Days as a Spiritual Mentor in American Comics

Chapter 5919: Chapter 4940: No Batman Here (27)

As a half-legendary investigator with maxed-out librarian skill points, Jason’s research on the Outer Gods is the most extensive among them. After all, without these two tricks, he couldn’t work in the Gotham University library. The Outer Gods particularly favor Gotham, especially the highly inspired and curious students at Gotham University. Over the years, it’s roughly at the level of a Mi Da preparatory class.

"Usually, they don’t attack each other." Jason said, sitting in the common room of Oxford University’s student dormitory, "They don’t even have the concept of attack, and they are unaware of themselves and their surroundings. But if you want them to attack each other, it’s not difficult, because most of their strengths are incompatible. As long as you put them together, their unconsciously emitted contamination will constantly invade each other."

"Do they have a hierarchy?" Harley asked again, "For example, if you put a weaker one and a stronger one together, the weaker one will be immediately defeated..."

"No," Jason said, "They are divided into main gods, clones, and followers. The main god is the entity of the Outer God, usually deep within the stars, invisible, untouchable, and won’t appear. No one knows what it’s like there, or even if the stars truly exist."

"Clones are the forms in which Outer Gods walk on Earth. Brand is a clone of Nyarlathotep, as is the Black Pharaoh, Night Demon, and others. They seem to be parts of the same Outer God, but each has its own merits, with different personalities and ways of using power."

"Followers are contaminated humans or other beings, and there’s no matter of willingness; once contaminated, they become very crazy. Apart from madness, these people don’t have any special powers, but their madness itself is contagious. Polluting others through leaving texts and forbidden knowledge is a specialty of followers."

"If you lead a Night Demon and a follower together, the follower is dead for sure. But if it’s the Black Pharaoh and a follower, it’s not certain, because the Black Pharaoh may not necessarily kill. You first need to determine the nature of the thing you’re dealing with."

"It seems to be a clone now," Harley said, "and it’s very aggressive, constantly contaminating the surrounding things."

"Then you need to find other clones." Jason lightly tapped on the keyboard, seemingly doing homework, "Get the two together, and they might interfere with each other. The contamination at this time might weaken, giving you an opportunity to act."

Harley nodded, thinking this was already a very reliable method. Of course, the missile plan should be used, but it can be supplemented with the old seal for complete expulsion. And how to use the old seal to control him can also utilize the conflict between clones to create a flaw.

This plan gradually took shape in Harley’s mind. She said to Arkham Knight, "Take the treasure chest, let’s head back."

As they searched forward, not only did they find the treasure chest mentioned by Bishop earlier, but they found another one. It was only after opening with a key that they discovered these treasure chests contained genuine good equipment, not the mosquito-leg materials.

The treasure chest from Bishop contained a shotgun equipped with single headed shells. These guns are usually referred to as "elephant hunting guns," implying their capability to hunt elephants. Although it doesn’t kill in one shot, the killing power is evident. Its best aspect is the shell’s stopping power; aside from elephants, few creatures can endure a shot and continue moving.

"I like this." Arkham Knight rarely expressed his attitude, "This is a good gun."

Upon receiving it in the terminal, it can be seen that this gun has a blue quality, the same as the machine tool blueprint rewarded for task completion. Basically, what explodes from monsters is green gear, making this a fairly decent weapon.

The items from the second chest were slightly strange.

"Fragments of ’Psychoanalytic Personality Theory’?" Harley was a bit surprised, "What is this for? Can spiritual analysis methods be learned now?"

Brainiac did not answer, so Harley had to regard it as some kind of task item, and if it doesn’t work, they could only ask Professor Shiller when he contacts them.

On the way back, Harley kept looking at that thing. After receiving it into the terminal, Harley found the thing to be purple. She couldn’t understand why this textbook fragment, without any mysticism attributes, would be a purple item. What killing power does it have?

Harley looked at it and felt the content seemed familiar. She thought carefully, even pulling Tim along to think about it upon returning to the estate. Eventually, they realized the book seemed to be written by Shiller.

The full name of the book shouldn’t be this, Brainiac had abbreviated it. But during their college days, they indeed studied this book. As for what was learned back then—if it wasn’t completely forgotten—they wouldn’t have spent so much time to recall it’s written by their university professor.

"My goodness." Harley spread the book on her face, "This reminds me of the time during the final reviews then..."

