After Dean finished taking a shower and changed into light sportswear, he called out in his heart, "Original badge?"
"Master, please call me another name that is more wise and dignified." A childlike voice sounded in my mind.
"shoal?"
"coming!"
A brass badge flew out of the hood behind Dean's head, jumped onto his shoulder and stood still. Under the light, a row of eyes on the surface rotated, full of cunning and mischief.
"You guy," Dean stretched out his index finger and tapped its smooth little head, "Why do you have to let me call you Shoal?"
Badge explained in a childish voice, "The magic circle was buried in the mud near the coast in the original place and gave birth to me, so the shallows and I have an indissoluble bond. But that is in the past, I Now I am Your most loyal and wise servant."
Shoal said with utmost sincerity.
Originally, after its skills were absorbed, it should have lost its spirituality and turned into a ball of scrap copper.
But this time the inheritor has a certain mysterious quality that not only helps it forcibly retain its spirituality, but also forges an unbreakable master-slave relationship with it.
Qiantan could clearly feel that his life was in the hands of the person in front of him, but it was better to live with a humble spirit than to decay and perish after exhaustion.
Now, it can at least experience this vast world with its owner, and collide with various strange lives and stories to create sparks of thought.
"Okay then, follow me."
Shoal followed Dean and flew out of the second floor window, and soon flew to a dense forest ten miles away from Maple Street.
Dean first used the surrounding rocks and woods to check the status after the attribute surge:
The physical power increased to 30 tons, the life energy explosive power increased to an abnormal 55 tons, and the sublimation duration increased to twelve seconds.
After the upgrade of "Shadow", the range of free movement away from Dean has expanded to two kilometers, the power of telekinesis has increased from 35 tons to 50 tons, and the flight speed of telekinesis has reached an astonishing 180 meters/s, 648 kilometers per hour, 7 He can fly from the east coast to the west coast of the United States in just a few hours, and he will no longer need transportation when traveling.
The ability to manipulate heat has been greatly improved. It can create frost as low as minus 150 degrees, which can freeze people to death instantly, and flames as high as 2,000 degrees, which can melt most metals.
As for manipulating electrical energy, the power has doubled.
Ying has been able to skillfully shape electricity into various shapes and summon electrostatic fields to interfere with electronic devices. However, electricity has too many uses and requires slow and detailed testing experiments.
…
until the workout is complete.
Dean and Ying looked at the "shoal" that had been peeking at them for a long time like a general looking at soldiers, "Have you seen enough? Let's talk, introduce yourself first, what are your specialties?"
"I have endless uses!" The four-petal mouth of the badge split open, shouting like a child showing off a certificate, "I can fly, have weak telekinesis, and master 99% of the languages and texts in the world. I can serve as your translator. I can help you decipher various historical documents and I can communicate with animals."
"Quack!" Badge shouted at the surrounding woods with a grin.
quack!
A hoarse and harsh echo came from the woods, and a crow fluttered its wings and flew out of the warm tree hole, circling around the badge.
Shoal jumped into the air and reached the center of the crow's head. He flew into the sky like a knight, and then swooped down in front of Dean, bathing in the sunshine and showing off his heroic posture with his head held high.
By the way, it has no head or limbs, only a round and flat body, and abstract and scrawled eyes and mouth, enough to scare a child to tears.
"Tsk tsk..." Dean asked, "Can you completely control it? Or can you only control it at close range?"
"To be precise, this is not control." Qiantan tried his best to explain. "Because I have special spirituality, all the animals in nature will not reject me. I can communicate with them peacefully and ask for help. But I need to pay for some food afterwards. Or something else as compensation, by the way, I promised to give this crow some food, dear master, can you help me fulfill my promise?"
"This is a bit like the legendary Druid." Dean nodded, swept the two hundred meters of snow from his God's perspective, and stretched out his hand.
Puff puff puff.
Tiny holes were opened in the snow - the invisible power of thought was divided into dozens of thin lines, and ten hibernating brown mole crickets were fished out of the snow and flew back to the palm of the hand.
Dean reached out towards the crow.
quack…
The crow clicked its long beak and began to peck, its wings flapping happily.
"Too many!" The shallows on the crow's head jumped anxiously, "It shouldn't get so many rewards for flying me around, otherwise it will ask for more next time."
"You're quite particular."
Badge snorted, "Of course, the shallows are very particular about clear rewards and punishments, just like the trials I arranged."
Dean and Ying smiled at each other, closed their palms, and let the unwilling crow peck at the back of their hands, and then asked, "Why are you acting like a child? Haven't you been buried for hundreds of years?"
