilities are at most around tens of billions. Why does this talent's strategic level start at hundreds of billions?"
"You think my money fell from the sky?"
That was earned one combat vehicle at a time in the Earth division of the interstellar competition.
Staring at the upgrade interface, Corin hesitated for a long time. In the end, he decided to upgrade.
He thought about it. The upgrades here raised the threshold of Energy Absorption and Release as a single talent.
But he still did not know how much energy his Demigod Body combined with Steel Body could actually contain.
If the absorption limit increased, could it be understood that his body's total energy capacity would also increase?
Thinking about it that way, Corin started to understand why upgrading this talent cost so much.
Because it was fundamentally changing his physique.
"Upgrade!"
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