novelonline Chapter 4214 A Guide to Wandering the Galaxy (21)
Chapter 4214 A Guide to Wandering the Galaxy (21)
Chapter 4214 A Guide to Wandering the Galaxy (Part Twenty-One)
"what do you mean?"
"Those strange clones."
“Everything seems peaceful.” Schiller showed him a photo on his phone and said, “Pamela’s cultivation strategy is very successful. The seed survival rate is 90%, and it looks like there are no nutritional problems. This means we can start cultivating plants on the planet in Alpha Centauri. The only problem is—the soil and fertilizer are a little tricky to handle.”
"What's so difficult about this?" Loki was a little confused. In his view, soil on Earth was always practically free. Fertilizer was more expensive, but the yield wasn't lacking.
“We’re not using regular soil and fertilizer. The soil came from Gotham. Don’t ask why, because I don’t know either. And the fertilizer…”
Schiller hesitated, as if he wanted to say something but then stopped. Loki squinted at him. Schiller still held out his hand and said, "We can't be sure if the fertilizer really had any effect, but to be on the safe side, let's not change that variable. In short, we need some alien corpses."
"what?"
“Remember those two incidents when things first broke out? To avoid escalating the situation, I retrieved the bodies, but I couldn't keep carrying that stuff around. So I buried them in the ground, and surprisingly, this stuff works very well with Gotham's soil. Pamela also acknowledged the role of this bio-fertilizer in plant cultivation, so…”
Loki couldn't help but cover his face.
Why does everything we do end up like this?
“I’d like to know too,” Schiller said sincerely.
This kind of thing does happen quite often. For example, Schiller and Strange queued for a dungeon together, which was supposed to be a good healing dungeon, but it ended up turning into Hell's Kitchen.
Like now, what was originally a very serious galaxy development project has turned into a corpse party.
“Alright.” Loki’s moral compass wasn’t exactly high either. He said, “They’re ruthless, so they can’t blame us for being unjust. At the rate they’re infiltrating, there’s no shortage of corpses, but the problem is, how are we going to distinguish these fakes from the real ones?”
"We can't be too strict with visa checks. If we really don't let these people in, we might even run out of bodies. So we'd better set up a border checkpoint and sneak them in when they cross the border..."
Schiller made a gesture. Loki suddenly understood, and then he said, "But who should be the prosecutor to accurately distinguish the imposters? I remember Charles's brainwave amplifier is almost fixed, isn't it?"
“It’s not impossible for him to come, but the mental world of some pseudo-humans is impenetrable. After all, those electronic lifeforms aren’t stupid. They might implant nanobots in these people first and then activate them when needed. In that case, mind reading wouldn’t be able to detect it.”
"Then add a scanning device to scan out as many nanorobots as possible."
“There is also the possibility of planting seeds of destruction in the mind. They can first brainwash people, then cover up the brainwashing process, and then use other methods to trigger it.”
“That is a problem. Although Charles should be able to find out if he examines carefully, he can’t just sit there and act as a prosecutor without doing anything, can he?”
“I have a good candidate,” Schiller said with a smile. “He’s not a mind reader, but he’s even better at it, and he loves this kind of class.”
"Who are you talking about?"
"arrogant."
Loki's suggestion of a checkpoint was unanimously approved by the Asgardians. In fact, the one they had captured last time was indeed a spy, albeit a rather rudimentary android, controlled by Jarvis, who had taken him on a tour around the outskirts of Asgard before being apprehended by a patrol. Only the King, Queen, and Loki knew the truth of the matter; the other Asgardians believed they had truly been infiltrated by a spy.
Generally speaking, the Protoss are not afraid, but the last battle did show them how ruthless these robots are. Moreover, this time the spies have managed to get to their doorstep. If they really manage to infiltrate, will there be any safe place left in the Nine Realms?
Therefore, they all supported setting up more checkpoints. From a human perspective, this was perfectly reasonable. As more and more interstellar information appeared on the human internet, they also came to a basic understanding: the Nine Realms were a treasure trove; how could they let you in so easily?
The checkpoint was set up at the dimensional entrance, which was the only open entrance. In other words, all extraterrestrials who wanted to come here had to go through this point.
Alien spacecraft are not allowed to enter for the time being, so everyone must disembark and walk. Entry into the Nine Realms will only be permitted after identity verification at the checkpoint. And the inspector at this checkpoint is none other than Arrogance.
Arrogantly, he sat at the table. Suddenly, a green hand reached in through the window, handing over identification documents and visa paperwork. Arrogantly glanced at them briefly, then at the large man behind the glass, picked up the stamp beside him, slapped it onto the visa paper, and handed it back. The passage ahead indicated that passage was permitted.
What the big guy didn't know was that Arrogance clicked on the computer next to him and it showed that the guy had been marked. In other words, he was very likely a spy sent by the three great empires and would soon appear at the plant cultivation base.
The phone rang suddenly. Arrogance answered, and a greedy voice came from the other end: "How was your first day at work?"
He snorted arrogantly and said, "I invited you to come over for a vacation, and you invited me to come work for you. What kind of new kind of ingratitude is this?"