"But based on the age of the wonders, my mind is similar to that of a two- or three-year-old human child... I lack practice and experience, but I have mastered more knowledge."
So does this count as employing "child labor"?
Dean muttered and asked, "How many crows or mice can you control at most?"
"As long as they can provide enough food, there is no upper limit. But they can only understand some simple instructions, such as tracking and marking people. Their limited intelligence cannot monitor the target's communication."
"Already a very good little sentinel." Dean nodded, "Apart from the crow?"
"Rabbits, snakes, cats, dogs, mice, and birds are all fine." A few fine wrinkles appeared on Qiantan's smooth and cold face, revealing his anthropomorphic thoughts. "Wolves, lions, bears and other large animals can also communicate. , but they need to be paid more.”
Dean didn't care whether he could control large animals. He needed insects, birds and other inconspicuous things to serve as his eyes and ears. He scattered the crickets all over the sky and dismissed the crows.
"Besides, what other characteristics or abilities do you have? Can you still travel through space like before?"
"No, the power of traveling through space already belongs to you." Qiantan looked at Dean's desire and request, "But I can absorb energy and maintain basic daily activities."
"This is not a skill. What kind of energy does it absorb?"
"There are no original energy particles in the air of this world, so I only absorb your life energy and thought power..."
Dean flicked out a coin-sized life ball, opened his mouth and swallowed it in one gulp. The dull brass surface became a little brighter, and his face showed that he was still unfinished.
Until Dean consumed one-tenth of his total life energy, the smooth and new shoal showed a satisfied expression, with a shy brass belly, "Today's energy is enough..."
Dean breathed a sigh of relief. He could still afford to feed a messenger with one-tenth of his life energy.
Qiantan said flatteringly, "It would be perfect if there were more emotions and stories."
"Can you still absorb emotions?"
"Well, the emotions of humans, animals, and supernatural beings, whether they are joys, sorrows, sorrows, or joys, the stronger they are, the more they are like mellow wine... But I am not sucking it in vain. When I absorb enough, the skills will be condensed in my body again. At that time, master, you can do whatever you want. Dispose of it, absorb it yourself, or bestow it on others, no more trials required.”
"What? Can you condense skills without a magic circle in the original place?" Dean cheered up. This was not a ready-made superpower manufacturing machine. A scene of transforming mortals into superpowers emerged in his mind.
"Yes, condensation skills are my talent and instinct, and they don't necessarily have to be in the original state. But there is a high probability that the skills that are condensed in the ordinary world are not the skills that distort time and space, but ordinary superpowers." Qiantan said softly, "In addition, , I need a lot of energy and emotion, and according to the level you just instilled in me, it is initially estimated that it will take decades to condense successfully."
"..." Dean's excited mood fell to the bottom.
Shallows noticed his expression and hurriedly explained, "But finding the right source of energy and emotion should greatly speed up the process."
"Okay, it's too early to gather skills. Focus on the present first." Dean looked at the skill level 0 in the space, "Why is my newly acquired skill so far inferior to yours?"
"This is normal. You have never experienced the power of space. If it is too powerful initially, you will not be able to use it at all."
"Teach me how to use skills more efficiently."
"Haha..." A lively smile suddenly appeared on Qiantan's face, and he flew happily in the air in front of Dean. If it had arms and legs, it must have been dancing, "Dear Master, I am honored to help you understand the skills. , you first try to liberate your skills. It is in your body, like your third hand. You first try to move your little finger."
Dean's attention was focused on his skills. Suddenly, a criss-cross grid appeared in the middle of the dense forest in front of him. It seemed to be composed of countless three-dimensional coordinates, extending from the ground to the limit of vision in the sky above his head.
Every inch of space is divided by these grids, and the nodes of the grid are mostly the size of a fingernail, showing a stable and balanced white light.
A very small number of nodes are suddenly strong and weak, changing between virtual and real, which is extremely unstable.
"I saw endless nodes..." Dean said,
"These points are called space nodes." Qiantan stood on his shoulder and told the story into his ear, "Both the permanent world and the original world are stable worlds, so most of their space nodes are in a stable state. .Unless continuous bombardment is carried out with extremely powerful energy, it will remain constant."
"But outside of the stable nodes, there are rare unstable space nodes, which can be opened with much less energy." Qiantan said carefully, "Primary skills mainly work on unstable nodes. You try to choose One of them touches,"
Dean heard this and reached out to touch a flickering node on the left. His fingertips touched something as soft as water in the place where there should have been nothing.
