Kraft's hand holding the bottle trembled and nearly threw it out. Then he increased the force in his hand and grabbed the bottle to prevent him from throwing it out and breaking it uncontrollably.

In the midst of terror, he found the fulcrum of sanity. After experiencing something unimaginable to ordinary people, the spirit seems to have undergone unknown changes, and it is not easy to be shaken.

It cannot have a mind of its own, it is just a little bit of liquid, and there is no basis for the ability to think.

This liquid is only inducing itself through some means, not directly speaking. The impulsive thoughts just now are essentially made up of the original material in my head.

Curiosity about new things, plans for animal experiments, and learning that the professor and Lucius had swallowed a dilution. These contents are dug up and spliced together, resulting in new ideas that favor releasing it from the bottle.

Following a strong curiosity, the brain accomplishes these things on its own, so its "persuasion" only provides the most primitive attraction, and the rest is left to Kraft's own mind.

The principle is not complicated, it is equivalent to an urgent phone call from a scammer, and the specific information is not clarified, only providing a huge anxiety, and the content is all the imagination of the anxious victim himself.

All it takes is a primal impulse that leverages the whole world, and uses the subject's subconscious reasons against him, which applies to all people and even all living beings.

"It's so much fun." Kraft held up the small bottle and let out an exclamation. I don't know what mechanism it uses to affect its emotions, but it's a brilliant idea.

If it's some kind of unusual creature, it's better than an anglerfish's lantern.

In fact, it was almost successful, with two people acting irrationally as it wished, allowing it to easily achieve its goal of reaching out to more creatures.

Not to mention that a few rats and two people were in direct contact with black liquor.

There is one more thing that is not being figured out: what is the point of this? At least Lucius doesn't seem to be too unusual right now, what is it doing this for?

Is it a parasite that lives in liquid? Is it bacteria? Or is it a virus? The pursuit of diffusion is nothing more than to spread oneself on a larger scale, to multiply and multiply, and to complete meaningless reproduction.

It's been more than ten days since Lucius came into contact with it, and now it doesn't seem to have any physical abnormalities, and its mental state is not good for now.

Is the amount too small, or is the black liquor not going to cause drastic changes in the short term? Will there be an answer in the rats that are used for experiments?

Craft, carefully placing the bottle on the other table, asked Lucius, who was holding the candlestick, "Do you remember what happened to the rats you fed the dilution, I mean the changes other than the coma?" ”

"Nope." Lucius shook his head, "Fourteen rats in total, all dissected by the mentor. No long-term observations were made until the last experiment. ”

"If anything is uncomfortable, please be sure to notify me promptly." Kraft patted Lucius on the shoulder and glanced at the bottle on the table, "To be honest, I feel that this thing is dangerous, and we better not touch it unless we have to." ”

Kraft couldn't explain to Lucius what he had perceived. When he consciously refuses, the inducement of black liquor does not force people to act aggressively, especially after the distance, the effect quickly weakens to the point that it is difficult to detect.

"Really, no kidding, let's stay as far away as we can. Don't you really think it's strange to rush into the idea of drinking dilution? He added that this attitude made him seem like a timid old pedant, giving up precious opportunities for the slightest risk.

But Kraft knew it was the best option, and he couldn't be too careful with something that was beyond comprehension, suspiciously creature, and transmissible.

If it weren't for the fear of complications, he would rather go out and lock it up and fill the cellar with soil, and never set foot here again until the professor had figured everything out and returned.

It wasn't something he was supposed to touch, like the gift he had brought back from "beyond the cave", something that didn't exist in human common sense, and he wasn't even thinking about paying the price of going too deep.

He rejects this change and refuses to pay all unknown costs. He lifted a corner of the giant screen, shocked by what he saw, and did not have the courage to face the whole picture.

At least for now, he didn't have a good reason to jump into the muddy waters.

"Okay, okay." Lucius picked up the glass bottle and shook it for a moment, and the black liquid rolled in it, hitting the thick walls of the bottle, and finally lying down at the bottom of the bottle.

He opened the closet door and put the bottle back in, but the moment he lifted it, Lucius paused.

He stopped the bottle at eye level for a few seconds, then put it back on the table, and in the light of the candlestick, he lay down on the level of the table and turned the bottle around a few times.

Then he said in disbelief: "Seems a little less? ”

"A little less?"

"Yes, look at the thread." Lucius leaned the candlestick closer and pointed to the bottle near the bottom, allowing Kraft to see it more clearly.

There was a tiny scratch there, so light and inconspicuous that Kraft hadn't noticed it at all.

Lucius pressed Kraft's shoulders and told him to lean down and look at the line at a height close to the table.

"This line was drawn by me on the last day before the professor left, and it stands to reason that it should be the same as the highest part of the liquid level, and I felt that something was wrong when I took it out just now."

"Are you sure?"

"I thought it was a matter of perspective." Lucius's breathing behind his mask became heavy and rapid, and he reached for his lenses, repositioned the beak, and reached down to the level of the table to confirm it again.

Indeed, if this scratch is taken as a standard, there is a noticeable gap at the top of the liquid level, which is about a quarter of the height gone.

