102: Chapter 102 Parker Awakens

The next morning, the Wuhu Caravan was as crowded as ever. Mary and her two companions stood on the sidewalk of Fifth Avenue, with a diverse crowd queuing up behind them all the way to the street corner.

After finally making it into the shop, the people in line were packed shoulder to shoulder, and the air was thick with a sense of anxious anticipation.

The crisp sound of someone unscrewing a bottle cap came from the front of the line, followed by a collective holding of breath. Then, the owner of the bottle cursed, "Damn it," and the crowd finally resumed breathing.

In front of the checkout counter, a scruffy middle-aged man was slamming an empty bottle onto the counter. The sound of the bottle hitting the wood was dull and heavy.

He shouted at Kara's back, "I've bought eight bottles! Eight! I haven't heard so much as a squeak. Does this potion of yours actually work?"

Kara didn't even turn around. Her antennae swayed slightly behind her head, and she waved her hand as if shooing away a fly. "Next."

The middle-aged man was immediately pushed aside by the person behind him, muttering "What a scam" as he left.

Parker tugged at the camera strap on his chest and moved it behind him.

This was a seventeenth birthday gift from Uncle Ben. He carried it everywhere, and this time he planned to record the New Era Youth's first group activity.

He took his backpack off his shoulder and held it in his arms, glancing at Mary and Gwen. "You guys buy yours first. If either of you awakens, I'll just drink your leftovers."

Mary and Gwen had already slapped their money onto the counter—ten bottles each. Twenty thousand dollars were neatly stacked in front of Kara.

Kara didn't even lift her eyelids as she collected the money. She simply pushed twenty bottles of potion out from under the counter, the bottles clattering across the wooden surface.

Mary unscrewed the first bottle and tilted her head back to gulp it down. Gwen sipped hers beside her, her brow furrowing with every mouthful.

Mary drank quickly. After swallowing the last drop, she closed her eyes and waited for a full five seconds. When she opened them, her fingers were still just those same ten fingers; she felt nothing at all.

Gwen had half a bottle left. She looked at Mary and handed it to her. "I can't drink any more. This stuff gets sourer the more you drink."

Mary tilted her head back and finished it. Looking at her still-unchanged body, she sighed. "It seems awakening a Special Ability really isn't that easy."

“Parker, it's your turn. After you're done, let's go check out the Science and Technology Museum!”

Parker cautiously approached the counter and began stacking crumpled bills one by one, as if he were making a deposit at a bank.

Kara was about to reach out to take the money when she suddenly paused. She recognized Parker.

Previously, in the hall of this very mall, she had seen Parker standing next to Chen Mu taking a photo, and Chen Mu had even patted his head and said something.

Kara didn't say anything. After a moment's thought, she quietly pushed back the bottle she was about to place on the counter and reached down to pull another bottle from the very bottom shelf.

She pushed that bottle toward Parker, her movements as natural as they had been for the hundreds of customers before him.

As Parker unscrewed the cap, Gwen leaned over to look at his camera. "You really do carry that everywhere."

Parker smiled. "Of course. It was because of this that I was called over to the Ball Chief's side by the President."

He then downed the potion in one go. He set the bottle down and was about to say, "I don't think I feel anything," when his right wrist suddenly twitched for no reason.

A strand of extremely fine white silk-like substance sprayed from the underside of his wrist, drawing an arc less than a palm's length in the air before sticking to the counter.

Parker looked down at his wrist and gave a light tug. The spider silk snapped easily. It looked no different from ordinary spider silk; at most, it might get stuck in someone's hair and take a while to pick out.

“How did you succeed with just one bottle?” Mary's face was filled with disbelief.

She lined up her ten empty bottles and then looked at the remaining bit of silk on Parker's wrist. Her expression was like that of a veteran gambler who had bought ten lottery tickets only to find them all blank, while a companion won the jackpot with just one random ticket.

Parker scratched his head, the silk swaying with the movement of his wrist. "I don't know either. Maybe it's just good luck!"

His voice was filled with excitement as his other hand reached for the camera on his chest, ready to document this thrilling moment.

Mary suddenly turned to Gwen. "Should we buy a few more bottles and try?"

Gwen was wiping blueberry stains from the corner of her mouth and looked up at the question.

She crumpled the tissue into a ball in her palm and shook her head. "Forget it. I don't have much pocket money left."

Mary pulled a credit card from a hidden compartment in her bag. This card had been given to her by Maya; it had a fixed monthly limit specifically for her daily expenses.

She stared at Maya's embossed signature on the card for a moment, flipping the card twice between her fingertips.

She placed the card on the edge of the counter. "Gwen, do you think I should take a gamble?"

Gwen immediately reached out to press down on the back of her hand, advising, "Don't. Mary, you're not being calm right now. Parker getting a Special Ability might be due to his unique constitution. Besides, it's not necessarily true that the more you buy, the more likely you are to awaken!"

“This young lady is mistaken.” A man in a suit chimed in from the side. A Wall Street visitor's badge hung from his chest, and he held a tablet displaying a bar chart at maximum brightness.

He traced a line on the bar chart with his fingertip. "According to our company's calculations, the awakening rate for buying ten bottles is less than five-thousandths. But if you buy a hundred bottles or more..."

He tapped the red bar on the far right of the chart, and a number popped up. "The success rate jumps to nearly ten percent. Currently, more than half of all known Awakened on the market are concentrated in this purchase range."

He turned the tablet toward Mary. The data source at the bottom of the chart was labeled with the name of a prestigious Wall Street financial institution.

“That's not right!” Gwen immediately caught the flaw. “If ten bottles is five-thousandths, then a hundred bottles should be around five percent at most. How could it be ten percent?”

The man in the suit lowered his voice and said, "That's the point. Probabilistically speaking, it should indeed be as you say, but our data is absolutely real."

“So there are only two possibilities. One is that the more of this potion you drink, the greater the chance of awakening.”

The man in the suit glanced subtly in Kara's direction. "Second, there might be a human factor at play. Merchants might subconsciously favor those who buy more."

At that moment, a gray-haired old lady leaned out from the queue, clutching five bottles of potion, and said to her friend, "I'm telling you, drinking a lot of this stuff really does make you feel stronger."

“My knees used to hurt whenever the weather changed, but since I started drinking this, they haven't hurt at all.”

“At our age, why bother with health supplements? This potion is better than anything else.”

Hearing this, Mary gritted her teeth, stomped her foot, and slammed her credit card onto the counter. "One hundred bottles!"