The Symbiote's learning speed was astonishing. Schiller had only copied this ability that afternoon, yet the other voice in his head could already communicate with him through clear brainwaves. It could only express a few simple emotions for now, but that was already remarkable.
Once he could communicate with the Symbiote, Schiller planned to test its abilities. He had assumed it would be similar to Venom: as long as he shouted "Mask!" like in the movies, a sticky mass would emerge and wrap around him, complete with two large white eyes, a mouthful of sharp teeth, and a long tongue.
The Symbiote could directly sense the images Schiller imagined. It sent him a string of denying brainwaves and kept repeating one sentence in his mind:
"I'm not sticky, I'm not sticky, I'm not sticky I'm not sticky I'm not sticky..."
It seemed to have sensed that Schiller did not particularly like the Symbiote's slimy texture.
To be honest, Schiller simply did not want to hurt this newborn little fellow. After all, it would become his capable assistant in the future. It was not that Schiller disliked the Symbiote's slimy texture; he found it utterly unbearable.
No matter how powerful a Symbiote was, that texture, like a pile of rotten mud, was truly horrifying.
Apparently eager to prove that it was not slimy, Gray Mist, which had only just learned how to communicate, took control of Schiller's body before he could react and stood up. Then, in an instant, Schiller found that the world before his eyes had changed.
He lost his eyes—or rather, he lost his entire physical body—and gained thousands upon thousands of sensors.
Schiller discovered that he could suddenly sense every detail of everything in the clinic bedroom with perfect clarity. These signals continuously flooded into his brain, but they were not images he saw. They were things he felt.
His eyesight had never been good enough to make out every uneven detail of each fiber in the blanket, but now he could sense them. At first, the immense volume of information from every sensor left his brain unable to respond at all. Soon, however, his other thinking organ—the Symbiote—rapidly processed the information and fed it back to Schiller's brain. The sheer number of details gave Schiller a thrilling sense of control over everything.
Then Schiller realized that he seemed able to control this state, so he began directing all the sensors, spreading them out as far as possible.
When those sensors reached the full-length mirror in the bedroom, Schiller saw that he had turned into a cloud of gray mist.
That was right. He had lost his entire body and become a shifting cloud of mist.
Every particle in the mist became his sensor. Thousands upon thousands of Symbiote particles rapidly wove themselves into an enormous information-gathering network that missed no detail. Anywhere the particles could enter held no secrets from Schiller.
For instance, Schiller could even see the arrangement of iron elements inside an electric kettle. If he concentrated, he could sense the distribution of oxygen in the air and the presence of other rare gases. This microscopic power of observation, reaching the molecular level and even approaching the atomic level, made the world far grander and more fascinating than Schiller could perceive as a human.
Thank God, you're not one of those mud-like Symbiotes, Schiller thought.
Gray Mist seemed to think it had been praised and sent back a very happy emotion. As if to further display its power, it directly controlled Schiller and dispersed the mist he had become.
The gray mist stopped gathering in one place and spread out evenly like ordinary fog. Before long, a hazy mist had shrouded Hell's Kitchen.
The vast number of particles grew more dispersed, but they continued sending all kinds of information to Schiller's brain. Once the range expanded, the information increased by hundreds and thousands of times. Yet with the Symbiote processing it for him, Schiller only had to focus on a particular area. For example, he could sense that five or six blocks away, in the heart of Hell's Kitchen, gangs were engaged in a gunfight.
He could even sense the trail left by every bullet as it flew through the exchange of fire.
He focused, looking for a bald man with a target pattern on his forehead.
Gray Mist locked onto him in an instant and even transmitted all the microscopic elemental information in his surroundings back to Schiller's brain.
This ability was simply too powerful. Wherever mist existed, no one could escape Schiller's eyes.
Schiller felt that if his own brain had to process such a vast amount of complicated information, he would probably go insane on the spot. But this Symbiote seemed to possess such an ability innately.
In a great fog, the information returned by every particle could be classified, filtered, and concentrated at extreme speed. In a very short time, as long as Schiller focused on what he wanted to know, he would naturally know it.
He was like someone playing SimCity from God's perspective, able to observe every movement within the mist at any time. No detail could escape the infiltration of the Gray Mist factor.
Furthermore, these miraculous particles could infiltrate the interior of objects and cause destruction—for example, by disrupting stable molecular structures and reducing an object to powder in an instant.
