The Awkwardness of Abilities "Fighting"

Ted's magic box got stuck at the bend in the stairs while Lin Mo was already boiling with frustration. The box was nailed together from plywood, with half-peeled tape still stuck to its corners. It was stuffed with colorful silk scarves and half a sawed-off crutch—it was his newly designed Human Sawing prop, at least five pounds heavier than the Tin Turkey from last time.

"Push harder, Mo!" Ted's face was red, the veins on his forehead bulging like earthworms. "Just a little more!"

Lin Mo took a deep breath, braced the bottom of the box with his left hand, and grabbed the handle with his right. In his head, he silently repeated, Phasing—a habit he had picked up lately. Whenever he carried something heavy, he always thought about passing through it to save some effort. But just as his body was about to turn translucent, his arm suddenly tensed, his muscles hard as iron. The instinctive response of Physical Enhancement erupted without warning.

"Urgh—" The two powers collided inside him, and Lin Mo felt as if his internal organs had all shifted out of place. The magic box caught on the stair railing with a click, while his shoulder was wedged between the corner of the box and the wall. His upper body had already phased through the railing, but his lower body was still nailed firmly in place, like a steel bar forcibly bent in half.

"Holy shit! How did you get stuck?" Ted panicked, not knowing what to do. He wanted to pull Lin Mo free but was afraid of tearing his arm apart. "Were you using that Wall-Crossing Technique again? I told you that move was unreliable!"

Lin Mo bared his teeth in pain. He tried to relax and keep phasing, but his muscles refused to obey, tightening harder and harder. The back of his hoodie rasped against the wall. "Don't touch me!" he growled through clenched teeth, focusing on fighting that damn instinct. Physical Enhancement always popped up to cause trouble when he needed to relax most, like an unruly child.

After struggling for a full half-minute, Lin Mo finally found the balance. He relaxed his muscles first and let the Phasing Ability take over. Then, with a light push of his fingertips, his whole body finally slipped out of the gap. The back of his shirt had been rubbed through, exposing a red mark.

"What the hell happened?" Ted dragged the magic box into the basement and clicked his tongue as he stared at the mark on Lin Mo's back. "Weren't you pretty smooth when you phased through walls before? Why were you like a skipping record today?"

Lin Mo said nothing, only rubbing his aching shoulder. This was already the third problem that week. On Monday, when he helped Martha deliver a cake, his leg suddenly tensed while phasing through a wall, and his knee got bruised inside it. On Wednesday, while chasing a purse snatcher, he had been about to phase through a wall for a shortcut when his body abruptly accelerated forward, nearly crashing into a fire hydrant. What had just happened was even more ridiculous—he had gotten stuck in the staircase and couldn't move at all.

"Maybe... the abilities are fighting?" he said hesitantly, unease rising in his chest. The strength and speed from Physical Enhancement were useful, but its unconscious tension was the mortal enemy of the complete relaxation required by Phasing. It was like pressing the gas and the brake at the same time. It would be a miracle if the engine didn't stall.

"Fighting?" Ted's eyes widened as he reached out to touch Lin Mo's arm. "They can argue? Did you forget to charge your wristband lately?"

"This thing doesn't need charging." Lin Mo slapped his hand away. He suddenly remembered that Peter's physics textbook seemed to mention something called "motor nerve conflict." Maybe a similar principle could explain it—his two abilities activated different muscle groups, and his brain couldn't coordinate them in time, causing the confusion.

"You need practice." Lin Mo stood up, his gaze falling on the chipped mirror in the basement. He had picked it up from a scrapyard, and its edges had been taped back together several times. Usually, he only used it to check whether he had put his clothes on backward. Now, it had become a useful practice tool.

"Practice what? Practice phasing through walls without getting stuck?" Ted crossed his arms and watched the show. "Want me to call out commands for you? 'Relax—phase! Tense up—run fast!'" He shouted it twice at the top of his lungs, making even the lightbulb sway.

