"Last night's fight made me see my shortcomings clearly. My fighting style was too straightforward, and I lacked a suitable weapon."
"It's rare to be able to assess yourself so clearly."
Professor X nodded in approval. "Indeed, Vitas's fighting style is completely different from Scott's and the others'. A weapon that could slice through iron like mud and was indestructible would improve your combat strength significantly."
Chen Xiao smiled. "That's why I'd like your help, Professor. Could you set aside half the Adamantium extracted this time, mix it with other metals, and forge a weapon specifically for me?"
"Would that be possible?"
"Of course. Making equipment tailored to the X-Men and strengthening their combat capabilities is one of our basic responsibilities."
"Tell me, what would you like this weapon to be like?" The more Professor X spoke with this new member, the more he appreciated him. His strength was solid, his character grounded. He was neither arrogant in victory nor discouraged by defeat, and, more unusually still, he knew himself.
"I only have three requirements: hard enough, heavy enough, and sharp enough." Chen Xiao paused briefly, then added, "And the heavier, the better. I feel my strength increasing every day. If it's too light, I'm afraid it won't have enough heft for me before long."
Professor X nodded. "Understood. You want a heavy weapon."
With the weapon discussion finished, he asked gently, "And what do you plan to do with the remaining half of the alloy, Vitas?"
"Save it for someone."
"Who?"
"The Mutant we rescued together yesterday. The girl with a pair of small horns on her forehead. Her name is Yidileisi, and she's fierce with a blade."
"Her ability leans toward explosive close-range combat. She needs an unstoppable weapon."
"Besides, this alloy came from the chains on her in the first place."
After a moment's consideration, Professor X nodded. "That girl is certainly unusual, but she has suffered severe psychological damage. Recovery won't be easy."
"No, the problem goes far beyond simply being 'unusual.'"
Chen Xiao shook his head and took the hard drive containing the research data from his pocket. "Professor, once you've seen this, you'll understand everything."
"The hard drive you brought out of the institute."
Professor X accepted it without surprise. Shadowcat and Logan had already mentioned in their mission reports that he had made off with the data.
Chen Xiao nodded. "Yes."
"What did you think after reading it?"
His voice was calm, but carried a chill. "Utterly inhuman. They deserved to be wiped out."
Professor X sighed softly. "I've seen far too many things like this. In the past, almost every time we destroyed a Mutant laboratory, we uncovered files of this kind."
Chen Xiao knew full well that even someone as capable as Professor X could not eradicate this evil. Human greed was insatiable. In an age when extraordinary powers were first emerging, the rich and powerful had long since ceased to be satisfied with money and authority.
Once they had more wealth than they could spend in several lifetimes, once their positions placed them above everyone else, their ambitions quietly shifted toward controlling genes, seizing power, and even attempting to achieve immortality.
For instance, the Chris Research Institute they had destroyed this time was very likely tied to the American government. After all, only one entity in the world possessed the complete synthesis data for Adamantium.
It was Friday, and an outdoor cooking class was scheduled for the afternoon.
The entire student body gathered in the garden to learn to cook in the sunshine, making for a lively scene.
The little Mutants in the lower grades clustered around their teachers, watching with wide-eyed fascination;
the middle-grade students had already rolled up their sleeves and gotten to work, each at a small cooking station, showing off their skills at frying, grilling, cooking, and deep-frying. There was pizza, salad, burgers, and grilled meat-everything;
as for the upper-grade students, they were past the age of joining in the bustle. They scattered beneath the trees in groups of three or five, chatting and boasting amid constant laughter.
Among them, fifteen-year-old middle schooler Chen Xiao was an exception. He neither crowded into the kitchen nor joined the chatting groups. Instead, he lay lazily beneath a large tree, eyes narrowed, comfortably basking in the sun.
As sunlight spilled over him, the cells inside Chen Xiao continued to vibrate violently, compressing layer upon layer and transforming faster. His muscles and bones grew tougher, and his strength climbed at a visibly discernible rate.
But he alone knew any of this.
On this point alone, the marvels of his Krypton bloodline were truly astonishing.
His strength surged rapidly every day. His body's density had long since exceeded a normal person's by more than a hundredfold, and his weight was astonishing;
yet these earthshaking changes seemed sealed behind an invisible barrier. Others noticed nothing, and his surroundings remained completely undisturbed.
At its root, this was connected to the unique Bio-Force Field that had emerged alongside his levitation ability when it first awakened.
This field quietly shaped him into an independent existence detached from reality, constantly fine-tuning the frequency of his resonance with the outside world until the two meshed seamlessly as one.
And because it was fundamentally a magnetic field spontaneously generated by life, rather than an energy-based or psychic ability, it produced neither energy ripples nor fluctuations of consciousness.
Even Professor X could detect nothing unusual.
Sure enough, nothing feels better than lying here in the sun and waiting to grow stronger.
Chen Xiao lay faceup on the grass, stretched out his limbs, and let a soft, contented sigh escape his throat.
These people spend all day either fighting and killing or burrowing into laboratories to conduct targeted analyses and destructive experiments. Can't they just live peacefully?
