Dean finished taking a shower, changed into light sports attire, and called out in his heart, "Original badge? ”

"Master, call me another, wiser and more dignified name." A voice as immature as a child sounded in his head,

"Shallows?"

"It's coming!"

A brass badge swooped out of the hood behind Dean's head and jumped onto his shoulder, standing still, a row of eyes spinning in the light, full of cunning and mischievous.

"You guy," Dean pointed his index finger at its sleek little head, "why do you have to let me call you Shoal?" ”

The badge explained in a childish voice, "The circle was originally buried in a mud near the shore in the original place where I was born, so the shallows have an indissoluble bond with me. But that is in the past, and I am now the most faithful and wise servant of all. ”

The shoals were very sincere.

Originally, after it was absorbed into the technique, it should have lost its spirituality and turned into a mass of scrap copper.

But this time, there is a mysterious quality in the inheritor, which not only helps it forcibly retain its spirituality, but also forms an unbreakable master-slave relationship with it.

The shallows could clearly feel that their lives were in the hands of the man in front of them, but it was better to live spiritually humbly than to decay and perish after exhaustion.

Now, at least it can follow its owner to see the vast world, and collide with all kinds of strange lives and stories to create sparks of thought.

"Alright then, keep up."

The shoal followed Dean out of the second-floor window and soon flew into a dense forest ten miles away from Maple Street.

Dean first used the surrounding rocks and woods to test the state of the property after the surge:

The strength of the flesh has increased to 30 tons, and the explosive power of life energy has increased to 55 tons of metamorphosis, and the duration of sublimation has increased to twelve seconds.

After the "Shadow" was upgraded, the range of free movement that could leave Dean was expanded to two kilometers, the power of telekinesis transformation increased from 35 tons to 50 tons, and the telekinesis flight speed reached an astonishing 180 meters per s, 648 kilometers per hour, and he could fly from the East Coast of the United States to the West Coast in more than 7 hours, and he would not need transportation to travel in the future.

The ability to manipulate heat has been greatly improved, and it can create frost as low as minus 150 degrees Celsius, freezing people to death in an instant, and flames as high as 2,000 degrees Celsius, melting most of the metal.

As for manipulating electrical energy, the power is doubled.

Shadow has been able to skillfully shape electricity into various shapes and summon electrostatic fields to interfere with electronic devices, but electricity is too versatile and requires slow and meticulous testing and experimentation.

……

Until the workout is complete.

Dean and Shadow looked at the "shoal" that had peeked next to them for a long time like a general looking at a soldier, "Have you seen enough?" Let's talk, first of all, what are your strengths? ”

"I'm so useful!" The badge's four-petaled mouth cracked, and he shouted like a child showing off his award, "I can fly, I have a weak telepathy, I know the language and writing of ninety percent of the world, I can be your translator, help you decipher all kinds of historical documents, and I can communicate with animals." ”

"Quack!" The badge grinned and shouted at the surrounding woods,

Rattle!

A hoarse and piercing echo was heard in the woods, and a crow flapped its wings out of the warm hollow of the tree and circled around the coat of arms.

The shallows staggered into the middle of the raven's head, and the knight rode it into the sky, and then swooped down in front of Dean, basking in the sun and showing off his heroic posture with his head held high.

By the way, it has no head, no limbs, only a round and flat body, abstract and scribbled eyes and mouth, enough to scare a child into crying.

"Tsk," Dean asked, "can you control it completely?" Or can it only be controlled at close range? ”

"To be exact, it's not control." "Because I have a special spirituality, all the animals in nature do not reject me, so I can communicate peacefully with them and ask for help." But I need to pay a little food or something else to compensate for it, by the way, I promised this crow a little food, can the respected owner help me keep my promise? ”

"It's a bit like the legendary druid." Dean nodded, and swept into the snow within a radius of two hundred meters from God's perspective, stretching out his hand.

Puff puff puff.

The snow broke through the thin holes - the invisible telekinesis was divided into dozens of thin lines, and ten hibernating brown mole crickets were fished out of the snow and flew back to the palms.

Dean reached out to the raven.

Rattle...

The crow pecked with its long beak and flapped its wings with pleasure.

"Too many!" The shallow beach on the crow's head hurriedly jumped to his feet, "It flew around me and didn't deserve so many rewards, otherwise it would ask for more next time." ”

"You're pretty particular about that."