The liquid itself is small, and if there is no line for comparison, it may be difficult to make a positive judgment based on memory and intuition alone.

"Could it be evaporated?" Kraft asked. People in this world still know the three states of liquid, but for the time being, they are still in the stage of treating the white fog on the kettle as water vapor, thinking that they can't usually observe it because the white fog is too little and too light.

"That's not right." This speculation was immediately denied by Kraft himself.

He remembered that it had only been seven days since the professor had left, and that the experiment had lasted more than ten days, with only a small amount of liquid dipped in each time. The amount of liquid itself is small, and if the evaporation was so obvious, it should have been noticed a long time ago.

Considering that the amount of liquid itself is very small, it may even evaporate on the way to Wenden Port, and there is no chance to stay until now.

"Evaporation? Unlikely. Lucius also rejected this conjecture. He was in deep confusion and couldn't understand how this had happened.

"Will anyone else be here besides the professor and you?" Kraft asked. This was the most plausible explanation he could think of at the moment, and if it wasn't right, it would have been Black Liquor running away on its own.

Lucius reached into his pocket, and inside was the thick metal lock and matching key that hung from the door, and his hand brushed over it, the cold metal reassuring.

"That's not possible, only me and the professor have the key. Unless someone can pick the lock and hang it up as it is, but this lock is not so easy to deal with. Lucius again replied in the negative.

Maybe he also thought about this, and the people in the academy didn't need to do this. After all, it's normal to have some secret experiments, and most of them end in nothing, and it's not normal to have no secrets. Who would go to such lengths to find someone else's secret lab?

As for the people outside the academy, not to mention how they got in, even if they happened to get around here in a complex building, could it be that he opened the lock and put it back in, only taking a little liquid from a small bottle that he didn't know what it was?

Could it be that the black liquor really ran away on its own feet? Kraft was confused. This thing doesn't seem to have this ability at all, it can't just lift the plug and run a part, and then stuff the plug back, right?

If it's that outrageous, do you need to lure creatures into touching it?

In a cloud of question marks, Kraft ruled out several possibilities one after another, and the whole incident was shrouded in a sudden fog.

But there's another possibility.

"Although it may be strange to say this, there is no one else here, I would like to ask the professor if he knows that there is a mark on the road?" Kraft asked, his eyes behind the red lenses fixed on Lucius, waiting for him to tell himself that of course the professor knew.

"......" Lucius was silent, as if he was thinking, as if he didn't know how to answer, but silence itself was the answer.

The atmosphere in the room froze slightly, Professor Kalman was supposed to be the least likely to have a problem, and Kraft mentioned this in passing, but he didn't expect something to go wrong.

He hesitated for a while, picked up and put down the bottle on the table, and did not directly give his opinion, only threw out what he knew: "I took a small stone chip and scratched it casually, and I wanted to estimate the amount of future experiments, but I didn't inform the professor." ”

Things began to turn in the direction that Kraft least wanted.

Professor Kalman's experiments were all done with Lucius, including the experimental records, which were handed over to Lucius for collation. As the academic heir of the professor, he is basically unreserved, and his own son may not be so close.

What was the reason for him to avoid Lucius and secretly take out a quarter of the black liquid before leaving?

Anyway, it can't be used for animal testing. There is no need to avoid Lucius in animal experiments, and it is obviously more convenient to have multiple people.

……

……

The two of them put the bottle back in the closet, left the box containing the experiment notes, locked the door and covered it with the box, and left the cellar without saying a word.

Lucius looked a little frustrated, but he patiently explained the time and place of Kraft's class as a lecturer, and the specific location of the house that the professor had left for Kraft, and made sure that Kraft had no doubts before leaving.

Kraft thanked him, and watched his somewhat tired figure disappear into the hallway. He knew what Lucius was thinking.

The man who was regarded as half a father did not give him the full trust he expected. He must now be wondering if he wasn't doing well enough, or if he didn't show what Kalman was looking for.

This denial of himself may have hit him too hard, no matter what the reason is, it will be difficult for him to accept, and it will probably be difficult for him to slow down for a few days.

Kraft didn't try to comfort Lucius, and he didn't know how. He still has his own problems to figure out, and Kalman's concealment is bad news for him.

Liquids that exhibit strange inducing tendencies, distorted and bizarre characters in the notes left by the professor, and parts of samples that have been taken away without a trace......

He stood in the hallway, scarlet with the setting sun, and took a deep breath, as if to pull the shadows of the elongated pillars into his lungs along with the dusty pillars of light.

There is a vague smell of familiarity and strangeness, unknown that permeates the mouth and nose, and one instinctively feels that it should not be here. When focusing on the sense of smell, it is not possible to catch it.

From the moment I walked into the building, the more I learned about it, the more obvious it became. It exists in the unfolding experimental log room, wandering the basement, appearing at every moment of Kraft's revelation.

Kraft awoke suddenly, wondering why he felt familiar. It is a faint and irrefutable characteristic, indescribable, incomprehensible, and should not exist in the world.

"!" The otherworldly part of the soul couldn't help but burst out with the swear words of his hometown, "It's really bad news." ”

He had already come into contact with a similar existence that was countless times stronger than this in the snowy night. And now, it's just an inevitable reunion by accident.