Skeleton Hunter
Su Ming had her look around the police checkpoint and found that the officers really were looking for him. He had to admit, a ghost invisible to humans was incredibly convenient for reconnaissance.
But he had also tried something along the way: he couldn't use Summoning of All Things through Miao Xin.
Ghosts were built very differently from skeletons and had no physical soul core system. The Dawn Soul Core installed in Little Spiky Head seemed to be an important component for using Summoning of All Things across worlds.
Su Ming took out his phone and began looking things up.
According to the information he found, acute hepatitis and acute myocarditis alone could cause the corresponding organs to fail at any time. Worse still, there was that deadly pneumonia. Once the infection became severe, respiratory failure would set in very quickly.
Su Ming couldn't help growing anxious. He had found the medicines he needed, but Little Spiky Head had to touch them, and the intensity of the search had already made it impossible for him to move about.
The house stood on high ground. Besides the elevated railway bridge he had passed not long ago, Su Ming could see more intersections where the faint red flashes of police lights were gradually appearing.
For the first time, he felt the immense power of the all-encompassing dragnet of the country where he had once lived.
But he couldn't give up! Not on White Bone, who might not be able to hold on much longer, nor on his own hope of survival and returning home!
Su Ming struggled to push down his discouragement. When a problem couldn't be solved, he needed to approach it differently. He remembered using an answer from Earth to resolve the crisis at Cui'an Sea Cliff. Now that he was in trouble on Earth, the answer might lie in the other world.
Su Ming returned to the Zhiyuan and ran to White Bone Scholar's library. He found the Undead Creatures Handbook and began looking up information on Little Spiky Head and Miao Xin.
Su Ming had examined Little Spiky Head's skeleton. Its bones weren't round as he had first thought, but were made of layers of numerous polygonal bone plates. They also bore many strange structures, with irregularly shaped components interlocking in intricate shapes and sizes.
The characteristics were distinctive, and sure enough, he found a similar picture in the book. Little Spiky Head actually belonged to an advanced skeleton model: the Reconnaissance Hunter!
"Yes!" Su Ming clenched his fist and cheered. He knew a creation of an undead holy magister couldn't be that simple!
Following the index, Su Ming found a detailed description. Reconnaissance Hunters were advanced consumables with great mobility and basic combat capabilities.
Skeletons were made entirely of bone and couldn't sustain a very high spiritual energy output. Reconnaissance Hunters therefore used a design that separated bone and spirit. This reduced consumption under normal conditions, while allowing the costly spirit component to escape and be recovered if the skeletal body was destroyed, conserving energy and reducing consumption.
"Does that mean plugging in a battery?" Su Ming looked at the two Undead Marks in his sea of consciousness and followed the method described in the book. "Fuse!"
Back on Earth, as the marks fused, Miao Xin flew into Little Spiky Head. Green light flashed, and ghostly flames lit up in Little Spiky Head's eye sockets.
"Great!" After moving a little, Su Ming felt that Little Spiky Head's mobility had improved considerably, and its agility had increased enormously as well. It was also much smoother to control; the ghost's intelligence core was helping him correct the details of its movements.
He synchronized his senses and found them much clearer. At the same time, the ghost's spiritual energy was being consumed.
Su Ming took off the backpack and the clothes he was wearing. With the weight gone, he could even leap five meters into the air with ease.
"So this really is the right way to use undead." Su Ming flexed the skeleton. He noticed that its ribs could move, and when he opened them, he found that its chest cavity was a storage compartment.
Su Ming hurriedly put all the odds and ends from the backpack inside and closed it. This was much more convenient!
In the distance, a train's searchlight appeared on the elevated bridge. Su Ming narrowed his eyes. This was a chance to jump out of the encirclement!
He sent Little Spiky Head racing across the rooftops. When it reached the point closest to the elevated bridge, he leaped without hesitation.
The fused Little Spiky Head jumped high, soaring far above the roof it had launched from. Many people saw it.
After flying more than ten meters through the air, Su Ming reached out and hooked his hand over the outer edge of the elevated bridge. He swung his body backward, then did a backflip onto the bridge.
He landed and immediately sprinted straight ahead at full speed!
The white bullet train swept past Little Spiky Head at nearly 400 kilometers per hour. Little Spiky Head leaped with all its strength, clearing the train cars high overhead and landing on the roof. The bone claws on its hands and feet gouged scratches dozens of meters long into the roof before it finally came to a stop.
In the fierce wind, Su Ming looked back, watching the police lights recede into the distance.
On the roof of the speeding train, Su Ming crouched low and turned on Miao Xin's phone.
He leaned over to glance at the train number on the car, then logged onto the official railway website and checked the timetable. He found the train's route and location; it would arrive at the station in fifteen minutes.
He began searching for major hospitals nearby.
A familiar name passed before Su Ming's eyes: Pine Mountain Sanatorium Hospital.
The place was in Su Ming's hometown, so he knew it was a sanatorium for the wealthy. Compared with a bustling major hospital, a sanatorium should be a better choice. There were fewer people and plenty of medicine, and it was even quieter at night.
He had a grudge against the director, but in the past, there had been nothing he could do. Now, though-he looked down at Little Spiky Head's bone claws-that might not be the case!
Su Ming hurriedly checked the high-speed rail timetable. Sure enough, a high-speed train going in that direction passed through the station ahead. He jumped off before his train entered the station and climbed a utility pole beside the outer railway line. When the train he was waiting for passed, he jumped onto it.
By changing to the high-speed train, Little Spiky Head covered the 200-kilometer journey in a little over half an hour. After Su Ming jumped off, he didn't run far before reaching a remote wooded area. He followed the winding mountain road for several minutes and finally saw the sanatorium, built to resemble a mountain estate.
At the center of the sanatorium stood a modestly sized main building, with an inpatient building beside it. The wards were spacious and luxuriously furnished, and rows of villas stood farther back.
Few people were about at night. A small number of patients stayed in the rooms or villas. There were only two security guards in the duty room, and in the medical building's lobby, only a few medical staff on duty were gathered around a card game. Everywhere else was pitch-dark.
Su Ming entered the medical building without trouble and undid the undead fusion. Miao Xin separated from Little Spiky Head. He made a list of the medicines he needed and sent Miao Xin to find them.
At first, Su Ming was worried about the ghost's intelligence. He watched Miao Xin drift blankly through the card table where the medical staff were playing, follow the signs to the pharmacy, slip inside, and begin searching a row of medicine shelves.
After watching her closely for a while, he saw that although the ghost girl moved slowly, she did seem to know what she was doing. It looks like she still has some of the knowledge she had as a human, Su Ming thought.
He gathered his thoughts and began preparing the summoning materials he would need next aboard the Zhiyuan.