"Ah, baldhead!!" Lu Yifang shouted, sitting bolt upright in bed.
He stared at the familiar things in his room. It took him a long moment to come around. Glancing at the alarm clock on his desk, he saw it was eight in the morning. It seemed he'd slept for a whole day after taking his medicine yesterday.
He took a deep breath. The tightness in his chest was gone. He hadn't checked his temperature, but the feverish heat and discomfort had passed, too. He felt great. Clearly, his fever had broken.
He stretched lazily, looking thoroughly satisfied. "It feels so good to be better. I'm clear-headed and refreshed. It's like the whole world is different... Huh? Am I seeing things? It really does look different."
Lu Yifang looked puzzled. A lot of things in his field of vision had indeed changed. To put it plainly, white lines with arrows had appeared out of nowhere throughout the world. Some were thick, some thin; some clung to objects, while others ran through them. Some moved at high speed, while others remained still.
Most importantly, those white lines with arrows were everywhere!
"What the heck?" Lu Yifang rubbed his eyes, but when he closed them, the strange sight didn't disappear. If anything, it became clearer.
He wasn't seeing it with his eyes. The image had appeared directly in his mind—or, rather, he sensed it through some other means. A picture formed in his head. At first glance, it looked like a rough sketch of the entire room, drawn in pencil, but on closer inspection, something about it seemed off.
More importantly, the image made of white lines could expand or contract. He could spread his awareness across the entire room, or focus it on a single point. If he concentrated on one finger, for example, he could see more lines in greater detail.
Without thinking, Lu Yifang looked at his hand and pressed a finger against the wooden headboard. The lines originating from his fingertip immediately branched into countless small arrows, extending in every direction.
Beneath his fingertip, a line just as thick as his finger pressed back against it. It pointed in the opposite direction to the way he was pushing. That was what kept his finger from moving farther down.
Seeing this, Lu Yifang instinctively tried to change the direction of the white line. The moment he had the thought, the line resisting his finger shifted under the influence of his will.
The arrow on the white line turned from pointing up to pointing down. As its direction changed, Lu Yifang felt his finger suddenly loosen. The resistance he'd felt at his fingertip vanished completely.
Crack!
A sharp splintering sound rang out. When Lu Yifang opened his eyes, he saw that his finger had pressed a deep dent into the wooden headboard.
"What's going on?" Lu Yifang was completely baffled.
Just as he was about to try again, the door suddenly opened, and a blonde, elderly woman walked in.
"Yifang, my poor child. Has your fever gone down?" The blonde woman came over and gently rested her head against Lu Yifang's forehead, asking with concern.
"Ms. Emma, I feel fine now. I'm all better," Lu Yifang said with a smile.
After checking his forehead and finding no sign of a fever, Ms. Emma studied his face for a moment before finally letting out a sigh of relief. "Thank God you're all right. That's all that matters."
"It's mealtime. Get up and wash up. I'm sure you're hungry," Ms. Emma said, patting Lu Yifang.
"I know. Go on ahead," Lu Yifang replied with a nod. He'd slept for an entire day, and at Ms. Emma's reminder, his stomach immediately started growling.
Ms. Emma nodded. As the head of the Orphanage, she was indeed quite busy. But just as she was about to leave the room, she seemed to remember something. She quickly turned around and gave him a stern reminder.
"Oh, and remember to eat a balanced meal!"
Lu Yifang nodded, and only then did Ms. Emma leave his room, reassured.
Driven by hunger, Lu Yifang jumped out of bed and quickly washed and dressed. He knew something seemed to have changed in his body, but he was practically starving. He could figure that out after he'd eaten.
Five minutes later, Lu Yifang arrived at the Orphanage's cafeteria. After getting his food, he took a few steps and spotted a familiar brown-haired girl among the children and teenagers.
"Hey, mind if I sit here?" Before the girl could answer, Lu Yifang had already made himself at home across from her.
