The symbiote’s learning speed was incredibly fast.
Schiller had only just copied this ability, and in the span of a single afternoon, the other voice in his mind could already communicate with him using clear brainwaves.
Even though it could only convey brief emotions for now, this was already an extraordinary feat.
Once he was able to communicate with the symbiote, Schiller planned to test its abilities.
He had assumed this symbiote would be similar to Venom—that as long as he yelled “Mask!” like in the movies, a mass of gooey sludge would surge out and envelop him, complete with two large white eyes, a mouth full of fangs, and a long tongue.
The symbiote could directly sense the images Schiller was imagining.
It sent back a flurry of protesting brainwaves, repeating a single line in Schiller’s mind over and over:
“I am not gooey, I am not gooey, I am not gooey, I am not gooey, I am not gooey…”
It seemed to have sensed that Schiller disliked the sticky, gooey texture typical of symbiotes.
To be honest, Schiller simply didn’t want to hurt this newborn little fellow.
After all, it would be his right-hand assistant in the future.
In truth, it wasn’t just that Schiller disliked the gooey texture of symbiotes—he absolutely detested it.
No matter how powerful a symbiote was, that mud-like texture was truly skin-crawling.
Eager to prove it wasn’t gooey, the Gray Mist—which had only just learned to communicate—suddenly seized control of Schiller’s body and stood up before Schiller could even react.
In an instant, the world before Schiller’s eyes completely changed.
He lost his eyes—or rather, he lost his entire physical body—replaced instead by thousands upon thousands of sensors.
Schiller found that he could suddenly feel every single detail of everything in his clinic’s bedroom.
These signals flooded into his mind continuously, but it wasn’t visual imagery; it was pure perception.
His eyesight was nowhere near sharp enough to discern the uneven, individual fibers of his blanket, yet now he felt them clearly.
Initially, the sheer volume of data sent by the sensors overwhelmed his brain.
However, this information was quickly processed by his secondary thinking organ—the symbiote—and fed back into Schiller’s mind.
The wealth of detail gave Schiller a thrilling sensation of absolute control.
Next, Schiller realized he could control this state, so he began directing the sensors to spread out as far as possible.
When the sensors finally reached the bedroom’s full-length mirror, Schiller saw that he had transformed into a patch of gray mist.
Yes, he had lost his entire physical body, transforming into a swirling, drifting fog.
Every particle in the mist served as a sensor.
Tens of thousands of symbiotic particles rapidly wove a massive information-gathering network that missed absolutely nothing.
Wherever these particles could penetrate, no secrets remained hidden from Schiller.
For instance, Schiller could even perceive the molecular arrangement of iron in his electric kettle.
If he focused, he could detect the distribution of oxygen in the air, along with other noble gases.
This microscopic perception, which reached the molecular and almost atomic levels, made the world far grander and more magnificent than anything Schiller could observe as a mere human.
*Thank goodness you aren’t a sludge-like symbiote,* Schiller thought.
The Gray Mist seemed to feel praised, radiating a wave of pure joy.
To further demonstrate its power, it controlled Schiller’s transformed body and caused the mist to disperse.
The gray fog stopped clustering and began to spread out evenly, much like ordinary mist.
Before long, a hazy fog enveloped Hell’s Kitchen.
As the range expanded, the volume of data multiplied exponentially.
But with the symbiote handling the heavy lifting, Schiller could easily focus his attention on any specific area.
For example, he could feel a gang war raging in the heart of Hell’s Kitchen, five or six blocks away.
He could even trace the trajectory of every bullet whizzing through the air during the shootout.
He focused his attention, trying to locate a bald man with a bullseye pattern on his forehead.
In an instant, the Gray Mist locked onto him, feeding every microscopic element of his environment back into Schiller’s brain.
This ability was incredibly powerful.
Wherever the mist reached, absolutely no one could escape Schiller’s sight.
Schiller felt that if his own brain had to process such a massive influx of complex information, he would probably go mad on the spot.
But this symbiote seemed to possess this innate capability.
The information returned by every single particle in the vast fog was classified, filtered, and aggregated at lightning speed.
Within a fraction of a second, as long as Schiller directed his mind toward what he wanted to know, the answer would naturally present itself.
He was like someone playing SimCity from a god-eye view, able to observe every movement within the fog at any moment.
Not a single detail could escape the penetration of the Gray Mist particles.
Furthermore, these miraculous particles could penetrate objects to cause internal damage, such as destabilizing their molecular structure and reducing them to dust in an instant.
However, the Gray Mist informed him that this ability only worked on objects with stable molecular structures and could easily be disrupted by external forces, rendering it ineffective under interference.
