"You call this a craniotomy!?"
Upon seeing the cleaver in Fang Mo's hand, Logan shouted without thinking, "I think you just want to behead me!"
"Behead?"
Hearing Logan's words, Fang Mo subconsciously glanced at his Jade Spirit cleaver. "How... did you know I specialize in keeping heads intact during treatment?"
Fang Mo wasn't deliberately being ridiculous. According to the lore of Tinker' Construct, the cleaver inherently comes with a secondary beheading enhancement. Moreover, since the Manyullyn Cleaver was his longest-serving weapon, why shouldn't he add a few more beheading enhancements to it?
"You give me the feeling of a madman!"
Seeing Fang Mo unmoved, Logan furrowed his brow and said.
Logan quickly let go of Fang Mo's collar and turned toward the door, saying as he walked, "I should never have believed your nonsense. I've changed my mind. I'm leaving this hellhole, and you..."
"Hey, what are you doing?"
Seeing Logan's attitude, Fang Mo held his forehead and said, "I've been racking my brains to cure you, can't you understand me a bit?"
"Racking your brains to pry open my skull, is it?"
Logan halted and turned to look at Fang Mo. "What, do you expect me to thank you?"
"No, brother, you're Wolverine, the most popular character in the X-Men series, enduring atomic bombs with your adamantium body. What's wrong with me doing a craniotomy to remove a bullet? If it doesn't work, I can have Charles play some ASMR for you to relax your brain first, okay?"
Fang Mo shrugged with the cleaver in his hand. "Besides, I'm Jesus, even if you really died, I could bring you back to life."
"Wait, how did this involve me?"
Before Logan could respond, Charles interjected, "What is ASMR anyway..."
"Sorry, I don't want to know anymore."
This time Logan spoke, frowning as he walked toward the door, "Just stop messing with me... understand?"
"Damn it, Wolverine, why won't you listen to reason?"
Seeing Logan's attitude, Fang Mo couldn't hold back anymore. He turned to Charles and ordered, "Go! Charles! Use your psychic powers to scrape his brain's frontal lobe!"
"???"
Charles looked at Fang Mo in bewilderment.
His expression was easy to understand, probably meaning something like, 'Do you think that's where it is?'
"Why are you staring at me?" Fang Mo questioned Charles' stunned look. "What, is his frontal lobe on my face? Control him first!"
"I don't think it's about where it is..."
Charles took a deep breath to calm his aging-induced high blood pressure. "I can feel Logan's inner turmoil. You want to help your friend regain his memory quickly, which I understand, but... don't you think Logan needs to calm down first?"
"Easy for you to say, why don't you do it yourself?"
Fang Mo couldn't help but say, "Can't you just restore his memory directly?"
"I can't."
Charles shook his head, "The human brain's structure is very complex. His injury is physical damage. Even my mutant abilities can't heal him..."
"Then why are you telling me all this nonsense?"
Fang Mo grabbed his cleaver, "I've already said it's a bullet issue. I just need to open his skull and remove the bullet, and it'll be done."
"Calm down, you need to calm down."
Charles quickly tried to persuade him, "Logan is not only your friend but also mine. I can't bear to see him like this either, but the human brain is very complex. If we add the X gene's self-healing factor, it gets even more complicated..."
"Memory is controlled by the hippocampus, parietal lobe, temporal lobe, diencephalon, and cortex. Logan's self-healing ability keeps his body in perfect condition, meaning his prime... but we can't guarantee that if his brain cells regenerate, they'll retain past memories. If we rush into a craniotomy, it might have the opposite effect."
Charles earnestly advised, "I'm not fear-mongering, but brain cells are different from body cells... if it were a physical issue, I wouldn't stop you."
"Is that so?"
Hearing Charles' explanation, Fang Mo nodded.
He understood that Logan's X gene allowed self-healing, keeping his body in its prime, but if his brain also reverted to its prime state, the memories accumulated over the years might not remain.
Though there was a high chance it would be fine, Charles didn't want to take the risk.
"But we can't just let this drag on, right?"
