213 A Powerful Detective

'Where can I find a scum who I can use for experimentation?'

An image began to gradually form within the flame and showed him an alleyway that was unfamiliar to Graham. In the image, there was a man beating up a puppy with a stick. The man cold-heartedly hit and kicked the poor creature that was already pretty badly wounded. Graham's heart was broken seeing the animal that looked not even older than a year in that condition.

After that, the image shifted and showed an aerial view of Rivierstraat where 'The Hotel' was. There were two red dots, one indicating Graham's location while the other one was for his target. It turned out the alley was very close to his hotel. Once he got the location, he ended the divination and buzzed off after getting rid of the illusory flame.

He ran downstairs and noticed that Stefan wasn't at his usual spot, but didn't pay any more attention to it. For now, he had to hurry if he wanted to save the poor animal.

Slamming the main doors, Graham got out and headed east where the alley was. It was only five hundred meters away from the hotel, so he reached his destination shortly after-- especially because he was basically running.

The plain white shirt that he was wearing was drenched in sweat when he arrived, both from running and from bearing with the painful process of received a power-up earlier.

The man was still there in the deepest part of the alley when Graham arrived. He cursed the fact that nobody in the street noticed anything that was happening there-- or maybe they did, but they just didn't care.

"I order you to stop!"

The man that looked to be in his early thirties suddenly couldn't move a muscle. His brown eyes reflected his confusion and fear of the unknown.

Graham rushed to the puppy and noticed that fortunately, the animal was still alive. However, its breathing was weak and irregular. Its body was all covered in bruises and injuries while its mouth was panting heavily. If it didn't get any medical treatment any time soon, the puppy would surely die.

He quickly looked at the man that was just a little shorter than him. He was wearing a neatly tucked shirt and a pair of cotton pants, typical of an office worker. He needed to take care of the dog at that instant, but he also needed to punish the torturer, so he had to do something.

"I, in the name of the Deity of Cunningness and Transformation, hereby plant this Order inside your head. You will become a statue and won't be able to do anything except breathe. You will not leave this spot until I order you otherwise."

Graham ran as fast as he could while making sure he wasn't rocking the puppy so much. While running, he also conjured an illusory flame and used it to find the closest vet clinic from his place.

He was just about to leave the alley when the divination finished. He quickly got rid of the flame before people began to notice and continued running west. The clinic was just about two hundred meters away, luckily. He busted in without hesitation.

Clink!

The small bell above the door rang, notifying the people inside of his arrival. There were two people, a man and a woman, sitting behind the counter of the empty clinic, and the moment they saw the badly injured dog, they both stood up. The woman approached the detective while the man quickly went to the back.

"Please help this dog. Someone was beating it up and it will die if we don't do anything." Graham said hurriedly while laying the puppy on the wheeled bed that the man had pushed in.

"Don't worry, sir, we'll do our best. The veterinarian is just at the back," said the man and immediately pushed the bed to the back.

"Sir, while waiting, can you please fill in this form?" said the woman.

Graham was now relieved that the puppy was in the right hand, and he needed to go back to the animal beater to deliver punishment to the man. He didn't have time to waste filling in some administration form.

"Here, two guilders for the treatment and medical costs. I'll come back tonight to check up on the dog and pay more if the money is not enough," he took two bills from his wallet and then quickly darted off after leaving them on the counter.

The woman was confused but took the money anyway. Two guilders was definitely more than enough to cover the cost as long as the puppy didn't need any major surgery.

Not long after, Graham had made his way back into the quiet alley, and the man was still standing there motionlessly. Even his breathing was very subtle, making him look like a real statue, if not for the fact that his skin and expression were too realistic.

Graham was now pondering whether to use Order or Thought Implant. The former was an instantaneous ability that only worked for a short duration while the latter took longer and the effect was also longer. However, since he was stronger now, and the target was most likely a normal human being, he wanted to try if Order would last long enough to achieve his desired effect.

"I order you to follow me!"

The man's expression became not as stiff and his body also began moving normally again. He started following Graham closely behind against his own will. He wanted to break free but he couldn't.

"That's another difference between Order and Thought Implant, Val. If I use Order, the target is still fully conscious and understands that they are moving not by their own will. Thought Implant is much subtler and most of the time, the target doesn't even realize that they are being controlled," he concluded.

The man was still following behind him, but after walking out of the street, Graham intuitively felt more struggle coming from the man. He turned around and made him stop moving.

"I'll have to use Thought Implant after all,"

He then began chanting.

"I, in the name of the Deity of Cunningness and Transformation, hereby plant this order in your head. You will follow me voluntarily and it will be something that is just natural to you. You will not say or do anything that I do not ask of you,"

His stamina left his body and entered the man. Feeling much weakened, Graham supported the weight of his body by holding on to the wall to his right while waiting for his implanted order to manifest. It shouldn't take that long since the man's mental resistance shouldn't be that high as a normal human.

When the duration of his Order ran out, the man's struggle slowly ceased. The thought had manifested and now the man was under Graham's control. He asked him to follow him and the two of them walked back to his hotel room.

Stefan was still not at the reception desk when he came back, but it was not really something strange. The young man was often missing all of sudden, only to come back soon after. He must be watching his favorite cartoon on TV in the backroom currently.

