Chương 99: You Can Escape the Night, but You Can't Escape the Morning

Seeing the two come out, Vince casually tossed a spoon toward the top of Zoe's head. Although Zoe still had her head down, blushing and acting a bit bashful, even without looking up, the flying spoon abruptly halted in mid-air, and then flew right back toward Vince on the sofa...

"Hey, a patient shouldn't hide from the doctor. I'm the doctor, how can you treat your doctor like this... Hurry up and thank the doctor..." There wasn't much force behind the spoon. Vince caught it easily, joking as he did.

"Hmph... thank you, doctor!" Zoe pouted, but she still thanked Vince very sincerely. Beside them, Claire also walked over to the sofa and gently pinched Vince's shoulder.

"Stop teasing her. What exactly is going on?" Hearing Claire's question, even Zoe suddenly perked up. Her eyes widening, no longer acting bashful, she scooted over next to Vince, sitting on the edge of the sofa and looking at him.

"How should I know... Superpowers, mutants, whatever. It's a good thing, regardless... Come on, let's test it first. Catch!" Saying that, he tossed the spoon in his hand upward. It was caught by Zoe's ability, hovering motionless right above the coffee table in front of the sofa.

"Forward..."

"Backward..."

"Left..."

"Right..."

"Very good. Now that you've mastered basic movement, come on, snap it in half..." After a series of experiments, they temporarily concluded two things: first, she could only control metallic objects; second, she could only control their movement, not bend or deform them... Even with Vince earnestly teaching from the side, trying to guide her into feeling like she had two virtual hands that could bend the spoon, he only got a blank expression from Zoe in return.

Just like how forearms and calves can't be bent, only the joints can.

"This thing is just straight, I can't snap it..." Zoe said. According to her, controlling these objects wasn't like gripping them with virtual hands. Instead, as long as these objects appeared within a certain range of her, they felt like extensions of her own limbs. As long as she exerted effort, she could move them... This range currently appeared to be within 3 meters. The heavier the object moved, the faster Zoe's energy depleted. Moving Vince's heavy spear drained about one point per second...

This made Vince give up on trying to use comic book logic to train her superpowers.

"Hehe... hehe..." Watching three spoons hovering between Zoe's hands, flipping up and down as she played with them gleefully, Vince had no choice but to let her experiment on her own. The Crystal abilities he possessed were almost all activation-types; he had never had a control-type. Therefore, he was completely clueless about how to guide Zoe in controlling this innate, foundational power of hers.

"Uh... can you rip that radiator off the wall..." Vince had a sudden whim, pointing at the radiator by the door. Zoe gathered the three spoons into her hands, reached out, and began to exert force... The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Grumble... grumble... The radiator had barely shuddered when a few loud grumbles echoed from Zoe's stomach. She immediately pouted, turned around, and looked at Claire.

"Claire... I'm hungry..." Only then did they remember that they had spent the entire morning researching this superpower and hadn't even eaten yet.

"Let's go. Go home and wash up first..." It seemed Zoe had fully recovered her vitality if she knew she was hungry. Looking at Zoe's jubilant expression, Vince couldn't help but compare her to Claire in his heart. One was a genius who ascended to the heavens in a single step, while the other could only slowly accumulate progress... Was that really the case? Perhaps Claire herself hadn't realized it, but her gaze toward Zoe didn't just hold envy; it also carried a faint trace of disappointment.

Vince reached out and gently pulled Claire, then turned to walk out. As if remembering something, he turned his head to tell Zoe:"Wash up too. Come over to my place to eat in a bit." With that, he walked out the door, and the two of them returned to his apartment. The moment the door closed, before Claire could speak, Vince pulled her to sit on the sofa. He found a bowl and placed it on the coffee table.

"Claire, you need to drink some more blood to test something..." Saying that, he picked up a scalpel from the coffee table, plunged it into his wrist, and pulled it out. A stream of fresh blood immediately welled up. Having just woken up, his body felt exceptionally sensitive. This early morning cut hurt far more than the two cuts yesterday.

"Hss... never mind, just drink it straight..." Just as he was about to hold his wrist over the bowl, he changed his mind and thrust his wrist right up to Claire's lips, speaking in an unquestionable tone. Claire's eyes widened at the scene, but she instantly understood what Vince was trying to do. She was the first to obtain the key to Awakening, yet Zoe had displayed a completely different kind of power. Thinking it over, the only difference was that Zoe had directly drunk his blood, whereas she had not.

Then Vince's action was naturally to fill in that missing link... Thinking of this, Claire couldn't help but feel a bit moved. She grabbed Vince's wrist with both hands, parted her lips slightly, and sucked on the wound... Gulp... gulp... The wound on his wrist was occasionally brushed by the tip of Claire's tongue, bringing a slight tingling sensation that faded the pain significantly.

Watching his fully recovered Health Bar drop point by point as he bled, Vince waited until it had dropped by 5 points before triggering a mental command to equip the [Revitalization Crystal]. For the others, he had used about 3 HP's worth of blood each. But for Claire, Vince let it drop by five points before stopping... However, ten seconds passed, and that purple border on her Health Bar showed absolutely no change from consuming the fresh blood. Vince's heart sank involuntarily.

He had wanted to use this method to bridge the gap between the two girls, but the result was negative. Perhaps Claire lacking a superpower wasn't because of this reason after all. After all, looking at Zoe, as long as this colored border solidified and stabilized, it basically meant the Awakening was complete. Besides the color, whether it was shape, thickness, or texture, Claire and Zoe's Health Bars were fundamentally identical.

Looking at it this way, it was just that Zoe had awakened her own specific special ability. And the special ability belonging to Claire must also exist; it was simply hidden in details that couldn't be intuitively observed, waiting to be discovered... Suddenly, a wave of tingling from the wound interrupted Vince's thoughts. Focusing his gaze, he saw that Claire, sensing the blood flow had stopped, had extended the tip of her tongue and was playfully licking back and forth across the cut...

Seeing Vince looking over, her bright eyes flicked upward, filled with a provocative tease. Provoked like this, Vince completely abandoned all thoughts of this baffling Awakening. He pulled his wrist away from Claire's mouth, scooped her up in his arms, strode into the bedroom, and tossed her onto the bed. It was better to live in the moment first...

"Claire... you ate my crystal yesterday, and you still haven't compensated me..." Vince closed the door behind him, giving Claire a wicked grin. Claire refused to be outdone. She wrinkled her nose.

"Zoe ate one too. Make her compensate you..." She rolled over, burying herself entirely under the blankets, leaving only her eyes peeking out, blinking at Vince.

"I'll deal with her later. Today, you're the one paying up!" Vince rubbed his hands together and pounced...

"Ah! Help—!" Claire rolled around under the blankets as articles of clothing were tossed out one by one onto the floor...... Knock, knock, knock...

"Dage... Claire..."

"Where are you? Didn't you call me over to eat?" Having finished washing up and changing into fresh clothes, Zoe stood blankly outside the door, clutching three spoons. After calling and knocking with no answer, she simply turned and bounded upstairs.

"Bro! Bro! Look, I've become a superhero too!"

"Wake up, bro!"