Badge snorted, "Of course, the shallows are the most rewarding and punishing, just like the trials I arranged. ”

Dean and Ying looked at each other and smiled, folded their palms, let the unwilling crow peck at the back of their hands, and asked, "Why are you like a child, haven't you been buried for hundreds of years?" ”

"But according to the age of the strange thing, my mind is like that of a human child of two or three years old... I lacked practice and experience, but I gained more knowledge. ”

Am I employing "child labor"?

Dean muttered and asked, "How many crows or rats can you manipulate?" ”

"As long as enough food can be provided, there is no upper limit. However, they can only understand simple commands, such as tracking and staring, and they have limited intelligence to monitor their target's communication. ”

"Already a good little sentinel." Dean nodded, "What about other than crows?" ”

"Rabbits, snakes, cats, dogs, mice, and birds are all right," a slight wrinkle appeared on the smooth and cold face of the shallows, revealing anthropomorphic thoughts, "Large animals such as wolves, lions, and bears can also communicate, but they need more rewards." ”

Dean didn't care if he could control large animals, he needed insects, birds and other inconspicuous things as his eyes and ears, he casually threw mole crickets all over the sky and dismissed the crows.

"What other traits or abilities do you have? Will you still be able to travel through space like you did before? ”

"No, the power to travel through space already belongs to you." The shallow shoal looked at Dean with a look of longing and plea, "But I can absorb the energy and maintain the basic daily activities. ”

"Isn't this a skill, what kind of energy is absorbed?"

"There are no primordial energy particles in the air of the world, so I only absorb your life energy and telekinesis..."

Dean snapped out a life ball the size of a coin with his fingers, and the shallows opened his mouth to swallow it, the dull brass body surface became a little brighter, and his face showed unfinished business.

Until Dean consumed one-tenth of his total life energy, the smooth shallows showed a satisfied expression, shy brass belly, "Today's energy is enough..."

Dean breathed a sigh of relief, a tenth of his life energy fed a messenger, and he could still afford it.

"It would be perfect if there was a little more mood and story." ”

"Can you still absorb emotions?"

"Well, the emotions of humans, animals, and supernatural beings, whether they are happy or angry, the more intense they are, the more like mellow wine... But I'm not sucking it in vain, when I absorb enough, the body will re-condense the technique, and when the time comes, the master can dispose of it at will, absorb it yourself, or give it to others, and no longer need to pass the trial. ”

"What? If you don't have a magic circle in your original place, you can condense your skills? Dean perked up, this was not a ready-made superpower-making machine, and a scenario of transforming mortals into superpowers came to his mind.

"Yes, the art of condensation is my talent and instinct, and it doesn't have to be original. But in the eternal world, there is a high probability that it is not a skill that distorts time and space, but an ordinary superpower. "Besides, I need a lot of energy and emotion, and according to the degree of instillation you just gave me, it is estimated that it will take several decades to condense successfully. ”

"......" Dean's exhilarating mood fell to the bottom.

Shoal noticed his face and hurriedly explained, "But finding the right source of energy and emotion should speed up the process considerably. ”

"Well, it's too early to condense your skills, so let's focus on the present." Dean looked at the skill lv0 in the space, "Why is my newly acquired skill so much inferior to yours?" ”

"This is normal, you have never experienced the power of space, if it is too powerful at the beginning, you will not be able to use it at all."

"Teach me how to use my craft more efficiently."

"Haha..."A vivid smile suddenly appeared on the face of the shoal, and he happily flew in mid-air in front of Dean, if there were hands and feet, it must have been dancing, "Dear master, I am honored to help you understand the skill, you try to liberate the skill first." It's in your body, like your third hand, and you try to move your little finger first. ”

Dean's attention sank into the technique, and suddenly, a criss-crossing grid appeared in the middle of the dense forest in front of him, as if it was composed of countless three-dimensional coordinates, extending from the ground to the limit of the horizon in the sky overhead.

Every inch of space is sliced into these grids, and the nodes of the grids, most of which are the size of a fingernail, present a stable and balanced white light.

A very small number of nodes are strong and weak, virtual and real transformed, and extremely unstable.

"I see an infinite number of nodes...," Dean said.

"These points are called spatial nodes." The shallow beach stood on his shoulder and told the story to his ear, "Both the eternal world and the primordial world are stable worlds, so most of their spatial nodes are in a stable state. Unless a continuous bombardment is carried out with extremely powerful energy, it will remain constant. ”

"But outside of stable nodes, there are scarce unstable space nodes that require much less energy to open." Shoal said cautiously, "The primary skill is mainly used on unstable nodes, you try to choose one of the touches,"

Hearing this, Dean reached out and touched a flickering node on the left, and his fingertips, where there should have been nothing, touched something as soft as a stream of water.

