Chapter 645

In the fluorescent white light of the underground laboratory, Gao Jie Ming stood at the workbench, with three metal containers sealing uncanny samples spread out in front of him. Since obtaining the shadow uncanny entity, a few days had passed.

Since that night, he had almost never left this laboratory.

The process of the Shadow Thief and the Rift Dweller merging into the shadow uncanny entity gave him huge inspiration... not about the strength of the uncanny entity's own power, but about the "possibility" of this kind of existence.

Those two Hazard Tier uncanny entities crossed the boundary of the Disaster Tier the moment they merged, and even touched the threshold of the Catastrophe Tier under the blessing of the right time. The suddenly soaring power was indeed surprising, but the fact that two uncanny entities merged was more worthy of Gao Jie Ming's attention.

This explained a problem: between certain uncanny entities, there existed a certain natural "affinity."

Although not all uncanny entities could merge, many uncanny entities indeed had compatible characteristics.

Gao Jie Ming opened the lids of the three containers one by one.

Inside were sealed three different characteristics of Hazard Tier uncanny fragments: one that could trigger slight fear, one that could diffuse faint cold air in the darkness, and one that could make people produce short-term dizziness.

These three fragments came from different sources and had no connection with each other.

But in the field of vision of the Eye of Omnipotence, their energy fluctuation frequencies presented a subtle ladder-like overlap.

He brought the fear fragment and the cold air fragment close.

The two energies produced slight repulsion the moment they touched, like the same-pole repulsion of two magnets.

But when he also brought the dizziness fragment over, a triangular balance formed between the three energies.

Fear suppressed the restlessness of dizziness, cold air softened the sharpness of fear, and dizziness filled the gap between cold air and fear.

This explained that the fusion produced by the Shadow Thief and the Rift Dweller before was not an isolated case; uncanny entities could be compatible with uncanny entities.

Even if two uncanny entities could not be compatible with each other, under specific conditions, they could coexist under the coordination of a third party or even more uncanny entities. Gao Jie Ming separated the fragments, and spiritual power quickly recorded a string of data in the memory crystal.

Then he put down the crystal, leaned back in the chair, and his gaze fell on the silver-white metal plate on the ceiling.

Theoretical deduction continued to extend in his mind.

If the number of uncanny entities was sufficient, if their characteristics were sufficiently complementary, then theoretically, one could merge all uncanny entities into one, creating a terrifying existence.

An existence that gathered all the characteristics of the uncanny, could not be classified, could not be evaluated, and perhaps even could not be defined.

That thought stayed in his consciousness for only a moment before he suppressed it.

It was not that it was unfeasible, but that it was unrealistic.

The materials in his hands were too few.

There were only a few dozen Hazard Tier fragments, and only two complete Hazard Tier uncanny entities: the Shadow Thief and the Rift Dweller.

And they had already merged into the shadow uncanny entity, becoming a single Catastrophe Tier sample.

He could not dismantle it again; that would be a waste of precious research materials.

He needed more materials, more uncanny fragments, more complete uncanny entities, more research data.

Only in this way could he support himself to continue exploring the fusion mechanism of the uncanny, and only then could he verify those assumptions and conjectures that kept emerging in his mind. Gao Jie Ming sighed, closed the notebook, and placed it in the corner of the workbench.

Then he blinked his eyes.

His gaze penetrated the ceiling, passed through the floor of the bookstore on the first floor, crossed that wet stone-paved road, and fell into an alley less than two hundred meters away from the bookstore.

Two people in dark blue uniforms were standing in the shadows of the alley, leaning against the wall, talking in low voices.

Their uniforms had the Spirit Mediums Society's emblem embroidered on the left chest, and there was silver trim on the collar.

Regarding these two people, Gao Jie Ming was very "familiar."

One of them was Dirk, young, his face pulled very tight, as if nervous about something.

The other was Harding, in his forties, his expression calm, hands in his pockets, his posture relaxed as if standing in his own living room. Gao Jie Ming's mouth twitched slightly.

It seemed that the problem of insufficient materials would soon be solved.

In the alley, the light of the gas lamp shone from afar, casting a blurry halo on the wet stone-paved road.

Dirk and Harding stood at the boundary between light and dark, half of their bodies in the light, half of their bodies in the dark.

"Is this the place?" Harding's voice was not loud, carrying a tone of casual chat.

"This is the place." Dirk nodded, his gaze sweeping over the old house with the "Old Bookstore" wooden sign across the alley. "According to the investigation during this period, this shop has indeed acquired a large amount of uncanny materials. Fragments, sealing containers, and some semi-finished genetic potions. The quantity is not small, but the types are very mixed, without a clear main direction."

"What about personnel traffic?"

"Very little." Dirk shook his head. "We have observed for nearly half a month, and only occasionally have a few people who look like ordinary customers entered the shop... but those people come out quickly, and they don't necessarily have things in their hands. Besides that, there is almost no fixed personnel traffic; it doesn't look like a stronghold of an organization."

Harding nodded.

This was exactly why he didn't bring people directly to seal it.

If this shop were an underground stronghold of that cult, there should have been a large number of suspicious personnel entering and exiting long ago.