Lin Mo ignored him and stepped in front of the mirror. The reflection wore a faded hoodie, had messy hair, and held a stubborn determination in his eyes. He took a deep breath, silently telling himself, Relax. He imagined himself soft as water, then slowly reached a hand toward the mirror—

The moment his fingertips touched the glass, his arm abruptly tightened. As his muscles bulged, the Phasing Ability vanished like an electric current cut off at the source. With a thud, his knuckles slammed hard into the glass, and the pain nearly made him jump.

"Whoa!" Ted whistled from beside him. "What did that mirror ever do to you?"

Lin Mo rubbed his reddened fingertips, fine sweat beading on his forehead. The problem was more serious than he had thought. The instinct of Physical Enhancement had seeped into his neural responses. Even when he deliberately tried to relax, his body still instinctively entered a defensive state. Like a soldier immediately dropping to the ground at the sound of gunfire, his muscles had equated "touching an object" with "tensing to defend."

"Again." He gritted his teeth. This time, he deliberately slowed down, keeping his fingertips three centimeters from the mirror and silently repeating, Phase, over and over. The mirror's coldness seemed to seep through the air, and his muscles began to itch as if ants were crawling over them. Lin Mo stared fixedly at his hand, imagining it turning into smoke, into flowing water, into anything that could pass through glass—

Srrrip. His fingertips finally passed through the mirror with a faint sensation of friction. Lin Mo's heart leaped. Just as he was about to push his entire hand through, his arm suddenly recoiled. The translucent phasing state instantly collapsed, and the back of his hand smacked heavily against the mirror, making the glass hum.

"Damn." He cursed under his breath. The back of his hand was already bright red.

"Do you have some kind of grudge against that mirror?" Martha's voice suddenly came from the doorway. The old woman stood there holding Snowball, her brow wrinkled like a twisted, wrung-out rag. "I've been hearing thumping since this morning. I thought you were tearing the house down."

Snowball leaped from Martha's arms, circled Lin Mo's feet twice, and brushed his ankle with her tail as if she were mocking him.

"Practicing something." Lin Mo felt awkward and quickly turned around to hide the handprints on the mirror. "Ted wants to perform a wall-passing magic trick, so I'm trying it out first."

"With the way you're crashing into walls?" Martha snorted. She walked over and touched the edge of the mirror. "This mirror already has cracks. Hit it again and it'll shatter. Go practice in the park. There are trees there, and you won't feel bad if you hit them." As she spoke, she pulled a fruit candy from her apron pocket, unwrapped it, and stuffed it into Lin Mo's mouth. "Suck on this. It'll cool that temper of yours."

The sweetness of the candy spread across his tongue, and Lin Mo's mood calmed a little. Watching Martha carry Snowball away, he suddenly remembered what the old woman had said last time: "Times are changing." Now it seemed the first thing to change was himself—even his own body had started fighting with him.

"Want to take a break?" Ted handed him a bottle of water. "Your face is pale. You look like somebody beat the hell out of you."

"No." Lin Mo twisted open the cap and took a huge gulp. "I have to get it right. Otherwise, what if I get stuck in a wall while saving someone next time? Should I just wait to become a joke?" He stood before the mirror again, this time changing his approach—he would activate Physical Enhancement first, then suddenly switch to Phasing in the middle of the movement.

He took two steps back and jogged toward the mirror, planning to activate Phasing one second before contact. But halfway there, a thought suddenly popped into his mind: Going through it is faster. His steps unconsciously sped up, but his body forgot to switch states. Just as he was about to smash into it headfirst, Lin Mo abruptly twisted sideways. His shoulder scraped past the mirror, and with a crack, the fracture in the glass spread another half inch.

"Oh my god!" Ted covered his eyes in fright. "This isn't practice. This is a suicide attack!"

Lin Mo leaned against the wall, panting hard, his shoulder burning with pain. Looking at his miserable reflection, he suddenly felt discouraged. Phasing had once been so smooth. Ever since Physical Enhancement appeared, everything seemed wrong. It felt like drawing a circle with his left hand and a square with his right—he simply couldn't coordinate them.

