Chapter 19: The Nature of Abilities
Strength was growing, and blood was boiling.
In just a few minutes, Chris felt his muscles burning.
Already panicking, Chris sped up even more, covering a distance that would normally take over ten minutes by car in less than half an hour.
When he arrived home, Lois asked in surprise, "Chris? Didn't you go to the gym? Why are you back so soon, and all sweaty?"
Seeing Chris's still-frightened expression, Lois didn't even notice the change in his clothes and rushed forward to show concern.
But Chris didn't dare waste time now; for the sake of his life, he had to quickly find Stewie to save his hard-won second life.
"Nothing, Mom. I just forgot something. Where's Stewie?"
"What did you forget that made you rush back so quickly?" Lois was relieved when Chris said he was fine, but seeing him covered in sweat, she poured him a glass of water.
Handing it to Chris, she casually added, "Stewie's upstairs, probably playing with his toys. What do you need him for? Did he take your stuff?"
Learning that Stewie was home, Chris didn't even bother to take the water glass and rushed upstairs.
Taking the stairs two at a time, Chris's voice finally reached Lois's ears, "I need his help with something. You don't need to worry about it."
Looking at the hurried Chris and thinking about what he said, Lois immediately became curious.
"What could an infant help with? This child has been getting stranger and stranger since he left the hospital. He's practically not like someone from the Griffin family!"
But as soon as Lois's complaint left her lips, she quickly covered her mouth, only sighing in relief after confirming there was no one else around.
Then she began calculating Chris's birth date in her head.
Regardless of Lois being scared and suspicious about Chris's actions, even wondering if Chris was truly Peter's child, Chris had already rushed to Stewie's room and saw a scene that both shocked him and seemed perfectly reasonable.
Stewie was hugging his teddy bear Rupert, gazing at it affectionately, looking as if they were about to kiss.
Chris was seeing such a scene for the first time in reality, which was why he was shocked.
But before he'd arrived in this world, he had already seen Stewie's even more outrageous behavior on screen, so it also seemed perfectly reasonable.
However, he now had to interrupt Stewie and Rupert's playtime; he could already feel his body getting hotter and hotter, as if it were about to catch fire.
"Stewie, you need to check me out right now. I feel like I'm burning up!"
Chris's voice startled Stewie; he didn't even care about the teddy bear in his arms and immediately looked toward the source of the sound.
"You've got some nerve! Who gave you permission to... Wait, have you already traveled again?"
Stewie, in anger, had already pulled out his ray gun, but upon seeing Chris's symptoms, he suddenly changed his tone.
From his conclusive words, it was clear he had long known Chris would encounter this situation.
At this, Chris was first angry, annoyed that Stewie hadn't warned him about this situation sooner.
But then came relief, because since Stewie had anticipated such a situation, it meant Stewie had a way to help him.
To his surprise, Stewie seemed to know what Chris was thinking and said, shaking his head, "Whoa, whoa! You're celebrating too early. I only knew you would travel again soon, but I don't know about the situation you're in right now."
Hearing this, Chris's face fell. Was he going to die again?
This was too fast! His second life hadn't even begun to be properly enjoyed. Surely the universe wasn't discovering a bug and starting to fix it, right?
Just as Chris's mind was racing, he heard Stewie speak again.
He first put away his ray gun and approached, observing Chris carefully before saying, "But you don't need to worry too much. From what I can see, this looks very much like your body being in overdrive due to overexertion. It shouldn't be a big deal."
"Huh?"
Chris looked at Stewie in confusion, not understanding what he was saying.
How was he overexerting himself? Was it because of those few times he lifted weights without much effort?
Just hearing Stewie mention overexertion, Chris assumed it was about the few strength tests he did at the gym, and didn't consider his long-distance running.
Since joining the gym, Chris's training had always been strength training, and heavy-weight strength training at that.
Therefore, Chris didn't realize at first what an intense workout it was to run over eleven miles in half an hour.
It wasn't until Stewie performed a series of physical examinations on Chris and explained the results that Chris understood what a foolish thing he had done.
Under Chris's uneasy gaze, Stewie, holding the examination report and doing his best doctor impression, said, "Your body is perfectly healthy! In fact, it's stronger than ever before. I dare say that in any field of human athletics, you could take first place in virtually any event!"
After confirming that Chris's body was fine, Stewie asked curiously, "So can you tell me why you're so terrified? Did you encounter something dangerous in the world you traveled to?"
With Stewie's safety assurance, Chris relaxed considerably, but sensing the hot current still rapidly strengthening his body, he was still somewhat uneasy.
So Chris recounted in full detail everything about his situation in the Creeper's world.
Of course, for Stewie's physical and mental well-being, Chris intentionally omitted the details of his relationship with Trish, only saying that he had made a female friend in that world.
And after Stewie listened carefully, he burst into laughter, even shedding tears.
"Chris, oh Chris! Before, when I said you were infected by our father's stupidity, I was just joking. I never thought you would actually be this dense. I'm starting to wonder if you really did catch Dad's idiocy."
Chris scratched his head awkwardly at Stewie's mockery; he still didn't understand what Stewie found so funny, so he couldn't retort.
Fortunately, after Stewie had laughed enough, he wiped away the tears from the corners of his eyes and generously explained, "I can tell you with absolute certainty that there is nothing wrong with your body.
The situation you're worried about is simply because you killed that Creeper. Then your dimensional traveler abilities devoured the Creeper's life essence.
And it's precisely with the infusion of the Creeper's life essence that your physical fitness has grown by leaps and bounds.
Now, do you understand?!"
Chris listened to what Stewie said, first nodding, then shaking his head again and asking, "You said that the warm current is because I absorbed the Creeper's life essence; I can understand that.
But why did my body suddenly heat up later? Even when I found you, I felt like I was about to melt. What's going on with that?"
"Ha!" Stewie heard Chris's question, looked at him with a sneer, and then shouted, "That's because you, you absolute moron, drank high-energy protein powder, which gave your body a massive nutrient boost and activated that life essence.
As for you feeling like your body was so hot it was about to melt, that's because you ran eleven miles in half an hour! An ordinary person running at your speed would have already collapsed and died from cardiac arrest!"
Thinking about the protein shake he drank, and recalling how he felt during his high school's one-mile fitness test before arriving in this world, Chris immediately understood that Stewie was right; his body changes were caused by overexertion.
It was just because he had never encountered such a situation before that he'd scared himself and become increasingly anxious.
But fortunately, the misunderstanding was finally cleared up, and understanding that his life wasn't in danger, Chris couldn't be bothered to pay attention to Stewie's mockery.
After all, it was the truth.
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