The Second Check-in, Beast's Physical Enhancement!

The hour hand of the basement wall clock had just passed midnight, and Lin Mo was bent over the desk, finishing the snowman he had failed to complete yesterday. Suddenly, the bracelet on his wrist vibrated violently, like a bee buzzing and flapping its wings under his skin. He jerked his head up as light-blue text exploded across the pitch-black screen, glaringly bright: [Acquired Ability: Hank's Beast Physical Enhancement (Basic Version) -- Strength, speed, and reflexes increased to 5 times that of a normal person].

"Beast?" Lin Mo stared blankly, and the pencil in his hand dropped onto the notebook with a clack. He had some recollection of the name; Peter's comic books mentioned that the X-Men had a blue-furred giant with fangs and claws who could punch through steel plates and run faster than a car. But this physical enhancement... why did it look rather different from what he had imagined? There was neither blue fur nor claws growing out, and even his teeth remained just as they were.

He tentatively clenched his fist, causing his knuckle joints to emit a crisp crack, yet he felt nothing out of the ordinary—no swelling pain of bulging muscles, no searing heat of surging power; it was just like usual. "It isn't broken, is it?" Lin Mo frowned, poking the bracelet screen, and the prompt [Ability activated, current state: stable] popped up, followed by a tiny progress bar showing [Synchronization rate: 12%].

Synchronization rate? It seemed this ability still required adaptation. Lin Mo stood up, his gaze falling on the rusted exercise bike in the corner—that was the one Ted had dragged back from the junkyard, claiming he was going to lose weight, only to throw it there to gather dust after riding it twice. The chain had long since rusted solid, and a dry leaf was stuck to the saddle.

He walked over, gently resting his right foot on the pedal without holding out much hope. Usually, he could at most make the wheels wobble twice, but today he wanted to test just how much substance this "5x physical enhancement" really had. Taking a deep breath, Lin Mo pressed down with a bit of force—

Creak—!

The harsh sound of metal friction erupted in the quiet basement. The rusted chain suddenly came back to life like a startled snake, driving the flywheel into a crazy spin. The entire bicycle shook violently, almost leaping off the concrete floor. Lin Mo was startled, subconsciously gripping the handlebars, but because he failed to control his strength, his left hand gave a fierce yank. With a snap, the handlebar was bent ninety degrees, hanging crookedly from the frame.

"Good grief..." Lin Mo stared wide-eyed at his hand, then at the scrapped exercise bike, his heart pounding wildly. This was 5 times the strength? Just a little bit of force had wrecked a bike rusted into scrap metal?

He swallowed hard, deciding to test his speed next. Although the basement was narrow, it was big enough for him to take a couple of strides. Lin Mo took a few steps back, ran a short distance, and then lunged forward fiercely—the moment his feet left the ground, his body shot out as if fired from a slingshot, slamming thud into the opposite wall with his forehead crashing into the brick crevices, hurting so much that he bared his teeth and hissed.

"The reaction speed is way too fast..." Lin Mo squatted down, clutching his forehead. In that brief instant, before his brain could even issue the command to turn, his body had already reached the destination. This 5x reflex wasn't that he couldn't keep up; it was that it was too fast—so fast that body and consciousness were disconnected, just like a baby who had just learned to walk suddenly being strapped with a motor.

After resting for two minutes, Lin Mo stood up, leaning against the wall, wanting to try jumping this time. He remembered the ceiling height of the basement was close to three meters, and normally when he jumped, he could at most touch the two-and-a-half-meter mark. Now... He took a deep breath, bent his knees slightly, and pushed upward gently.

His body floated up like a feather, his fingertips lightly brushing the cement layer of the ceiling and kicking up a cloud of dust. Lin Mo even had time to blink mid-air before slowly descending, his toes making almost no sound upon landing. "This..." He lowered his head to look at his legs, suddenly thinking of the fat cat at Martha's house that was always jumping onto the refrigerator. The current himself could probably leap to high places just as easily.

The excitement washed over him, and Lin Mo couldn't help jumping again. This time he intentionally used force, shooting upward like a monkey and grabbing the wooden pole on the roof beam firmly with both hands (the one he used to hang his tool bag). He swung back and forth like doing pull-ups; the wooden pole groaned with a creak but didn't break—he had specially selected this solid pine pole, which usually wobbled even when holding fifty pounds of tools, yet now, supporting his one hundred and forty pounds of weight, it only bent slightly.

"Mo, are you tearing down the house?"

