Sparks

John buried his face in Lynn's white coat and gave a muffled "Mm."

Lynn thought he had successfully soothed the little monster, but what he failed to see was that, out of his sight, John's eyes had grown unusually deep.

Lynn couldn't take Compound V. Lynn couldn't learn magic.

But there had to be a way.

Since the outside world held so many miraculous powers, there had to be one that required no talent, posed no danger, and could give Lynn the ability to protect himself.

Once he grew up, once he pushed this door open and stepped outside, he would find that power and bring it back. Even if he had to steal it, he would steal it and put it in Lynn's hands.

"All right, that's enough heavy talk."

Lynn patted John's shoulder and stood up. To distract the boy, he pulled a brand-new Famicom controller out from beneath the TV stand.

"To celebrate what you learned today, let's do something relaxing. You couldn't even clear the first level of Super Mario yesterday. Still brave enough to challenge your mentor today?"

Sure enough, John's attention shifted.

As he looked at the little pixelated man on the screen, with his red cap and mustache, his competitive spirit flared instantly.

"That was because I didn't know the rules yesterday. Today, I definitely won't let him fall into that hole again."

John walked over, picked up the other controller, and settled cross-legged on the carpet with practiced ease, his fingers flying over the buttons.

A few minutes later.

To the classic "dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun" death jingle from the television, Mario plunged headfirst into the bottomless pit again.

John stared at the words "GAME OVER" on the screen, his eyes widening in disbelief.

"That's impossible! My hands were fast enough!"

He looked down at the plastic controller in frustration and barely resisted crushing it in his hand.

"Hahahaha! That's what we call the rules of the game. Mario's jumps have momentum. Fast hands don't let you break the laws of physics."

Leaning back on the couch, Lynn rocked with laughter. "In real life, you can leap into the sky whenever you like, but in the game, you have to play by Mario's rules. Come on, pay your tuition. It's my turn."

John handed Lynn the controller sulkily, his eyes fixed on the screen as he began frantically calculating the little pixelated man's jumping trajectory in his head.

In the monitoring room.

Stan Edgar switched off the audio feed, a faint, intrigued smile on his lips.

"What an interesting conversation."

Edgar watched the two playing on the screen. "The boy has actually started thinking about how to give Lynn superpowers."

"Should we stop him from thinking that way? If Lynn really gains powers and slips out of our control..." Madelyn sounded worried.

"How could it be that easy for an ordinary person to gain power in this world? Even Huaxia's qi has extremely demanding prerequisites."

Edgar shook his head dismissively.

"Still, we can make use of this obsession of the boy's."

Edgar narrowed his eyes as a ruthless plan took shape in his mind. "If we ever need the boy to do something extremely dangerous, or dirty work that violates his ridiculous 'principles of justice,' we'll tell him the reward for that mission is a miraculous item that can prolong an ordinary person's life or let them protect themselves."

Madelyn drew in a sharp breath.

That was tantamount to slipping an invisible leash made from Lynn's safety around the boy's neck.

"Do you understand, Madelyn?"

Edgar turned and headed for the door. "Feelings always work better than shackles."

After his promotion to senior supervisor, Lynn's quality of life took a quantum leap.

He now had a private office with panoramic one-way glass, directly above the training ground in Area B.

Every morning, the Logistics Department delivered freshly ground Geisha coffee and croissants straight from the oven, right on time. Even his ever-present white coat had been replaced with fitted suits handmade by an Italian tailor.

At that moment, Lynn sat in his spacious leather office chair, browsing top-secret files on his terminal that were accessible only with high-level clearance.

The more he read, the more alarmed he grew.

In one blurry photograph, several dark figures riding broomsticks floated above the British Museum, with an invisible protective barrier beneath them;

In another video, deep in a remote mountain forest in Huaxia, a young man in martial arts training clothes blazed with dazzling golden light as he took a direct hit from a large-caliber armor-piercing round. Not only was his skin unbroken, but he also flattened a jeep into scrap metal with a backhanded slap.

Then there was Sakura Country, where a group of Onmyōji in garish outfits had bizarre-looking monsters floating behind them.

"This world really is one hell of a hodgepodge."

Lynn rubbed his temples and took a sip of coffee.

Vought International did seem somewhat lacking in confidence in the face of these genuine supernatural powers.

Although Compound V could mass-produce Supes, its upper limit was too low, and the abilities it produced were random and uncontrollable.

No wonder that old fox Stan Edgar had bet everything on John.

Lynn turned to look through the transparent glass beneath his feet.

Down on the training ground, a brand-new "fine power control" test was underway.

A military ball launcher had been modified into a shooting device and was firing glass marbles randomly into the arena at fifty meters per second.

Six-year-old John stood in the center of the arena, wearing a specially made black training suit.

He neither dodged nor used Heat Vision. Instead, his hands left trails of afterimages in the air.

Every time an afterimage flashed, another perfectly intact glass marble appeared between his fingers.

"One hundred and twenty, all caught. No cracks on the surfaces. Perfect force control."

The technician's voice in the monitoring room was trembling.

This was not merely a demonstration of speed and strength, but of terrifying neural responses and muscle control.

Just then, the office door opened.

Madelyn walked in on high heels, followed by a young white man who looked seventeen or eighteen, dressed in a flashy, skintight combat suit and sporting a mohawk.

The young man chewed gum, wearing an arrogant expression that declared he was the greatest man alive.

"Good morning, Supervisor Lynn." Madelyn's attitude was now countless times more polite than before.

"Morning, Madelyn. And this is?" Lynn looked the young man over.

"'Sparks,' a newcomer promoted from the youth training camp just last month."

Madelyn introduced him. "His ability is to release high-voltage electricity, and our current internal rating puts his potential at A-rank. Public relations plans to debut him in the second half of the year as the New York Patrol's rising star."

Without the slightest courtesy, Sparks pulled out the chair opposite Lynn and sat down, propping both legs on the desk as he blew a pink bubble.