Qiantan asked, "Did you touch it?"
"Um."
"That's right, only those with space-time skills can touch the node. You try to open it to both sides."
Dean followed his words and put both hands up to peel off a lobster shell. The life energy and spiritual power in his body surged out like a flood from a sluice gate and poured into the gap.
Wow——
When one-sixth of all energy is consumed.
The space node in front of Dean's eyes was opened, and a dark crack was opened, which was almost enough for a person to pass through. With the naked eye and God's perspective, there was only chaos and nothingness when looking inside, as if facing a dark, cold and dead universe.
"What is the place inside? Another dimension?"
Qiantan said in an old-fashioned way, "There is a void inside, with dim light, sparse life, low temperature, and some strange radiation. There is usually a void behind a space node, and to roam, you usually have to pass through it."
Dean raised an eyebrow slightly, "Can you be more specific?"
"Have you ever blown bubbles?"
"Blowed."
"Suppose we blow a bunch of bubbles into the sky, and there is a bubble A among them. The surface of A is our world, and the inside and around A are empty, right?"
Dean easily imagined the scene and nodded, "Yeah."
"These places are called voids."
Dean's pupils shrank, "The world actually only occupies the surface layer of the bubble. Doesn't the area occupied by the void far exceed the world?"
"Yes, the void is eternal."
"So what does roaming mean?"
Shoal said, "Now, there is a particle of dust in the South Pole on the surface of bubble A. It wants to go to the North Pole. What should we do?"
"Climb along surface A from South Pole to North Pole."
Shoal reminded, "Moving along the surface of the sphere, the trajectory is curved, which is far faster than a straight line."
"Then go directly through the void inside A and fly in a straight line from south to north."
"Well, this is much faster, but you must first open the node before you can enter the void. This way of quickly reaching your destination through the void is called roaming. Just moving on bubble A is roaming within the world."
Qian Tan changed his voice and asked, "What if the dust wants to move from bubble A to bubble B floating next to it?"
"Open the node on the surface of A, and then fly to B through the external void."
"Well, this is also considered wandering, but the span is wider, from one world to another."
Dean suddenly realized, "So the void is a necessary transit point for roaming."
"This is true most of the time, but there are exceptions. Let's talk about it next time." Qiantan nervously looked at the shrinking crack in front of him. "Master, the node is about to be closed again. Why don't you go in and experience the roaming? I will be the navigator, guarantee You are safe."
Dean thought for a moment and realized that the omen did not indicate fatal danger. Under the control of the system, the servants could not lie to him, so he grabbed the shoal, looked at the time on his watch, and jumped into the gap together.
Dark, cold, hard to breathe, the body seems to be burned by some kind of ray, and there are bursts of inexplicable muscle soreness like waking up in the morning...
But the dark void is like the outside world, with countless spatial nodes reflected in front of Dean's eyes.
Dean was like standing in the Milky Way and counting the stars.
He held his breath and did not dare to take a step forward for fear of being swallowed by the ruthless Milky Way. Fortunately, the shallows sent a message in his mind, guiding him to pick the nearest twinkling star from the void, an unstable node.
Dean held it down with both hands, injected energy, suddenly opened it, and jumped out.
The next second, the light was so strong that it stung his eyes, the air became fresh and lively again, and the beeping whistle echoed in his ears, giving him the fear of waking up from a nightmare.
Dean glanced around and unknowingly stood in the middle of the road. A black Ford car in front of him was honking its horn crazily at him. The fat driver stuck his head out of the car window, his beard trembling like a broom, and firing like a machine gun. roar,
"Where did it come from? Don't you have eyes?"
"Sorry!" Dean smiled apologetically, closed the node gap behind him, and ran back to the sidewalk to find out the time and place. It turned out that it only took one second to pass through the "void", but in the real world, he came to Hawking from the suburban forest. Town center.
"The two places are at least ten kilometers apart...it takes one second to travel ten miles. I chose the closest node in the void." Dean and Ying looked excitedly at the shoal on their shoulders. "If I choose a farther place, is it possible to directly From Hawkins, Indiana to New York and Chicago?”
"It's completely possible." Qiantan nodded heavily at him and poured a bucket of cold water worriedly, "But you'd better not choose too far. A distance of one meter in the void may mean a distance of 10,000 kilometers in the real world. You If you run too far, you may leave the earth directly through the void and enter another world. If there are no coordinates, you will be lost in the other world and never come back."
Dean immediately gave up the urge and decided to go on a close-range roaming.
