You pulled that knife over and over me, and it felt good.

After Niu Ben left, Lu Yuan sat in his office thinking for a while.

He was thinking about what kind of transformation to make to Niu Ben's body.

Niu Ben himself already had extremely strong defensive abilities, just lacking in attack.

Finally, Lu Yuan decided on an ability that was very fitting for Niu Ben's honest personality.

However, Lu Yuan didn't currently have the ability genes for this power, and would need to get them separately "on order".

Normally, Lu Yuan actually quite enjoyed "ordering" things like this.

But for some reason, all the sources of pollution around Cloud City, as well as the exotic beasts in the various secret realms, had become somewhat timid over the past couple years.

Whenever Lu Yuan approached, these exotic beasts could often smell Lu Yuan's presence and would disappear without a trace.

They were not nearly as ferocious as the rumors made them out to be.

To the point that more often than not, Lu Yuan could only stare blankly at the exotic beast corpses hung up for exhibition on the first basement floor, or the dismembered exotic beast parts soaking in the preservation tanks on the second basement floor.

Thinking that he hadn't been out and about for quite some time, Lu Yuan decided to go out for a walk after daybreak.

Glancing at his watch, it was 3 AM.

"It's already this late, sometimes, I'm moved by my own professional dedication."

After arrogantly praising himself, Lu Yuan stretched and went back to his bedroom to sleep.

At 10 AM after eating breakfast, Lu Yuan set off by himself in his car.

When he returned in the afternoon, it was already 10 PM at night.

When he left he was alone with one car, and when he returned the configuration was still the same, except with the addition of a frozen exotic beast corpse in the car.

Furious Three-Eyed Ape.

This kind of exotic beast possessed a berserk ability that it could control on its own. When berserk, all of its physical abilities including special powers would explosively increase by multiples!

Moreover, the stronger its bloodthirsty, frenzied, murderous desires when using its innate ability, the better the effect of its berserk state!

What Lu Yuan valued most was that after using its berserk ability, this kind of exotic beast would only feel tired, and would not suffer any damage to its own faculties!

This was the ability Lu Yuan had chosen for Niu Ben!

In addition, Lu Yuan had also prepared several auxiliary ability genes, like strength enhancement, agility enhancement, physique enhancement, and so on.

And that wasn't all, Lu Yuan had even added some of Lin Youyou's self-healing ability genes.

That's right, Lu Yuan wanted to transform Niu Ben into a berserk heavily-armored warrior!

After the youngest brother, this was the second time Lu Yuan was performing such a complex integration transplant of so many ability genes. It might succeed, or it might succeed after some beautiful accidents.

Of course, failure was not a possibility.

This was Lu Yuan's confidence in himself.

Finally, Lu Yuan took from the car a retractable giant wolf fang club.

This was something he bought midway at the Xifu City Superpower User Weapon Shop.

Looking at the wolf fang club in his hand, Lu Yuan silently nodded.

"Mm, if today's surgery is successful, then I'll have someone to collect inventory from the various secret realms for me in the future..."

In the first hour after Lu Yuan returned, he went to the lounge to eat a meal.

The cafeteria had no more food left at this time, so he could only eat the food Liu Yuan had prepared for him in the fridge.

Or get Lin Youyou to make him something, but Lu Yuan couldn't wait that long.

In the second hour, the 2.2 meter tall, 300 jin hulking Niu Ben was lying on the operating table in Operating Room #4.

On the operating table, while recording on a handheld camera, Lu Yuan asked Niu Ben one final question, "Niu Ben, let me say this first, free surgery, I'll do my best, you bear the risks alone."

Niu Ben nodded firmly, "Doctor Lu, just get cutting! I'll say it again, even if I die I absolutely won't hold you accountable as a ghost!"

"OK!"

Putting down the camera, Lu Yuan first drew some circles and ticks on this broad torso with a marker pen, then started cutting.

That night, Lu Yuan busied himself on this hulk's body.

This big guy's body fully deserved his ability to metalize his muscles. Mid-surgery, Lu Yuan could hear his own heavy breathing.

Hearing this sound, he felt utterly exhausted.

But how could such a small difficulty possibly stop Doctor Lu?

He had Lin Youyou come over to wipe his sweat, and kept steadfastly at his work station.

Seeing Lin Youyou's somewhat odd look at him, Lu Yuan murmured, "Special circumstances, a bit tired."

Lin Youyou looked back with a hint of confusion in her eyes, and nodded, "Oh, oh..."

After leaving the operating table and returning to the adjacent room, Lin Youyou frowned to herself and muttered, "Strange, there wasn't a single drop of sweat at all..."

The next day, 6 AM.

Surgery completed.

With the final suture, Lu Yuan felt like he was just about to collapse from exhaustion.

Without another word, he took off his mask and rushed out to the hallway to guzzle down a huge mouthful of water.

"Gulp, gulp--"

"Phew--"

After letting out a long breath, Lu Yuan suddenly realized...

He didn't actually feel that tired?

Closing his eyes, he checked his own heartbeat, blood pressure, pulse - everything was normal. There was some fatigue from pulling an all-nighter, but far from feeling exhausted.

But...

He had been performing surgery and breathing heavily all night without rest!

What was going on here?!

Clang--

Suddenly, the water bottle in Lu Yuan's hand dropped to the floor.

He hurried back into the operating room and looked towards the operating table--

Niu Ben was staring wide-eyed back at him.

In that instant, Lu Yuan panicked a little.

He looked at Niu Ben with a final glimmer of hope in his eyes, and asked gently, "Um, the anesthetic wore off that quickly?"

"You sure have a strong constitution!"

Niu Ben blinked and asked in his simple tone, "Anesthetic? What anesthetic?"

"Doctor Lu, you didn't give me any anesthetic. From when you made the first cut, I could feel everything clearly."

Lu Yuan: "......"

This time, Lu Yuan really broke out in a sweat on his forehead.

"When you were in pain, how could you not make a sound?"

Niu Ben lowered his head to look at the freshly sutured wounds on his body, and said casually, "It hurt a bit at the start, but after that it started feeling pretty comfortable. By the end, it even felt..."

Saying this, Niu Ben's face flushed red, not knowing how to describe it.

Lu Yuan cautiously guessed, "Was it...pleasure?"

Niu Ben glanced at Lu Yuan, two red clouds seeming to rise on his rugged cheeks.

Somewhat shyly, he nodded, "Yes, that feeling."

Lu Yuan: "......"

"How...how do you feel now? Does it still hurt?"

"It doesn't hurt. By the end, I felt your surgical knife slicing across my body, cool and smooth, quite comfortable actually."

Lu Yuan: "......"

"Please don't move for now, let me examine you again."

With extremely complicated emotions, Lu Yuan first examined Niu Ben's various bodily metrics, then took samples of his hair, fingernails, and blood for testing.

The testing would take some time, with results only coming out in the afternoon.

When Lu Yuan saw the ability gene analysis results for Niu Ben, he stood stunned for a full 5 minutes before getting up to grab a bottle of chilled sugar-free cola for himself.

"Stay calm, no big deal..."

"This was just a not-too-serious medical accident. I'd prefer to call it a beautiful misunderstanding."

Having said that, he twisted open the cola bottle cap and chugged it down in one go.

...