The sudden sound startled Lin Mo, causing him to loosen his grip and fall thud to the ground, almost bruising his tailbone. He looked up to see Ted standing at the doorway rubbing his eyes, his hair messy like a bird's nest, holding a milk cup with white liquid sloshing around inside, almost spilling over. The man was clearly not fully awake, his gaze hazy, until he clearly saw Lin Mo hanging under the roof beam. Then he snapped awake instantly, dropping the cup with a clap as milk splashed all over the floor. "What... what kind of acrobatics were you practicing? You were even hanging on the beam!"

Lin Mo awkwardly jumped down from the roof beam, failing to control his force upon landing and causing the floorboards to tremble. "N-not practicing acrobatics, I just couldn't sleep, so I was moving around." He scratched his head, trying to cover up his earlier "crazed behavior," only to discover that his fingertips had accidentally gouged out a splinter of wood from the roof beam during his previous grip, which was still embedded beneath his fingernail.

"Moving around lets you jump three meters high?" Ted stared wide-eyed, bending down to pick up the broken glass on the floor. "What kind of pills did you take? Or are Martha's vitamins just that potent?" He stepped closer to Lin Mo, looking him up and down like a monster. "I remember you were panting just moving a monitor last time, how come you're high on adrenaline today?"

Lin Mo's cheeks burned a little. He couldn't possibly say he had suddenly acquired superpowers, let alone the physical enhancement of Beast from the X-Men. If Ted found out, he'd likely drag him to Las Vegas to perform as a "human cannonball." "Maybe... I built it up from fixing things lately?" He found a lame excuse, casually picking up the tool box beside him to change the subject. "Look, I fixed Carlos's wrench today; my strength seems a bit bigger."

As soon as the words left his mouth, he felt an unusual weight transmitted from his palm—the usually heavy tool box now felt as light as a paper box. Lin Mo subconsciously tossed it upward, and the tool box flew over his head with a whoosh, striking the ceiling as the screwdrivers and wrenches inside clattered down, smashing near his and Ted's feet.

"Holy shit!" Ted jumped back in fright, almost stepping on the milk on the floor. "Are you out of your mind, kid? Trying to demolish the house?"

Lin Mo hurriedly squatted down to pick up the tools. The reaction speed of his fingers was more than twice as fast as usual, and seeing a sharp utility knife about to pierce Ted's foot, he reached out like lightning and grabbed the handle, his fingertips only a centimeter away from the tip of Ted's shoe. "Careful." He placed the utility knife into the toolbox, his heart still pounding wildly—this 5x reaction speed had actually saved the day at a critical moment.

Ted, however, didn't notice this thrilling moment. He stared at the tools on the ground, his eyes suddenly lighting up: "Mo, with this strength of yours, it's a huge waste not to help people move! Logistics companies are hiring temporary workers, paying fifty bucks a time to move refrigerators. With your skills, you could make hundreds a day!"

Lin Mo didn't know whether to laugh or cry. In Ted's eyes, it seemed every ability could be hooked to making money—phasing was magic, great strength was moving houses, and if he told him he could run faster than a car, he'd probably get drafted to deliver packages. "We'll see," he put the tool box away, deliberately using thirty percent of his strength so he wouldn't crush the table. "I'd better adapt first, lest I end up dismantling a customer's refrigerator."

"That's true." Ted nodded, suddenly remembering something, turned and ran upstairs, returning a few seconds later holding a dumbbell—it was a ten-kilogram dumbbell he had bought, claiming he would build arm strength, only to use it twice before it rusted over. "Here, try this!" He handed the dumbbell over. "Lift it ten times, let me see if you've really gotten stronger."

Lin Mo took the dumbbell, feeling only a light sinking sensation in his wrist—the ten-kilogram weight now felt about the same as two bottles of mineral water. He tried doing a curl, the movement as effortless as waving his arm, and could even walk in circles around the basement carrying the heavy object with one hand, his face neither red nor out of breath. "How's that?" He raised an eyebrow at Ted.

"My word..." Ted's eyes widened like copper bells, reaching out to touch the dumbbell and then pinching Lin Mo's arm. "Your muscles haven't gotten bigger, so how did your strength shoot up this much? Could it really be..." He suddenly lowered his voice, leaning close to Lin Mo's ear, "Does that 'wall-passing magic' of yours have side effects? Can it turn people into strongmen?"

Lin Mo almost choked on his own saliva. Side effects? This imagination was way too wild. "Maybe." He went with the flow, pretending to shrug helplessly. "With greater power comes greater trouble; Mr. Coulson was right after all."

