At the cashier counter, located on the first floor of the Cloud City Store.
Peering into the darkness of the store, Xia Chuwei commented, "Physical changes like these can't just happen out of thin air. He must be constantly eating and consuming a lot of protein to support his transformation."
Su Chen looked at her in surprise, and Xia Chuwei questioned, "What's wrong? Do I have flowers on my face?"
Shaking his head, Su Chen replied, "I thought you would be afraid of him, but I didn't expect you to start analyzing him so soon."
Xia Chuwei explained, "What's the use of being afraid? Although I was scared of him at first, he was actually quite kind when we interacted, and there is a big difference between him and the monsters. Maybe it's because I am a medical student, but I can sense that he is not malicious, just a little inferior and depressed. I don't know what he has gone through, but if he continues like this, he may develop a mental illness."
As Xia Chuwei was discussing the potential for the figure to develop a mental illness, she suddenly stopped herself. She realized that Su Chen himself had a fetishism disorder, which made her feel a bit awkward.
Xia Chuwei observed Su Chen as he sat next to Mark 45, placing his hand on its shell as if it were alive and could run away on its own. His love for the robot was almost beyond words, and his expression was even happier than sitting next to a beautiful, bikini-clad beach beauty.
Su Chen didn't seem to care about the psychological state of the figure, instead asking, "Why don't those elongated ghosts enter this area? Why don't they attack him?"
Xia Chuwei speculated, "Perhaps because of his physical changes, he and the elongated ghosts have a certain degree of homogenization, making them view him as one of their own kind. They see him as something very dangerous, just like wild beasts and their territory. This could be why those monsters dare not invade."
Xia Chuwei asked tentatively, "I'm just guessing here, but how's your injury? Do you really need my help?"
Xia Chuwei examined Su Chen's waist with concern, noticing a four-centimeter-long wound. Despite her reluctance to simply disinfect and wrap the wound with the dirty-looking black gauze that Su Chen had provided, Xia Chuwei couldn't help but feel that this approach was improper and insufficient for proper treatment and could potentially lead to infection in the wound.
Despite this, Su Chen seemed to brush off her concerns, shaking his head, saying, "I'm fine."
Su Chen had a feeling that his injury was more serious than he let on, but he quickly suppressed his thoughts and shook his head, saying, "I'm okay."
In truth, Su Chen had a variety of medicines on hand, including the magically-modified gauze that he had infused with simple medicines and energy. Although it had turned black, he believed it was effective and had already felt the sensation of flesh and blood regeneration upon using it.
Taking advantage of Xia Chuwei's distraction, Su Chen secretly glanced at his wound and noticed that the flesh and blood were regenerating several times faster than normal under the catalysis of the magic gauze.
Su Chen estimated that his waist wound would likely heal completely within twelve hours, returning to its previous state.
He and Xia Chuwei exchanged a few words before falling into silence. They were both practical individuals, so there wasn't much to discuss.
After confirming that the elongated ghosts would not invade the supermarket, Su Chen took a break to eat and rest for around five hours. When he woke up, he noticed that Xia Chuwei had also fallen asleep by the cash register.
Taking advantage of the opportunity, Su Chen propped himself up and began to work on Mark 45 in his hand.
He quickly realized that he could not transform the entire robot with the eight energy units he had left. This was not surprising to him, and he wasn't too disappointed. Additionally, the Mark 45 was a wearable model that could be disassembled into twelve parts according to the joints. Su Chen estimated that each part would require at least three to five energy units to transform, which would require a total of approximately forty energy units.
After contemplating for a moment, Su Chen decided to start working on Mark 45 with his right hand. He glanced over at Xia Chuwei, who was sleeping, and then retreated to the shadowed shelf behind him. He held the disassembled half of Mark 45's forearm and began injecting energy to initiate the magic transformation.
Black energy poured out from Su Chen's body and merged into the red forearm armor, causing it to transform into a dark substance that covered and enveloped the entire armor. The structure of the armor began to twist and change.
The magical improvement process continued for about twenty minutes before gradually coming to an end. The slightly wider armor structure of the entire forearm had now shrunken to a more personalized and smaller size. The entire armor now bore a shadow-like appearance and dark color. Its material seemed to have been distorted and mixed with steel, hard plastic, and dark energy, resulting in a thumb-sized diamond-shaped crystal that was densely stitched together to form a streamlined arm armor that fit the body structure.
The armor was now lighter in weight and had some flexibility, but its strength had also increased significantly. Su Chen tested it by lightly slashing it with an unexcited black seedling knife, and there was a crisp sound. The arm armor remained in place without moving.
It's worth noting that the black seedling knife that Su Chen had demonized was as strong as iron.
After completing the magic transformation, Su Chen only had four energy units left in his body. This wasn't enough to transform the entire armor, so he decided to leave the remaining energy units and returned to Xia Chuwei's side with the transformed arm armor.
He noticed that the elongated ghost image was still lingering in the outer ring of the supermarket, but it remained at a fixed distance and didn't enter the supermarket.
Su Chen decided to wait until his injury had healed better before attempting to turn the elongated ghost into an energy unit. While Xia Chuwei was still asleep, Su Chen sat and began to wave his arms, actively absorbing the free energy in the space.
He couldn't be sure, but it seemed like the energy in the negative layer of the ground was denser than on the ground.
Su Chen tirelessly waved his arms, as he could visibly see the energy flowing into his body. He found this process to be exhilarating, similar to the feeling of a gamer leveling up, even if their keyboard is broken from excessive pressing.
While absorbed in his cultivation, Su Chen didn't notice when Xia Chuwei woke up and watched him in amazement as he shook his arms fancily like a ghost. She couldn't help but ask, "What are you doing?"
Pausing for a moment, Su Chen decided not to explain the truth to Xia Chuwei, as she likely wouldn't believe him even if he did. Instead, he replied casually, "I'm doing rehabilitation exercises," before resuming his absorption of energy.
Xia Chuwei was shocked by Su Chen's response.
As a medical student, she had never heard of a rehabilitation exercise that involved waving one's arms to absorb energy. Moreover, she knew that Su Chen's injury hadn't fully healed yet, so she couldn't help but wonder what he was really doing.
Despite her curiosity, Xia Chuwei didn't press Su Chen for more information. Their relationship was a peaceful one, and she didn't want to pry too much. However, she couldn't help but feel that Su Chen was becoming increasingly peculiar. She began to worry that he might be suffering from some sort of mental illness, and that it might not be a mild case.
Silently, she shifted her body farther away from Su Chen, hoping that he didn't have any other strange habits.
However, if my waist was hurt like that, even if I were capable of enduring the pain, my injured waist would render me powerless to act.