Chapter 401 16. Zha Kang! I have come to the Holy of Holies and you are not here at all! Where the hell are you? 【1620】
After everything was arranged, Mason returned to New York alone.
He was brought back by Nightcrawler just like when he went there. Agent Brand stayed at the Mutant Academy to help with the relocation and waited for news about Fury. With the X-Men confirming their participation in the war, the forces of both sides in this confrontation are returning to the balance. middle.
But that's not Mason's concern right now.
"You can't go any further."
Because of Mason's help to the academy, Nightcrawler was very considerate and sent him directly to a few blocks outside the Sanctuary of New York.
The two landed on the top of a building in the dusk sunset. The Night Walker squatted on the eaves and pointed in the direction of the Holy of Holies, and said to Mason who took out the telescope:
"The mages have sealed the place, and any spatial fluctuations will be detected by them. When the professor was still there, we still had a certain connection with Kama Taj, but now both parties are strangers.
Cyclops told me not to cause trouble at this time, but I suspect they must have noticed something when they blocked their base in New York. ”
This blue devil-like guy moved its flexible tail, turned to Mason and said:
"Perhaps Doctor Strange has also sensed the Skrulls' infiltration and invasion of the earth. A spellcaster like him claims to be the guardian of the world. There is no way he can't sense the bad things that are about to happen, right?"
"He has the Time Stone."
Mason used 2077's military telescope to constantly observe the environment around the Holy of Holies, and said calmly:
"As long as Stephen Strange wants to see it, the future and the past have no secrets in his eyes, and the focus now is not whether Doctor Strange has discovered the Skrull conspiracy.
The point is, which side will he be on in the upcoming war?
Well, the mystics are patrolling around the Holy of Holies disguised as ordinary people. It seems that they are also under a lot of pressure. In this case, trying to sneak into the Holy of Holies is simply asking for death. ”
"Indeed."
Nightcrawler nodded in agreement. As the teleportation master in the X-Men, he also believed that it was impossible to sneak into the Sanctuary.
Luckily that wasn't a problem for him.
He said goodbye to Mason and then tumbled down the tall building, stretched his body in mid-air and disappeared into the air with a whoosh.
"Give me a suggestion, hat."
Mason pushed the sorting hat on his head and said:
"You are the most accomplished master in magic that I know. Right now Zha Kang is locked up inside, and I need your help to get him out."
"No, Mason."
The old hat god is here to remind you:
"Zhang Parker just told you that the energy signal was found here. It does not mean that Constantine must be here.
I feel a headache here just seeing the criss-crossing magic lines in front of me. This must be the base of a secret organization that has been inherited for no shorter time than Hogwarts, but the power of inheritance is more than ten times stronger than ours.
If you want to sneak in with the help of magic power, I advise you to give up.
Unless you have the spellcasting ability of Dr. Destiny, it is impossible to break through the monitoring barrier of the Holy of Holies head-on.
But maybe you can try another way. ”
It stopped and said to Mason who put down the telescope:
"Didn't Batman always tell you by words and deeds not to fight on other people's home court? Find a way to make this your home court. You didn't have the ability before, but now you have it.
This barrier only detects the flow of space and magic power, but it does not hinder the inherent power of nature. These mages respect nature, and I can confirm this from their spellcasting style. ”
"I understand, you are such a clever little guy."
Mason nodded and imitated the Nightcrawler's posture and jumped down from the tall building.
He decomposed water molecules in the air and reorganized his body farther away. After three "jumps", he arrived at the mouth of the Hudson River and jumped into the water without attracting attention.
Transformed into a waterman, he no longer had to worry about drowning in the water. After dissolving in the water, Mason also took out the Neptune Trident from his bag and inserted it into the bottom of the river. With the help of the power of this ocean artifact, he began to Change the climate around you.
He can violently move water bodies to trigger a heavy rain that covers the city.
But that approach was too rough and could not be hidden from vigilant mages.
According to the hat's suggestion, he must make rain in the natural way. Wherever the raindrops go, Mason can move freely.
Therefore, in theory, as long as the rain is heavy enough, he can blend into the rain curtain and slip into it without alerting the security magic of the Holy of Holies.
The power of Neptune's Trident to control the storm requires the blood of Atlantis to be perfectly controlled. Mason has Namor's DNA, although it is not enough to unlock all the power of this artifact, but to be honest, it is only used to make rain. A bit overkill.
After dozens of minutes of brewing, the concentration of water molecules over the city has reached saturation.
The wind blew again among the dark clouds, and soon little bits of rain fell into the city. As time went by, it turned into a downpour, which was like washing away the filth under the bright city.
Mason, who holds the trident in his hand, can easily feel what is happening throughout the city through the raindrops. A car lost control and crashed into the roadside in Manhattan. There is a gang fight in the dark alley of Brooklyn. Mr. Zhang was killed. In the small piece of Park Industrial Park in Queens that I bought, there were S.H.I.E.L.D. agents pretending to be fishing.