But more than half a month of tracking and surveillance did not find any abnormalities, indicating that either this was not a stronghold of the cult, or the cult people were hidden extremely deeply... so deep that even the elite of the Society could not see the flaws.

However, if they were really cultists hidden so deeply, they shouldn't have revealed such a big flaw in resource trading, so there was no need to consider this possibility.

"Also," Dirk added, "relative to the quantity, although the materials he acquired are many, they cannot support the consumption of an entire organization. It's more like an individual behavior. One person, or a small team, is researching something."

Harding's gaze withdrew from the wooden door of the old bookstore and looked at Dirk.

"Don't you find this place familiar?"

Dirk was stunned for a moment and re-examined the appearance of that house.

Old, mottled, two-story, with an old bookstore wooden sign hanging at the door;...

"Should I be very familiar?"

Harding shook his head: "Although I haven't seen actual pictures, we have seen products related to this shop in the newspaper." Dirk thought for a moment, and suddenly his pupils shrank: "This is that... place mentioned in the newspaper before that improved the success rate of genetic potions?"

Harding neither nodded nor shook his head, just said: "I asked those black intermediaries. Those who have dealt with the Society and are willing to cooperate, I asked them all once. Although they spoke hesitantly, most people's testimonies pointed to the same place... which is here." Dirk's brows furrowed.

He certainly remembered that intelligence.

Two months ago, a kind of improved genetic potion suddenly appeared on the black market, and it was said that the success rate was five percent higher than the theoretical value. This number was not large, but it was enough to arouse the Society's vigilance.

They had done a risk assessment, but because no negative news had appeared, it was temporarily shelved.

Didn't expect that the source of that potion was right in front of them.

"So..." Dirk said slowly, "the owner of this old bookstore, on the surface, is a black doctor, but in reality, is a hidden identity of a high-tech researcher?"

"High probability." Harding's tone was still calm, but there was a trace of eagerness in his eyes. "According to the black intermediary's statement, this guy ran to Fog City not long ago. Where he was doing what before, no one knows. But judging from the improved potions flowing from his hands, the technical level is quite high, not something that people from wild paths can achieve."

"What is his purpose for hiding here?"

Harding shrugged: "Not clear. But according to common sense, it is highly probable that he conducted some illegal experiments elsewhere, was wanted, and ran over."

Dirk was silent for a few seconds, then nodded, and a "so that's how it is" expression appeared on his face.

Regarding illegal experiments, both he and Harding had an indifferent attitude.

Human rights in this world were not that high; even within the Spirit Mediums Society, there was a habit of using death row prisoners as experimental subjects. Moreover, so-called "illegal experiments" were often because they infringed on the interests of certain big shots.

If a researcher studied a new technology in a city and didn't give a share to the power holders of that city, you were "illegal." Your research method was too advanced, making some old pedants look down on it, you were "illegal."

Even if you just appeared in the wrong place at the wrong time and were casually slapped with a hat by some small bureaucrat, you were "illegal."

Conversely, being able to be wanted for illegal experiments showed that this person had the ability to surpass an entire research team of big shots with just one person's ability.

This kind of researcher was even a hot commodity in other cities. Many people were willing to spend money and effort to help them settle the wanted order in exchange for their technology. Dirk reacted, and also became excited.

After all, they were indeed too short of people now.

The cultist incident before had indeed caused quite a big stir, and also caused the Spirit Mediums Society to urgently start a round of self-examination.

Although a lot of corruption was found, they really didn't catch the other party.

However, that deeply hidden spy was not the reason why they were so anxious; although it was a bit troublesome, for the Spirit Mediums Society, it was not to the point of being unable to deal with it.

What was really troublesome was the terrifying uncanny entity that suddenly appeared a few days ago.

In the middle of the night, a Catastrophe Tier uncanny entity suddenly broke out on the sea surface not far from the city; no one could stand that.

Dirk still clearly remembered how chaotic the Society was when the energy intensity of that uncanny entity was calculated at that time.

Later, for several consecutive days, the Society was urgently investigating clues about this Catastrophe Tier uncanny entity, but found nothing useful. It was also because of this result that the people of the Spirit Mediums Society became increasingly suspicious.

After all, for an existence like the uncanny, wanting to hide was too simple.

If it couldn't be found or dealt with now, what if it suddenly broke out at some point, and the entire city would be destroyed if not careful.

Moreover, such an uncanny entity suddenly broke out when they were examining cultists; to say that the two had nothing to do with each other was simply an insult to their intelligence.

So in the past few days, the Fog City Spirit Mediums Society had begun to try every means to improve combat effectiveness to deal with the existing crisis. And besides asking for help from other cities' Spirit Mediums Societies to mobilize combat effectiveness, collecting all useful people in this city just in case was also one of the means.

Under the current situation, the effect of being able to recruit a technically powerful researcher was not even weaker than the headquarters sending a Catastrophe Tier spirit medium.

Moreover, judging from the intelligence, this researcher was probably very good at improving genetic potions.

Even if he couldn't provide new research results for the time being, this point alone was enough to help the Spirit Mediums Society improve combat effectiveness in a short time. "Go in and see." Harding walked out from the wall base and strode toward the direction of the old bookstore.

Dirk followed, the two one after the other, walked over the wet stone-paved road, and pushed open the wooden door whose door axis was creaking.