A mere two hours after Leander began, the project was complete. In the center of the garage, bathed in the harsh white light, stood a gleaming, 1.35-meter-tall Gundam model. It was an imposing spectacle of cold, pristine mechanics, so heavy that tiny stress cracks had spiderwebbed across the concrete floor beneath its stand.
The purely metallic statue was a masterpiece of impossible precision. It stood upright, its massive short-barreled gun held at a ready position, huge articulated wings folded behind its back.
Every joint, every panel, every simulated rivet, and even the smallest exhaust vent had been crafted with meticulous, fanatical detail. The pure silver exterior, still shimmering slightly from its final polish, exuded an overwhelming sense of power and mechanical beauty.
Leander pulled out the final custom metallic coating—a dark, matte blue and red—and applied the finishing touches to the already perfect silver alloy.
He clapped his hands, a sound of finality and triumph. "Finally done. That was faster than I expected."
He picked up his phone and quickly messaged his middleman.
'Leo': "Kay, the model is finished. It'll cure for about ten days, then you can collect it from the usual drop spot. No need to involve Harry again."
'Kay': "Perfect, Leo! Thank you! Seriously, if you ever need anything, anything at all, just call me!"
'Leo': "Uh-huh."
With a calm lift of his hand, Liu Chong telekinetically raised the entire model and its specialized support stand. The colossal weight—a staggering seven or eight hundred pounds of pure metal—floated effortlessly, driven by his Control Power, and was gently tucked into a corner, shielded from dust by a large black canvas cloth.
Alright, resource mission accomplished, he thought, wiping a faint streak of grease from his cheek. Back to the priority.
He levitated himself back to his second-floor room, trailing a dozen twenty-pound iron rods and his specialized equipment behind him. He paused outside his door, using his Golden Eyes to confirm that Uncle George and Aunt Jenny were settled for the night. The coast was clear.
Once safely back in his room, the metallic rods arranged themselves neatly beside him. He pulled down the iron box of high-calorie food and began his ritualistic gorging.
Leander truly felt pity for himself. The food brought a fleeting pleasure to his mouth and throat, but the deep satisfaction of a full stomach was a feeling he would never experience. His unique metabolism was ruthless: any food consumed was instantaneously converted to energy, leaving his stomach empty within a minute. Only the subtle, rising energy indicator in his mind confirmed that he had eaten.
Rubbing his still-hollow stomach, he put the empty food box back. I need to replenish my food stock soon. Good thing the Osborn commission came through, or I'd be running on fumes.
Leander sat cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by his metal cache. The moment his eyes closed, the room, already dim, became a canvas of pure darkness.
Then, the alchemical process began. Golden specks erupted from the surrounding iron rods, flowing directly into Liu Chong's body, drawn by his focused will. This wasn't the slow, surface absorption of the ankle weights; this was aggressive, bulk consumption for System growth.
Time dissolved. A night passed in the quiet, focused cultivation. By the deepest hour, the ninth metal rod beside Liu Chong exploded under the internal stress of extraction, fracturing into countless pieces.
As the first faint rays of sunlight hit the window, Leander's eyes snapped open, the faint gold light in his pupils receding. He rose, placing the three remaining rods aside for future use. The nine cracked, depleted metal pieces automatically zipped into his scrap bin, shattering further into fine dust.
He stretched, feeling the deep, satisfying ache of growth. He glanced at his System display:
Control Point: 51 (Up from 50)
Strength: 7
Defense: 6
Speed8
Spirit17
SkillD-Rank Metal Control, D-Rank Body
Enhancement: Golden Eyes (64%) (Up from 54%), Copper Skin (10%) (Up from 8%), Steel Bars (0%), Iron Bones (0%)
Perfect. Solid gain across the board.
The morning routine was standard. Uncle George drove Leander to school. They stopped at Aunt May's house, and she soon emerged, looking impeccably groomed and composed, masking the grief from the night before.
May opened the car door, smiling brightly at her nephew. "Peter, sweetie, this is your new big brother, Leo! He's going to walk you to school every day now, okay?"
Peter Parker, skinny and fair-skinned, peered curiously at Leo. He was small for a ten-year-old, standing only 1.2 meters tall, making him only about 10 centimeters taller than the six-year-old Peter (1.1 meters). Leander felt a familiar wave of self-consciousness about his stature, but he quickly dismissed it.