This was the first time that he had expanded his abilities to this point. A large amount of information was transmitted to Mason's brain amidst the rain cover generated by nature, but it did not make him feel panicked.
He can accept and analyze these situations by maintaining high-speed brain operation for a long time.
"You can create water clones, Mason."
Under the water, the hat projected his voice into Mason's heart, saying:
"The water flowing in the entire city is now under your control. Give it a try and let yourself appear in several places at the same time."
"Wouldn't this really make me schizophrenic?"
Mason complained softly.
"No, it won't."
The Isu ghost Consus also appeared on Mason's shoulder, and he whispered:
"The super senses brought by the Isu bloodline have changed you, my brother. This change is subtle. Your unusual thinking allows you to control this clone mode.
Just like several threads running simultaneously in a computer, you are used to doing several things at the same time in the manufacturing process. In theory, this is no different from controlling several clones at the same time.
Of course, you will always be in a hurry the first time, but with your current learning ability, I think.”
"Wait!"
Mason suddenly became excited.
He interrupted Consus' description, and while trying to create several water clones in the rain-shrouded place, he said to the hat and Consus:
"That wonderful analogy of yours! The connection between water separation and the manufacturing process suddenly gave me an inspiration. I used to think about whether it was possible to achieve some kind of qualitative change through the accumulation of quantities if personal time could not be extended. .
You guys say, if I make twenty water clones to try out ten categories of manufacturing techniques at the same time, then eh? Why don't you talk anymore? ”
Mason's two "portable grandpas" fell into silence. After a few seconds, Hat and Consus cursed in unison:
"Curl dog!"
"Haha, you can ridicule all you want, I just feel like I finally found the correct use of my mutant abilities."
Mason was amused by the reaction of these two guys. He grinned and said:
"I think it works, let's give it a try."
He closed his eyes and began to use his "magical powers" at the bottom of the Hudson River. Within a few minutes, twelve "Masons" appeared one by one across the city.
Just like the posture of the ooze monster Kevin, he transformed into Mason Cooper wearing different costumes and began to move freely after adapting and trying.
He can also transform into more clones, but currently controlling twelve water clones at the same time is the limit that he can control well.
Mason in Manhattan ran to the out-of-control car on the street to help, dragging the seriously injured driver out and providing first aid on the roadside. Mason in Brooklyn's Batsuit hid above the dark alley, collecting rainwater and turning it into "water molecule batarangs" "Practice your marksmanship with a shameless sneak attack on the gangsters fighting below.
The three Masons who appeared in the Parker Industrial Park did not alert the patrolling agents. Instead, they ran into Zhang Parker's sealed laboratory during the water change and started tinkering with engineering, and tried to turn the BGF9000 on before the rainstorm ended. The prototype is made.
The remaining Masons found places to do other things, such as forging, tailoring, inscriptions, and jewelry.
The pattern of twelve "sub-threads" operating simultaneously in Mason's brain made him dizzy at first, but Mason soon got the hang of it.
To put it bluntly, this is not new.
Ordinary people can go to the toilet while taking a shower at the same time. What’s so difficult about doing two things at once?
He was just trying to multitask, but it was just a little bit more difficult than ordinary people hiding in the bathroom to wash their bodies while secretly peeing.
Mason, who was in the "elegant room" at the bottom of the river, looked at the prompts for improving the number of skills in each branch of production that kept appearing on the translucent character card in front of him, and was a little happy from ear to ear for a while.
He felt that he had finally found the road to becoming an all-professional master again.
"Ahem"
I really can’t stand the hat anymore.
It made a faint voice and said to Mason, who was flying up to gain experience:
"Business! Do business! Mason, you didn't come here to kill other people. Poor Constantine is still waiting for you to save him. Your teammates in trouble are looking forward to seeing you."
"I think he can wait a little longer. Anyway, there are still nine days before he will be sacrificed to the evil god."
Mason pouted.
But that’s all.
With some regret, he mobilized the "Bat Mason clone" who killed a group of gangs in Brooklyn and kept approaching the Holy of Holies shrouded in heavy rain during the change of water bodies.
As expected, the exquisite detection barrier covering the Sanctuary of New York did not prevent the natural heavy rain from falling.
The pitter-pattering water splashed against the ancient building, washing the mark of Kama Taj's Magic Eye extremely clean.
In the heavy rain shrouded by clouds, Shui Shui, wearing a bat suit, stood on the eaves outside the block, letting the black cloak cover his body.
The black bat helmet has raindrops falling on it and the gloomy sky behind it makes people exclaim that Bateman is coming!
"The next step will be a little difficult."
The hat is almost teaching you step by step, and it prompts:
"You have to integrate your clone into the rain curtain to dilute the water molecules you can control to the maximum extent. In this way, your breath will also be dispersed. As long as it is fine enough, it will not trigger the alarm.
