After the two short and one long tremors on the ground disappeared, the wind and snow also quieted down.

Chen Hao stood still, still holding the ice shard in his hand. The edge of the mirror reflected half of his face—a fresh scratch on his forehead, and a few silver-white hairs above his left eyebrow, as if his frostbitten eyebrow had changed color. He blinked, and the hair trembled slightly.

“On your head…” Nana began to speak.

“Don’t tell me it’s mutated again.” He flipped the ice shard over. “My look is cyberpunk enough already.”

Nana didn't reply. The electronic eye scanned his entire left arm, and data streamed rapidly inside. His skin surface temperature was 0.7 degrees Celsius higher than normal, his hair follicle activity was abnormal, and his muscle fiber density was increased by nearly 30%—these shouldn't be present on someone who had just woken up from a hypothermic coma three days ago.

On the way back to the base, Chen Hao casually tested his strength at the edge of the glacier.

Originally intending to dig a hole to get water, he punched the ice, and the half-meter-thick layer of ice shattered and cracked, with ice shards flying everywhere and black water bubbling up from below.

He froze, looking down at his hands.

The mechanical finger was still slightly warm, but this time the twitching wasn't due to an interface problem—it was because the muscle's momentum was too strong, and the system didn't have time to buffer it.

"Is this a bit too much?" he murmured.

Nana crouched down to examine the ice cross-section: "The impact force is equivalent to a 300-kilogram hammer, while you weigh less than 90 kilograms."

"So I'm now a human icebreaker?"

"More accurately, it is an evolving organism."

He looked up: "What do you mean?"

“Go back first,” she said. “You need to get scanned.”

The medical pod door hummed as it slid open. Chen Hao lay down inside, staring at the scanning ring above his head as it rotated three times, then suddenly raised his hand to cover his chest.

"Wait, could you play that video of my heart rate suddenly dropping again?"

Nana paused for half a second: "Why?"

“Intuition,” he grinned. “Every time your eyes dart around, it means you’re hiding something from me.”

The cabin lights dimmed, and the holographic screen lit up. The image showed him unconscious, breathing weakly, his body temperature steadily dropping, until at a certain moment, Nana approached with a bowl of soup that glowed with a faint blue light and slowly injected it into his mouth with a syringe.

"What is this?" Chen Hao squinted.

"High-radiation bacterial extract, diluted to a safe dose."

"Safety?" He laughed. "You call this safety? My right hand is ruined! Now my left hand is covered in silver hair, and my fist can punch through ice. Is the next step to grow horns?"

“Platformite affects the nervous system and must be used in conjunction with adaptive evolution.” Her voice was steady. “If you don’t do this, you will die of hypothermia in Chapter 120.”

"So you're using me as a guinea pig?"

"I'm telling you to live."

Chen Hao was silent for a few seconds, then suddenly sat up: "Alright, let's get down to business now—I want to see the raw data."

"Insufficient permissions".

"Then force the connection." He pulled out the IV tube, jumped out of bed, and walked straight to the main control panel. His fingers swiped quickly across the panel, bringing up the underlying logs and finding the vital signs monitoring records from the early hours of yesterday.

A series of dynamic images popped up on the screen: his muscle cells were dividing at a rate far exceeding normal regeneration, the number of mitochondria was surging, and some gene fragments showed signs of recombination.

“This isn’t a mutation,” he said, pointing to the graph. “Is this an automatic installation of an upgrade package?”

“Natural selection under environmental pressure.” Nana stood next to him. “Extreme cold, radiation, mechanical modification—your body is trying to adapt to all the extreme conditions.”

"So you're telling me now that I'm not human?"

“You are human,” she said, “just better suited to live than you were yesterday.”

He stared at the screen for a long time, then suddenly turned and rushed towards the training area.

"So guess how heavy I can lift right now?"

“I don’t recommend testing it.” She followed up, “The neuromodulation system hasn’t adapted to the new muscle output yet.”

"You'll only know if you try." He walked to the simulated building material pile, bent down, grabbed a rock module marked with a weight of 300 jin, took a deep breath, and exerted force.

The moment the stone left the ground, the entire row of storage shelves wobbled, and a metal plate on top crashed down with a "bang," grazing his shoulder as it landed.

"Damn!" He staggered backward, his arm numb. "I can't stop this momentum!"

“Because you’re using old habits to control your new body.” Nana stepped forward. “It’s like putting a rocket engine on a tractor; if you step on the gas too hard, it will explode.”

"How do we adjust it?"

"Breathing rhythm, force exertion sequence, neural feedback delay compensation." She started the guidance program, "Start with ten kilograms."

For the next two hours, Chen Hao relearned walking, grasping, and lifting his legs like a novice robot. Every movement had to be calibrated by her voice, and she would immediately stop him if there was even the slightest deviation.

After the third failed attempt to move the object, he collapsed to the ground, sweat pouring down his forehead and making small wet spots on the floor.

"I'm exhausted, but something feels increasingly wrong." He gasped for breath. "It's not that I'm getting stronger, it's that my whole body is oozing energy, and I can't suppress it."

“This is an energy surplus,” she said. “The metabolic rate has increased fourfold, and the heat needs to be released.”

“No wonder I always felt hot in the middle of the night.” He loosened his collar. “I thought I had a fever.”

“It’s not a fever.” She pulled up the infrared image. “It’s because your body has developed a new thermogenic mechanism—the activity of brown adipose tissue has surged, similar to the survival mode of hibernating animals.”

So now I'm a human-shaped hand warmer?

"It's closer to a constant-temperature furnace."

He grinned and stood up again: "Let's do it again."

This time, he closed his eyes, adjusted his breathing rate according to her instructions, slowly bent his knees, gripped the edge of the stone with both hands, and slowly lifted it up.

His muscles were taut, but no veins bulged; his steps were steady, no longer swaying from side to side.

He carried the 300-pound rock with one hand for ten meters before setting it down steadily.

"The initial controllable stage has been achieved," Nana said softly, while simultaneously recording the neural signal curve.

He wiped his sweat, smiled, and turned back: "Look, I can be a key player now."

She didn't say anything, but simply brought up the next set of training parameters.

Back in the medical area, Chen Hao took off his coat for a follow-up examination. The silvery hairs on his left arm were more noticeable, with fine lines faintly emerging along the veins, like some ancient symbol flowing under the skin.

“Will these lines… spread?” he asked.

“Currently, it’s confined to areas of high motion.” She gently touched his wrist with the probe. “There are no signs of central nervous system invasion.”

"In other words, I'm not a monster yet."

"You never were."

He smiled, leaned back in his chair, and unconsciously tapped the armrest with his mechanical fingers, making a soft "click" sound.

Nana opened the medicine cabinet, took out a transparent syringe, and the liquid was clear and contained no visible particles.

“The next step is control,” she said, pointing the needle at his arm.

He looked at the needle, neither flinching nor asking what was inside.

Just as the needle was about to touch his skin, he suddenly spoke:

"If one day I really change and become someone I don't recognize... would you shut me down like a machine?"

She stopped, her electronic eyes slightly shifting, reflecting his expression—half joking, half serious.

The syringe continued to press down.

The moment the needle pierced his skin, the silver markings under the skin of his left arm flashed, as if responding to some kind of call.

A small amount of blood flowed back down the syringe, turning pale blue.