Chapter 3078: Mercury Chronicles (28)

Shiller shifted his gaze from the lecture notes and looked toward the student who had asked the question, shaking his head slightly as he said, "Deep analysis requires deep feelings, and it's almost impossible to deeply feel through just photos, it's still best to be at the crime scene."

If it were the students at Gotham University, they would have been fooled by his words, but everyone seated here was an outstanding individual who quickly detected the reluctance in Shiller's voice.

Finally, someone asked the key question.

"Professor, I heard you are very proficient in the Psychoanalysis Method and must have strong empathy, could you demonstrate a real deep analysis for us?"

Shiller sighed with a hint of helplessness and said, "As I've said, feeling through photos is far from deep analysis, and besides, there's no crime scene here..."

He had barely spoken when suddenly, the classroom door was loudly knocked upon.

The student closest to the door walked over and opened it, and another student hurried in, saying anxiously, "Professor, Professor Diana and others have found a body in the lower-level empty classroom, Professor Wayne sent me to call you over!"

For some reason, Shiller felt the scene was somewhat familiar. He wondered to himself, was he sure that there wasn't a monster in the basement instead of a human?

Actually, Shiller was not unwilling to demonstrate the magic of the Psychoanalysis Method to the students, as he knew that many of them had a certain talent in this area, although not as strong as Jenna, but still significantly above average among ordinary people.

If he could successfully pique their interest and let them see the charms of the Psychoanalysis Method, perhaps he would gain a few more excellent graduate students in the future, so Shiller was quite willing to demonstrate it to them.

But unfortunately, his current condition was not very good.

To lure the Witch, Shiller had stopped drinking even the snowdrop tea, letting the Curse continuously corrode his body; maintaining his human form was his last line, and if Circe didn't show up soon, he was ready to revert to his snake form.

Maintaining reptilian habits in a human form was costly since snakes had evolved to live with those particular habits, and in reverse, because they had such bodies, they were able to live with such habits.

Humans were not evolved towards being snake-like; just maintaining body temperature with sunlight alone was too much for such a large body, not to mention that human skin was different from that of a cold-blooded animal, significantly worse at sensing and absorbing heat.

Shiller was like a supercomputer that had installed a Windows XP system, none of the hardware's powers were fully utilized, and its operating speed was worrisome.

So did this mean he couldn't empathize in his current condition?

Actually, quite the opposite: the worse his state, the stronger his empathy became; this was true both morbidly and normally.

The ability to empathize and perform psychoanalysis belonged to the fundamental logic of Shiller's mind, not disappearing just because he was away from his main base or the High Tower; in reality, each personality trait possessed this ability.

And the empathic ability owned by each personality trait was actually the same, each becoming stronger as the mental state deteriorated.

This is a basic rule of the human psyche, similar to how the worse your mental state, the more your mind wanders, and the most crucial support for empathy is association.

Furthermore, when the mental state deteriorated to a certain extent, hallucinations could begin to appear, and the visions seen by the empathizers often constituted the externalization of the information received by their empathic organs.

Visions, of course, were much more concrete and accurate than vague feelings, so once the mental state deteriorated to the point of hallucinations, both empathy and psychoanalytic abilities would become very strong, which could be considered the peak state for empathizers.

Previously, when Shiller evaluated Jenna's peak state as comparable to his own morbid state, he actually meant that if Jenna's mental condition worsened to the point of having hallucinations, it would essentially be on the same level as a morbid state.

But now, Jenna's mental condition was a bit too healthy, which resulted in her empathy not being fully operational, not to mention seeing concrete visions; she could only barely feel the emotional atmosphere, although it was enough for her current stage, what would happen later was still unknown.

Moreover, excessive empathizing led to a problem: already in a poor mental state, empathizing with bizarre killers easily resulted in a more chaotic mental state, and often, they would sink into it, unable to extricate themselves, their actions aligning with those of the empathized subjects.

This is why natural-born empathizers could easily become serial killers, as the inability to control their empathic abilities left them exhausted and tormented; already mentally unstable, and easily influenced by other criminals in lawless areas, not committing a crime would be a less probable event.

So Shiller was not currently concerned about the inaccuracy of his empathy; he simply believed that conducting a psychic analysis now might further worsen his mental state.

Already drained by the Curse, if his condition deteriorated further, he feared he might not need to sleep at all.

Shiller initially thought that these students would spend more than a year here, then return to Earth for internships, and it wouldn't be too late to show them around after resolving the witch incident and lifting the curse.

