Would you be willing to trust a Ghost you've only known for a few days and let his spiritual power enter your mind?
Timothy frowned slightly. "The problem drink has flooded Gotham; people are drinking it every second. We must act quickly."
Colt pursed his lips and lowered his eyes again.
This was only natural; no one from Gotham would accept a spiritual invasion from others, Red Robin, who was the very definition of rationality, was even less likely to.
Timothy swapped his break time on his schedule for Espresso, then said, "I can spare half an hour."
Colt snapped his head up, his eyes growing brighter and brighter.
His features were inhumanly exquisite, looking like a painting from any angle; when those violet eyes lit up, the portrait was infused with life, as if a person had stepped right out of the canvas.
Timothy sighed inwardly that the camera was unable to capture Colt's image.
Do you need assistance from instruments?
Colt shook his head.
Timothy locked the office door, walked over to the sofa, lay down. He placed his hands folded over his lower abdomen, relaxed his body, closed his eyes. "Come on."
He was so blunt and straightforward that Colt actually became nervous.
Timothy urged with his eyes closed, "Only 29 minutes left."
Colt took a deep breath and knelt before the sofa. He raised his hand, hesitated for a moment, then placed it slowly and firmly against Timothy's forehead.
Timothy's body temperature was a bit low, his forehead felt cool to the touch.
A spiritual power check is not complicated, provided that both parties trust each other.
When one person's spiritual power enters another person's Spiritual Sea, it is equivalent to lowering all defenses and actively stepping into someone else's domain. If the other party closes the door, their spiritual power may very well be unable to withdraw.
Of course, for the person being examined, allowing someone else's spiritual power to enter their own Spiritual Sea is equivalent to inviting someone into their very soul. As long as the other party wishes, they will no longer have any secrets.
Colt met no resistance.
This is unreasonable.
In theory, even with someone one trusts deeply, the subconscious will still resist a stranger's spiritual power entering the Spiritual Sea; it is an instinctive rejection.
Timothy either trusts him as he trusts himself, or he is rational enough to control his soul's instincts.
Humans cannot control their spiritual instincts.
Colt suppressed his wandering thoughts and carefully infiltrated.
Timothy's Spiritual Sea was not as gentle as his outward appearance, being filled with a cold and heavy danger. Those warm and beautiful memories were like the stars in the night sky; they were not numerous, but they shimmered with brilliance, making the darkness peaceful and serene.
Colt restrained himself from looking into Timothy's memories to search for foreign objects, quickly discovering the true target.
The illusory Dream Messenger slept quietly in the depths of the Spiritual Sea.
It is a conceptual rule, lacking any specific shape. Colt designed Little Red Bird's appearance. To put it nicely, it is a Dream Messenger; to put it bluntly, it is a dream thief.
The Dream Messenger is active within dreams, it is only because of the Spiritual Connection that Colt can discover its location.
There was no curse, nor any deceptive special abilities that would inexplicably increase someone's favorability.. its only ability was to guard dreams and improve sleep quality.
If it wasn't because of the connection to the dreamscape, then where did Timothy's trust and affection come from?
Colt pondered, crushing the unknown active microbes crawling along the olfactory nerves toward the brain, withdrew his mental strength.
Timothy remained motionless with his eyes closed, his breathing steady; he was asleep.
Colt heard the rustling sound of the Dream Messenger progress bar beginning to flow, checked the time.
The inspection only took 3 minutes.
He did not wake Timothy, but instead sat cross-legged, leaning gently against Timothy's outstretched shoulder on the sofa, scribbling and sketching in a notepad.
Colt's hand was very steady, his drawings were in the same style as his handwriting; the Brain Neural Map he drew under his pen looked as if it had been printed.
To be honest, Colt had once doubted whether he had been reincarnated as an intelligent lifeform. Especially when he was wandering through the network as a Ghost, even the AI treated him as one of its own.
The progress bar stopped moving, the person on the sofa opened their eyes.
Colt switched to a red pen, made a dot near the olfactory nerve's proximity to the brain, tore off the sticky note.
Timothy sat up, took the Brain Neural Map that Colt handed him, looked at the red dots on it. He glanced at the time, looking thoughtful. "I drank that beverage around 14:00, it's 17:10 now.."
He calculated that the unknown active microorganisms' diffusion rate would allow them to enter the brain in just four hours, with an asymptomatic incubation period.
Colt was still drawing.
The red pen traced the outline of an unknown active microbe, which bore an eighty percent resemblance to a white blood cell and was very easy to confuse with one, but its tentacles were longer and it divided much faster.
A normal person's spiritual power clearly cannot be used as a super microscope.
Timothy accepted Colt's abnormality.
Colt returned home, filled his stomach, lulled Birdie to sleep, then started his homework.
He had quite a lot of homework to do.
The Socioeconomics group assignment is almost done, there's still biology, Chinese homework, the Mathematical Modeling assignment Tony submitted, the Physics homework Dad submitted..
Colt couldn't settle down tonight; every time he glanced at a problem, he would end up looking at the Vigilante Forum ten times. He subconsciously opened the Red Robin business card sent via Beacon notification and added him as a friend.