But Gray Mist told him that this ability only worked on things with stable molecular structures, and there could not be any interference from other forces. Otherwise, it would be unable to affect them as well.
Still, that was already an immensely powerful ability.
When returning to human form, Schiller could choose to gather his body anywhere covered by mist. In other words, within the range Gray Mist could cover, he could disappear from one place endlessly and suddenly appear in another.
But this could not completely replace teleportation, because turning into Gray Mist, having the mist spread, gathering it again, and then returning to human form all took a certain amount of time. It was not as fast as teleportation.
Things on the Marvel side had temporarily settled down. Daredevil Matt was recovering, while Spider-Man wanted to follow Stark and learn how to be a superhero. Unfortunately, his final exams were coming up, so he had to hurry and catch up on the classes he had missed, leaving him with no time to wander around. Stark was so annoyed by that bald Nick Fury that he had been hiding in his lab all day, tinkering with armor and rarely going out. So Schiller went to sleep and returned to the DC world.
Not long after returning to DC, Schiller discovered one particularly troublesome trait of the Symbiote inside him.
Back in the DC world, Schiller was sorting through his equipment. Because of Jonathan's arrest, he did not have much Fear Gas left. Fortunately, he had previously swept up nearly all of Jonathan's stockpile, and the remaining Fear Gas was all high-quality concentrated stuff.
He was taking out the remaining Fear Gas to dilute it, preparing to fill spray bottles for easier use.
Fear Gas had no effect on Schiller at all, so unlike Jonathan, he did not need to wrap himself up tightly during experiments. The only two living creatures in his apartment, Schiller and Pikachu, were both immune to Fear Gas, so Schiller did not care if some leaked during testing.
On top of that, he had no real background in chemistry. When diluting chemicals, he probably violated two hundred laboratory regulations per minute. Not wearing gloves or a gas mask was the least of it. As a result, every time he finished, the room was basically filled with low-concentration Fear Gas.
This time was the same. After a series of extremely improper chemical dilution procedures, Schiller barely managed to divide the Fear Gas into different spray bottles. But then a series of excited signals suddenly came from his brain.
"This tastes good this tastes good this tastes good this tastes good this tastes good give me some give me some give me some food food food food food..."
Schiller froze. Was this Symbiote saying that Fear Gas tasted good?
He suddenly recalled the Symbiote settings in the comics, especially Venom's. The reason Venom could eat chocolate instead of human brains was because both contained something called phenethylamine.
It was a chemical substance that stimulated the human brain, and it existed in both human brains and chocolate.
Could Fear Gas contain it too?
Schiller thought about it. That was indeed possible. Fear Gas triggered the deepest fears in people's minds and suddenly stirred up their negative emotions. It was hard to say whether Jonathan had used this chemical when making the gas.
Now, it seemed that not only had he used it, but he had used quite a lot of it.
"How do you want to eat it?" Schiller asked in his mind.
The Symbiote did not seem to understand either. It only knew that the thing in front of it was extremely appealing. With no other option, Schiller took out a bottle of diluted Fear Gas and sprayed it directly into his nose.
He instantly felt the Symbiote in his mind grow excited, constantly shouting in his head, "Tasty tasty tasty tasty not enough not enough not enough not enough more more more more..."
All right, Schiller thought. Symbiotes probably all had big appetites. He simply took out a small bottle of undiluted, still-liquid Fear Gas and poured it directly into his mouth.
The stuff had no real taste, but in an instant, he could feel the Symbiote inside him becoming so excited that it seemed a little delirious.
It sent him a long string of brainwaves that Schiller could not understand at all, then shouted and yelled in his mind using every word it had just learned.
Finally, after a while, mist began to spread around Schiller. It was deeper than ordinary Gray Mist, turning somewhat black. Schiller sniffed it and felt that it might be Fear Gas.
All right, Schiller thought. It seemed that highly concentrated Fear Gas was a bit like hard liquor to a Symbiote. Gray Mist had gotten drunk from drinking it directly.
And after getting drunk, the Symbiote's reaction was surprisingly similar to a human's. First, it threw a drunken tantrum and spouted a bunch of nonsense, then it vomited.
The mist around Schiller should have been what Gray Mist vomited after getting drunk.
Gray Mist recovered quickly, but after recovering, it still wanted to ask Schiller for more alcohol. Schiller sternly refused.
But it was clearly unwilling to give up, whining pitifully in Schiller's mind.
Schiller was helpless. How had his Symbiote turned into such a drunkard?
Before you continue