Graham walked up the stairs, followed by the man whose expression was docile. His face didn't look blank and lifeless like someone who was under the effect of Interrogation, so people wouldn't suspect a thing. He was just like a very quiet person who was just quietly following the only friend he knew in the area.

Once he was inside his room, Graham locked the door and turned on the light. He also opened the curtain to reveal the mountain view from his hotel room, all the while, the man was standing by the door, unmoving.

"Let's see now. I'd like to know who you are and why you're torturing the poor dog," he asked the man who was just staring at him without saying anything.

Graham conjured another illusory flame and focused on the man and the kind of information he needed while chanting.

"I, in the name the Deity of Cunnigness and Transformation, ask to read the memory of this man!"

Instead of falling underwater and being enclosed behind glass walls, an image appeared in the flame and showed Graham the scenes that he wanted to see. He was now not inside the man's mind, so the target shouldn't feel anything and he was in no danger of being suddenly attacked.

In the flame, the scenes of the man's interactions with his wife were shown to Graham with moving images. He didn't plan on transforming into the man's wife to fool him, but he memorized her mannerisms anyway, in case he needed to quickly transform into a completely different person. He still had a lot of empty slots after all.

While watching the scenes, Graham also had information about the man transferred into his brain. Apparently, the man's name was Evert Holsten and he had a wife and two little sons. His name reminded him of Daan Holsten and Graham wondered if the two of them were related since they both had the same psychopathic tendencies.

The memory reading just now, however, didn't show Graham the reason why Evert was torturing the puppy. After all, he could only read memories related to the target and someone whose identity he would use in transformation.

"I order you to tell me the reason you were torturing the dog!"

The man opened his mouth and began speaking. His voice was strangely charismatic, and the way he was speaking was sure to be able to seduce the opposite gender, especially since he was basically good-looking. It made Graham wonder if it was safe to return that kind of person to society.

"It was just fun. There is no other reason," he said nonchalantly. There was no sign of struggle since he wasn't speaking against his will-- the man was still under the effect of Thought Implant, essentially.

His answer disgusted Graham. He was not an animal activist, but he really hated people who abused animals like the man in front of him. On top of that, there was no remorse in his voice.

"Val, I'm sure you know I hate people like him the most. What kind of punishment do you think is appropriate for him?" Graham dragged the chair and placed it in front of the man. He then sat down leisurely while pondering.

The man was still staring at him like he was looking at a friend. He followed Graham's implanted Order and didn't say anything unnecessary.

"I order your fingers to break!"

Nothing happened. His Order was still unable to cause someone or something to harm themselves, even though they were much weaker than Graham. It reminded him of his experiment with the deer back at Oostelijk Bos.

Since Order didn't work, Graham's only choice was to use Thought Implant again. Luckily, the cost was slightly reduced so his stamina had completely recovered while they were walking back to the hotel.

"I, in the name of the Deity of Cunningness and Transformation, hereby plant this thought in your head. You are a chair, and you will behave as such. You will only maintain basic bodily functions that are necessary for survival!"

Graham felt weakened in an instant and stumbled back in his chair, sitting lazily while breathing heavily. The man in front of him remained unmoved, since the implant required time to manifest.

Waiting patiently, Graham checked his watch from time to time to see for sure how long it took for the thought to manifest in a normal human. Around three minutes later, the man began crawling inversely on all four, with his two hands supporting his raised-up chest. His upper body area had become the backrest of the chair while his thighs were the spot where someone would sit. It was angled as such that someone wouldn't just slide right off while sitting on him.

Once he was finished, the man was now maintaining his position stationarily while controlling his breathing to the minimum. A chair, after all, didn't normally breathe. His expression was now blank and his eyes were lifeless. Graham was sure that the man was conscious, but he couldn't check what was going through his mind right now.

Graham had actually had no intention of sitting on the man as it would just feel weird. However, he was satisfied that his experiment worked; his ability could be used in such a manner. Although that was practically not doable in a battle because of the long duration of manifestation and the fact that the enemy's strong mind would resist such a thought, it was more than enough to punish a petty scum like the man.

Not wanting to waste his new furniture, Graham went and grabbed the trash bin from the floor and put it on the man, who couldn't complain nor show any disagreement. He was behaving like a real chair, blinking occasionally to wet his eyeballs, and breathed subtly.

"We'll leave him like this until tonight, probably. His family might start looking for him if we keep him for too long. Before we release him, we shouldn't forget to give him a reformation so he won't repeat his action again in the future, Val,"

After that, Graham took out his lighter and flicked his finger to start a fire. He had something else he wanted to experiment with, and for that, he needed a real flame.

Using Fire Manipulation, he made the fire float in front of the man and suspended itself in the air. He then conjured an illusory flame in front of him and turned his back against his 'chair'. He faced the window so that he couldn't see Evert.

There was now one tiny fireball floating in front of the man and one illusory fireball floating in front of Graham, following his every move, maintaining the same spot where it had been conjured relative to its conjurer.

'Show me what the other fireball sees,"

The illusory flame began acting like a small screen that reflected whatever the tiny fireball floating in front of the man saw. Unlike normal divinations, the image remained small, just big enough for him to see clearly but not too big to take up all his line of sight. Graham could also move the image to see another point of view. Basically, everything seen by the flame could be seen by Graham through the illusory fireball.

"Val, we've just got ourselves a spying bug. With your Concealment, the flames will be hidden and we'll be able to spy on anyone!"