On the night Finney's parents decided to adopt Skye, he returned to his room and extracted his second skill—but the result was somewhat disappointing.
This second skill was nothing like the 'Golden Great Technique,' which made Finney realize that the system could indeed produce a wide variety of abilities.
"Sumire Chicken Nugget Roll"
Source: Halberd Spirit
Description: A food that makes you feel like you've been drugged.
When Finney saw the skill he had drawn, he thought it must be a mistake. He hadn't expected to pull out something as mundane as a fried chicken wrap. The emotional rollercoaster left him exhausted.
It took considerable self-control to stop himself from attempting to uninstall the system—if he even knew how to do that.
But after testing it secretly, he discovered the skill wasn't as useless as it seemed.
Unlike the 'Golden Great Technique,' the 'Sumire Chicken Nugget Roll' could be used immediately after being drawn, and there were two ways to activate it.
The first method involved buying the ingredients and cooking it step by step in a kitchen. The second? Summoning it out of thin air. That's right—no ingredients, no kitchenware. He simply needed to activate the skill, and within a meter of himself, wherever he could see, a ready-to-eat nugget roll would appear—complete with packaging.
Finney's first thought was that if an emergency ever arose, at least he wouldn't have to worry about starving.
More importantly, whether he made the nugget roll manually or summoned it, he noticed the system's experience bar ticked up ever so slightly—just enough to be barely visible to the naked eye. That small difference still made it faster than the previous pace of natural experience gain. From that point on, Finney was sure that using skills contributed to experience accumulation.
Even though each use of the nugget roll skill gave a minuscule amount of experience, Finney was thrilled. It gave him hope for progress.
For a while after that, Finney focused almost exclusively on mastering these two skills. He tried to recreate the moment when he had summoned Skye, hoping to activate the 'Golden Technique' again.
From willing Loki to have a little conscience, to picturing the Hulk with a gentle temper, he gradually toned down his goals until he was simply staring at a single hair, trying to make it float. After nearly a full minute of mental focus, he successfully used the 'Golden Technique' again.
Even though the effect was weak, Finney was ecstatic. It was still a massive improvement compared to the skill's dormancy over the previous seven years.
With this breakthrough, he finally found a path forward: use skills, gain experience, and draw new ones.
Through repeated tests, Finney learned some key principles about using the 'Golden Great Technique.' First, he had to maintain a clear mind—distractions made success much harder. Second, language helped crystallize his thoughts and boosted the likelihood of success. For example, when he verbally commanded his hair to float, it responded in just three seconds, compared to a minute when he relied on thought alone.
Unfortunately, using the 'Golden Technique' didn't grant much experience—floating a hair earned even less than making a chicken nugget roll.
This puzzled him. The night he summoned Skye had yielded nearly five years' worth of experience. Why had that one event been so much more rewarding?
Even though the 'Sumire Chicken Nugget Roll' was a reliable source of experience, Finney couldn't use it recklessly. Buying ingredients and cooking was fine, but summoning dozens of nugget rolls from thin air would raise suspicions. If someone noticed, or worse—if S.H.I.E.L.D. got wind of it—it could end very badly.
He also noted that using the 'Golden Great Technique' too frequently left him dizzy, whereas the nugget roll skill had almost no physical cost and progressed quickly.
When he first obtained the chicken nugget roll ability, it took him ten seconds to summon one. Now, eight years later, he could summon two in one second within a five-meter range. He joked to himself that in any world, no one could make chicken nuggets faster than he could.
If he worked a solid eight-hour day, Finney could produce over 50,000 chicken nuggets. Physics? Conservation of mass? Scientific laws? None of them applied to his chicken nugget magic.
Still, even after eight years of hard work, the experience bar wasn't quite full for a third skill draw. It wasn't for lack of effort—he just couldn't afford to mass-produce nugget rolls without consequences.
This underscored how enormous the experience gain had been from that one moment when he successfully used the 'Golden Great Technique' to summon Skye.
Finney decided that if the third skill he drew still wasn't suitable for combat, he would have to find other ways to increase his strength using the Marvel world's resources.
He glanced at Skye, who was sitting silently beside him, then sighed. "Let's head to the shop first. I'll explain what happened there."
Still thinking about their earlier conversation, Skye said nothing, just started the car and began driving.
Finney's shop was a small snack bar that Skye had helped him open after graduating high school the previous year. Though the store wasn't large and was located in a relatively quiet part of Manhattan's Upper East Side, its position was still considered premium.
As they drove through the towering skyline of Manhattan, with its endless variety of goods and energy, Finney's eyes were drawn to the iconic Stark Tower—his constant reminder of which world he lived in.
One more year. In a year, that flamboyant playboy would usher in a new era.
When they arrived at the shop, Finney spotted the hand-painted sign on the door: *"Open from Time to Time."* He shot Skye a helpless look. She returned an innocent smile. With a sigh, he casually took the sign down.
"Hey, Finney! Skye! You're finally here!"
"I've been waiting forever—hurry up and open the door!"
Before they even stepped inside, a group of people suddenly emerged, greeting them excitedly and lining up outside the store.
"You're half an hour late today," grumbled the man closest to the door as Finney unlocked it.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Doko," Finney said with a polite smile. "There was something going on at school today."
Although it was technically a snack bar, Finney only sold one item: the Sumire Chicken Nugget Roll he had been making for eight years.
"Alright, alright, enough chit-chat. I'm starving!" yelled someone farther back in the line.
Another voice piped up eagerly, "Finney, I'm telling you—we'll invest in you. Just drop school, turn this into a chain, and these chicken nugget rolls will be a national sensation!"
"Totally! I'd invest in you right away!"
The crowd buzzed with excitement, clearly eager to spend money. Skye simply rolled her eyes at the familiar scene. She was used to this by now—but even she had to admit, Finney's chicken nugget rolls were the best food she'd ever tasted.
"Okay, okay," Finney said with a weary smile, stepping into the store and getting ready to work. "I've told you all before—this is just a hobby. I have dreams, you know."
Despite the sign claiming the store only opened "from time to time," Finney still came nearly every weekend to hone his skills. Over time, he had built up a loyal customer base who always came back for more.