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Chapter 132: Sentinel & Guide (IX)

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When Shang Ke received the assignment, Whistler Hospital in the high-class area had been isolated. Just a few days ago, a spiritually unstable sentinel arrived at the hospital. The hospital sent a guide to treat him as usual, but during the process, the guide fell into the same spiritual state as the sentinel.

Guides were spiritually stable and rarely lost control. Only bonded sentinels and guides would enter perceptual synchrony because of spiritual resonance. However, both the guide and sentinel weren’t partners, and the probability of spiritual resonance was too low.

The hospital sent a second guide to treat the sentinel after the treatment failed, but the same thing occurred. Even more worrying was that in the next few days, the hospital received several sentinels displaying similar symptoms one after another. They were not only unable to receive a guide’s treatment, but they caused great spiritual damage to the guide.

All the guides who treated these sentinels regressed to their original state after regaining sanity, almost becoming the same as ordinary people.

Sentinels and guides were complementary. If sentinels could no longer be assisted by guides, or even bring serious harm to them, the interdependent relationship between the two would be completely destroyed, and the power structure of the country would collapse.

This quickly alarmed the upper echelons of the country. They suspended all spiritual assistance provided by guides to sentinels, isolated all the sick sentinels in the Whistler hospital, and sealed off the area.

When Yonis took Shang Ke to the meeting hall at the top floor of the hospital, many sentinels and guides had already gathered. They greeted Yonis with a salute and looked curiously at Shang Ke beside him.

“How’s the situation?” Yonis’ eyes lingered on Mitchell for a moment, then turned to the Dean.

“We have repeatedly tested the spiritual state of these sentinels. According to the fluctuation frequency, they’re in a chaotic state of dissociation, often known as psychosis.”

Psychosis is a kind of illness in which sentinels lose themselves in their senses, because they were not guided for a long time.

The Dean continued, “But unlike ordinary psychosis, this kind of psychosis is extremely unstable. The patients are stuck in a nightmarish state, and their spiritual powers change according to these nightmares. This also makes it difficult for guides to establish spiritual connection with them, and they’re led into psychosis instead.”

“This kind of psychosis is definitely caused by external factors. Sentinels’ self-induced psychosis shouldn’t be out of the control of a guide,” The President of the Guide Guild finished.

“External factors? Sentinels have strong immunity. What kind of external factors could induce psychosis?” Yonis asked worriedly.

“This is also a problem we cannot fathom,” The Dean replied. “Before this, the sentinels were completely normal. They hadn’t fought with anyone and hadn’t eaten food that didn’t meet the sentinel’s standards.”

“Time is tight. We have to find a cure as soon as possible. If a sentinel wanders in his psychosis for more than a month, we may not be able to do anything about it,” The President warned.

“The best way to cure it is to rely on a guide to attempt spiritual detection.” The Dean sighed. “But, we dare not let the guides take any more risks. There were already two guides who had suffered spiritual deterioration due to treatment, and this kind of regression may be permanent.”

Everyone knew the danger, and no guide was willing to test an uncertain guess with their future on the line.

The conference hall fell silent, and the scene came to a deadlock.

When Shang Ke heard the word “psychosis”, his heart moved slightly, and he felt as if he had seen it somewhere before. After searching through Zeder’s memory quickly, he finally found the information he wanted.

One of the weapons developed by the Anti-Government Union for sentinels was related to psychosis, but Zeder had no interest in biochemical pharmacology. He took a cursory look and threw the information to the back of his mind. Although he didn’t read all of them, he vaguely remembered the names of the two drugs.

If this psychosis was really a conspiracy of the Anti-Government Union, then the drugs they developed to induce psychosis had become successful, and more sentinels would be attacked soon. Shang Ke remembered the three Dark Sentinels he recently treated. Their symptoms were similar to these people’s, but he had not suffered any spiritual injury at the time. Now, it seemed that may have been their experimental phase.

The immediate task was to determine whether the sentinel’s psychosis was really drug-induced. But the Dean only reported that there had been no problems with their food intake, neither were there any injuries on their bodies. If there had been drug residue inside, the doctor shouldn’t be able to conceal it from them. Unless… unless the drug was gaseous, or transmitted via audio frequencies, which meant it could stimulate the sentinel’s spirit through smell and sound.

“I think we can let the guide Shang Ke try.” As he was thinking, a cold voice suddenly sounded in the conference hall.

Shang Ke looked up. The speaker was a young man that looked twenty-four to five years old, with a clear and handsome face and a somewhat arrogant look between his brows. He should also be a guide.

He stared at Shang Ke and continued slowly, “Dark Sentinels have strong spiritual power. Currently, only one of the seven patients is a Dark Sentinel. With Shang Ke’s special attributes as a guide and his S-level spiritual power, we may be able to find out the cause of the disease smoothly.”

As soon as he made this remark, everyone’s eyes focused on Shang Ke.

