Zatanna did come, and the very second she saw Shiller's current form, she screamed and in the next two or three seconds, she had jumped more than ten meters away.
"It's me," Shiller tried to reach for his glasses, but unfortunately, he didn't have hands at the moment, so he had to bend his tail tip over to push them up and said, "I know you are curious about how I turned into this, but don't be curious right now...could you come closer?"
"I..." Zatanna pursed her lips tightly and said, "I swear I don't have a prejudice against snakes, but I really..."
"Fine, then just stand there," Shiller didn't want to force her, after all, if she turned into broccoli one day, Shiller definitely wouldn't want to get close to her either.
"Have you heard of Witch Circe?" Shiller asked.
Actually, he didn't need Zatanna to introduce him to Circe's background, because this witch was quite a famous villain, mainly appearing in the Wonder Woman comics.
Her backstory had undergone several changes, but no matter which version, it was quite complicated. To simplify, long story short, she was once one-fifth of the original power of magic, the God of Witchcraft, and Diana, Wonder Woman, was another one-fifth.
Then he thought, if the God of Witchcraft died with Diana, then all their power would go to her, and she plotted a series of conspiracies just to kill them together, of course, she ultimately failed.
For some reason, Circe had an extreme dislike for men, she would use witchcraft to turn them into animals, then mock and belittle them at will.
And that short-statured Edgar Shiller also had some impression of; this guy was also a villain of Wonder Woman, codenamed Doctor Psycho, with the ability to control others' thoughts and read minds, although not as strong as Professor X since he needed contact with others to control and read minds.
Edgar, afflicted with dwarfism and featuring an ugly appearance and short stature, was never popular with girls and was ostracized by his classmates, which led to his intense hatred for women, consistently targeting Wonder Woman.
These two, one hated men, the other women, it was unclear how they ended up collaborating.
And moreover, their enemy should be Diana, so why have they come to Gotham?
Shiller remembered Brand mentioning that Circe and her group seemed to be looking for a girl, which reminded Shiller of the plans Circe had in the original comics.
The God of Witchcraft divided his power into five parts, embedding it into five girls; Wonder Woman and Witch Circe were two of them. Could it be that Circe was looking for the other three?
Shiller recalled that in the original storyline, those three were not ordinary people either, and it seemed there were no Gothamites among them, so how did she end up searching here?
But then, it was entirely possible that, given so many changes to the universe's storyline stemming from the butterfly effect, that the power could have been inherited by people different from those in the original work.
"Circe?" Zatanna thought carefully, then said, "That name does sound familiar, but it's been a while since I've heard it, I remember she wasn't exactly a magician, was she?"
"She claims to be a witch, using the power of witchcraft. I'm not sure what the difference is between the two."
"Oh, the difference is huge. The power of witchcraft doesn't require paying royalties. To some extent, it's considered a type of free Magic Power, but they don't see it that way; they believe that witchcraft is more ancient and more primal than magic."
Zatanna looked at Shiller and said, "Did she cast a curse on you? It's not the Beastification Curse, is it? Because that could be quite troublesome."
"How so?"
"Witchcraft is an independent power system, and the source of witchcraft power...In short, we can't break the curse by finding the source of the power; we have to figure out something based on the individual who cast it."
Shiller immediately remembered that Circe had a lethal weakness, also stemming from Greek mythology. Legend has it that ingesting the 'Moly' herb protected one from the harm of Calchas's poison, and the comics also borrowed this setting, with Moly rendering Circe's witchcraft ineffective.
But the problem was, no one knew what this mysterious Spirit Grass was specifically, as Moly was not the scientific name of any existing plant, and there were very few plants left undiscovered by humans on Earth now.
There was only one chance to act against Circe, and if the wrong plant were chosen, there would never be another opportunity to catch her again.
Zatanna had apparently also heard of this rumor, but she didn't know which exact plant this mysterious Spirit Grass was; according to her, there was no plant directly called Moly among the magical plants.
To be on the safe side, Shiller called Pamela over.
Pamela was utterly stunned when she saw Shiller in this state.
"Professor, you... you finally decided to physically douse your students with Venom?"
Shiller rolled his eyes again, one of the advantages of having become a black snake was that the eye roll was very conspicuous.
Pamela was not afraid of this, she walked up, poked Shiller's snake body, then picked him up directly to take a closer look at him.
"Professor, open your mouth, let me see if you have venom glands," she said.
Shiller was actually quite curious about this too, but he said, "Let me bite you and you'll find out."
"Then I'll immediately become broccoli-flavored," she retorted.
"Let's not," he decided.
Shiller opened his mouth, and Pamela shone a flashlight inside to take a look, then said, "Congratulations, Professor, you are a venomous snake, but according to biological knowledge, it shouldn't be extremely poisonous."
"Seems I can't bite to death those students who don't submit their papers, too bad," lamented Shiller.
Pamela set Shiller down, and he again wrapped himself around the back of the chair, talking to her about the legendary Spirit Grass.
"It's different with a professional, indeed. Pamela does have some insights," she said, "In the Mediterranean region, 'Moly' generally refers to wild garlic, scientifically known as Allium moly, a plant in the Amaryllidaceae family, but I think it's not that simple."
