Chapter 2625: Mayfly Heaven and Earth (Twenty-Six)

The two of them were deadlocked in midair, dragging on for ages until it was basically bedtime; though darkness had no effect on either of them, the commotion they made would disturb the villagers' sleep, so Clark stepped back first, deciding to continue in the morning.

Magneto snorted coldly, strode back to his own room, and ignored Clark entirely, but he hadn't expected that Clark's "tomorrow morning" wasn't actually tomorrow morning—Clark had woken him at 3:30 a. m.

Shiler also came to the field, since it was nearly his wake-up time anyway; he yawned, thinking he'd get something to eat once it got light.

The dew grew heavier; the just-awakened Magneto felt a bit drowsy, but he roused himself and began loosening the soil before plowing, yet after half a day he was still stuck in the same dead cycle.

With no reference point, he found it easy to plow deeper and deeper, then have to level it and start over; but leveling tended to compact the soil, requiring him to loosen it again, then plow anew after loosening.

Actually, for ordinary laborers, this isn't a particularly difficult task—even someone who's never farmed before could figure it out after two tries.

But Magneto hadn't done manual labor in decades; strictly speaking, all the work he'd done was destructive, and he'd hit and run; long-term avoidance of sustained, repetitive labor left him unusually impatient and prone to zoning out.

After working hard for a while, the two had managed about five or six mu of land—this efficiency, frankly, could be matched by just bringing in two tractors.

Clark had no choice; he landed on the ground and said to Shiler, "Doctor, why don't you first check his mental issues? I think he might have ADHD."

Shiler wanted to say, "Why don't you turn and look at his face? Magneto now looks like he wants to eat someone."

Magneto really is ill; Shiler's preliminary assessment suggests he may have some Asperger's symptoms, though it's hard to say whether they're innate or the result of later traumatic experiences.

In the past, this condition caused him little trouble, since most people had to watch his expression; at worst he was just bad at socializing, and given his strength, most people didn't dare cross him when he put on a sour face.

But now it's obvious he's in need of help, and his problems become more apparent; Shiler had just observed the whole process and noticed Magneto indeed exhibits some stereotyped behaviors.

Shiler is very familiar with this behavior, having been trapped in it himself for a long time—similar to how excessive social detachment leads one to seek safety through repetitive actions, yet the more one does them, the stranger one seems to others, increasing detachment and forming a vicious cycle.

Clark told Magneto what to do, Magneto did it but lacked experience and did it poorly; he refused to admit it was his ability's fault, but the proof wasn't that doing it more made it better—it was that he began escaping through dissociation.

That's why he can't master even this simple process after several repetitions and often zones out—he doesn't want to do it, and his escape method is the maladaptive daydreaming common in Asperger's patients.

This has become Magneto's habit; he himself is utterly unaware of the problem, even failing to notice his own lack of focus.

Otherwise, for such a trivial matter, Clark had already nearly hand-holding taught him—how could he possibly not learn it?

This isn't an ability problem, it's a mental problem, Shiler thought.

But correcting it would be extremely difficult; Magneto has never undergone any psychological intervention in his life, and this has become part of his personality—changing it is nearly impossible.

"But it's not completely hopeless to improve the situation now," Shiler said: "You write down the data and give it to him."

"Data? What data?"

"You didn't say he always plows the field too deep?"

"Exactly, he's almost digging an East African Rift Valley in the ground," Clark complained, not without exaggeration: "Seeds can't be buried that deep, or air won't get in—they'll definitely rot."

"So what depth is standard for the plow?"

"Well, about that deep—I'm just going by feel, I've never measured it; it's what the Mexican farmers taught me before—corn needs to be plowed to this depth."

Magneto also flew down at this moment, standing silently behind Clark; Shiler glanced at his expression, then said: "Don't forget, Clark, although we do need this batch of grain, we need farming experience even more."

"Now only Eric is learning this; if you teach it so vaguely, how will he later teach large numbers of students?"

"Back in Mexico, it really was just you guys—several farmers teaching you one-on-one wasn't much effort, but if mutants ever want to run agricultural training classes, student numbers will be high, and relying solely on teachers' verbal instruction and demonstration without concrete data won't work."

Clark fell into thought; Superman's greatest strength is being very receptive to advice—occasionally a bit too receptive.

Clark paused, flew to midair, and shot two laser beams from his eyes; instantly, two perfectly straight field ridges appeared on the land.

Then Clark flew to the warehouse, fetched a tape measure, and began measuring the trench depth and ridge height, also jotting down the figures on paper.

He handed the paper to Shiler, who glanced at it—the data were very clear, with depth, height, and width all marked to two decimal places; Shiler then stuffed the paper straight into Magneto's pocket.

"Just follow this, Eric—you should be able to do it to a hair's breadth, right?"