Yonis responded coldly, “Shang Ke is the only Dark Guide in the country. If anything happens to him, Lucian, I wonder if you can bear the wrath of all the Dark Sentinels?”

Lucian was also an S-class guide and was highly respected in Biyashi, but from the Dark Sentinels point of view, he was nothing compared to Shang Ke.

As soon as Yonis finished speaking, several Dark Sentinels in the conference hall cast a dark look at Lucian. Why don’t you go when there are so many of you? We, Dark Sentinels, finally obtained an exclusive guide after so long, but you guys still dare to go after him!

“Oh, sorry, I almost forgot.” Lucian quipped with a slight sneer, “His Excellency Shang Ke is a valuable national property, and not just anyone can ask him to do something.”

Other guides also revealed mocking expressions on their faces, openly expressing their dissatisfaction with Shang Ke.

Yonis swept his icy gaze across them, and the guides immediately looked away.

Lucian, however, went on without scruples, “Sir Yonis, if I remember correctly, you and Shang Ke are not spouses, which means you have no right to make any decisions for him. It is up to him to decide whether to agree to this suggestion or not.”

This sentence was simply a blow to Yonis’ ego. Failure to bind one’s status meant failure to establish a legal relationship. Anyone could use this reason to isolate him from Shang Ke.

“Your Honourable Lucian, although Yonis and I are not registered, he is the only spouse I choose.” Shang Ke took Yonis’ hand and smiled, “He has the right to refuse any unreasonable requests for me.”

Yonis’ heart warmed and he shook Shang Ke’s hand tightly. This was the first time Shang Ke had admitted that he was his spouse, that he was the “only one”!

Mitchell glanced up at them.

Lucian said coldly, “So, you are not going to see what happened to the Dark Sentinel?”

See what happened? That’s quite an understatement. Could this kind of “situation” be seen so casually? Yonis snorted coldly.

“That’s not true.” However, he listened to what Shang Ke had to say, “I can try.”

What? Yonis turned his head sharply. Just now, he said he had the right to refuse any unreasonable requests for him. Why did he suddenly change his mind?

Shang Ke seemed to guess what he was thinking, and he answered, “Yonis, this is not an unreasonable request. I think I should try it.”

Yonis frowned at him.

Shang Ke added, “Trust me. I agreed because I hold some confidence in my ability to do so.”

Confident? Even with a 99% certainty, he wouldn’t dare take the 1% risk! Yonis sullenly said nothing.

“Yonis, since Shang Ke is willing to give it a try, will you agree?” The Dean said, “It’s just a spiritual detection. If something goes wrong, Shang Ke can withdraw at any time.”

If it’s so simple, why don’t the other guides try? Yonis was well aware of the Dean’s thoughts. Didn’t he just want to see with his own eyes a Dark Guide’s ability?

And he wasn’t the only one. Including the President of the Guild, who was very interested in this, all the other guides and sentinels discussed with each other.

Yonis didn’t care what other people thought, but Shang Ke insisted on trying. He finally relented, but stated one condition: he needed to be there to protect him.

The Dean was very confident of Yonis’ strength, so he readily agreed.

The two prepared for a while before arriving together at the ward where the Dark Sentinel rested, while the others watched through the monitor outside.

Shang Ke looked at the sentinel on the bed and saw that his expression alternated between pain and fear. His whole person was highly tensed.

A guide’s spiritual assistance to a sentinel mainly involved six aspects:

1. Spiritual detection — a general scan of the sentinel’s spiritual state.
2. Spiritual counseling — unblocking and guiding disordered spiritual power.
3. Spiritual appeasement — calming the haywire emotions of a sentinel under spiritual rebellion.
4. Spiritual treatment — repairing spiritual injury.
5. Spiritual barrier — isolating stimulating elements such as voices and smells that could affect the sentinel.
6. Spiritual resonance — the combination of sentinels and guides with spirits of the same frequency state can produce a powerful offensive and defensive force.

What Shang Ke had to do with this Dark Sentinel was the most basic first step – spiritual detection. But before that, he built a spiritual barrier for him and Yonis to isolate any elements that could cause any danger.

“Hey, why didn’t we think of building a spiritual barrier before?” The Dean inside the surveillance room suddenly brightened at the idea.

Generally, after the guide detected the sentinel’s condition, he would make an accurate judgment of the matter before performing spiritual assistance. Few guides would construct spiritual barriers first, because that would reduce the efficiency of assistance.

But Shang Ke’s approach was obviously the safest.

“His spiritual barrier is really beautiful.” A Dark Sentinel couldn’t help admiring. Although most human beings couldn’t see spiritual powers, instrumental devices could project an image of it. The spiritual barriers were all net-shaped, and the gaps in the net were large and small. The smaller the gaps were, the stronger their power was.

Shang Ke’s spiritual barrier had fine and even gaps. It also integrated with the spirits of the two Dark Sentinels in the room, flashing a light blue brilliance reminiscent of the clear ocean.

He was really worthy of being the exclusive guide for Dark Sentinels. The match was very high.

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