Reborn with Steve Stand

Chapter 823: Back to X-Men 1973!

"Everyone knows that Stephen Hawking couldn't walk, and Professor X couldn't walk either.

Hawking proposed a theory about traveling back in time, and Professor X also proposed a theory about going back in time.

Hawking loved children, and so did Professor X.

Hawking had a super brain, and Professor X had a super brain as well.

Hawking made great contributions in his field, and Professor X did the same in his field.

Hawking stood up under the influence of a powerful figure from China, and Professor X also stood up under the influence of someone from China.

Hawking and Professor X never appeared at the same time."

Inside the spaceship's cabin, Fang Mo stared at Charles, who had just stood up from his wheelchair, and firmly declared, "So... Stephen Hawking *is* Professor X!"

"No..." Charles, who had just risen, couldn't hold back anymore after hearing Fang Mo's statement. "Why do you always manage to say such nonsense with such conviction?"

"Because it's fun," Fang Mo replied with a cheerful grin.

"I..." Charles rubbed his forehead, clearly at a loss for how to respond, and after a long pause, he managed to mutter, "But your jokes are just too inappropriate..."

"Here's a fun fact," Fang Mo interrupted. "Hawking stood up only twice in his life: once to toast a leader in china and another time in front of a blackboard on Loli Island. Coincidentally, Charles also only stood up twice."

"You..."

"I, Fang Mo, prefer to call this the 'Second Stand.'"

"Wait, hold on—"

"And because both times Charles stood up were with my help, people jokingly call it the 'Second Aid.'"

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything to you," Charles sighed deeply, realizing his mistake. "I apologize—let's change the subject... maybe we can talk about your wish-granting machine?"

"Oh right, the wish machine," Fang Mo, reminded by Charles, snapped out of it. He took the golden Holy Grail from Charles’s hands and started testing his own wish, but not before asking, "So how are you feeling now?" ʀáNOꞖ˧

"I feel great," Charles began, "It seems this thing—"

However, before he could finish, a sudden sharp, numbing sensation shot through his waist, and his legs went completely numb. His body gave way, and he collapsed back into his wheelchair.

"What just happened?" Charles looked up in confusion. "Did your wish machine malfunction?"

"Oh, no," Fang Mo calmly replied, shaking his head. "I just made a wish for you to become paralyzed again."

"What... what is this?" Charles gasped, his eyes widening in disbelief. He was so emotional that he could hardly speak. "Raven? Is... is it really you?!"

"Charles?" Mystique, clearly disoriented, looked around and instinctively asked, "Where am I? Why am I here? Wait... Fang Mo?!"

"I'm busy. Let Charles explain it to you," Fang Mo replied nonchalantly, showing little interest in the resurrected Mystique and instead turning his focus back to testing other wishes.

Fang Mo quickly ran through a series of tests, wishing for immortality, great power, the ability to kill someone, and healing injuries. The responses from the wish machine were surprisingly consistent. Healing was relatively simple—it either healed the target directly or, if that wasn’t possible, killed and then resurrected them.

For more extreme cases, Fang Mo engraved another Abyssal magic into the Grail: the Time Rewind Ritual, which could revert someone to a state before they were injured.

As for wishes like immortality, power, and killing someone, the machine's answer was the same: evolution. This came from the Hōgyoku's power. Combined with the Holy Grail's Third Magic, the machine modified the user’s natural abilities, unlocking their full potential and granting them immense strength.

To test this, Fang Mo called over Colossus and made a wish for immortality. Afterward, Colossus's body seemed to freeze in time. His cells stopped aging, and his telomeres repaired themselves. At the same time, he gained a super-regeneration ability far beyond that of Wolverine; even if his body were reduced to just a finger, he could regenerate.

When Fang Mo wished for great power, Colossus's mutant ability underwent a qualitative leap. His metal skin became harder than vibranium, and even Fang Mo’s powerful magic sword couldn’t cut through it. His physical strength also skyrocketed, comparable to Superman, but without the weakness to kryptonite.

As for the wish to kill someone, the machine provided the same kind of power enhancement—essentially, it gave you the strength, but you had to figure out how to use it to achieve your goal.

With wishes like wealth, power, immortality, and saving others tested and confirmed, Fang Mo then turned his attention to more complicated desires, such as creating life, making a goddess fall in love with him, or creating strange gadgets like hypnosis tools. These involved manipulating consciousness, memory, and personality, areas outside Fang Mo’s expertise. So, he turned to the master of telepathy, Professor X.

Charles was incredibly patient and thorough in his teachings. However, Fang Mo quickly realized that manipulating memory and consciousness was far more complicated than he had anticipated. If he were to compare it to something, human consciousness was like an enormous, intricate control console, and memory was a highly encrypted file containing audio, video, models, text, and lines of code.

To interfere with memories, one would need to modify, edit, compress, and debug them. After three days of nonstop studying, with Charles’s guidance, Fang Mo finally grasped a small portion of the principles. He used a "Mom’s Love" module to simplify the complex mechanisms and incorporated it into the wish machine.

Once that was done, the machine gained the ability to interfere with consciousness. Fang Mo tested it by placing a random stone on the ground and wishing for Colossus to fall in love with it.

In an instant, Colossus’s perception, memory, and common sense were rewritten. His brain and heart were filled with an overwhelming love for the stone. Even the structure of his brain's temporal lobe began to shift, reflecting a strange condition. The normally stoic Colossus suddenly appeared unfamiliar, captivated by the ordinary stone.

Even his physiological attraction shifted, from being drawn to human features to being enamored with the hard surface of the stone. To put it simply, Colossus now found the rough, grainy texture of the stone irresistibly seductive. He stared at it with longing, as if he were gazing at his ideal lover, and even swallowed nervously.

"Whoa... this is intense," Fang Mo murmured, genuinely impressed by the scene in front of him.

This wish worked similarly to the infamous Kotoamatsukami technique—an instant and irreversible rewrite of someone’s perception. Colossus’s love for the stone was so absolute that, if the stone told him to die, he would likely do so without hesitation. And because he hadn't lost his ability to reason, there was no way to undo the wish.

The only limitation was that the target had to be within the wish machine's range for it to work, but even that seemed insignificant compared to the overwhelming effect.

Satisfied that the machine could now manipulate consciousness, Fang Mo decided to take it further by conjuring up a bizarre pop star. Almost immediately, a figure dressed in overalls appeared and began reciting a strange speech.

"Hello, national producers..." Before they could finish, Fang Mo, satisfied with the machine’s success, sealed the pop star away with a single strike of his sword.

Having spent days fine-tuning the wish machine, Fang Mo had had enough of studying. He had tested everything he needed and backed up everyone’s memories using the machine. Finally, he found Logan and Kitty and said, "Alright, let’s get this time travel started!”