Magneto glanced at the ridges Clark had made, then at the data on the paper, snorted coldly, and flew up again.

In an instant, countless clouds of dust rose on the horizon; all the soil in the vast, boundless land flew into midair.

Each grain of soil was illuminated by the moonlight, crystal clear, like a dim reddish-brown heavenly canopy almost blocking out all light.

With a swish, the soil all fell down, and countless neat, straight field ridges appeared on the land.

Clark stepped closer and saw they were exactly identical to the ones he had just plowed; meanwhile, Shiler noticed even more detail—not only were height, depth, and width the same, but even each individual grain of soil was identical.

Magneto had turned all the soil into the likeness of the soil from those two ridges Clark had made, arranged and combined them into a perfectly uniform structure, matching inside and out—exactly a copy-paste.

Afterward, Magneto flew higher; wherever his gaze reached, all the sand and soil in the land rose into the air; this phenomenon drew villagers to light their lamps, staring in shock at the land hovering above them.

The soil then fell like rain again, and countless neat, straight field ridges appeared in the fields; in an instant, this long-idle land resembled nature's soft hair, gently combed by a lover.

When Magneto landed, his face looked somewhat fatigued—he had been in deep sleep when woken, and the computational load of altering so many soil molecules' states exceeded imagination; at this moment, he felt his mind filled with reverberations.

"Eric……Eric……"

Magneto heard a familiar, gentle voice echoing in his ear, but he astonishingly didn't respond; his mind still wandered over that string of data, and based on his earlier calculations of the three planets in the Andromeda galaxy's area, he estimated how much land could be farmed.

In the rooms of Xavier's Genius Youth School, the lights suddenly blazed, and soon one anxious thought after another was transmitted outward, receiving many slightly surprised replies in return.

At this moment, the sky in Mexico was still dark, the land too damp to sow; seeing Magneto in poor condition, Shiler decided to go back and sleep a while, to talk again at dawn.

Clark hadn't expected it to work so fast; he said: "If I'd known this would help, I wouldn't have gotten up so early—I thought it would take at least a few hours."

"Go back to sleep; when you're up, I'll make you breakfast."

After a few more hours, the sky grew hazy with dawn; moisture in the soil evaporated sharply, making the morning even more damp.

Shiler rose and called Clark to wake up; he was still a bit groggy, then Shiler went upstairs to call Magneto, who woke with a slightly flushed complexion and somewhat scattered gaze.

Shiler immediately felt his forehead—sure enough, he had a fever; well, this old man is quite the trooper, no wonder he was the season's carry.

Magneto waved his hand and said: "I'm fine—where are the seeds?"

"You have a fever, but luckily I brought fever medicine; I'll go get you a cup of warm water, you take the medicine and lie down a bit."

"I said I'm fine—what about Clark?"

"He hasn't gotten up yet—after all, he's young, sleeping in is normal; you rest a bit longer, wait for him."

Magneto snorted again, mumbled a few words, but at least lay down; Shiler gave him water and medicine, he turned over, and fell asleep murmuring to himself.

Clark soon came over; Shiler gave him a silent gesture, then after stepping out and closing the door, Clark showed clear guilt.

"I forgot he's old—really my fault; what now? Did you bring medicine? If not, I'll go to the nearby town to buy some."

"He's already taken the fever medicine, so he's fine; in theory he shouldn't get sick, possibly it's just poor mental state—he also hadn't realized this yet."

Clark nodded and said: "Perhaps I can take this opportunity to finish part of it first, get the measurements done, and then wait until he recovers to finish the rest."

The two of them had just left the room when Shiler was organizing the ingredients on the table, and a figure appeared at the doorway, clearly not a villager.

"Lorna, how did you get here?" Shiler asked, somewhat puzzled: "Aren't you helping in the Andromeda Galaxy?"

"I returned to Earth earlier, but I've been staying with the professor." Polaris said: "This is..."

"Hello, I'm Clark. I always feel like I've seen you before—your green hair leaves a deep impression on me."

"Yes, we met once at the concert. At the time, I was being harassed at the concert, and you helped me out of the situation."

"That can hardly be called getting you out of trouble, Miss. You pressed him to the ground and nearly broke his ribs. I merely warned you that causing trouble would only prevent the concert from continuing."

"Thank you for your kind warning." Polaris rolled her eyes and said: "Unfortunately, the concert still didn't finish in the end."

"Yes, because your sister held down another person and broke his ribs."

"How did you come here?" Shiler asked: "How did you find this place? Did the professor send you?"

Polaris's face showed a rare hint of hesitation as she said: "The professor said Magneto's condition is a bit off—what happened to him?"

"He just has a slight fever, nothing serious."

"A fever?!" another voice came from the doorway, and Shiler turned around to see the Scarlet Witch Wanda, her belly prominently swollen.