"I also find it strange." Tim said, sitting beside, "Why would there be a textbook? And it’s a purple item?"

"I think it might be related to the boss on our side." Charles said, "Maybe it’s an item for summoning or luring him? Can you do me a favor and go deliver it?"

"I’ll go." Pamela said, "Anyway, the squad going into the sewers hasn’t returned yet, and I’m not doing any chemical experiments, so it’s good to check on the professor’s side."

But Pamela was still too late.

When Shiller and the others discovered that the archive might be a safe zone, everyone except Charles moved into action. Shiller used his Spider-sense to take a detour and entered the school from the north gate.

Once inside, they quickly found the archive, and sure enough, there were no monsters here. It wasn’t even raining here.

While the surrounding areas seemed on the verge of hail, it was still dry here. Looking up, the clouds were avoiding the archive, showing just how severe Brainiac’s psychological shadow was.

Once inside, they all breathed a sigh of relief. Although this place was somewhat inauspicious, as long as you didn’t delve into those papers, it was a perfect base.

After settling in, of course, they decided to explore other places. Shiller wanted to go to his office, but he feared running into the boss directly. He thought about it and decided the best option was to head to the chemistry department.

Although they hadn’t found Jonathan’s large stockpile, the chemistry department surely had some fear gas he was working on, at least a couple of bottles or some semi-finished products. This was exactly what the Arrogant habitually did — answer chemistry on all the test papers.

Ethan and Gordon also agreed with this plan. They figured even without fear gas, getting other chemicals wouldn’t be a loss. But if Brainiac wasn’t plotting something here, he wouldn’t be Brainiac. As soon as they stepped into the chemistry department building, they were immediately caught in a swirling dizziness.

Waking up, they found themselves sitting in a chemistry classroom. Around them sat many shadowy figures resembling students, and on the podium stood a professor who looked very much like Jonathan Crane — but with a scarecrow makeover, enhanced body size, and emitting black mist.

The players were fixed to their chairs, completely unable to leave. Then Jonathan began lecturing.

He was talking about some kind of industrial compound’s mixing method, explaining the principles and formulas first, followed by proportions and techniques. But no matter what he said, it was all Greek to those present.

Because he wasn’t starting from the basics of chemistry, he jumped straight into complex industrial compound mixing procedures. Half the blackboard was filled with his writing, and those without a professional foundation were utterly baffled.

Worse still, after the lecture, he started handing out test papers. Gordon let out a scream: "Brainiac!!!"

"Study hard." Brainiac replied emotionlessly, "This is a positive-energy game. Knowledge is power."

Gordon buried his head on the table.

Then he saw the two beside him, academic prodigies who had already started writing furiously. He widened his eyes, first looking at Ethan, then at Shiller: "Aren’t you two PhDs in medicine???"

"This is testing what was just taught," Ethan said. "You don’t need to understand the principles, just memorize them."

"You guys memorized everything just taught???" Gordon was not relieved, but even more shocked, "Why do I not remember anything from that class? Did I pass out?"

He only remembered that thing resembling Jonathan muttering on the podium; he didn’t remember a single word. It wasn’t just not remembering but not processing anything at all as it skimmed across his cortex faster than water down a toilet.

"Can’t say we remembered everything," Ethan said, "but what he taught was logical, first explaining the mixing methods of those primary elements, then synthesizing them into the final product."

Gordon no longer desired to speak to them. He had long known he was an ordinary person and thought his current position mainly relied on experience, not talent. The only thing he excelled at compared to others was his courage and stubbornness.

Yet facing the intelligence gap so plainly left Gordon speechless. Fortunately, this situation didn’t last long, as after the written test, they were to do practical operations.

This was trouble. None of the three of them knew how to conduct a chemistry experiment. Ethan was not a surgeon, not even a clinical doctor; he was involved in medical research. But because he was involved in medical research and had been in labs, he knew something about experimental procedures, at least putting on gloves first.

As the experiment table and rack emerged, Gordon reached out to grab a flask, even trying to bring it up to his eye level to have a closer look. Thankfully, Ethan quickly stopped him.

Shiller did not move, not out of steadiness, but because he had given up. If he were any good at chemistry experiments, he wouldn’t be relying on Jonathan’s fear gas still. He excelled at answering chemistry on all test papers but during school, answered psychology on chemistry papers. His way to conquer chemistry exams was using psychology to deal with chemistry teachers.

Shiller sighed deeply: "I’ll go offline and find Jonathan."