The girl didn't seem at all bothered by the boy who'd suddenly appeared in front of her. She just looked a little surprised. "You're better already?"
Katie was the only girl in the entire Orphanage who knew Lu Yifang well.
"Of course. I feel great—good enough to eat a whole cow," Lu Yifang said with a grin.
Katie ignored his joke and turned her gaze to the television. She wasn't much of a talker and could even be called a loner. In fact, if it weren't for her withdrawn personality, she probably wouldn't have remained at the Orphanage until the age of sixteen without anyone willing to adopt her.
Lu Yifang turned to look at the television, too. The news was on.
"Our station reports that Tony Stark, head of the United States' largest arms manufacturer, Stark Industries, has recently been selling weapons in the Middle East. The weapons reportedly include Jericho Missiles and other weapons of mass destruction. Some anti-war activists consider the sale of such weapons highly immoral, and are holding a protest outside Stark Industries' headquarters.
"Further reports: next week, a major conference on the global economy will be held on Manhattan Island. World leaders will gather there to discuss this year's economic outlook.
"In other news, Senator Kelly, a well-known anti-Mutant campaigner, is lobbying the government to fully implement the Mutant Registration Act. He claims that, to protect the freedom and safety of the American people, all Mutants must be identified and locked away. Others believe that implementing the Mutant Registration Act will only worsen tensions between ordinary people and Mutants, rather than solve the problem..."
"Tony Stark. Mutants." Lu Yifang was already familiar with both terms.
Even before he entered the Orphanage, when his parents in this world were still alive, he'd known he had crossed over into the Marvel Universe and become an ordinary New York resident.
"I've always thought being a Mutant wouldn't be so bad." Katie's voice caught Lu Yifang's attention.
"Mutants are a lot stronger than ordinary people. Those idiots hate them because they're jealous and afraid of their powers. I heard Mutants usually awaken during their teenage years. If I awakened someday, I'd be happy about it." Katie munched on her bread, sounding as if she were speaking to Lu Yifang, though she might just as well have been talking to herself.
"Mutants. Superpowers." Lu Yifang chewed over the two words as if deep in thought. At the same time, his hand had unconsciously come to rest on the corner of the table.
The cafeteria chairs and tables were made of iron, and their sturdiness went without saying. But when Lu Yifang noticed that the arrow on the white line resisting his finger had changed direction, he left a clear fingerprint in the corner of the table.
"What's wrong?" Katie looked at Lu Yifang curiously. His expression seemed a little off.
"I'm fine. Actually, I've eaten enough," Lu Yifang said with a forced smile, then hurried out of the cafeteria.
His thoughts were in a jumble, but he'd managed to sort some of them out. Clearly, it wasn't just his fever that had broken—he'd awakened an ability, too. He'd become a Mutant.
He had a vague idea of what his power might be, but he didn't jump to conclusions. First, he returned to his room and carefully locked the door. Then he rummaged around and pulled a football out from under the bed.
In his field of vision, Lu Yifang saw countless lines around the football. Most of their arrows pointed down, so he controlled the lines and changed all those arrows to point up.
Thump!
With a thought, Lu Yifang successfully changed the arrows' direction, and the football shot straight up out of his hands, hitting the ceiling.
In his field of vision, the altered lines merged with and canceled out the others. The arrows on most of the lines around the football soon pointed down again.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
The football fell back to the floor and bounced a few times in front of Lu Yifang.
But Lu Yifang paid it no mind. He seemed to be staring into space, but a storm was already raging inside him. He'd figured out what his ability was.
Memories buried deep in his mind resurfaced. They were from an anime he'd watched before crossing over. He couldn't remember the plot very well, but he still remembered the power of an esper known by the codename Accelerator.
Vector Control: the ability to freely manipulate and change the direction of forces acting on one's body. The scene he saw in his mind was actually a representation of the real world, showing energy in motion.
Lu Yifang had become a Mutant with the power of Vector Control.
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