[You’ve resurrected in the Watchman’s Cabin.]
Luckily, the Green-clothed Administrator was carrying an elderly Shadow Ghost, its power far inferior to that of Granny Tang whom I’ve encountered earlier. I killed it with a single Cannon shot.
Regaining his senses, Mu You first assessed the spoils dropped from the vanquished enemy.
Besides the clue found in the Octave Box, something from the Shadow Ghost had also fallen.
[Shadow Ghost’s Wraith Remains - The remains left behind after a Shadow Ghost’s death, shaped like a writhing phantom. Depending on the strength of the Shadow Ghost, merging with it can slightly enhance the strength of your shadow and indirectly increase your abilities. After merging, permanent HP +56 (Maximum increase from similar effects is 5000 HP). It grants you the ability to reshape your shadow and control its direction. Your shadow can also act independently of your body for up to one hour every 24 hours. If the shadow doesn’t return to a living being within that hour, it will disappear automatically.]
The description of the Shadow Ghost’s remains was elaborate. Mu You clicked on it to take a closer look.
A phantom squirming on the ground appeared, looking like a Slime, but ethereal—without a solid body or weight.
Mu You stepped into the phantom. It merged willingly into his shadow, disappearing, and his shadow seemed to solidify somewhat.
Mu You checked his phone again and as expected, his HP had increased by 56.
"Shadow acting independently..."
Reading the game’s instructions, Mu You concentrated his mind, connected his consciousness to his shadow.
The next moment, his shadow began to change shape, from a humanoid figure to an ellipse, then a thin line, rotating freely around him.
A few seconds later, the shadow detached from his feet, circled around the room walls, and then returned to him.
After a simple experiment, Mu You had a preliminary understanding of the shadow’s changes. In short, as long as he concentrated, he could manipulate his shadow.
When the shadow detached, it was like a duplicate of him. He could share the shadow’s perspective and use its properties to explore places humans couldn’t reach.
Unfortunately, the shadow could only detach for up to an hour at a time. And he had learned from their previous capture of Uchimura that detached shadows could still be injured, greatly limiting this ability’s use.
Of course, the exact wording in the explanation was ’if the shadow does not return to a living being after an hour’, will it disappear. This means that after a shadow detaches, it doesn’t necessarily have to return to its original body—it just needs to become the shadow of another living being.
That’s how those Shadow Men were able to cast their shadows onto Earth: By crafting humans into ’Shadow Ghost skins’, these shadows could take on the shape of the corresponding ’skin’ and generate a real human. By disguising themselves as these human ’skins’ shadows, they could leave their original bodies for extended periods and live in another world.
Of course, without a Shadow Ghost skin, Mu You’s detached shadow couldn’t exist for long, and had to return to his body quickly. So, this ability was of limited use to him.
The real value of this item was the increase it gave to his HP. An increase of 56 might not seem much, but the note on the maximum limit revealed that he could increase his HP by up to 5000 by killing Shadow Ghosts. That was a considerable amount!
That being said, he had previously killed two Shadow Ghosts on Earth—the giant Shadow Ghost and the muscle man Shadow Ghost in K City, as well as Uchimura in Japan. However, none of these ghosts had left behind such shadow remains.
The only difference between them and this elderly ghost was that the latter three were killed on Earth.
It seems that only Shadow Ghosts killed in the Star Spirit World dropped these items.
After observing the changes in his shadow, Mu You turned his attention back to his phone.
[You opened ’the clue hidden in the Octave Box’. It’s a neatly folded piece of paper.]
[A scrap of Louise’s diary.]
[...Today marks the third anniversary of my captivity here. On this day, I was informed by the administrator that my ’condition’ had worsened and I needed to move to a hospital in the west for deeper ’treatment’. The news of leaving Mian Mian was a huge blow for me. She was my pillar of support here; without her, I didn’t know how I would survive... Mian Mian comforted me, promising that as soon as our illnesses were cured, she would come running no matter how far, as long as I called for her...
Two days later, I was taken to a newly built hospital in the west. It was a larger, better-equipped room—in fact, it was turned into a double bedroom. The residence I shared with a girl who was even younger than me. Her name was Sayaka—she was only seven years old and newly arrived. She spent all day huddled in the corner, shaking with fright like a poor little rabbit. More troublesome, her language was not Star Spirit language, but something else; we couldn’t communicate ... Fortunately, an administrator later brought a tool that enabled direct mental communication, solving the language barrier... After communicating with Sayaka, I found that we shared surprisingly similar interests... After a few days of brief interaction, Sayaka began to cling to me, even admiring me—somewhat. I kind of enjoyed this feeling and started treating her like a sister... Now that I’ve lost Mian Mian, I have found a new purpose, that is, to protect Sayaka and have her survive here...]