Ch.25 The Drunk Symbiote

The symbiote's learning speed is astonishingly fast. It is only a short afternoon since Schiller copied the ability, and the other "voice" in his head can communicate with him using clear brain waves. Although it can only express simple emotions for now, it is already quite remarkable.

After being able to communicate with the symbiote, Schiller decides to start testing his ability. He thinks this symbiote will be similar to Venom. If he, like in the movies, shouts "Mask!", a sticky mess will emerge to envelop him, complete with two white eyes, sharp teeth, and a long tongue.

The symbiote can directly sense the pictures imagined by Schiller and sends a flurry of denials via brain waves, repeatedly stating in Schiller's mind,

"I won't be sticky, I won't be sticky, I won't be sticky won't be sticky be sticky..."

It may sense that Schiller doesn't really like the sticky sensation of symbiotes.

Truth be told, Schiller merely doesn't want to hurt this newly born creature, after all, it will be his reliable assistant in the future. It isn't so much that he doesn't like the gooey texture of symbiotes, but rather he can't stand it at all.

No matter how powerful the symbiote is, that kind of mushy mud-like texture is downright chilling.

Eager to prove it isn't sticky, the newly-learned-communication Mist, without Schiller's reaction, takes control of his body and stands up. Then, in an instant, Schiller finds that the world through his eyes has changed.

He loses his eyes, or rather, his entire tangible body, and gains tens of thousands of sensors.

Schiller discovers he can clearly sense every detail of everything in the clinic's bedroom. These signals continuously enter his brain, but it isn't through seeing, it is through feeling.

His eyesight isn't good enough to see every uneven detail of a fiber in the blanket, yet now he can feel them. Initially, the vast information from each sensor overwhelms his brain. Soon enough, the symbiote, his another thinking organ, quickly processes this information and feeds it back to Schiller's brain. Such detail gives Schiller a sense of omnipotence.

Then, Schiller realizes he can control this state. He begins to orchestrate all the sensors to spread out as far as possible.

Until the sensors reach the bedroom's floor mirror. Schiller sees that he has become a gray cloud of mist.

Indeed, he loses his entire body and becomes a shifting cloud of mist.

Every particle within the mist becomes his sensor. Thousands of symbiote particles rapidly form a vast network for gathering information, not missing a single detail. There are no secrets for Schiller wherever the particles can penetrate.

For example, Schiller can even see the arrangement of iron atoms inside an electric kettle. If he focuses, he can feel the distribution of oxygen in the air and the presence of other rare gases. This molecular-level scrutiny, almost atomic-level observational capability, makes the world even more vast and marvelous than what Schiller can perceive as a human.

"Thank heavens, you aren't the mud-like symbiote," Schiller thinks.

Mist seems to feel praised. It sends a very happy emotion, and as if to further show its strength, it controls Schiller, diffusing the mist he has become.

The gray mist starts to disperse, no longer clustering together, spreading evenly like ordinary mist. Soon enough, Hell's Kitchen is shrouded in a hazy fog.

The distribution of the particles becomes more sparse, but they still keep sending various information to Schiller's brain. As the range widens, the amount of information grows by hundreds and thousands. With the symbiote's help to process it, Schiller can simply focus his attention on certain parts. He can even sense a gang war brewing several blocks away, in the center of Hell's Kitchen.

He can even feel the trace of every bullet passing by during the fight.

He focuses his attention, trying to find a bald man with a target pattern on his forehead.

Mist locks onto him in an instant, transmitting back to Schiller's brain the information of all the microscopic elements in his surroundings.

Such a power is indeed too formidable. Where there is mist, no one can escape Schiller's eyes.

Schiller feels that if it is his own brain processing this much complex information, he would probably go insane on the spot. But it seems that this symbiote is naturally capable of doing so.

In a heavy fog, the information transmitted back by every factor can be categorized, screened, and concentrated at an extremely fast speed. In a very short process, all Schiller has to do is focus on what he wants to know, and he will naturally become aware of it.

He is like a person playing SimCity from a God's view, able to observe all movements in the mist, and no detail can escape the infiltration of Mist's factor.

Moreover, this magical factor can penetrate into the interior of objects and wreak havoc. For instance, it can disrupt a stable molecular structure, turning an object into dust in an instant.

