[Ding!] [Obtained Extraordinary Points: 1] [New extraordinary ability detected.] [Extraordinary Ability: Vampire] [Ability Rank: E] [Ability Effects: Immortality, agelessness, minor increase to attack, defense, and speed…] [Ability Side Effects: Bloodthirst (must consume blood daily), Sacred Objects (holy water and wooden stakes can kill you), Sunlight (exposure causes sluggish movement and severe discomfort), UV Light (direct exposure will turn you completely to ash)…] [Note: Upgradeable (Upgrading can remove side effects).] [Copy this extraordinary ability?] [Yes / No]
…
A vampire?
Not a mutant?
Locke froze for a moment as the prompt resonated in his mind, his eyes falling on the corpse lying on the ground.
White smoke had enveloped the body, and along with it, the corpse began to gradually fade away.
Yes.
Dissolve.
By the time the white smoke thinned and vanished, the corpse on the ground had disappeared entirely, leaving behind only a faint scorch mark on the pavement.
And…
two sharp, glinting fangs.
*Well, damn.*
*It really is a vampire.*
Locke took a deep breath, an indescribable feeling washing over him.
How should he put it?
Wearing out iron shoes in a fruitless search, only to find it without any effort at all?
The name of his cheat system was *Extraordinary, Become a God*, not *Mutant, Become a God*.
From the title alone, it was obvious that he wasn’t limited to copying mutant abilities or obtaining points exclusively from mutants.
As long as a creature was an extraordinary entity, he could potentially extract its abilities and Extraordinary Points.
And vampires…
were undoubtedly extraordinary entities.
In fact, Locke had originally targeted a vampire ability as his very first objective.
After all, from a pure return-on-investment perspective, a vampire’s powers were the most cost-effective.
Immortality alone was enough to push a vampire’s ability suite into the top tier of choices.
As for the side effects?
Not a problem at all.
He just needed to upgrade it.
However, mutants were hard enough to find these days, let alone vampires, who were even more elusive.
He didn’t have any magical scanning glasses; even if a vampire walked right past him, he wouldn’t know without killing them first.
And what if he killed the wrong person?
So…
after a few fruitless attempts at searching, Locke had temporarily given up on getting a vampire ability.
And now?
Just when he had given up, one had decided to deliver itself to his doorstep?
Locke reviewed the description of the Vampire Ability flashing in his mind, feeling a bit conflicted.
The beneficial effects were just as he had imagined—immortality and eternal youth were both there.
However…
didn’t this thing have way too many negative side effects?
Bloodthirst.
Vulnerability to holy water.
Vulnerability to wooden stakes.
Fear of sunlight, lethal weakness to UV rays.
*Yikes.*
The advantages could be summed up in a single line, but the side effects took up four whole lines.
Wasn’t that a bit ridiculous?
Furthermore, the strength of the ability he copied was directly tied to the power of the source target.
Simply put, the stronger the target was, the stronger the copied ability would be upon acquisition.
Therefore, even though he could use Extraordinary Points to upgrade the Vampire Ability, why start from the lowest tier and grind his way up if he could acquire a decent version right off the bat?
Just look at the rank of this vampire gene: Rank E.
Clearly, the vampire that had just died was at the very bottom of the vampire hierarchy.
There were almost certainly Rank D or even Rank A vampires out there.
Locke weighed his options, staring at the flashing option in his mind.
Fortunately, he didn’t have to decide whether to copy the acquired ability right away.
The choice would remain available for twenty-four hours.
Only if he refrained from making a choice after twenty-four hours would the ability vanish.
Shaking his head, Locke temporarily closed the system interface and looked toward the apartment building.
Brown and the surviving tactical team members were supporting each other as they staggered out.
Extraordinary creatures really lived up to their name.
Look at that.
Even the lowest E-level vampire was enough to inflict severe casualties on combat elites like Brown and his team.
Although part of the reason was the severe lack of intelligence on the target, it nevertheless demonstrated the sheer gap between extraordinary beings and ordinary humans.
Even the lowest-ranking extraordinary creature could match or exceed elite human soldiers.
“Brown.”
Locke sighed softly in his mind, stepping forward quickly to take over supporting Brown from another agent.
He guided him to sit on the back bumper of the van.
Debbie had already pulled out a first-aid kit from inside the vehicle.
Jack, who had just received the news at the rear exit, stowed away his X-gene suppression baton and hurried over to help examine and bandage the wounded agents.
A short while later, the Sentinel Secret Service emergency medical team arrived at the scene, taking over the field medical work from Jack and Debbie.
His head wrapped in a temporary bandage, Brown ignored the paramedics’ advice to rest.
Supported by Locke, he walked somewhat unsteadily over to the spot where the vampire had turned to ash.
Debbie was using a cotton swab to collect samples of the black blood left on the ground, placing it into a test tube containing a light blue liquid.
Looking at the faint white ash outline on the pavement and the two sharp fangs resting atop it, Brown’s face was a mixture of deep sorrow and burning rage.
What was supposed to be a routine mutant apprehension operation had resulted in five dead out of twelve agents.
“Fuck,” Brown cursed under his breath.
“That damn thing wasn’t a mutant?”
Debbie stood up, gave the test tube in her hand a gentle shake, and nodded at Brown.
“Not a mutant.”
Brown glanced at the tube in her hand.
The reagent inside remained clear and transparent.
If it were a mutant, the presence of the X-gene in the blood would have turned the reagent a deep, glowing blue.
Brown looked at the unchanged liquid, then turned his gaze to the evidence bag in Debbie’s other hand, which held the two fangs.
He opened his mouth, his brow furrowed tightly.
“Fangs, not a mutant…
Don’t tell me vampires actually exist?”
“Who knows?” Locke shrugged from the side.
“If mutants exist, is it really that surprising for vampires to be real too?”
Hearing that, Brown nodded subconsciously.
A second later, his eyebrows knit together again.
“But we’ve never encountered anything like this before.”
“Just because we haven’t encountered them before doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
Aren’t we looking at one right now?” Locke said calmly.
He knew vampires existed in this world—and not just vampires, but werewolves and gods as well.
However, knowing it was one thing; actually coming into contact with it was another.
It was just like their Sentinel Secret Service.
If he hadn’t chosen to join the agency, he probably wouldn’t have had the chance to meet a mutant face-to-face, even if he knew they existed.
After all, the ordinary citizens of this world were kept quite safe before the gears of fate truly began to turn.