Chapter 66: Surrender

Jimmy had spent the past few days pondering how to boost his magical damage. He was already prepared to go and investigate the marshlands later, but he still had no clue about what preparations were needed.

The first hurdle was figuring out how an ordinary person should deal with it if a supernatural event occurred. The second problem was how to escape safely if an anomaly manifested.

Until these two difficulties were resolved, Jimmy would not do anything that would put himself in danger.

When it came to offensive capabilities, the first things that came to Jimmy's mind were holy water from churches, blessed relics, and the like. However, he had zero connections to any church, so how could he possibly get his hands on those? Besides, whether they would actually work was another matter entirely.

The same went for his escape plan. If a paranormal incident occurred, the chances of escaping alone were slim to none; he still needed something capable of subduing malicious spirits.

His current patrol area had already been shifted far away from that place, and he tried his best to keep himself detached from whatever was going on over there. Jimmy had also chatted with others at the police station, indirectly probing to see if anyone had ever encountered paranormal events or heard of figures akin to master exorcists, but he came up completely empty-handed.

The people at the police station probably saw the ugliest sides of society too often. Even if they had religious beliefs, they treated them merely as faiths rather than harboring the mindset of zealots. Furthermore, they rarely had the time to attend various church activities, so naturally, they didn't mingle much with such circles.

As for individuals like master exorcists, they had never even heard of them. The only possibility for an exorcism would be a church pastor, which brought him in a full circle right back to where he started.

After tossing and turning over the matter for days—including making phone calls to acquaintances to ask around—Jimmy ultimately decided to abandon the investigation of the marshlands. The reason for giving up was that he truly had no means to counter potential supernatural phenomena. If the possibility of paranormal activity in the marshlands could not be ruled out, he would never touch that place. He had only been reborn a few months ago; was he really going to risk getting himself killed just to satisfy his own curiosity?

Being cowardly was not a bad thing. In the movies, those who didn't know their own limits and went messing around despite knowing the dangers already had grass growing two meters high on their graves. If it were human-caused disappearances, that would be one thing, but if supernatural forces were involved, he would definitely be a goner.

Jimmy was very self-aware. Given his current abilities, his mind's eye was basically just a radar, and his revolver was just an ordinary gun. He wasn't afraid of dealing with ordinary people—it was nothing more than a few bullets, and if worst came to worst, he could just cycle through another cylinder of six. But the moment something popped up that was immune to bullets, his radar would be completely useless, and seeking death meant finding death.

Over the past few days, the patent paperwork had been completed, and he had successfully obtained the patent. Following Professor Morgan's advice, Jimmy registered the patent ownership under his company's name, holding it jointly with the company as the inventor.

Chief James had already seen the new version of the police light bar and was very interested as well. However, it still required Jimmy to customize a full set of police lights matching the functions and dimensions of the existing ones, to be installed on a single police car for full-functional testing.

Jimmy's rest days over the next few days were entirely dedicated to this project.

On older police cars, there was usually only a single light bar right on the roof. However, Jimmy had previously painted a grand vision for Chief James and Captain Cagle, which included the top light bar, an additional set of lights on the left and right of the front headlights, a light on the center console or just behind the rearview mirror, and a light on each side of the tail lamps. There was also the mobile single-tube police light currently in Cagle's possession.

Jimmy hadn't found an OEM manufacturer yet, nor had he gone to get molds made. He was still in the handmade stage. While the appearance wasn't particularly pretty, he had finally managed to cobble all the police lights together.

Cagle had contacted a repair shop in advance and found an old police car. After tearing parts out here and there, they cleared enough space for Jimmy's new lights. The long light bar, the lights on the front and rear headlights, the center-mounted light, and the single-tube light all had their designated spots. The mechanics at the repair shop were also very enthusiastic, with a group of them pitching in to help with the installation, and they specially prepared two car batteries to place inside the vehicle as a power source.

Over the course of more than two weeks, Jimmy finally managed to install his custom set of police lights onto a Victoria Crown. A battered police car paired with crudely handmade lights—if he hadn't built them with his own hands, they surely would have been dismantled by someone long ago due to being an absolute eyesore.

Choosing a nighttime slot, Chief James brought along personnel from other squads to visit. Jimmy didn't stand on ceremony with them and directly turned on the power switch for the police lights. In an instant, all the lights at the front, rear, and top of the entire car illuminated simultaneously, flashing alternating blocks of red and blue. Due to the manual fabrication, the glue at some of the seams was uneven, resulting in light leakage. Viewed up close, it was practically light pollution.

Of course, the term light pollution probably didn't exist yet, but Chief James and his men could definitely experience that sensation. The dazzling effect of alternating red and blue flashes was painfully piercing to the eyes, forcing several of them to immediately put on the sunglasses they carried for duty.

Wearing sunglasses in the dead of night, this bunch truly looked like they had escaped from some psychiatric ward. They circled the police car a few times and then stood at a distance to observe the effect.

"Jimmy, congratulations. A good invention, a fine product." Chief James walked over to Jimmy and patted him on the shoulder.

"Thank you, Chief." Being a subordinate, Jimmy remained quite proper. He lowered his head slightly, extended both hands to shake the Chief's, and gave it a gentle pump.

"Get the finished products out quickly. We can replace two cars first and give them a trial run."

"Got it, Chief. I'll find some time to have a factory open up molds so they look better."

"Mm, I'm heading out first. Remember to come to work tomorrow."

"Goodbye, Chief."

Jimmy saw Chief James out of the testing area and turned back, only to find that Cagle had already switched off the police lights.

"Jimmy, it looks like the Chief is very satisfied. Have you figured out how you're going to proceed? Making two sets of police lights can't be done with these handmade contraptions of yours; they're just too ugly."

"Not yet. I need to gather some company information and consult around."

"Alright, then you keep busy, we're heading back first." The group left together, while Jimmy stayed behind to help the mechanics dismantle the police lights.

Jimmy paid the repair shop for their services. The fate of this remaining police car would most likely be a trip to the junkyard; having been drilled and cut into for the installation of the lights, it was now even more battered and ruined than before.

Jimmy hadn't found a suitable OEM manufacturer yet. If he only needed to make two sets for the police department, that wouldn't be too difficult. With the prototype equipment in hand, all it required was finding a custom fabricator to manually churn out two sets of suitable casings and relevant connecting components.

Through the introduction of an intermediary, Jimmy contacted a mold studio. These types of studios primarily designed corresponding injection molds for equipment. For a small job like Jimmy's requiring only two sets, it could be handled directly as a side job by someone working through the ranks, though the cost was quite high. However, Jimmy had no other choice at the moment; lacking a manufacturer and a finalized design scheme, he had no blueprints to provide to formal mold-making factories anyway.