The shoal asked, "Did you touch it?" ”

"Hmm."

"That's right, only those with space-time skills can touch the node, you try to break it to the sides."

Dean did as he said, putting both hands on to peel off the lobster shell, and the life energy and spiritual power in his body were like a flood surging out of the sluice, pouring into this gap.

Whoop -

When one-sixth of all the energy has been spent.

The spatial node in front of Dean's eyes was broken open a dark rift that was almost just enough to accommodate a person to pass through, and with the naked eye and God's perspective, there was only chaos and nothingness when looking inside, just like facing a dark, cold and dead universe.

"What's in there? Another space? ”

"It's a void inside, with dim light, scarce life, low temperatures, and some strange radiation. Behind a spatial node is usually the Void, and to roam, you usually have to walk through it. ”

Dean raised his eyebrows slightly, "Can you be specific?" ”

"Have you ever blown bubbles?"

"Blow."

"Suppose we blow a bunch of bubbles into the sky, and there is a bubble A, and the surface of A is our world, and A is empty inside and around, right?"

Dean easily imagined the scene and nodded, "Hmm. ”

"These places are called the Void."

Dean's pupils contracted, "The world actually only occupies one layer of the surface of the bubble, isn't the area occupied by the void far beyond the world?" ”

"Yes, emptiness is eternity."

"And what does roaming mean?"

"Now, there's a speck of dust on the surface of bubble A at the south pole, and it wants to go to the north pole, what should it do?" ”

"Climb along the South Pole of Surface A to the North Pole."

"Moving along the surface of the sphere, the trajectory is curved, far less fast than a straight line," the shoal reminded. ”

"Then go straight through the inner void of A and fly straight from south to north."

"Well, that's much faster, but first open the node, and then you can enter the Void. This quick way to get to your destination through the Void is called Roaming. Moving only on bubble A is a roaming within the world. ”

"What if the dust is going to move from bubble A to bubble B floating next to it?" ”

"Open the node on surface A, and fly through the outer void to B."

"Well, that's also a roaming, but it's a bigger span, from one world to another."

Dean suddenly said, "So the Void is a necessary transit point for roaming. ”

"Most of the time, but there are exceptions, I'll talk about it next time." The shallow beach looked nervously at the shrinking rift in front of him, "Master, the node is about to close again, why don't you go in and experience roaming?" I'll be the navigator and keep you safe. ”

Dean thought for a moment, the omen did not indicate mortal danger, and under the control of the system, the servants could not lie to him, so he grabbed the shoal, looked at the time on his watch, and jumped into the gap together.

Dark, cold, hard to breathe, body as if it had been scorched by some kind of ray, bursts of inexplicable muscle aches like waking up in the morning...

But the dark void was the same as the outside world, with countless spatial nodes reflected in Dean's eyes.

Dean is like standing in the Milky Way and counting the stars.

He held his breath, not daring to take a step forward, for fear of being swallowed up by the merciless galaxy, but fortunately, the shallows sent a voice through his mind, guiding him to pick the nearest twinkling star from the void, an unstable node.

Dean pressed his hands down, instilled energy, snapped open, and leaped out.

In the next second, the light was so strong that it stinged his eyes, and the air became fresh and lively again, and the sound of the whistle echoed in his ears, making him feel like he was awakened from a nightmare.

Dean glanced around, and before he knew it, he was standing in the middle of a road, and a black Ford was honking at him frantically, and the fat driver poked his head out of the window, his beard trembled like a broom, and he roared like a machine gun.

"Where did you come from, don't you have eyes?"

"I'm sorry!" Dean smiled apologetically, pulled up the gap in the node behind him, and ran back to the sidewalk to figure out the time and place, only to find that it only took a second to pass through the "void", but in the real world, he had come from the forest in the suburbs to the center of Hawkins.

"The two places are separated by at least 10 kilometers ... Ten miles in a second, I chose the closest node in the void. Dean and Ying looked excitedly at the shallows on their shoulders, "If you choose a little farther, is it possible to run directly from Hawkins, Indiana to New York and Chicago?" ”

"It's entirely possible." The shallow beach nodded at him heavily, and poured a bucket of cold water worriedly, "But you'd better not choose too far, moving a distance of one meter in the void may mean a distance of 10,000 kilometers in the real world, if you run too far, you may directly leave the earth through the void and enter another world." If you don't have coordinates, you'll be lost in the Atlas and never come back. ”

Dean immediately dismissed the urge and decided to honestly roam in close quarters.