Red Robin had Red Robin specifically following Ghost, his friend request was accepted instantly.
You are already friends with Red Robin, so send him an emoji to say hello!
Colt did not disturb the busy Red Robin, pushing his homework aside to focus on browsing the forum.
The most popular topic in the Gotham section is still Batman, followed by the recently viral Red Hood. Whether Red Hood is a vigilante or a villain has caused netizens to argue so fiercely they could build skyscrapers, with almost every argument ending in a real-life brawl.
There aren't many posts related to Red Robin; there are only a handful of threads in the dedicated section. Since this section was just established, fans have been demanding that all content related to the third Red Robin be transferred to the Red Robin section, with petition threads stacking up like skyscrapers.
Colt also added another brick to the pile.
In the industry gossip section, an insider revealed that Penguin's maritime shipping business has been severely affected, he is preparing to negotiate with Black Mask; the prices of black market goods will soon return to normal.
Ding, you have a new private message.
Colt looked at the Red Robin icon flashing in the upper right corner of the forum, his hands moved faster than his brain to open it.
[Red Robin: One million, custom-made antidote for Brain-eating worms. Here is the data for the relevant virus.]
Colt stared at the order, especially that one million, swallowed hard.
【Ghost: I only accept orders for weapons and equipment; special drugs are outside my scope of business.】
Red Robin replied almost instantly: 【Last Thanksgiving, Gotham's water supply was contaminated by Scarecrow's new Fear Toxin, you produced an antidote and delivered it to Beacon in just three hours. 】
That's because the house had collected data on past Fear Toxin and its antidotes!
At that time, everyone was saying that Batman was dead, the Arkham maniacs had collectively broken out to cause trouble, Gotham looked like it was going to fall. His father wouldn't let him go out, so he could only bite the bullet and act as a supporter!
"Two million, within one week." Red Robin began to raise the price.
Colt was tempted, but: 【My biomedicine isn't even as good as my linguistics. 】
[Red Robin: Three million, I'll provide the laboratory.]
Colt took a deep breath, closed his eyes, when he opened them again, his eyes were as bright as lightbulbs.
【Ghost: What if I don't need your laboratory, the time can be compressed into three days? 】
【Red Robin: Five million. 】
Red Robin sent over a withdrawal passcode for an anonymous underground bank account, showing not the slightest concern that Colt would take the money and fail to deliver.
Colt only wanted to test whether the withdrawal code was real or fake, but the balance in the encrypted account surged to seven figures. Clasping his rapidly beating heart with one hand, he changed Red Robin's contact name to [Patron 2].
The ranking was neither by size nor order, but solely to distinguish him from his client, the Patron.
Colt went out to pick up several cans of questionable drinks and brought them home, filled all the feeders in the house, revoked Birdie's access to the basement, hacked the child lock system his father had designed, turned off the alarm, took a helmet out of the safe.
The helmet is a login device for synchronizing with the Quantum Superbrain.
Colt put on the helmet, his consciousness logged into the Quantum Superbrain, transformed into a Ghost.
The human brain has 100 billion neurons, Colt, in his Ghost form, is a "human brain" composed of code.
Colt paused Earth Simulator 1729, took control of the Quantum Superbrain's computing power, established a virtual laboratory, set the time ratio to the highest level the brain could withstand.
Targeting and killing microbes is simple, but doing it safely and efficiently is very difficult.
He needs to use cheats!
..
Colt took off his helmet; his head was dizzy and aching, his temples throbbed. He tried to stand up, but his legs went weak, he slid to the floor.
The headache was caused by spending too much time synchronized with the Quantum Superbrain, leading to mental exhaustion, the weakness in his legs was due to hunger and dehydration.
Colt couldn't stop retching. With trembling hands, he reached for the emergency button, the disc robot turned around, extending a straw.
Specialized nutrient solution can rapidly replenish physical strength.
Colt finished two packs, recovered for a minute, finally stopped his hands and feet from trembling before climbing up from the chair to export the experimental data.
He truly didn't know enough about biology; the vaccine was built by stacking up 1:1000 times the time.
After 38 hours and 13,672 simulation experiments, Colt found three suitable vaccines. One was a conventional inactivated vaccine that required injection, one was an infrasound-based vaccine, one was a light radiation-based vaccine.
Colt packaged the three sets together and sent them to Red Robin, then placed the virtual helmet back in its original position, wiped away the traces, restored the Earth Simulator's operation.
A notification popped up on his phone.
Colt had no friends in real life; after two days of seclusion, he had only three unread messages.
One from Joseph.
While Joseph was in seclusion, he said he would be conducting offline experiments and would be unreachable for the next few days.
Two from Timothy.
One notification regarding the progress of the case investigation, stating that the unknown active microorganism is an extraterrestrial mutant virus named Brain-eating worm, that the relevant data has been sent to the email. There is also another message from two minutes ago, where Timothy said the vaccine data has been received and told him to get some rest.
The vaccine data was sent to Red Robin, not Timothy Drake, so put on your vest!
Colt didn't have the strength to reply. He felt unwell; his ears were ringing, his head felt as heavy as stone, his breath felt like fire.. he was starting to run a fever.
The reaction to this spiritual exhaustion came even faster than expected.