The next day.
Early morning.
At the entrance of the apartment building.
Having gone without sleep all night—though sleep was barely a necessity for him now—Locke had changed into a fresh suit.
Standing just inside the building’s lobby, eyes concealed behind sunglasses, he stared thoughtfully at the morning sunlight scattered across the ground outside.
Upgrading his Vampire Gene from Rank E to Rank B, three consecutive level-ups in total, had allowed him to eliminate three negative side effects of his vampire abilities.
Ultraviolet light vulnerability.
Blood thirst.
And holy weapon vulnerability.
However, daytime suppression—this particular negative effect remained.
After all, there were priorities to manage.
Ultraviolet light, blood thirst, and holy weapons were all fatal weaknesses.
Locke had naturally prioritized neutralizing those three first.
Most importantly…
Daytime suppression, while a negative effect, wasn’t strictly detrimental.
It was inextricably bound to his status as a darling of the night.
[Nightcrawler: “Cold body, cold night.
You have become a darling of the night.
In the dark, your power will be boosted to a certain extent.
But as a cost, when traveling by day, your abilities will be weakened.
Though not fatal, it is highly uncomfortable.”]
Since he was a darling of the night, he was naturally an enemy of the day.
To gain something, one must give something in return.
This was an absolute truth.
Therefore…
once Locke realized that daytime only suppressed his power rather than killing him, he chose not to remove it immediately during the upgrade process.
He was simply trying to figure out exactly how the system’s “daylight suppression” worked.
To what extent would the sun weaken him?
After a brief moment, Locke shook his head.
Making up his mind, he took a step forward, exposing his right foot to the sunlight outside the entrance.
Instantly, a wave of weakness surged in his chest, spreading through his body with incredible speed.
Locke frowned, considered for a second, and then stepped completely out into the open.
The morning sun bathed him instantly.
The feeling of weakness permeated every fiber of his being.
Still…
it was manageable.
If his combat strength before integrating the Vampire Gene was rated as a one, then after integration, it had risen to a five.
And that was just with the Rank E Vampire Gene.
Now, he had already upgraded his Vampire Gene to Rank B.
By Locke’s own estimation, after reaching Rank B, his night-time combat strength should have skyrocketed to at least twenty-five.
No.
To be precise, it was twenty.
Thanks to the [Nightcrawler] bonus the night before, as dawn broke, he had felt his power take a sharp dive.
And now…
However, after plunging to around thirteen or fourteen, the decline stabilized.
So, twenty-five at night, thirteen during the day?
Cut in half?
Locke stood in place for a moment, adjusting to this state, then walked toward the black Audi A8 parked across the street.
He could live with a fifty-percent reduction during the day.
Even halved, it was still a massive net gain.
After all, his baseline had started at a measly one.
Besides, it was only a daytime debuff, not a permanent one.
If it really bothered him later, he could just save up enough Extraordinary Points to upgrade the gene again and wipe out the negative trait entirely.
In the American comics universe, the rich relied on tech, the poor relied on mutations, and the gods relied on bloodlines.
But he had a cheat system.
As long as he milked it long enough to become strong, he could crush anything.
Time for work.
He needed to set a small goal: max out the Vampire Gene as quickly as possible and get rid of every single one of these annoying negative attributes.
Having fully assessed the sun’s impact on his body, Locke wasted no more time.
He opened the car door, climbed inside, started the engine, and drove away.
The apartment he rented was exactly thirty minutes away from the Sentinel Secret Service building.
Thirty minutes if there was no traffic, and thirty minutes if there was.
From his apartment to his office, unless it was between ten at night and five in the morning, traffic was an absolute certainty.
Half an hour later, Locke drove past Fifth Avenue.
Soon, the towering, sleek structure of the New York Sentinel Secret Service building came into view, its glass facade gleaming with a distinctly metallic sheen.
Standing seventy stories tall, the building served as the New York state headquarters.
The first thirty floors housed administrative and desk support, while the top thirty floors were reserved for management.
The middle section, from the thirty-first to the thirty-ninth floor, belonged to the field Sentinels and agents.
“The view from the seventieth floor must be fantastic,” Locke murmured with a slight smile as he parked his car.
Looking up toward the top floors piercing the low-hanging clouds, he withdrew his gaze and blended into the morning crowd of employees heading inside.
*Ding.*
The elevator arrived at the thirty-first floor.
Locke stepped out of the field-agent elevator.
Debbie, who seemed to have been waiting in the lobby for a while, greeted him with a smile and handed over a coffee.
“Morning, boss.
Here’s your coffee.”
“Thanks.” Locke took the cup and thanked her, but noticed a fleeting look of surprise on Debbie’s face.
“What’s wrong?”
Debbie glanced at Locke’s right hand holding the cup and hesitated.
“Boss, why are your hands so cold?
Are you coming down with a cold?”
Locke raised an eyebrow and waved it off.
“Car AC was blasting too cold.”
“Oh,” Debbie said, nodding.
She didn’t press the matter.
Locke turned and headed toward the bullpen of Sentinel Team One.
“Where’s Jack?” Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
“He went to the forensics and information tech office with Brown.”
“A portion of Lindsay Perrin’s files has been locked down.
Jack and Brown went over to get someone to decrypt it.”
Lindsay Perrin was the vampire from yesterday.
“Locked down?” Locke frowned, feeling a touch curious.
“By whom?”
Debbie opened her mouth to answer.
Before she could speak, the door to the assistant Sentinel director’s office swung open.
A balding, somewhat plump man in his mid-forties, about five feet seven inches tall, stepped out.
He answered Locke’s question: “The FBI has placed a lock on them.”
This middle-aged man was Walter Hermann, the director overseeing Sentinel Team One and Locke’s direct superior.
Locke frowned at his boss’s words.
“The FBI?
Is Lindsay Perrin one of theirs?”
“No idea.” Walter shrugged.
“The FBI just called.
They’re coming over to take custody of the case.”
Locke arched an eyebrow but remained silent.
Beside him, Debbie said rather heatedly, “But this is our case!
We’re the ones who neutralized him, and we even lost…”
Walter cut her off.
“Was the guy a mutant?”
“Uh…” Debbie hesitated, then shook her head.
“No.”
Walter chuckled at her response.
“Well, there you go.”
He shifted his gaze to Locke.
“Since he wasn’t a mutant, hand the case files over to the FBI when they arrive.”
Locke nodded.
Without another word, Walter turned back into his office, shut the door, lay down on his sofa, and pulled a blanket over himself.
For a middle-aged man, sleep was a precious commodity.
Staring at the closed door, Debbie quickly scurried after Locke, who had already started walking.
“Boss, are we really going to hand the case over?
Brown is definitely going to throw a fit.”
Locke looked at her.
“What choice do we have?
Walter made it clear.
Lindsay Perrin wasn’t a mutant.”
The Sentinel Secret Service held absolute jurisdictional priority when it came to mutants and mutant-related crimes.
Forget the FBI; even the Secret Service protecting the President had to step aside if mutants were involved.
But if the suspect wasn’t a mutant, then it was the Sentinel Secret Service’s turn to stand aside.
Still…
was the agency coming to take over really the FBI?
Or was it some fake front?
Locke smiled inwardly.