This is how all enchantments work.
It's like using a net to isolate obstacles, but as long as it is smaller than the mesh, you, the fish, can escape the eyes of the fisherman. ”
"Got it!"
Standing in the rain, the Mason clone of the COS master moved his shoulders. After taking a few deep breaths, he jumped down from the eaves, let the bat cape unfold behind him, and the moment he glided close to the Sanctuary, the body made of water molecules It exploded to the limit with a bang.
It is no exaggeration to say that Mason felt a kind of "out of control" and "tearing" pain.
But a few seconds later, the figure who crushed his clone into tens of thousands of raindrops and rejoined the sewer along the three drainage pipes of the Holy of Holies stood up in the water, which meant that he had crossed that troublesome barrier. .
"Very good! You are very talented."
Hat praised in a "little boy can teach" tone:
"You can handle the rest by yourself. I'm not familiar with the terrain here, but I don't think they will lock Zha Kang in the material world.
Pay close attention to the devices that connect the demiplanes. ”
"Yeah."
Mason's water avatar nodded and reached out to clasp the fence of the Sanctuary's sewer, letting his body transform into the winding water, carefully avoiding those energy nodes, and after a few minutes, he arrived at the quiet hall of the Sanctuary.
No one is here.
It seems that the Supreme Mage of this world is not here either.
This is normal. There are three such sanctuaries in the world, but they are all in the nature of outposts.
Mages usually gather in Kama Taj's headquarters to practice martial arts and practice magic. They are essentially a group of ascetics who would not come to New York to hang out in this seductive and depraved world of flowers.
"Let me see what good things are here?"
Mason's water body gathered in the hall, looked around, looking for possible entrances to the demiplane, and "tasted" back and forth in Doctor Strange's collection.
He put his hand on an antique oriental-shaped black cauldron, and soon an information label popped up:
Mother Cauldron of All Things·Secret Treasure of the Alchemist
Quality: Alchemy/Forging Artifact·Immortal Craft
Special effects: Smelting all things, extracting essence, improving medicinal efficacy, removing impurities
Producer: Supreme Mage Agamotto
Item Description: Be bold! How dare you put your dirty hands on the Mother Cauldron of All Things? Be careful, it will swallow you and cook you slowly, and after seven, seven and forty-nine days, you will refine it into a "mutant elixir", just like the Monkey King in the Eastern Heaven. Yes, there is that monkey here too, It's just that it's unlikely to happen.
hint!
The production drawings of the Mother Cauldron of All Things have been included. You can try to make it after your forging and alchemy skills reach level 7. Perfect production requires forging and alchemy skills to reach level 10.
"An alchemical artifact! An upgraded version of the Hufflepuff Gold Cup, cool!"
Mason's water avatar sighed in admiration, and at the same time had a direct understanding of the quality of the Supreme Mage's collection. Where is this Zha Kang's cage in front of him?
This is clearly a treasure house full of artifacts.
Although one or two items cannot be taken away, for a craftsman like Mason, having drawings and recipes is enough. Sooner or later, he will be able to make it with his own hands.
Twenty minutes later, Mason, who had obtained many legendary drawings, was at a loss.
He had searched the upper and lower floors of the Holy of Holies, but found no trace of Zha Kang at all. Hat also said helplessly:
"It seems that we can only use some dangerous things. Do you have the deluminator with you?"
"How to bring this?"
Mason's Water Split complained:
"I can't turn it into water molecules and smuggle it in together. If you can, use this clone to do it. We stayed too long and I'm a little panicked."
"Then bear with it."
Hat gritted his teeth and said:
"I use your clone as a carrier to release a detection magic, which should be able to find the hidden plane."
"Come on."
Mason said.
The next moment, a heavy force was released through the connection between the main body and the clone, causing Mason's water body to collapse into a water stain in an instant, and then closed up again after more than ten seconds.
The energy possessed by this clone was almost drained, but Hat's attempt was successful.
"At the top! Under the relief of the Magic Eye, there is a hidden location. Go and take a look."
Under the hat's instructions, Mason's water clone quickly found the hiding place, suspended in the air like a black eyeball.
"Why do I feel a little panicked?"
He complained:
"This thing doesn't look normal at first sight, okay?"
"Think on the bright side, you will only lose a clone when you encounter danger."
The hat urged, and Mason thought for a moment that this was also the case, so he put his hand on his black eyes. In the next moment, his whole body disappeared into the material world as if being sucked in by a storm.
Before Mason could recover from his dizziness, he heard a familiar voice full of surprise:
"Ah, Mason! You're finally here! Do you know how hard I've been waiting? Quick! Take me away, that terrible madman will come back at any time
Did you bring a cigarette?
Give me one now, God, I'm going to be tortured to death. "(End of Chapter)