He smiled, patted Peter's head gently, and took his hand. "Come on, Peter. Let's go." Peter nodded eagerly, already excited to have a companion.
After school, Leander successfully put Peter onto the proper school bus, ensuring Aunt May would meet him at the designated stop. Leander then covertly slipped away. Instead of taking the bus home, he took one heading toward the border of Brooklyn and Queens.
His destination was a small, inconspicuous warehouse—the designated storage space managed by Kai and his network, stocked with raw metallic materials specifically reserved for Liu Chong's commissions.
After a quick scan with his Golden Eyes confirmed no unauthorized metal structures or surveillance devices were present, he entered the warehouse.
The sight made him grin: dozens of tons of various metal raw materials—rebar, sheet metal, structural beams, and scrap aluminum—were stacked high. This was luxury. Before, he had to travel all the way to Staten Island to pilfer from industrial yards. Now, his supply was only five kilometers from home.
He pulled out a small, seemingly ordinary suitcase and began loading it. He carefully controlled the weight, packing it with exactly five hundred pounds of high-quality steel—a far better grade than the basic iron he bought online, which would accelerate his cultivation. He kept the suitcase slightly suspended above the ground as he carried it back to the bus stop. With 51 points of Control, levitating the luggage was trivial.
Back in his room, Leander breathed a deep sigh of relief. He had secured a premium batch of fuel for his System.
He messaged Kay: 'Leo': "Kay, I stopped by the warehouse and picked up five hundred pounds of material. Just keeping you informed."
'Kay': "No problem, man. Take what you need. Hey, Leo, you know about that monster incident in Manhattan a couple of nights ago?"
'Leo': "Of course. It was all over the news. What about it?"
'Kay': "I got an inside tip: the police found a gold-titanium alloy throwing knife at the scene. That's the metal they use for satellites and high-end military projects. The fact that it was found there has caused a massive uproar. I hear big government guys are down there poking around."
'Leo': "So?"
'Kay': "Uh, nothing, just talking shop. But I mean, you're the best metal guy in New York. You don't think that knife—" Kay quickly deleted the rest of the sentence. "Just wondering if you knew how a knife made of that stuff ended up in Harlem."
'Leo': "I have no idea. Was it stolen? Even if I had that metal, I don't have the tools to polish it."
'Kay': "Right, right. Okay, I'll let you get back to the model. Talk soon!"
Leander typed a casual "Okay, bye-bye," but his eyes narrowed. His calm demeanor vanished.
Gold-titanium alloy. My knife.
He had accounted for the structural iron and the damaged cars, but he had completely forgotten that the two titanium knives he used on the Abomination (one in the eye, one in the back of the head) would have been left behind. The Abomination must have violently expelled the one in his eye, leaving it for the police to find.
I was lucky I slipped out when I did. If I hadn't covered my tracks and kept my identity completely secret, I would be on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s watchlist right now.
Meanwhile, in a dimly lit, chaotic basement on Staten Island, surrounded by towering racks of metal models, a burly white man stood. He picked up an exquisitely detailed, twenty-centimeter-tall metal figurine—a piece clearly crafted by Liu Chong—and turned it over in his hands.
"Leo's work is truly exceptional. It feels... alive," he muttered. "But why is Boss Crow suddenly so interested in this? We did lose a few samples from the last shipment in the Queens area, and now he's sending us to sniff around. Forget it, I'll just tell him what I know."
He pulled out his phone and dialed. "Boss, I handle basic metal models. I have no idea about high-end alloy intelligence. You need to ask someone else. I honestly don't know how gold-titanium alloy ended up in Harlem."
A furious roar erupted from the phone: "FK! That's bad! Even the FBI is interested in that metal! Sisk's supply chain could be cut off! FK!"
The burly white man hung up, scratching his heavy head. "Why worry about some lost alloy when selling Vibranium is so lucrative? I don't get the Boss sometimes."
He turned the delicate model over in his massive hands, a dangerous flicker of obsession—and subtle bloodlust—in his eyes.
"Leo," he whispered, his voice dangerously soft. "I must meet you. Your skills... they are too tempting to ignore."
The name of the man on the phone, Ulysses Crow, and the mention of Vibranium—the invincible metal from Wakanda—introduced a sinister, lethal new element into Leander's burgeoning career. His simple commission business was about to intersect with the black-market arms trade of the Marvel Universe.