Mentioning Coulson cut Ted's excitement in half. He scratched his head, picking up the pieces of the milk cup from the floor: "Then you've got to be careful, don't let others find out. That boxer from the community last time got dragged by his gym manager to fight underground because he was strong, and almost got his legs broken." He paused, his gaze carrying a hint of worry. "Or else... you shouldn't use this strength anymore? Wouldn't it be better to just steadily fix computers?"

Lin Mo's heart suddenly warmed. Although Ted usually loved to brag, at critical moments he was more grounded than anyone. He patted his friend's shoulder, this time deliberately controlling his strength to just a light touch: "Don't worry, I know my limits." He pointed to the wreckage of the exercise bike in the corner. "At most I'll practice at home, I won't go out and stir up trouble."

Ted finally breathed a sigh of relief, turned to grab a mop, and mopped up the milk on the floor: "Right, Aunt May wants us to help her shovel snow tomorrow. Your strength will come in handy so me and Peter don't work ourselves to death."

"Alright." Lin Mo agreed with a smile, suddenly recalling something. "By the way, why did you wake up just now?"

"I was woken up by the dying screams of that bike of yours," Ted said with feigned annoyance, accidentally twisting the mop handle into a pretzel shape. The man froze, scratching his head awkwardly, "Uh... maybe I got infected by you too, and my strength got a bit bigger?"

Lin Mo looked at that twisted, pretzel-shaped mop handle, suddenly realizing—even though the synchronization rate of the 5x physical enhancement was only 12%, his existence seemed to have already started affecting the people around him. Ted usually couldn't even twist open a bottle cap, yet now he could manually bend a mop handle bare-handed. Was this... a weak radiation of the ability? Or simply a coincidence?

He lowered his head to look at the bracelet. The synchronization rate on the screen had quietly risen to 15%, and a small line of text had appeared underneath: [Physical enhancement can increase synchronization rate through training. Currently unlockable skill: Dynamic Vision (Primary) -- can capture trajectories of high-speed moving targets].

Dynamic Vision? Lin Mo's eyes lit up. This skill was practically tailor-made for him—with the phasing ability and dynamic vision, repairing those high-speed rotating precision instruments in the future would surely yield twice the result with half the effort. He suddenly looked forward a bit to tomorrow's snow shoveling; it was a great chance to test what running at 5x speed felt like.

Having finished mopping, Ted yawned: "I'm heading back to sleep, and you shouldn't mess around anymore either. Tear down the house any further and Martha's going to come down and chew us out." He walked to the door, turned back to give a final warning, "If you really can't sleep, watch TV, stop jumping around. The roof beam is about to be shaken down by you."

"Got it." Lin Mo waved with a smile, and once Ted's footsteps vanished into the stairwell, he looked back at the bracelet. A synchronization rate of 15%, dynamic vision, and hidden physical radiation... This Beast's physical enhancement was more complex and much more interesting than he had imagined.

He walked over to the desk, picked up the fallen pencil, and tried writing with 5x reaction speed—the pen tip glided across the paper, leaving behind a neat row of handwriting twice as fast as usual, yet not sloppy at all. Lin Mo couldn't help smiling; if this ability had come a few days earlier, he could have helped Peter copy that thick science notebook without having to watch the boy stay up late rushing through homework.

The moonlight outside the window shone through the transom, landing on the back of Lin Mo's hand. He opened his palm, looking at his skin which was no different from usual, yet he could clearly feel the power flowing in his blood, like a dormant volcano ready to erupt at any moment.

This was the gift of the second check-in—Hank's Beast physical enhancement. There were no flashy special effects or exaggerated appearances, but it solidly enhanced his survival capabilities. Lin Mo suddenly thought of Martha's words: "A peaceful life is like this layer of ice; it looks solid, but shatters at a single knock." Now with this 5x physical strength, even if the ice shattered, he would have the confidence to catch those falling pieces.

He walked over to the basement mirror. The reflection inside was no different from usual—still that mechanic in an old sweatshirt with messy hair, except there was something in his gaze that hadn't been there before: confidence, or rather, certainty about the future.

"Tomorrow, I'll have to see just how formidable this physical strength really is," Lin Mo told the reflection in the mirror, clenching his fist. This time no startling power erupted; there was only steady and unwavering determination.

The synchronization rate on the bracelet quietly ticked up to 16%, as if applauding his resolve. The basement returned to silence, with only the ticking of the wall clock echoing, accompanied by Lin Mo's gradually steady breathing.

The new ability had arrived, and new challenges still lay ahead. But Lin Mo knew that no matter how many storms the future held, he could carry this 5x strength and courage, standing firmly upon the soil of Queens, protecting the people around him and guarding this home that finally possessed warmth.