Chapter 25: The Symbiote of Alcohol Monger
Symbiote's learning speed was astonishingly fast. Schiller had just copied this ability a short afternoon ago, and now another voice inside his mind could communicate with him clearly through brainwaves. Although it could only express simple emotions at the moment, this was already quite remarkable.
After being able to communicate with this symbiote, Schiller intended to test its abilities. He had thought this symbiote was similar to Venom in the movies, and all he needed to do was shout, "Mask!" as in the film, and a sticky, gooey substance would wrap around him, complete with two large white eyes, sharp teeth, and a long tongue.
Symbiote could directly sense the images Schiller imagined. It sent a series of denial brainwaves and kept repeating a phrase in Schiller's mind: "I won't be gooey, I won't be gooey, I won't be gooey..." It seemed to be because it sensed that Schiller didn't really like the sticky feeling of symbiote.
To be honest, Schiller didn't want to harm this newly born little fellow. After all, it would be his capable assistant in the future. It wasn't that Schiller disliked the sticky texture of symbiote, but rather found it quite unbearable.
No matter how powerful symbiote was, that sensation like a pile of rotten mud was truly unsettling.
Seemingly eager to prove that it wasn't gooey, Grey Mist, who had just learned to communicate and interact, took control of Schiller's body before he could react. In an instant, Schiller found that the world in his eyes had changed.
He had lost his eyes, or rather, his entire solid body, and gained thousands of sensors.
Schiller realized that he could now vividly feel every detail of everything in the clinic bedroom. These signals continuously entered his brain, but they weren't images he saw; they were sensations.
His vision wasn't that good, nowhere near being able to discern every detail of the fibers in the sheets, but now he could feel them. Initially, each sensor sent a flood of information that overwhelmed his brain, but quickly, these details were processed rapidly by his other thinking organ, the symbiote, and fed back to Schiller's brain. So many details gave Schiller a sense of being in control of everything.
Next, Schiller discovered that he could seemingly control this state. He began to manage the work of all the sensors, spreading them out as far as possible.
Until these sensors spread across the bedroom's full-length mirror, and Schiller saw that he had turned into a gray mist.
Indeed, he had lost his entire body and transformed into an elusive mist.
Each factor in the mist became his sensor, and thousands of symbiote factors quickly wove into a vast information gathering network, leaving no detail unnoticed. Anywhere these factors could go, there were no secrets for Schiller.
For example, Schiller could even see the arrangement of iron elements in an electric kettle, and if he focused his attention, he could sense the distribution of oxygen and other rare gases in the air. This microscopic observation ability had reached the molecular level, and even approached the level of atoms, making the world he could observe as a human seem much grander and more fascinating.
"Thank goodness you're not the kind of symbiote that's like rotten mud," Schiller thought.
Grey Mist seemed to feel praised and transmitted a very happy emotion. To further demonstrate its power, it took control of Schiller and dissipated into a mist.
The gray mist began to disperse evenly like ordinary fog. Soon, a hazy fog enveloped Hell's Kitchen.
This time was no different. After a series of highly unorthodox chemical dilution procedures, Schiller managed to fill various spray bottles with the diluted fear gas. However, at this moment, his brain suddenly received a series of excited signals.
"This is delicious, this is delicious, this is delicious, this is delicious, feed me, feed me, feed me, feed me, let's eat, let's eat, let's eat, let's eat, let's eat..."
Schiller was puzzled. Was the symbiote saying that fear gas was delicious?
He suddenly remembered the comic book's portrayal of symbiotes, especially Venom. Venom could eat chocolate instead of human brains because they contained a substance called "phenylethylamine." This chemical could excite the human brain and was present in both the human brain and chocolate.
Could fear gas contain it too?
Schiller thought it was quite possible. Fear gas induced the deepest fears in people's minds and activated their negative emotions. It was hard to say whether Jonathan had used this chemical while creating this gas.
Now, it seemed not only had he used it, but he had used it quite extensively.
"How do you want to eat it?" Schiller asked in his mind.
The symbiote didn't seem to grasp the concept and only knew that the substance in front of it was highly attractive. Schiller had no choice but to take out a bottle of undiluted liquid fear gas and sprayed it into his own nose.
In an instant, he felt the symbiote within him become excited to the point of frenzy. It sent a long string of brainwaves that Schiller couldn't understand and shouted loudly in his mind using all the vocabulary it had just learned.
After a while, a dense mist began to emanate from Schiller's body. It was darker and more profound than ordinary Grey Mist. Schiller sniffed it and thought it might be fear gas.
Well, Schiller thought, it seemed that high-concentration fear gas was like strong liquor for the symbiote. It had intoxicated the Grey Mist.
Moreover, after the symbiote got drunk, its reactions were surprisingly similar to humans. It first acted crazily, spewing nonsense, and then vomited.
The mist surrounding Schiller was likely the aftermath of Grey Mist getting drunk.
Grey Mist recovered quickly, but even after regaining its composure, it still wanted Schiller to provide more "liquor," a request Schiller firmly refused.
However, it didn't seem to give up and continued to whimper in Schiller's mind, looking very dejected.
Schiller couldn't help but feel exasperated. How had his symbiote turned into a drunkard?