Days as a Spiritual Mentor in American Comics

Chapter 5911: Chapter 4932: No Batman Here (19)

After returning from Gotham Cathedral, Shiller began his exploration of Gotham University. He didn’t take on any tasks or conduct little investigations, but rather went straight to the headquarters. Saying it was a risky venture for wealth isn’t quite accurate, as it’s hard to say who between him and the boss is the wealthy one.

Because Gordon is overly dramatic, it was finally decided that he would stay behind to guard the house and protect Charles. Shiller and Ethan set off on their journey to Gotham University. This journey can’t be said to be entirely safe, but it was indeed a bumpy ride.

As everyone knows, even in an open world, region levels are restricted, and various methods like temperature and environment are used to limit players from exploring advanced maps. How could Brainiac abandon such a classic setting?

First off, once you leave the residential area, it starts raining nonstop outside. Although the rain doesn’t cause any special status when it drenches you, all monsters caught in the rain will be strengthened.

The stitched monsters, which could barely walk before, can now be dealt with by just digging a hole. Ethan, leveraging his exceptional shooting skills and strategic maneuvering, trapped all the monsters inside the building.

However, the closer you get to Gotham University, the heavier the rain becomes, and the sky grows darker, much like the rainy nights of Gotham years ago. The stitched monsters here don’t abide by any scientific logic. Their legs flail as if they’re flying, not only running fast but also capable of big jumps. Tanks are even more ridiculous, reaching tank speeds and being more resilient than tanks.

The most troubling part is that as you near the Gotham University area, flying vehicles start to appear. No one knows exactly how a floating airship stitched from corpse parts manages to take flight, but it does. It carries heaps of disgusting long-range monsters that either launch heads or throw modified boomerang arms. Getting discovered is a sure death.

So, how did Shiller and Ethan manage to infiltrate Gotham University? The method is actually quite simple. Brainiac doesn’t restrict abilities. In theory, the gray mist could be used. However, without Arrogant, the gray mist is naturally unusable now.

Yet, in the presence of a ring, the mist world is still accessible. In the mist world, through the Black Sun, it’s possible to summon Holy Son Peter, also known as the Amazing Spiderman of the original Old 616 main world. Spider Man has a spider-sense.

The Amazing Spiderman retrieved his powers from the Spider Totem. He received Shiller’s summoning and remotely controlled through the Black Sun, acting as a stand-in for a brief training session. Unfortunately, Brainiac can’t handle stand-ins.

With Peter’s help, Shiller guided Ethan around the monsters and into the interior of Gotham University. But it goes without saying, exploring maps beyond your level isn’t easy at all. Every room here is locked.

The keys are with the roaming monsters. The monsters are incredibly strong and unbeatable. Although lockpicking doesn’t require dice roll checks, it needs lockpicking tools, and those must be purple-level advanced lockpicks, which no one can currently craft.

This means if the preliminary tasks aren’t done, this place can’t be tackled. Even if the agents and Deathstroke came and killed all the monsters, the number of keys dropped still wouldn’t be enough to unlock all the critical rooms. Lockpicking tools and other methods are still needed.

But Shiller wasn’t going to give up. Since he dared to infiltrate, he had a clear target. He went straight to Victor’s Cryogenic Lab.

Nothing needs to be said here. The lab has three locked doors. The experimental building has a lock, the door of the underground lab is locked, and the cold storage also has a lock. Moreover, there’s no electricity in the experimental building. Without restoring the power, even finding the keys won’t open the doors. This means that to enter the lab, power must be restored first.

Sometimes laziness is a good motivator. Shiller didn’t want to complete those complex preliminary tasks, so he put a lot of thought into skipping levels.

He found a relatively safe spot outside the experimental building and had Ethan stand guard while he logged off to find Victor.

Once upon a time, Gotham University’s Cryogenic Lab had also experienced a power outage crisis. At that time, it was Cobblepot and a group of kids who safeguarded Nora, who was still in freezing.

Victor naturally learned from his mistakes. Although Nora has awakened, the crisis left him with considerable shadows. Therefore, after Gotham University moved to a new site, he let no one intervene and instead designed an energy loop system himself to ensure the Cryogenic Lab never goes completely dark.

From what Shiller knew of Brainiac, he simply copied the map and broke some things. It appears that the power is out, but he might not know that Victor set up lots of emergency systems, some outside the building, to restart systems should the energy be cut off.

Shiller asked Victor about the locations of the emergency systems. Although Victor wasn’t involved in the game, he could sort of imagine it. After thinking for a moment, he said, "I guess Brainiac would use the most classic game method—burning a fuse to cut the energy and then sending you to find a fuse."

"But actually, there’s a higher authority line that can bypass the fuse and restart the entire energy of the experimental building." Victor took out a design. That was the structure layout of the entire experimental building. If Victor were still Mr. Freeze, that place would be his evil lair. Even Batman would have to be frozen inside an ice cube and chat life philosophies with him for two hours.

