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Kevin's Water Manipulation at LV4 was not quite what he had anticipated.
Originally, Kevin had thought that LV3 Water Manipulation, which allowed him to control water within a five-meter radius, was already quite impressive.
Even if LV4 provided an upgrade, the improvement shouldn't be too significant.
But what Kevin hadn't expected was that LV4 Water Manipulation was a fundamental qualitative change compared to LV3!
First and foremost, the most important point was the range of control.
Kevin, who could originally control water within a five-meter radius, suddenly saw that range increase to fifty meters at LV4!
Moreover, both the quality of manipulation and the precision of control were greatly improved; he could even precisely control liquids containing impurities!
Although LV3 Water Manipulation could also control liquids with impurities, such as blood, Kevin could at most only condense it into a ball and throw it at someone.
Now, Kevin could perform more delicate operations with liquids like blood, similar to how he could form a key out of water at LV3; he could now do the same with blood.
It was just that the precision wasn't as good as with water.
Such a massive change from just one level of improvement made Kevin feel that his skill points were well spent.
"But is there something wrong with this rate of improvement? What kind of level setting is this? Is it like A Certain Magical Index??"
Looking at his LV4 Water Manipulation, Kevin couldn't help but complain internally.
Originally, Kevin had thought his level settings would be similar to American comics like Marvel and DC, where Level 5 was the peak of mortals, and Level 7 was an existence more powerful than gods.
It turned out that this level setting was similar to the esper levels in the anime "A Certain Magical Index," where LV4 was a strategic-level ability, so wouldn't LV5 immediately elevate him to a world-destroying level?
LV6 directly a demon god?
No… no matter what, it couldn't be that outrageous…
If that were truly the case, then Kevin's golden finger would be greatly magnified, as Water Manipulation was not the only skill in Kevin's skill tree.
Leaving aside the issue of levels for now, even if he wanted to verify Kevin's conjecture, he didn't have that many skill points.
After allocating the skill points to Water Manipulation, Kevin only had two skill points left.
Kevin still hadn't used the two skill points; he planned to save them up to try a class change, or try accumulating skill points to raise a certain skill to LV5 first.
With Water Manipulation at LV4, many of Kevin's operations, which had only existed in his thoughts, now had a practical application.
He could do even more things in the ocean, a place full of water.
Especially a certain matter he had been waiting for a long time.
By the way, the hijacking incident should be happening these few days, right?
Kevin remembered that the hijacking incident occurred before Ezekiel's Faith Expo. Now, with less than a week until that Faith Expo, if he calculated carefully, the hijacking incident should indeed be happening in these few days.
As Kevin was estimating the time, Ashley suddenly walked over with a phone:
"Deep, it's Starlight on the phone. She seems to have something to tell you."
"Mm, bring it over."
Kevin motioned for Ashley to bring him the phone. After Ashley left again, Kevin asked the person on the other end of the line:
"Starlight, what's wrong?"
"Didn't you ask me to keep an eye on Homelander and Maeve? Just now, I saw them both rushing out in a hurry…"
"You mean just now?"
Kevin instantly became alert.
Because he wasn't sure if he could arrive at the scene of the hijacking incident in time, Kevin specifically entrusted Starlight, who was still at the company, to monitor the movements of Maeve and Homelander.
If the two had any joint actions not arranged by the company, Starlight was to call and inform him.
Starlight didn't understand why Kevin would ask her to do this, but now Kevin was one of the few people Starlight trusted, so she wouldn't ask why; she would only do as Kevin said.
And upon hearing the message from Starlight, Kevin knew that the hijacking incident was happening today.
Thinking of this, Kevin quickly got up, asked Ashley for leave to leave the set, and taking The Seven's exclusive satellite phone provided by Vought, he headed straight for the nearest ocean.
At the same time, he contacted Starlight again, asking her to find a way to go to the crime analysis department to locate Maeve and Homelander.
After doing all this, Kevin quickly rushed towards Maeve and Homelander's current location.
...
For a long time, Maeve no longer yearned to be a hero.
After she graduated and started working for Vought, witnessed the darkness within Vought, and then for her first time fighting a criminal, only to discover the criminal was an actor.
Maeve was completely disillusioned with the hero industry.
But unlike Starlight, who dared to resist, Maeve chose to give up, went along with the people of Vought, and became a cog in Vought's interests.
Although the term 'went along with' sounded a bit harsh, Maeve felt the term was accurate.
Turning a blind eye to the internal affairs of Vought, her so-called hero work became nothing more than daily publicity on screen.
When there were cameras and interviews, Maeve was more motivated than anyone.
But once she was off-camera, and outside of Vought's arrangements, she would do nothing and ignore everything.
Since accepting the status quo, she had been like this every day.
Maeve thought she would continue like this, drifting with the current, until she left The Seven, was no longer favored by Homelander, disappeared from the public eye, and then went to live the life she wanted.
If her life had no changes and continued to develop along this path, that would likely be the case.
However, the unexpected came faster and more suddenly than she had imagined.
This morning, Madelyn received a secret call from within the government, informing her that a passenger plane had been hijacked by terrorists.
Madelyn had been busy recently with the plan for [Superheroes in the Department of Defense], and she knew this was an opportunity.
If Homelander and Queen Maeve could save everyone on that passenger plane before Interpol, then no one would stop Madelyn's plan.
This was an excellent opportunity.
Listening to Madelyn's conversation with Homelander, Maeve knew this would be another Superhero show by Vought, and she was even less interested in this rescue.
She and Homelander would only need to do two things then.
First, get on the plane and eliminate the hijackers. Second, safely bring the passengers back to shore.
As for how to publicize it afterward, that was Vought's own business. Maeve and Homelander only needed to act like athletes about to receive an award, give some remarks to the camera, strike a few poses, and this job would be over.
It should have been like this...
From entering the plane to midway, everything was actually quite smooth.
Homelander and Maeve killed the two hijackers in the passenger cabin, then discovered there was still one hijacker in the cockpit. Logically, if they killed that hijacker too, their mission would have been successfully completed.
But an unexpected incident occurred right here.
Homelander didn't hold back at all when killing; one blast of his heat vision not only cut the hijacker in half but also destroyed the control panel behind the hijacker.
With the plane's control panel damaged, the plane could not be operated, and now the entire plane was gliding and falling towards the ocean below!
Maeve could have chosen to ignore all of this; after so many years at Vought, she already felt her heart had turned cold.
But when she saw the passengers on the plane, and saw that very young girl holding a doll, Maeve felt that she couldn't just abandon them.
But what could they do? Homelander wasn't Superman; he couldn't hold up the falling plane, and after the mission failed, they couldn't let others know what happened on the plane.
Maeve had tried to leave with just one child, even if saving just one would ease her conscience a little.
But Homelander didn't think so.
Even if they only left with one child, that child would tell everyone about how they ignored all the passengers on the plane.
This would be fatal to their future, especially Homelander's future.
Homelander didn't intend to save anyone; he felt their mission was already completed, and they shouldn't stay there any longer.
Maeve struggled internally; she knew Homelander was right, but… even if it was just one person, she wanted to save someone.
Maeve truly couldn't just watch so many people die here.
So, just as Homelander was about to leave, Maeve thought of someone.
Deep.
These past few days, when Maeve was chatting with Starlight, she heard Starlight mention that Deep had the power to control the ocean. Although she didn't know when he acquired this power, at this moment, Maeve seemed to have no choice but to trust him.
Thus, Maeve used the satellite phone provided by Vought to call Deep.
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