Still, this was an exceptionally powerful ability.
When returning to his human form, Schiller could choose to reform his body anywhere the fog reached.
In other words, within the range of the Gray Mist, he could vanish from one spot and reappear in another infinitely.
However, this couldn’t entirely replace instant teleportation, as transforming into the mist, dispersing, condensing, and reverting to human form took a certain amount of time, making it less instantaneous than a true teleportation spell.
For now, things on the Marvel side had temporarily wound down.
Daredevil, Matt, was still recovering.
Little Spidey wanted to follow Stark around to learn how to be a superhero, but unfortunately, his final exams were coming up, so he had to rush to catch up on his missed classes and had no time to roam the streets.
As for Stark, he was so annoyed by the bald head of Nick Fury that he spent his days hiding in his lab tinkering with his armor, rarely venturing outside.
Thus, Schiller took a nap and returned to the DC universe.
Not long after returning to the DC world, Schiller discovered a rather headache-inducing trait of the symbiote inside him.
Back in the DC world, Schiller was organizing his gear.
Because Jonathan had been arrested, his supply of fear gas was running low.
Fortunately, he had practically cleaned out Jonathan’s stash earlier, so his remaining fear gas consisted of high-quality, concentrated stuff.
He was currently diluting the remaining fear gas to put into spray bottles for easy use.
Since fear gas had absolutely no effect on Schiller, he didn’t need to bundle himself up tightly during his experiments like Jonathan did.
The only two living beings in his entire apartment—Schiller and Pikachu—were both immune to the fear gas, so Schiller didn’t care if any of it leaked during his preparations.
Furthermore, since he lacked a background in chemistry, he probably violated about two hundred lab safety regulations a minute during the dilution process.
Not wearing gloves or a respirator was the least of his offenses.
Consequently, every time he finished, a low concentration of fear gas would inevitably drift throughout the apartment.
This time was no different.
After a series of highly non-standard chemical dilution procedures, Schiller barely managed to portion the fear gas into different spray bottles.
But just then, a sudden wave of excited signals surged through his brain.
“This is tasty, this is tasty, this is tasty, this is tasty, this is tasty!
Feed me, feed me, feed me! This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
Food, food, food, food, food…”
Schiller froze.
Was the symbiote saying that fear gas was tasty?
He suddenly recalled the lore of symbiotes in the comic books, particularly regarding Venom.
The reason Venom could eat chocolate instead of human brains was that both contained a compound called phenethylamine.
This chemical substance stimulated the human brain, and it was present in both human brains and chocolate.
Could it be that fear gas contained it as well?
Schiller thought about it.
It was indeed highly probable.
Fear gas triggered the deepest terrors in the human brain, causing negative emotions to suddenly spike.
It was hard to say whether Jonathan had utilized such a chemical when synthesizing the gas.
Looking at it now, not only did he use it, but he had likely used quite a lot.
*How do you want to eat it?* Schiller asked in his mind.
The symbiote didn’t seem to know either; it only knew that the substance in front of them was highly attractive.
Left with no choice, Schiller picked up a bottle of diluted fear gas and gave his own nose a quick spray.
Instantly, he felt the symbiote in his mind burst with excitement, yelling repeatedly: “Tasty, tasty, tasty, tasty!
Not enough, not enough, not enough, not enough!
More, more, more, more…”
*Alright,* Schiller thought.
Symbiotes generally had massive appetites anyway.
He simply took a small vial of undiluted, liquid fear gas and downed it in one gulp.
The substance didn’t taste like much, but in an instant, he could feel the symbiote inside him grow so ecstatic that it seemed to go haywire.
It sent a long, incoherent stream of brainwaves that Schiller couldn’t understand at all, screaming inside his head using every single vocabulary word it had just learned.
After a while, a mist began to drift from Schiller’s body.
It was darker than the usual gray mist, turning somewhat blackish.
Schiller sniffed it, realizing it was probably the fear gas.
*Well,* Schiller thought.
It seemed high-concentration fear gas was like strong liquor to the symbiote.
The Gray Mist had gotten flat-out drunk.
Furthermore, the drunk symbiote’s reaction was surprisingly similar to a human’s.
It first threw a drunken fit, spewing a bunch of nonsense, and then threw up.
The dark mist swirling around Schiller’s body was likely what the Gray Mist had vomited after getting drunk.
The Gray Mist recovered quickly enough, but as soon as it sobered up, it began begging Schiller for more “booze,” which Schiller sternly refused.
Yet it clearly hadn’t given up, whimpering and whining in Schiller’s head with a deep sense of grievance.
Schiller felt utterly helpless.
How on earth had his symbiote turned into such a boozehound?