"Maybe it's a neural reflex issue." Peter's voice suddenly came from the doorway. The teenager had a backpack slung over one shoulder and a copy of Exercise Physiology in his hand. "I heard the noise in the stairwell just now. Brother Lin Mo, could the nerve signals from your two abilities be conflicting?"

"What does that mean?" Ted leaned closer, looking as though he were listening to a foreign language.

"It means the brain is sending two commands to the body at the same time." Peter opened his textbook and pointed to a diagram of nerves. "Physical Enhancement requires motor nerves to become excited and the muscles to contract. The Phasing Ability may require suppressing certain neural activity to keep the body relaxed. When the two commands collide, you get lag or loss of control."

Lin Mo froze for a moment. That explanation was much more convincing than his theory of "abilities fighting." "Then what do I do?"

"You need to build new conditioned reflexes." Peter pushed up his glasses, his eyes lighting up as though he had discovered a new research topic. "Like training a puppy to follow commands, you need to give your brain clear signals—specific movements or trigger words—so it knows which ability to use and when."

"Trigger words?" Lin Mo raised an eyebrow. "Like 'Transform'?"

"Something like that." Peter nodded with a smile. "Try shouting 'Phase' or 'Enhance' in your mind while using a specific gesture. Once you build the conditioned reflex, they won't conflict anymore."

It sounded a little stupid, but he had nothing to lose. Lin Mo cleared his throat, raised his right hand toward the mirror with his palm facing forward, and said, "Phase!" At the same time, he silently told himself to relax as his fingertips slowly approached the glass. This time, they actually passed through smoothly. There was no lag, no tensing. It was as natural as eating and drinking.

"It worked!" Ted clapped excitedly. "Peter, kid, you're more reliable than those doctors!"

Lin Mo was pleasantly surprised too. Just as he was about to push his entire hand through, he remembered he needed to switch to Physical Enhancement. He shouted, Enhance, in his mind and clenched his fist at the same time—his phasing state ended instantly, and his fist hit the mirror with a thud. This blow was even harder. Cracks spread directly from the edge to the center like an exploding ice flower.

"..." Peter's smile froze on his face. "Maybe... you still need more practice."

Over the next hour, shouts of "Phase!" and "Enhance!" rang constantly through the basement, mixed with dull thumps against the walls and Ted's startled cries. Lin Mo went from flailing in a panic to barely managing three switches in a row. Every attempt came with bumps and bruises, but at least he was improving.

He discovered that specific gestures really helped. Palm forward meant Phasing, while a clenched fist meant Enhancement. Combined with the mental commands, his brain seemed able to respond faster. He still made mistakes occasionally, though. For example, when he tried to clench his fist but his fingers lagged behind, he ended up half-phased and half-enhanced, stuck in the mirror. Ted laughed so hard his stomach hurt.

"I can't, I can't!" Ted doubled over laughing, pointing at Lin Mo stuck in the mirror. "You look like a sausage wedged inside a sandwich, and not even a cooked one!"

Lin Mo was so angry he wanted to kick him, but he was stuck and couldn't move. He could only watch helplessly as Ted pulled out his phone to take pictures. "Delete that!"

"No way. This is blackmail material. I have to keep it." Ted set the photo as his wallpaper and deliberately held it up in front of Lin Mo. "When you become a superhero, I'll sell this picture to the newspapers. It'll make me a fortune!"

Peter made notes seriously beside them. "Attempt number seventeen. Failed transition from Phasing to Enhancement. Subject stuck in mirror for thirty seconds. Cause: fist-clenching motion delayed by 0.5 seconds. Recommend increased hand training to improve movement precision."

Lin Mo finally tore himself free, a shard of mirror stuck in his hair. He looked like a deserter fresh off a battlefield. He snatched Ted's phone, deleted the photo, then turned and collapsed onto the floor, too exhausted even to curse.

