001. Midtown High Without Peter Parker

Early morning, Queens, New York. On the second floor of a detached house in the suburbs, an Asian teenager opened his sleepy eyes.

“My head feels a bit dizzy. It’s as if I just had a long dream.”

His name was Su Ye, a high school student from the Dragon Country studying abroad in New York, renting a room on the second floor of this house. He was currently a senior at Midtown High School in New York City.

Yes, the very same Midtown High School that Peter Parker, the Spider-Man, once attended.

However, among Su Ye’s classmates, there was no Peter Parker. In fact, the entire school lacked such a person.

Two months ago, when Su Ye crossed over to this place, he had already gained some understanding of this world through the internet.

At that time, only a month had passed since Tony Stark announced himself as Iron Man. Captain America was still frozen beneath the Arctic ice, yet to be discovered.

The timeline was roughly between Iron Man 1 and Iron Man 2.

So, this world was the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Although Midtown High existed, Peter Parker was still just a grade schooler.

Upon realizing he had arrived in the Marvel Universe, Su Ye was first ecstatic, then deeply anxious.

Although the Marvel world at this point in time was relatively safe—no alien invasions, no purple titan threatening Earth—the dangers were never far away, always looming.

As an ordinary mortal, Su Ye couldn’t even dream of surviving the future threats. Even in the “peaceful” yet gunfire-ridden United States, every day felt like walking on thin ice, filled with trepidation.

Fortunately, as a transmigrator, Su Ye did not disgrace his predecessors and received a personal cheat.

However, compared to those of his predecessors, his cheat was… difficult to describe.

[One scratch card per day; upon opening, receive a girlfriend card of varying levels. Using it grants you the abilities of the character and her corresponding boyfriend.]

Scratch cards came in levels: a gray card each day, a white card every Sunday, a green card at the start of each month.

Cards could be synthesized—three lower-level cards could combine into a higher-level card.

Opening cards of different levels yielded girlfriend cards of corresponding levels, granting abilities tied to different characters.

The color of the scratch card represented its upper limit. There was no guarantee of minimum quality.

In other words, gray cards could only produce gray-level characters, while green cards could yield green-level characters—or even just gray ones.

At first, Su Ye tried opening a few gray cards. The resulting girlfriend cards were indescribable; mentioning them would get the book banned.

Appearance was irrelevant. It was clear that a fellow enthusiast from the bottom of the barrel was waiting for him…

Last night, after two months of saving up, Su Ye finally synthesized ten green scratch cards.

With freshly washed hands and reverent anticipation, he sat down, clicked, and launched a ten-card draw.

After a flash of effects resembling those of a cheap mobile card game, all ten green cards transformed.

Seven became gray cards, two hundred became white cards, and one remained green.

Perhaps there was a hidden guarantee mechanism in the ten-draw. A miracle at last—Su Ye finally saw the white and green cards.

[Ding! Opened 'Girlfriend Card (Green)'—received one excellent-level girlfriend card: 'Beautiful Scholar Classmate.' Using it grants you a classmate girlfriend.]

The moment he saw the green card, it was as if divine light shone upon Su Ye; his entire being felt uplifted.

“Use!” He chose to activate it without hesitation.

[Ding! Used excellent-level girlfriend card 'Beautiful Scholar Classmate.' Your classmate girlfriend is being delivered…]

“Uh…”

Staring at the message, Su Ye’s smile froze.

“‘Being delivered…’? What does that mean?”

“This system is useless!”

“Hey! System, what’s your employee number? I want to file a complaint against you…”

He spent ten minutes venting at the system before finally giving up and going to sleep.

Then, he dreamed.

In the dream, he was a boy who played with skateboards, loved photography, and had a keen interest in mechanical crafts.

This was vastly different from the real Su Ye. Before crossing over, he was a mediocre wage slave. Afterward, his predecessor had been nothing more than a Dragon Country student whose only talent lay in academics.

But this dream granted him three extracurricular skills, turning him into a skateboard expert, photographer, and a crafty artisan.

Though it was only a dream, everything within felt so real that upon waking, Su Ye was tempted to try skateboarding and photography for himself.

He got up and hurried to the morning-open shops, soon purchasing a suitable skateboard and camera. Though it cost him his entire month’s living expenses, he was delighted.

Especially when he sped along the road on his skateboard, Su Ye felt, for the first time, that he was better than a dog.

Previously, he’d watched videos on a certain app of dogs skateboarding, always feeling inferior to them.

Now, he’d finally evened the score.

Riding his skateboard all the way to school, Su Ye was in high spirits.

But not long after entering the gates, he encountered trouble.

Standing before the bulletin board, checking for any news relevant to his class, a basketball suddenly flew from the side and struck his head.

It wasn’t painful, but it was unpleasant—both physically and mentally.

Turning around, Su Ye saw three boys laughing at him. The one in front offered a half-hearted apology as he chuckled.

“Oh, sorry!”

All three were big and burly. Even if they did it on purpose, Su Ye couldn’t really say anything.

[Classmate girlfriend has been delivered. Please collect!]

The words on the system panel made Su Ye feel that, as long as he survived long enough to sign for (hold hands with) this classmate girlfriend today, he could consider it a success.

He didn’t know those three boys well; only that the leader was called "Flash" by his followers.

Flash, huh?

Su Ye thought of the sloth named Flash from Zootopia. With the same name, why couldn’t you be as cute as the sloth?

Shaking his head, Su Ye walked toward his locker.