After thinking for a while, Fang Mo frowned, "The Wolverine I know is from the past, not the present. We can't let him stay amnesiac forever, can we?"
"How about this?"
Charles sighed, "Leave this to me for now. I'll try to solve it within three days... no, within forty-eight hours. Is that okay?"
"Tsk... fine."
Hearing Charles, Fang Mo, though unhappy, agreed.
He could wait two days. If it didn't work, he planned to use Abyssal magic on Logan, then revive him. Even if craniotomy was risky, reshaping his body with dark magic should be safe, right?
"You can also stay here for a while."
Seeing Fang Mo relent, Charles visibly relaxed as well. "A lot has happened over the past few decades. I have many things I want to discuss with you."
"Oh, very well," Fang Mo did not reject Charles's goodwill.
As Charles mentioned, several decades had indeed passed. The last time he was here, it was during the Cold War. Now, lively youths were everywhere.
Given the nature of the X-Men world, it's likely that there is an abundance of advanced technology here.
Perhaps he might unlock some new modules or something.
"Find me a room," Fang Mo said to Charles, "A slightly bigger one, as I've brought my family along this time."
"Brought your family?" Charles seemed a bit taken aback, unsure of what he meant. "Uh… do you mean what I think you mean?"
"Is it so hard to understand?" Fang Mo raised an eyebrow. "It's not like you and Erik, fighting each other your whole lives without getting married, and now you're forcing me to stay single with you two?"
"Erik actually had a family once…" Charles sighed deeply. "But due to some unfortunate events, his family died, and he could never turn back from that path."
"Oh, is that so?" Fang Mo nodded subconsciously.
He vaguely remembered that in the storyline of X-Men: Apocalypse, Magneto did fall in love with a woman and had a daughter. However, his mutant identity was exposed when he saved someone, resulting in the death of his wife and daughter, which led to his complete downfall.
But that was in the new timeline.
Now it seemed that Magneto in this old timeline also lost his entire family.
"Sigh, Erik is quite a tragic figure…" Fang Mo sighed, thinking of Magneto and Charles, who represented the conservative and radical factions among mutants, respectively.
To Fang Mo, however, Magneto's radicalism seemed overly conservative.
He imagined what he might do if something happened to Ah Xue or Xiao Yao… Heaven knows what craziness he would resort to.
Just picturing them injured or dead before him stirred a violent rage within him. Fang Mo felt that even destroying the world wouldn't quell his fury. He'd probably trap everyone in a time loop, repeatedly torturing them in various ways, showing them what true hell was like.
"You seem to be thinking about something unpleasant," Charles suddenly said, sensing something.
"Are you spying on my thoughts again?" Fang Mo frowned, instinctively pulling out a bloodstained stick.
"Holy crab!" Charles's face changed drastically at the sight of the stick, his aged but kind expression turning frantic as he wheeled himself back. "Why… why the hell do you still have that stick!?"
So startled, he even swore inadvertently.
However, having weathered many storms, Charles quickly calmed down and hurriedly explained.
"Wait, I wasn't spying on your thoughts," Charles said uncomfortably, eyeing the stick. "I've grown a lot over the years. I no longer invade others' memories or thoughts without consent… Just put the stick down, and let's talk, shall we?"
"Then what was that just now…"
"Just basic observation," Charles explained immediately. "Even without mutant abilities, I am still Professor X with multiple degrees… including psychology, so of course, I can guess what you were thinking."
"Oh, very well then." Fang Mo slowly put the stick away. "It seems you have indeed grown."
"No matter how much I grow, my skull's hardness is still limited…" Charles said, touching the back of his head helplessly.
Due to this small incident, their conversation ended rather abruptly.
Fang Mo wanted to chat more, but Charles, claiming to be overly shocked and feeling chest pain, needed to rest and take some medication. So, he called someone to show Fang Mo to the guest room for some rest.
Since Charles wanted to rest, Fang Mo naturally wouldn't force him to stay.
He soon followed Ororo—Storm—out of the room.