He closed his eyes and felt that this second of roaming, all his life energy and spiritual power were consumed by one-third, mainly used to open two spatial nodes.

After another walk, the skill is still lv0 (0/100), and it doesn't increase the proficiency by a bit, and the difficulty of improving is not low.

"By the way, there is a small probability that even if you roam in close proximity." The shallow shoal recounts the experience in a childish childish voice, "You can't choose the right node with experience and intuition until you become a skilled wanderer, so the destination you return from the void is uncertain, it could be anywhere in the real world, such as a 10,000-meter-deep ocean, a hundred meters underground, or inside volcanic magma. ”

"Why didn't you tell me in advance?"

"With me as the 'navigator', master, I have lost my skills and cannot open the spatial nodes, but the experience is still there, and my intuition will allow you to avoid those deadly nodes."

"Next time, let me know in advance if there is any danger."

"Yes!" The shoal mentioned again,

"Continue... Roam two more times and go home. ”

……

In the evening, a table full of delicacies is served.

Dean swallowed a large mouthful of fried rice with a spoonful of onion and black pepper beef, and his eyes swept to Lena and Kelly opposite, "How's the house looking?" ”

"We've looked at more than a dozen houses and have locked one of them so far, and I plan to buy it as soon as possible." Lena put down the soup spoon with a smile and took out a bunch of photos from the bag behind her, "The price of the full set is 80,000 left, and the decoration is very much in line with my taste in the shade town next door." ”

Dean took a few looks, they are basically single-family villas in the suburbs, the scenery is picturesque, the location is remote, and it is very convenient to go hunting and sucking blood, "It looks good, when it's set, I'll move for you." ”

"The formalities are very fast, and after Christmas, it's almost done."

"Alas, why move so fast, stay longer!" Paqui tapped the table with a fork, and his big rugged face was full of displeasure,

Kelly reluctantly grabbed Lena's arm beside her, "I finally made such a good friend of yours, and you just moved away, how boring your life must be." ”

"It doesn't matter, it's so close to the house, it's only an hour's drive away, and you can move around anytime you want in the future." Lena smiled and shook her head, then changed the subject, "By the way, Dean, I remember you mentioned Tyree, when are you going to take me to meet her?" ”

"Anytime."

"And tomorrow?"

"No problem."

Lena smiled and took a sip of corn soup, as if thinking of something, took a deep breath and put her hands together on the table in front of her, "What about the light?" When will we seek him together? ”

As soon as this question came out, the originally cheerful atmosphere at the table froze.

"The house is almost bought, and without light, the family will never be complete." Paqui looked at Dean and said irrefutably, "Boy, take me with you when you set out to find someone." ”

"He's my husband, and it's my responsibility to find him." Lena's tone was calm but firm.

Dean watched at Lena's feet, the shallows rolling over at some point, greedily sucking the air.

What are you doing?

Master, allow me to absorb a little sadness, it will not do her any harm.

Dean retracted his gaze and shook his head, "When the matter on Hawkins' side is settled, I will go north to find the light, if you have to follow, your lives will definitely be in danger." ”

Paqui pouted disapprovingly, "It's also an honor to take risks to save my family, and even if I die, my soul will return to the land of my ancestors." ”

"Shut your crow's mouth!" Kelly quickly glared at him, and then looked at Dean, "Can't you call the police?" ”

Dean shook his head, "The police can't help us. ”

"How dangerous is that?" Lena asked nervously,

"The place where the light is to stay is more guarded than the 'black bar' where you are being held." Dean said heavily, after the God's perspective was upgraded, he could still only vaguely perceive the direction of the light, and there were real gods in that place. "But I know your skills, it's easy and safe to move alone, and if I have to bring a few people, I'll be distracted."

"The wings are stiff, and you treat your uncle as a drag?" Paqui looked at his nephew helplessly and sadly,

"I'm doing it for your own good."

Lena was silent, thinking of the fatal encounter in the Temple of the Phantasmaginal Serpent, and realizing that she could only be a burden if she followed.

The shallow felt the growing pessimism under the table, and sucked harder, rolling between several people

"Okay, everyone, I believe that Dean will definitely be able to bring back the light and peace and talk about something happy." Kelly applauded to regain everyone's attention, looking at a green Douglas cedar tree next to the hall, the sweet and fresh lemon aroma filled the air, and under the tree were various colored lights, tree-shaped toys, gift boxes, "The Christmas tree has been bought, let's decorate it together in the evening." ”

(End of chapter)