But then the crime scene was brought right to their doorstep.

Some things just have to challenge belief, and Shiller had his doubts about Murphy's Law, but it had proven, given its widespread acceptance, that there was indeed a certain logic to it.

He had thought that if the witch dared to come-here, with Superman, Wonder Woman, and The Flash around, these people were more than enough to give Circe a good thrashing without him lifting a finger.

But as it turned out, the cunning witch hadn't completely lost her reason. She wouldn't show up in person so easily but would rather stir trouble from the shadows.

Even though Mercury Base had quite comprehensive security measures, it was, after all, brought over from another cosmos. The scientific differences between these two cosmos were not significant, practically null, but magic was a completely different entity by nature, so there truly were loopholes to be exploited.

Solving the case, however, Clark and Diana could not be of much help, and neither could Oliver and Arthur be of much significance. The only truly useful ones were Bruce, Barry, and Shiller.

But the Barry of this universe was still very young and he hadn't studied forensic science, which rendered him unable to aid much in criminal investigations.

Shiller could have time-traveled back to directly view the answer, but coincidentally, there was someone present named Golden Vanguards, a youth Superhero from the future.

Don't be fooled by his goofy acts, always arm in arm with the Blue Beetle, chasing chickens and dogs—those were all his disguises. The true identity of Golden Vanguards was a Timeline Guardian, whose job was to maintain the stability of the timeline, operating for the Time Management Bureau, who wouldn't allow The Flash to travel through the timeline so easily.

Moreover, the DC timeline, more complex than Marvel's, teemed with erratic Flashes and their various foes—an inadvertent collision with them is no different than an ordinary person crashing into a fully insured semi-truck.

Shiller and Bruce didn't exactly approve of Barry diving deep into the timeline yet, even though he had once merged with Dark Power, it was still very dangerous.

So, the ones who could truly act now were just Shiller and his unfortunate student.

If Bruce were fully in charge, Shiller wouldn't feel relieved at all, bringing up these four classes of over a hundred students to this degree, could he really be trusted to handle anything else?

Shiller sighed, knowing he had no choice but to go himself.

Before he could even open his mouth, the students below had already started cheering, and then halfway through realized something was off and stopped somewhat awkwardly.

"Alright," Shiller tapped the table and said, "With such a significant incident, everyone must be there at the scene—keep quiet. Once we arrive at the crime scene, don't make noise, don't rush in. If any unexpected situation arises, don't panic; the professors will protect you..."

Theoretically, hearing about a death within their own base should trigger panic, but Shiller had already whetted their appetites so much that these students didn't feel the slightest panic, all were eagerly waiting to see how Shiller would solve the case, happily running towards the door.

Watching their energetic figures, Shiller thought that whatever the behind-the-scenes manipulator wanted to do to incite panic among the students, they would probably fail—such is the charm of education.

Shiller wasn't in a rush to head out yet, he sorted the lesson plans on the table first, then exchanged a glance with Jenna, who was also packing. The girl immediately understood, lagged at the end of the crowd, walking shoulder to shoulder with Shiller.

"How do you feel?" Shiller asked. He was just wondering if Jenna was tired because developing one's empathy ability could be quite mentally draining initially. Immersed in empathy, there was no sense of fatigue, but once detached, one would feel utterly exhausted. His intention was to suggest Jenna take some rest.

Unexpectedly, Jenna, quite excited, said, "Lots of thoughts are swirling in my mind; I sort of want to write them down, but I'm clueless. I tried observing Professor Wayne before, but back then, my own thoughts were muddled, I couldn't find the right path. Now, I think I can try again…"

Shiller had to admit that young people indeed had energy. After some thought, he said, "I don't oppose you doing this, miss, but I think we can put aside Professor Wayne's issue for later. Let's focus on the case at hand first."

Indeed, Jenna's attention was captured; she pondered seriously for a moment before asking, "Professor, what race do you think the victim belongs to?"

"Do you think race is important?"

"Of course, it is one of the key pieces of information," Jenna nodded, "Killing an ordinary human and killing me would have completely different difficulties; the choice of race must be a crucial clue to identify the perpetrator."

"This is something you could discuss with Professor Wayne."

"Then what should I discuss with you?" Jenna inquired, "Without knowing any information, how can the Psychoanalysis Method be utilized?"

Shiller shook his head and responded, "Psychoanalysis isn't just about analyzing the perpetrator. When a murder occurs, all the associated atmosphere could potentially be crucial clues."