But Mist tells him that this ability is only effective on things with a stable molecular structure and can't be affected by any other forces, otherwise it can't exert influence.

But this is already a really powerful ability.

When reverting to human form, Schiller can choose any place shrouded in mist to reconstitute his body. In other words, within the range Mist can cover, he can disappear from one location an infinite number of times and suddenly appear in another.

However, this cannot completely replace teleportation. Because the process of transforming into mist, dispersing , condensing, and then transforming back into human requires time and is not as quick as teleportation.

The affairs in the Marvel universe have been temporarily concluded, Daredevil Matt is recovering, and the Spider-Man wants to follow Stark to learn how to be a superhero. Unfortunately, he has final exams coming up and needs to catch up on missed lessons, leaving him no time to wander. Stark is so annoyed by Nick Fury's bald head that he has also been hiding in the lab working on his armor, hardly going out. So Schiller takes a nap and returns to DC.

Not long after his return to DC, Schiller discovers an unpleasant point about the symbiote inside him.

Back in the DC world, Schiller is organizing his equipment. Due to Jonathan's arrest, there is not much fear toxin left.Luckily, he has nearly wiped out Jonathan's stock previously, and the remaining fear toxin is all concentrated and high quality.

He is now diluting the remaining fear toxin, preparing to put it into spray bottles for easy use.

Fear gas is entirely ineffective on Schiller, so he doesn't have to cover himself up like Jonathan did during experiments. In his entire apartment, the only two living things, Schiller and Pikachu, both are not afraid of this fear gas. In Schiller's mind, it doesn't matter if the gas leaks during the experiment.

Moreover, he doesn't have any education background in chemical. When diluting the solution, he might violate around two hundred laboratory regulations in a minute. It is normal for him to not wear gloves or a gas mask; hence, after each dilution, his place will be filled with a low concentration of fear gas.

This time is no different. After a series of extremely non-standard chemical dilutions, Schiller toils to decant the fear gas into various spray bottles, albeit poorly. But then, a series of excited signals suddenly pass through his brain.

"This is delicious, this is delicious, this is delicious eat,eat,eateateat..."

Schiller is stunned. Is the symbiote saying that fear gas is tasty?

He suddenly thinks about the setting of the symbiote in comics, particularly the one about Venom. Venom can eat chocolate instead of human brains because both contain a chemical called "phenylethylamine," which excites the human brain.

Could it be that fear gas also contains it?

Schiller thinks for a moment; it is very possible. Fear gas can trigger the deepest fears in people's minds and activate their negative emotions. It's difficult to claim whether Jonathan used this chemical when making the fear gas.

It now seems that not only did he use it, but he also used a significant amount.

"How do you eat it?" Schiller asks in his mind.

The symbiote does not seem to understand either; it only knows that what is in front of it is very appealing. Schiller has no choice but to take out a bottle of diluted fear gas and spray it towards his nose.

The instant he does that, he feels the symbiote in his brain become excited, constantly shouting "tasty, tasty, tasty, not enough, not enough, not enough,need more, need more more..."

Alright then, Schiller thinks, the symbiote must have a large appetite. He decisively takes out a small bottle of undiluted, still-liquid fear gas and drinks it down.

The substance doesn't really have any taste. But in that moment, he can feel the symbiote inside him becoming so excited that it seems a bit crazed.

It sends Schiller a string of brainwaves that he can't understand at all, and then it uses all the words it has just learned to shout in Schiller's mind.

Eventually, after a while, a kind of mist begins to spread around Schiller, darker and deeper than regular mist. Schiller sniffs, thinking it might be fear gas.

Fine, Schiller ponders it seems that high concentrations of fear gas are a bit like strong liquor to symbiotes. Mist gets directly drunk on it.

And when the symbiote gets drunk, its reactions are somewhat similar to those of humans, first going on a drunken frenzy, spouting a bunch of nonsense, then vomiting.

The fog surrounding Schiller must be what Mist vomited out after it got drunk.

Mist recovers quickly. After getting sober, it asks Schiller for more to drink, which Schiller sternly refuses.

But it clearly isn't easily discouraged, continuing to grumble in Schiller's mind, feeling quite aggrieved.

Speechlessly, Schiller wonders why his symbiote has turned into a drunkard.