That evening, Aunt May came to call them for dinner. The moment she entered, the glass fragments all over the floor startled her. "Were you tearing the building apart?" When she saw the cracks in the mirror and the bruises on Lin Mo, she understood at once. "Your superpowers causing trouble again?"

"Yeah." Lin Mo looked a little embarrassed. "I got a little too impatient practicing."

"What good does being impatient do?" Aunt May sighed and led him upstairs. "Dinner's already cold. Eat first. Let me tell you, when I learned to knit back then, I unraveled seven or eight balls of yarn before I figured out knit and purl stitches. Nothing happens overnight."

At the dinner table, Aunt May deliberately served Lin Mo a bowl of pork rib soup to strengthen the "bones the mirror beat up." Peter was still excitedly discussing neural reflex training, while Ted vividly described Lin Mo's embarrassing pose stuck in the mirror, making everyone laugh.

"I actually ran into something similar before." Carlos suddenly spoke, setting down his wineglass. "When I was young and learning auto repair, I had to remember circuit theory while developing skill with my hands. I kept mixing the two up and ruined several engines. Later, my master told me not to try to do two things perfectly at once. Master one thing first, and the other will naturally fall into place."

Something stirred in Lin Mo's heart. Carlos was right. He had been too eager for quick results, always trying to master both abilities at once. Instead, they interfered with each other. Maybe he should practice them separately, pushing each one to its limit before slowly finding a way to combine them.

After dinner, Lin Mo did not return to the basement. Instead, he went to the community park. The park was empty at night, with only streetlamps casting mottled shadows across the ground. He walked beneath the old locust tree and first practiced using only his Phasing Ability to pass through the trunk. Once, twice, until he could pass through smoothly with his eyes closed.

Then he stepped back several paces and began to run, using only Physical Enhancement. He felt the rhythm of his muscles contracting, adjusted his breathing, and kept his speed within a controllable range.

Finally, he stood before the tree and took a deep breath. He began with a slow jog. One second before touching the trunk, he raised his palm forward and silently said, Phase—his body slipped through the tree like flowing water, without the slightest resistance. The instant he emerged on the other side, he clenched his fist and gave the command, Enhance. Without stopping, he continued sprinting another ten meters before coming to a halt.

"It worked!" Lin Mo pumped his fist in excitement. Even the bruises on his back seemed to hurt less.

He practiced the sequence again and again, changing from a slow jog to a fast run, from the tree trunk to the park's iron fence, from straight lines to turns. Every switch became smoother, like gears finally meshing together with a crisp turning sound.

By the time he returned to the basement, Ted was dead asleep, drool soaking his pillow. Lin Mo looked at the mirror covered in cracks and suddenly found it less irritating. He took glass glue from the toolbox and carefully sealed the fractures. The marks were still visible, but at least it would not shatter.

The next morning, Martha passed by the basement and saw Lin Mo smoothly phasing back and forth through the mirror. Every so often, he would speed up for a few steps before suddenly phasing through it. She raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Looks like you and the mirror made up?"

"More or less." Lin Mo smiled, and the weight in his heart finally lifted.

"Good." Martha snorted and handed him a cloth bundle. "Fresh-baked bread. Feed your brain a little. Stop fighting with yourself all the time."

Lin Mo took the bundle, warmth spreading from his fingertips. He watched Martha leave, then looked at himself in the mirror. He suddenly understood that abilities were like the troubles in life. They were never perfect. There would always be conflicts and setbacks. But as long as he patiently worked through them and slowly coordinated them, he could always find a way for them to coexist.

Like this cracked mirror. It was imperfect, but it had witnessed his clumsiness and his progress. That made it more meaningful than a brand-new one.

Lin Mo made a face at the mirror, then turned and picked up his toolbox. Today, he was going to help Peter repair his Mechanical Spider. It was the perfect chance to test his newly practiced skills and see whether he could adjust parts while phasing through them. That would definitely be interesting.