A lot had happened in the past few days. It felt like the Spider-Man cosplay had been ages ago.
In reality, this morning's free newspapers in the library were still running wall-to-wall Spider-Man coverage. Even last night's gang shootout on 40th Street in Hell's Kitchen hadn't managed to steal Spidey's headline.
After all, today was only Tuesday, and Spider-Man had made his debut last Sunday night. In this 1990s where real-life superheroes had never actually appeared, a costumed vigilante was obviously a bigger draw than another run-of-the-mill gang war.
The Influence Points harvest told the whole story:
Influence Points: 77,854
Detailed breakdown of recent gains:
Tony Stark (Spider-Man): +300
Howard Stark (Spider-Man): +50
Tarzan: +231
Amanda: +400
Fire rescue survivor A: +45
Fire rescue survivor B: +69
...
Random New Yorker A (Spider-Man): +2
Random New Yorker B (Spider-Man): +0.2
...
Marion ("Marion the Dormant"): +98
Owlsley ("Marion the Dormant"): +43
Madame Gao: +15
...
Classmate A (Spider-Man): +0.7
Classmate A ("Marion the Dormant"): +0.05
...
Of the nearly seventy thousand new Influence Points gained over the past few days, the Spider-Man rescue operation accounted for 65,000. The remaining four thousand and change came from last night's Marion incident.
A single Spidey cosplay had earned more than all of President Maya's previous Influence Points combined.
Staggering. Granted, the large number of rescued civilians had contributed roughly ten thousand points. Even so, those bored-out-of-their-minds Americans had generated over 55,000 points on their own.
In other words, it would take three New York underworld bosses on the level of Frank Gades dying to match one Spider-Man public appearance—and even then, the bosses would have to go out in spectacularly creative fashion. Death by natural causes in a hospital bed or getting gunned down on the street didn't count. New Yorkers had refined tastes when it came to their entertainment.
Of course, this was also the superhero debut premium. Going forward, the Influence Points returns would drop sharply. Ultimately, it was a one-time bonanza.
Think of it like American Idol—everybody remembers Kelly Clarkson. Did anyone think the show only ran one season?
Why did Tony Stark's "I am Iron Man" declaration rock the world? Because Tony was the first public superhero—a famous name with a famous face.
Later, Thor showed up on the streets of New York with his brother Loki, and people recognized him just fine. But did anyone actually stop to say hello? Pathetically ignored.
The second Ant-Man's identity was public knowledge too. He walked down the street and nobody had a clue who he was. Who do you even complain to about that?
Bottom line: firsts are what leave the deepest impression.
What about the X-Men?
Sorry, but President Maya had never once heard of any public X-Men activity. Magneto, on the other hand, was a regular on the evening news. Though for the past two or three years, the old man had gone to ground somewhere and hadn't been heard from.
As for Professor X—Maya memorized the phone numbers of virtually every notable organization and institution in New York, a walking human Yellow Pages. Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters? She could confirm it existed. But she'd never found a phone number for it.
She'd even traveled to Westchester in person to find the professor's estate. The grounds were there, the sign was mounted by the gate, but inside—nothing. Completely deserted, not a soul in sight.
Where exactly the X-Men storyline stood?
Your guess was as good as Maya's.
The X-Men film timeline was a tangled mess—retcons, alternate branches, parallel dimensions. The movies and TV shows each did their own thing, contradicting each other left and right. No wonder Fox's film division got bought out by Disney.
Aaand there goes her brain again, drifting off to nowhere ┑(￣Д￣)┍
OK. For now, President Maya's clearance level wasn't high enough to access classified files. Based solely on TV news, she could determine that the X-Men hadn't gone public—at least not out in the open.
The two most famous mutants were Magneto—Erik—and Mystique—Raven. These two were perennial fixtures at the top of law enforcement's most-wanted list. Their mugshots were plastered on streetlamps across the city.
In short, aside from Captain America—that old antique who'd long been declared dead—Maya's Spider-Man debut made her the first active superhero of the modern era.
That was precisely why Maya had altered her height and changed her voice for the Spider-Man outing. She'd spotted the business opportunity early on. A massive opportunity. An exclusive-headline-dominating opportunity.
And the results confirmed every prediction. Influence Points had hit an unprecedented jackpot.
Current inventory:
Influence Points: 77,854
Skill Cards:
Bronze Lv. 5—Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu
Silver Lv. 3—Water Style: Hidden Mist Jutsu
(From the 10-pull in Chapter 60)
Black Market slots (2):
Sealing Scroll, Silver Lv. 3—2,200 Influence Points
(See Chapter 52)
Shimura Danzō's Research Notes, Gold Lv. 3—23,000 Influence Points
(See Chapter 60; the low-grade spirit stones from Chapter 51 were cheap and had already been purchased, freeing up the slot for the notes)
With this many Influence Points on hand, why hesitate?
Buy, buy, buy!
Except—the moment the Sealing Scroll materialized on President Maya's desk, she regretted the purchase immediately.
Big. Really big. Bigger than her school backpack.
The scroll was white with black characters and green trim, 65 feet (20 meters) long and 2 feet (0.6 meters) wide, made of dense, sturdy cloth. Rolled up, it was as thick as a formula canister.
Honestly, you could kill President Maya and she still wouldn't be caught dead lugging this thing around. One reason only: it was tacky.
Sure, in Naruto, everyone who carried a scroll was a certified badass. Tenten had her ninja tool summoning scroll, Hashirama Senju—the First Hokage—often carried a summoning scroll on his back, and later Jiraiya and Naruto both had the scroll habit. Seemed trendy enough. But no matter what anyone else thought, President Maya found the look absolutely hideous.
(Sealing Scrolls came in three varieties: Record, Summoning, and Storage. They all looked the same externally. Maya's was a spatial storage tool. Naruto's and Jiraiya's were Summoning Scrolls.)
When it came to choosing characters in video games, Past-Life Maya would rather pick the yellow-clad Naruto (pre-timeskip kid Naruto, weaker stats) than the red-coat Naruto (post-Jiraiya training, Mt. Myōboku Naruto, mid-tier power—the version who talked Nagato into submission and regularly carried a Summoning Scroll, able to summon training Shadow Clones).
Maya unrolled the scroll for a look and her brain immediately short-circuited. The thing was covered in Japanese, Chinese characters, and English—plus all sorts of incomprehensible tadpole-like squiggles.
What the hell am I supposed to do with this?
She'd been planning to study the underlying mechanics, learn something useful. Now? Completely hopeless.
President Maya steeled herself and bit her finger to—just kidding. She would never bite her own finger.
(In Naruto, both Summoning Scrolls and Storage Scrolls required the user to bite their finger and smear blood on the surface to activate.)
Instead, a faint pale-blue breeze seemed to curl around her left thumbnail. She drew it lightly across her index finger, and a fine line of blood welled up.
See? Biting your finger was tacky.
The instant Maya's blood touched the scroll, she became dimly aware of a space within it. The space had no defined shape—roughly 177 cubic feet (5 cubic meters).