98 Leisure Moments (Second Largest Compared to Fourth Smallest)

“By the way, no matter what, this is Xiao Hei’s... egg? Maybe I should discuss it with him first,” Jos said, holding up the meat egg, then turned to look at Xiao Hei, who had just sat up in bed.

“I’m exhausted. Where’s what I just gave birth to? Hurry up and stew it for me to recover,” Xiao Hei said as soon as he spoke. Jos immediately decided not to question this fool any further.

But thinking about it, in the original story, whether it was Butcher beating her or her beating Butcher, both sides fought fiercely without any regard for family ties.

Moreover, this kind of asexually reproduced being, literally born out of sheer surplus energy, posed a dilemma: should it be considered a child or a clone? This was exactly the kind of ethical conundrum that would puzzle any moral philosopher.

“Forget it, let’s put this matter aside for now.” Since no suitable solution came to mind, Jos simply teleported to S.H.I.E.L.D. and brought back a preservation box.

Well, calling it a preservation box was a bit of a misnomer—it was actually a container confiscated earlier from the Life Foundation, designed specifically to hold symbiotes. For now, this would serve as a makeshift containment for Butcher.

On second thought, it still didn’t feel entirely secure. Jos added a cheap special effect to the box, the same trick he had used to fool Apocalypse before, making the box’s location appear empty to any observer. Thus, the containment of Butcher was complete.

“Wow, I actually ended up with two symbiotes... Riot’s manageable, at worst just a hybrid part, but Butcher is a major player, and I’ve got him under control... well, in the box. This feeling is really strange.”

With Butcher safely contained, things with the Life Foundation finally reached a pause.

As for Xiao Hei, although Jos had thought about taking her to visit Eddie in prison and telling him, “She’s already taken my form, hehe...,” in the end, he never acted on it.

Eddie was already miserable enough without Venom; there was no need to torment him further.

Of course, since the Life Foundation had been completely wiped out, Eddie, framed and imprisoned, wouldn’t be locked up for much longer.

However, given his reckless and incapable nature, it was only a matter of time before he got tangled in trouble again.

...

In the days that followed, Jos didn’t seek new recruits for the Avengers. After what happened with Ben Parker, even though his mindset had improved, he still felt reluctant about the mission and preferred to take a break.

On the other hand, joining the Avengers wasn’t without requirements.

First and foremost, one must have a heart for justice—not necessarily willing to risk their life to save others, but at least a sense of responsibility to help the weak.

Just based on this one criterion, although Twisting City had many superhumans, excluding those already organized or absolute lone wolves, the number of people qualified to join the Avengers was quite limited.

Though he hadn’t received the rewards yet, after recruiting a few people, Jos could already see the expected rewards on the system panel. Yet he realized it might be more worthwhile to just find a way to bring back Hulk and Thor.

Of course, he had considered the possibility that if those two never returned, or even sided with Thanos, he might gain astronomical “suicide points” all at once.

But the consequences of that? Even thinking about it with his butt, he knew it would end badly.

After all, Thor with new equipment nearly brought about a grand finale with a single swing of his axe, his peak combat power possibly matching Thanos himself.

And Hulk—a monster whose strength had no limits as long as he was angry. By then, the Avengers’ third act wouldn’t even need to be played out; Jos could just detonate Earth himself to light fireworks for Thanos, but he’d better hurry or he’d miss the show.

With no one pushing him to recruit, neither the system nor the Avengers assigned him new tasks recently, so Jos happily enjoyed a few days off.

Apart from Stark, who stayed home doing research, and Nick Fury, who remained stationed at S.H.I.E.L.D., the others were pursuing leads on Bucky.

From Jos’s recent calls with Steve, they had already reached Russia and were battling remnants of Hydra, unlikely to return anytime soon.

His daily routine involved going out in the morning to do good deeds—perhaps helping a pretty girl cross the street or visiting the slums to see if any hungry girls needed assistance.

Don’t misunderstand; he was just hoping to fill the last two enhancement slots, but unfortunately, he found nothing.

In the afternoon, Jos either toured Stark Tower or went to the casino to gamble a few hands against the card king, just to irritate him a bit.

Evenings were happily spent at home playing with Lilith.

Occasionally, some short-sighted troublemakers, seeing the abundance of gold and silver jewelry Jos wore, would come looking for a fight, only to be soundly beaten by Jos, who defended himself with righteous indignation.

However, after a while, the city’s thugs and lower-level gangs learned there was someone who wore jewelry daily, practically inviting robbery, and one by one, they toned down their behavior.

In fact, this led to a significant improvement in Twisting City’s public security—almost to the extent of transforming it from Gotham to Metropolis.

“Hah... this point system really is a huge pit,” Jos sighed deeply after days of effort, plopping down on a park bench.

Though he had worried before, he never had concrete proof until testing over the past couple of days confirmed his suspicion.

The system’s “suicide points” became increasingly difficult to earn as time went on.

“Tsk, at this rate, won’t there come a day when I can’t get any points at all? Although this system seems dumb sometimes, it’d be really annoying if I can’t use it anymore...”

Though just a guess, Jos felt a faint sense of crisis.

This idea arose from the problems he discovered during his recent experiments.

At least in his recent tests, ordinary street thugs yielded no points because they posed no real threat to him.

Even when facing gangs, the points earned after defeating them were extremely limited.

Jos had seen similar mechanisms before—in online games from his previous life, monsters ten levels below a player gave no experience or loot.

On the bright side, it’s an environmental change; on the downside, it’s just forcing players to fight higher-level monsters and tougher dungeons, and when they can’t win, to spend more money.

The problem was, where was Jos supposed to spend money now? Spending his life would be more fitting.