He inwardly shook his head.
"Vitas, you're slacking off in the sun again!"
Before her words had faded, Kitty Pryde had approached with light steps. Petite yet shapely, with bright, pretty features and a clear smile, she sat down beside Chen Xiao without ceremony.
Chen Xiao opened his eyes. From his upward-looking angle, two full hills instantly blocked most of the sky.
Tsk! I have to say, Western girls really do have that talent written into their genes from childhood. What do they eat to grow like that?
The thought flashed past. His gaze naturally passed over the peaks, his expression unchanged. "Kitty, weren't you making pizza with the others?"
"Fresh out of the oven!" Smiling, she raised her left hand.
Only then did Chen Xiao notice the white porcelain plate resting steadily in her palm. A cut slice of beef pizza lay on it, wisps of steam rising into the air.
All right, I admit it. My attention really was somewhere else just now.
"Vitas, want a bite?" With a lift of her fingertips, she brought the pizza to his lips, her movement natural and intimate.
...Huh?
With the pizza right before his mouth, Chen Xiao froze for a moment, a little dazed by this sudden closeness.
"You don't like pizza?" Kitty tilted her head, puzzlement in her eyes.
I'm probably overthinking it.
Seeing her open expression, Chen Xiao felt a little embarrassed, then opened his mouth and took a bite.
"Mmm, delicious!"
After a couple of chews, his eyes lit up, and he nodded sincerely. "I didn't expect yours to be even more authentic than the cafeteria cook's."
Kitty's eyebrows lifted slightly, and her smile blossomed. "I've actually studied baking."
As she spoke, she brought the remaining pizza to her own lips and bit directly into the spot where he had just bitten, her eyes dipping slightly with a soft, playful gleam.
Hiss...
Is she flirting with me?
Holy shit, she really is flirting with me?
I'm only fifteen! How did she set her sights on me?
At that moment, even the densest person should have caught on. Chen Xiao's heart jolted: a seventeen-year-old girl was actually flirting with him to his face.
But a moment later, Kitty finished the pizza in a few bites and abruptly changed the subject, looking at him curiously. "Vitas, why do you always like sunbathing?"
"..."
The sharp turn left Chen Xiao momentarily speechless. Wondering whether he had imagined too much of that earlier intimacy, he merely answered, "I'm enjoying life."
"Enjoying life?" Kitty blinked, looking bewildered.
Chen Xiao rested his head on his arms, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly. "Yes. I've found that once the sunlight hits me, my mind empties, and my whole body feels like it's merging with the wind, the light, and the earth."
"Every ray of sunshine seems full of life. Plants put out branches beneath it, birds spread their wings beneath it. It's warm, grounding, and freeing."
Kitty's eyelashes fluttered, and she looked half convinced. "Sunbathing... is really that amazing?"
He smiled faintly. "No, it just feels comfortable to me. You might not find it comfortable, much less anyone else. Everyone's different, after all."
"Some people like zoning out, some love music, some work up a sweat running, some unwind in a pool, and some ponder how to make a dish taste just right."
"These things look different, but they're really the same: finding a state where your mind can truly settle and your body can truly relax."
"For me, sunbathing is the simplest, most complete way to relax. It lets me hear my heartbeat, feel my pulse, and truly be alive."
"So that's it..." Kitty nodded gently, looking thoughtful.
Of course, those words were half true and half false.
The truth was that he had indeed faced death, and therefore especially cherished the warmth and weight of life itself;
but that reverence never slowed his blade when he faced an enemy. Instead, it made it colder, more precise, and more merciless.
The lie was that this was merely a plausible, reasonable-sounding excuse that would arouse no one's suspicion.
For now, not enough time had passed for anyone to notice that he was always lying in the sunlight;
but once his reputation grew and his strength soared, someone would inevitably examine his routine, investigate his habits, and pick apart the details.
Then, his "love of sunbathing" would become a crucial clue.
With just a little deduction, it would not be difficult to guess that his growth might come from sunlight.
Once an opponent focused on that, overcast weather, indoor locations, light-blocking covers... all would become tactical options against him.
Chen Xiao never underestimated other people's intelligence.
So today, nothing could be more fitting than quietly spreading the explanation that "sunbathing = enjoying life in 3D" through Kitty.
By the time he finished speaking, Kitty was visibly stunned.
She had thought fifteen-year-old Vitas was merely a quiet boy. She had not expected him to speak of life with the calm tone of a traveler who had seen it all.
Suddenly, her eyes lit up with eagerness. "Vitas, I'll try it too and see just how amazing sunbathing really is!"
"...Suit yourself." What else could Chen Xiao say?
He had barely finished speaking before Kitty smoothly lay down, the curves of her waist, shoulders, and neck looking all the more supple and captivating in the sunlight.
They were so close that even though he had already reined in his sense of smell, he still easily caught a faint fragrance from the ends of her hair, clean and fresh.
From a distance, the boy and girl lying side by side on the grass looked like a casual yet intimate summer silhouette.