[Flight]: Your perception and control of energy have grown even stronger. As long as your energy isn't depleted, you can freely engage in supersonic flight and even hover in midair (flight speed depends on your current condition).
[Enhanced Vision]: Your dynamic eyesight has advanced again, letting you quickly distinguish friend from foe in a crowd and lock onto a target!
[Energy Shots / Energy Cannon]: You've further mastered energy manipulation, allowing you to easily release it in the form of energy shots or energy cannons.
[Ultra-Lock Targeting]: You possess a powerful lock-on ability, easily tracking an opponent's movements and delivering a rapid assault! ("Don't feel inadequate—you're very precise!")
[…]
Aaron carefully sensed the changes in his body. This time, there was no increase in his raw physical stats, but his control over his body and energy had taken another leap. With just a thought, he could focus power in his hands, and at a whim, that power would unleash as he wished.
He struck a pose reminiscent of "Six-Meridian Sword," and at once, the energy found a vent and burst out in a torrent. In an instant, it blasted into the surrounding forest with a roar like torrential rain, shredding a swath of once-lush greenery.
Aaron's aim was spot on: the penetrating force of the energy projectiles was extremely high, enough to punch through tree trunks the thickness of a bowl. At that level of rate and potency, a human target would be turned to ash in an instant.
Next, he tested his energy cannon—or "palm cannon." Focusing the energy in his palm from the cells nearby, he fired off a single shot. Boom! A waist-high boulder exploded into rubble.
"Not bad," Aaron nodded, carefully gauging energy consumption. That single shot had only tapped a small fraction of the power stored in the cells of his right palm—about one percent at most. Compared to the total reserves throughout his body, that loss was negligible.
Seeing this, Aaron was all the more satisfied: If one percent of his right hand alone carried this punch, then what about his entire arm—his entire body? His strongest all-out shot could easily be a ten-thousandfold magnitude of destruction!
Granted, the power of energy attacks can't be calculated simply in that manner—especially pure energy strikes, which are usually very strong in terms of penetration.
"Speaking of which, the Marvel world's tech already has laser-cutting. If I melted down such a device, wouldn't that give me high-temperature beams out of my eyes?"
"Wait, that's getting too much like Superman!"
But Aaron was Aaron—he had no desire to be a mere copy of Superman. As he scanned the environment, his brain—which was akin to a supercomputer—processed surrounding light, radio waves, electromagnetic waves, and other signals, merging them into an ultra-precise 3D real-time map. Potentially, it could cover all of New York City.
In short, as long as someone wasn't hiding deep underground, he could "monitor" the entire city whenever he wanted. Of course, running that mode constantly would massively strain even his super-brain, so it wasn't something he'd do at all times. But it meant at least he wouldn't get lost. So far, he'd never properly learned his way around New York; without this ability, he might have been wandering endlessly.
Not wanting to bother Norman further, Aaron glanced at the sky—the sun was setting.
With an unconscious flex of his legs, he launched into the air, rocketing into the sky and breaking the sound barrier in an instant. His speed quickly soared to Mach 3, then climbed even further. In the blink of an eye, he was well past Mach 3!
Aaron's super-senses let him track his velocity precisely. Mach 5—already faster than the max speeds of the Blackbird or YF-12A (about Mach 3.35).
"Right, a jet's speed depends on its engine's thrust. Theoretically, the plane can go beyond official limits—those are pilot constraints, not the plane's."
"My energy far surpasses that of any jet engine, and my body can withstand hundreds of times their air resistance. As long as I have energy, I can accelerate indefinitely!"
"Plus…"
He tested mixing in other abilities: Air Control granted him power to manipulate the atmosphere. Generating an air current behind him might boost speed even more. And his electromagnetic control could also drastically increase velocity if developed further.
Absorbed in experimentation, he soon flashed beyond the New York skyline. Spotting the deep-blue ocean below, Aaron abruptly braked, coming to a halt and hovering midair.
"This must be a helicopter's capability. With my current flight skills, I can do things even the most cutting-edge jets can't!" he thought excitedly, unleashing a triumphant roar. The booming sound traveled over a dozen kilometers, and people in downtown Manhattan faintly caught it as well. Meanwhile, on the ocean's surface, fish popped up belly-first in the shockwave's path.
Aaron immediately stifled himself, restraining his excitement. He turned back toward Manhattan and headed straight for the city.
At that exact moment, high in New York's skies, Tony Stark was cruising in his recently developed Mark IV Iron Man suit, planning to make a flashy entrance at a lavish party. He pictured the excited screams of the beauties below as he descended in his armor. But then…
A dark blur whizzed past from above him, zooming away at a rate even he couldn't catch despite pushing his armor's power to max. In that moment, Tony froze.
"Mother—f**er!" he spluttered. "What the hell just flew past me?!"
~~~
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