"As we all know, the Witch Circe used a poison to turn sailors into livestock, and Hermes, the son of Zeus, gave Odysseus a plant with white flowers and black roots, allowing him to become immune to that poison. Since the flowers of wild garlic are yellow, this doesn't match."
"Myths may not be real, but they are certainly adapted from folk tales. If we consider it from a realistic perspective, that is, the most likely scenario people would encounter, I think the main ingredient of Witch Circe's poison is mandrake, which causes memory loss and illusions."
"In the accounts of anticholinergic poisoning, there are many instances of objects or people around turning into animals. This is a delirious manifestation based on poisoning, and mandrake was most likely the poison that caused this effect at the time."
"Wild garlic will not neutralize the toxicity of mandrake, but there is a plant that fits the description of white flowers and black roots and can act as an antidote to mandrake, which is snowdrop."
"From snowdrops, galantamine can be extracted, an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor, used specifically to counteract anticholinergic drugs. It can neutralize the toxicity of mandrake, and it can also alleviate symptoms of Alzheimer's disease."
The last point Pamela made caught Shiller's attention. He didn't care much about dealing with Circe, but he remembered that Cobblepot's mother was at high risk for Alzheimer's disease.
At present, human medicine has been unable to clarify the exact mechanisms of Alzheimer's, but one hypothesis is the cholinergic hypothesis, which is also the basic theory behind most Alzheimer's drugs currently. Galantamine is specifically for inhibiting acetylcholinesterase, and it can now be synthesized and produced on a large scale.
However, most of the drugs produced can hardly be called specific remedies, their mitigation effects are relatively limited, and it can only be said that without a complete understanding of Alzheimer's, it is impossible to produce a cure.
"This is all textbook knowledge, let's hear your opinion," said Shiller, nudging his glasses with the tip of his tail.
"From the perspective of All Things Green, I personally believe that this so-called Spirit Grass is more likely to be a snowdrop. Not only is its appearance similar, but it also has a common name—Milk Flower—which further confirms what Hermes said about the milk-like flowers. It's also called Primrose, symbolizing purity and rebirth, and also holds greater significance in terms of mysticism concepts."
"I was talking about the Alzheimer's part."
"Oh, that." After thinking for a bit, Pamela said, "From a magical point of view, Alzheimer's is a complex syndrome caused by the decline of human Soul Power, and the mystic attribute of rebirth that snowdrops hold can slow down this decline."
"Is it incurable?"
"That depends on how you use it," Pamela replied. "The efficiency of ordinary people in using this power is extremely low. You might deplete all the snowdrops in the world, and the regained power might not be enough to restore one or two people's Souls."
"What about you?"
"I don't primarily conduct experiments in that area..."
"I know, you're too busy researching Attacking Cabbage."
"No, the area I research is empowerment."
"Empowering cabbages to attack?"
Pamela promptly grabbed Shiller and shook him vigorously, then said, "Don't interrupt me, Professor!"
Shiller felt a bit dizzy from her shaking and had no choice but to say, "Alright, go on, but I'm worried for Cobblepot. We can't delay with his mother's condition."
"Empowerment is simpler than extraction, after all, I have the power of All Things Green. I just need to attach the power to the plant, and I can observe all sorts of miraculous changes. But extraction involves drawing out the mystical properties from plants that inherently have little power, and that involves alchemy, which is really difficult."
After pausing, Pamela said, "I've tried alchemy myself in the past, but it couldn't proceed beyond the whitening stage. You need not only power but also mastery over the original elements."
"The four stages of alchemy are black, white, yellow, and red. Black represents earth, white represents water, both of which are related to plants, so I can manage that. Yellow represents air, which plants need for gas exchange, which is somewhat plausible. But the final stage of Red Transformation absolutely requires fire, which is a weakness of plant power."
Pamela muttered a lot of professional terms, and Zatanna, curious, joined in, "You've tried alchemy? You actually made it to the second-to-last step. When I was on the whitening stage, I caused a big explosion, so I gave up."
It seemed like Pamela remembered something and said, "Isn't Constantine quite good at this?"
"Him, yeah, he's somewhat good in many areas, but his main strength is Arrays. It seems he hasn't gone any further in alchemy, either."
"So with the current level of alchemy, is it possible to refine a drug from plants that can cure Alzheimer's?" asked Shiller.
"Maybe it's possible, but it would be very troublesome and require a lot of resources, with no certainty of success," Pamela sighed and said. "Even if successful, the drug would be a one-time treatment, not producible on a large scale, meaning there's no return on investment. I doubt anyone would want to fund it."
"Perhaps someone would be willing. Give me your phone."
Pamela placed her phone on the table, and Shiller quickly climbed onto the table, poking at the screen incessantly with his tail tip, seemingly sending text messages to someone.
Soon, Cobblepot rushed in anxiously, looking around and saying, "Where's Professor Shearer? He said there might be a new drug that could cure Alzheimer's, and my mother just... where is he?"
"Ahem," Shiller coughed.
Cobblepot looked in shock at the black snake on the table.
"Professor!... You didn't become that angry with the students that you wanted to turn into a snake and bite them to death, did you?"