"The meaning of life lies in work. I've simply found you the job that's best suited for you, isn't that good enough?"
Arrogance didn't bother arguing with him, because he knew Greed truly thought the same way. He believed that providing everyone in the world with a suitable job was a benefit to the entire world. Whether the other person actually wanted to work was irrelevant.
Arrogance wasn't averse to the job. After all, compared to teaching, all jobs in the world were relatively easy. Even though his current teaching job was considered easy, there were always plenty of stubborn and brilliant people. Occasionally, his inbox would contain pleasant surprises, but more often it was filled with nonsensical papers. Being able to escape for a few days was already a good thing.
This job is actually quite suitable for Arrogance. His psychoanalytic skills are a passive talent; he can make a rough judgment at a glance. Moreover, judging comic book characters used to be quite easy for him because, as someone who had read the comics, he knew their backgrounds and other information, so the reasoning process wasn't too difficult.
However, dealing with these aliens who have never appeared in comics, some of whom are not even human, makes it quite a challenging task to determine their mental state and identify any spies among them.
Most importantly, the positive feedback was very strong because greed was the one in charge of dealing with those spies. Greed doesn't practice the art of murder; it's pure slaughter, but unfortunately, it's just too efficient.
Let's put it this way: Amanda's cloning scheme was designed to exhaust these artists. It's fortunate she didn't encounter greed, otherwise she would have been shown the power of a modern assembly line.
Pride is marked during the day, so basically, the person is already lying in the cultivation base before nightfall. After death, of course, you can examine them carefully and then confirm the result with Pride. Same-day verification and settlement provide a great sense of accomplishment.
And then there are Charles and Jarvis, two helpful cheat codes. If you're really unsure in a crucial moment, you can use items. Within two days of the checkpoint opening, the accuracy rate was 100%.
Of course, this only means that those marked are definitely included, but it's still unclear whether there are any that have slipped through the net.
Just as newcomers were arriving in the nine kingdoms, Greed was studying the small box. At that moment, an unexpected group of visitors arrived at the tavern: Peter and Polaris.
"How did you end up here?" Schiller asked.
“We heard you opened a tavern here, and there are videos of Asgardians checking it out online.” Peter waved his phone, sat down at the bar, and said, “We haven’t had a decent meal in days. Make us some of your best dishes, Doctor.”
“No problem,” Schiller said. “Would you like some wine?”
They each ordered a beer. Everyone else sat at the bar chatting, but Polaris sat facing the kitchen.
"How have you been lately, ma'am?"
“Not bad, I talked a lot with the Arkham Knight. Good heavens, you have no idea how complicated his story with Batman is,” Polaris said with a gossipy look. “I’ve been asking him questions non-stop these past few days, and I always get something new out of him, but I think that’s probably less than 30% of the story. It’s practically an ocean of mysteries with no end in sight.”
So what do you think of this story?
"To be honest, I think they both seem a bit like mental patients, and maybe they really are. I think I'm much more normal than them, and my relationship with Shockwave is much more normal than theirs. At least we're just lovers, not adoptive father and son, friends, teacher and student, or enemies..."
Do you think their stories are beneficial to your current mental state?
"Perhaps. I've spent a lot of time listening to and thinking about these stories, and I've almost forgotten my troubles. Sometimes I put myself in their shoes and think about what I would have done back then. But honestly, I can't think of any better solution."
“Some mysteries don’t necessarily need an answer,” Schiller said with a smile. “A simple relationship isn’t necessarily simpler than a complex one. Perhaps it’s because it’s too simple that both sides have no other choice, which is why things have progressed to this point.”
“That’s true.” Polaris nodded and said, “We were just lovers, but everyone thinks that dating should eventually lead to marriage, so Shockwave proposed. If we had other options, maybe we wouldn’t have done it this way.”
"So, do you think you should build a more complex relationship? Like Batman and Arkham Knight?"
Polaris shook her head vigorously, saying, "No, no, no, we can't go from one extreme to another. I think sometimes simple relationships are good too."
"But if you reject his proposal, you'll have no choice but to break up, won't you?"
"Do you think I should make him understand me? If he knew what I was thinking, maybe he would understand that I didn't reject him because I didn't like him enough. But if that happened, he might still be hung up on me. If I just don't tell him anything, he might be able to start a new life very quickly."
"You have to ask yourself that; it's a choice you have to make. The moment a coin is tossed into the air, you already know what you've chosen."
Polaris remained calm, as if she already knew her answer. She said, "When that terrible disaster destroyed my family, I had no nest to return to, so I lost hope. I could never be a home-loving bird again, but at the same time, I wanted my mate to always wait for me in the nest, which was unfair to him, even if he was just waiting for me from afar."
The expression on Polaris's face revealed a hint of determination. Humans are such a wondrous species; their growth is both slow and rapid. But whether it's a long period of decades or a fleeting moment, it always evokes a sense of wonder.
“Alright, ma’am,” Schiller said, placing a glass of beer in front of her. “Don’t think too much about it, have a drink.”