He closed his eyes and felt it. In this second of roaming, one-third of all his life energy and mental power were consumed, mainly used to open two space nodes.
After another roaming, the skill was still at lv0 (0/100). It failed to increase the proficiency at all, and the difficulty of improvement was not low.
"By the way, there is a small probability of risk even when roaming at close range." Qiantan recounted his experience in a childish voice, "Before you become a skilled wanderer, you cannot choose the right node based on experience and intuition, so returning from the void The destination is uncertain and could be anywhere in the real world, such as the ocean 10,000 meters deep, the ground 100 meters deep, or inside volcanic magma."
"Why didn't you tell me in advance?"
"I am the 'navigator', Master. I have lost my skills and cannot open space nodes, but my experience is still there. My intuition will let you avoid those fatal nodes."
"Next time, let me know in advance if there is any danger."
"Follow your orders!" Qian Tan said again,
"Go on... two more roams and go home."
…
In the evening, the dining table is filled with delicious food.
Dean swallowed a big mouthful of fried rice with a spoonful of beef with onions and black pepper, and glanced at Lena and Kelly opposite, "How do you see the house?"
"We have looked at more than a dozen houses and have locked in one of them. I plan to buy it as soon as possible." Lena put down the spoon with a smile and took out a bunch of photos from the bag behind her to show, "The whole set costs eight Wanzuo, in Yin Town next door, the decoration suits my taste very well."
Dean looked at it for a few times. They were basically single-family villas in the suburbs. The picturesque scenery was eye-catching. They were in a remote location and it was also very convenient for hunting and blood-sucking. "It looks good. I'll go and give it to you when the reservation is made." You move.”
"The procedure was completed very quickly. It will be almost completed after Christmas."
"Hey, why are you moving so quickly? Stay a little longer!" Paqui knocked on the table with a fork, his rough face full of displeasure.
Kelly reluctantly held Lena's arm next to her, "It's not easy to make friends who are so compatible with you, and you just moved away, how boring your life must be."
"It doesn't matter. We live so close. It's only an hour's drive away. We can move around at any time in the future." Lena smiled and shook her head, then changed the subject, "By the way, Dean, I remember you mentioned Terry. When will you bring her?" Shall I meet her?"
"anytime."
"What about tomorrow?"
"no problem."
Lena smiled and took a sip of corn soup. She seemed to have something on her mind. She took a deep breath and put her hands together on the dining table in front of her. "What about the light? When will we look for him together?"
As soon as this question came out, the originally cheerful atmosphere at the dinner table froze.
"The house is almost ready to be bought. Without the light, the family will never be complete." Paquet looked at Dean and said without refutation, "Boy, take me with you when you set out to find someone."
"He is my husband, and it is my responsibility to find him." Lena said calmly but firmly.
Dean looked at Lena's feet, the shoal rolled over at some point, sucking the air greedily.
What are you doing?
Master, please allow me to absorb a little sadness, it will do her no harm.
Dean then looked back and shook his head, "When the matter in Hawkins is settled, I will go north to find the light. If you insist on following me, your lives will be in danger."
Paqui curled his lips disapprovingly, "It is an honor to take risks to save my family. Even if I die, my soul will return to the land of my ancestors."
"Shut your crow mouth!" Kelly glared at him quickly, then looked at Dean, "Can't you call the police?"
Dean shook his head, "The police can't help us."
"How dangerous is that?" Lena asked nervously,
"The place where Guangming is staying is more heavily guarded than the 'dark bar' where you are imprisoned." Dean said seriously. After the God's perspective was upgraded, he could still only vaguely sense the direction of Guangming. There were real gods in that place. "But you know my skills. It is convenient and safe to move alone. If I have to bring a few people with me, I will be distracted."
"My wings are stiff, why do I regard my uncle as a drag?" Paquet looked at his nephew helplessly and sadly.
"I'm doing this for your own good."
Lena fell silent, thinking of the fatal encounter in the Temple of the Illusion Snake, and realized that following her would only become a burden.
Qian Tan felt the growing pessimism under the dining table, sucked more vigorously, and rolled around among several people.
"Okay, everyone, I believe that Dean will be able to bring light and peace back, and we can talk about happy things." Kelly clapped everyone's attention and looked at the green Douglas fir next to the hall. , the sweet and fresh lemon aroma filled the air, and there were various colored lights, tree-shaped toys, and gift boxes placed under the tree. "The Christmas tree has been bought, and we will decorate it together in the evening."
(End of chapter)