One had to admit, Charles's mansion was indeed grand. It seemed to have been renovated recently, exuding an upper-class, or rather aristocratic, atmosphere. Even with a lot of mutant children living there, it didn't feel crowded at all.
After walking for over ten minutes, Fang Mo finally arrived at his guest room.
It was clear that Charles still valued him greatly. After opening the door, Fang Mo found that this guest room was indeed quite spacious, with all sorts of complete facilities. There were not only two bedrooms and a living room but even a separate kitchen and bathroom.
Especially the oversized floor-to-ceiling window in the living room, which provided a direct view of the lawn outside.
This vaguely reminded Fang Mo of when he had previously lived here, as that room seemed to have a rather large floor-to-ceiling window, which he quite liked.
And then there was the telepathic mutant named Emma.
"Oh, by the way."
At this thought, Fang Mo suddenly had an idea. He turned and glanced at Storm, who was not far away: "Young lady, can I ask you something?"
"…What?"
Storm was momentarily taken aback by this.
"Do you know a woman called the White Queen?" Fang Mo recalled and asked, "I think her name is Emma. Does she also live here?"
"The White Queen?"
Storm thought hard for a moment and then shook her head: "Sorry, I don't know her..."
"Oh, it's nothing then."
Fang Mo shook his head, guessing that Emma, just like in the original story, had gone with Magneto. He had only brought her up because he had thought of her on a whim. Now, he didn't need Emma to stay with him, so there was no necessity to find her.
As there were still matters to attend to, Storm soon left the guest room.
As for Fang Mo, it was evident that no one had stayed in this guest room for quite a while, as there was a bit of dust. So he decided to summon Ah Xue from the pure white space.
"Good evening, master."
After being summoned, Axue first greeted Fang Mo gently and then began to look around: "Master, is this the new world already?"
"More or less."
Fang Mo nodded accordingly: "For now, let's tidy up. We'll stay here for the time being."
"Alright."
Ah Xue smiled gently and then began to clean earnestly.
It is worth mentioning that Cheems, the little wasteful dog, seeing this, actually mimicked her and picked up a cloth to help wipe the floor.
Although it looked like a Shiba Inu, it was, after all, some kind of weird ghostly star, with very agile paws that seemed capable of gripping objects as if by suction. So it was surprisingly efficient, and in no time, the floor near the living room was polished clean and shiny.
While Ah Xue and the little wasteful dog were busy cleaning, Fang Mo continued to study the MC items.
Of course, this time he wasn't studying anything new but rather the feminization core he had previously extracted from the Pig God.
Xiao Yao's earlier words had given Fang Mo a lot of inspiration. He did feel like having a child to raise, but since he and Xiao Yao couldn't have a baby right now due to the absence of a pregnancy module, it was unlikely they could produce one as two digital beings. So he decided to feminize one to raise first.
And thinking of feminization, Fang Mo naturally thought of the little Ender Dragon.
Yes, speaking of children, wasn't there already a ready-made daughter here? So Fang Mo immediately had an idea and summoned the little Ender Dragon from the pure white world.
"...Roar?"
The little Ender Dragon seemed to be sleeping and was a bit bewildered when suddenly summoned: "Mother?"
"Good child, eat this."
With a smile on his face, Fang Mo looked like he was coaxing his daughter into taking Chinese medicine.
Hearing this, the little Ender Dragon blinked curiously and then brought its huge head over, sniffing the feminization core in Fang Mo's hand. However, since this thing was purely metal and had no smell, it soon stuck out its tongue and rolled the core into its mouth.
In the next moment, the little Ender Dragon slightly tilted its head back.
With a gulping sound, the feminization core was swallowed into its stomach.
"Daughter, my daughter..." Fang Mo, on his side, also began to anticipate, rubbing his hands together excitedly and letting out a father's affectionate laugh: "Hehehe."
And just as Fang Mo expected, it didn't take long for the feminization core to take effect after being swallowed.
The enormous body of the little Ender Dragon suddenly emitted a strange purple-pink light and began to shrink at a visible speed. The dragon, which had been lying on the ground, gradually stood on two legs, finally turning into a small figure.
~~~
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