Though Batman is no longer here, Victor still meticulously crafted his base. He pointed to a room saying, "You can go here, move the bookshelf, and there’s a hidden compartment behind it..."

"No, can’t do," Shiller said, "I can’t get into that room without a key."

Victor gave him a surprised look and then realized Brainiac’s playing tricks. After thinking for a moment, he pointed his finger at the roof terrace, "Otherwise, you can go up first, then go down. The top-level storage room probably isn’t locked..."

"There are monsters on the rooftop," Shiller said, "Given the current situation, we can’t defeat the monsters here."

Victor frowned again: "You should have taken a freeze gun inside... Never mind, with that gun skill of yours, you wouldn’t hit the monsters on the roof. Let me think..."

"Can you get into the sewers under Gotham University?" Victor asked.

"I’m afraid not," Shiller shook his head, "not to mention that the sewer entrances all have locks, and there are bound to be lots of monsters inside."

"This is a bit troublesome." Victor contemplated the design plans, then suddenly seemed to recall something and said, "Actually, you don’t have to enter the lab building to access the cold storage room. The cold storage room door is a mechanical structure, likely not requiring power."

Shiller looked up at him as Victor said, "The cold storage has a safety passage to prevent people from getting trapped. Besides the main entrance, there are doors 102 and 103. Although these doors should also be locked, the 103 door connects to the passage of Gotham University’s underground bomb shelter. Another exit is inside the subway station on the west side of Gotham University."

Shiller seemed thoughtful. Gotham basically doesn’t have subways, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t tried. To be precise, there is one line, though disused since last century, but the pit dug laboriously hasn’t been abandoned and is connected to the bomb shelter and sewer system.

The Gotham underground has a very complete ecosystem; otherwise, Killer Croc wouldn’t be able to reside there all the time, and the Court of Owls wouldn’t choose that place as a base. The new site of Gotham University looks unimpressive, but it’s also above the underground network.

"I see," Shiller said, "I originally wanted to get the freeze gun from the cryogenic lab, but now it seems somewhat difficult. Going to the cold storage to fetch some ice isn’t too bad."

"The cold storage doesn’t have a freeze gun, but has an Ice Formation Device." Victor pulled out a piece of paper, then said, "These items, although fixed, can be disassembled. I’ll teach you how to..."

He stopped talking and, after thinking for a moment, said, "Never mind, I just don’t trust your proficiency with this task..."

"I have teammates," Shiller said, "Ethan, that military doctor, he helped Iron Man build a mecha, should be able to handle this job."

"Indeed, every detective needs their own military doctor assistant." Victor chuckled and said, "I’ll write the operation procedure for you, remember it, and then tell him. There are a total of four Ice Formation Devices and two ice mist launchers..."

Victor took a piece of paper and marked where these items are and how to dismantle them. Shiller quickly memorized it, returned to the game, and informed Ethan.

"There’s a problem," Ethan said, "even if we can bypass the experiment building and go straight to the cold storage, the cold storage has a door. How do you plan to open it?"

"Let’s deal with it when we get there." Shiller said.

The two bypassed half of Gotham University and arrived below the subway station. Unsurprisingly, there were monsters here too. But they couldn’t jump, because the entrance was right behind them.

Fortunately, this was underground. The monsters seemed to refresh in this spot, having not been in the outside rain, and weren’t as strong as those outside.

Shiller thought for a moment and said, "Give me the gun, I’ll lure them away. You go and see if you can pick the lock of the underground passage door."

"Are you sure you can do it?" Ethan said. He scrutinized Shiller, who looked like a pure desk officer.

But Shiller was the one who led him through stealth all the way here; seemingly able to foresee danger. With this in mind, maybe it wasn’t impossible. So Ethan gave the gun to Shiller.

Shiller stood above the subway entrance and fired a shot. The gunshot was loud, attracting not only the monsters below but also those from the ground level, which was precisely what Shiller intended. The monsters weren’t more dangerous because there were more of them. On the contrary, precisely because these monsters were large in size, with many limbs, when gathered together, they blocked each other, and the fast ones couldn’t rush through.

Shiller fired a shot and then retreated. Nearby was a bus stop with a double-decker bus parked there. They had noticed it when they arrived, but the bus had no gas and couldn’t be driven, only because it’s a double-decker, it was tall enough.

Shiller quickly opened the bus door and rushed inside. There were monsters in the bus too. But the space inside the double-decker bus was relatively narrow, and before the monsters could rush over, Shiller went up the stairs to the second deck. After opening the windows on the second deck, he jumped onto the adjacent bus stop shelter.

It was high enough; those chasing monsters couldn’t get past. The monster on the second deck also tried to jump through the window, but just as it was in mid-air trying to jump across, Shiller fired. Although the bullet caused little harm, the recoil successfully prevented the monster from landing on the shelter.

Shiller shook his hand and sighed. Fighting is indeed exhausting. Sometimes even he can’t remember what kind of mood he was in when he walked into Gotham’s rainy night back then.

Though, maybe it’s not entirely forgotten. Batman’s allure to Joker was just too great. Too bad, there was no Batman here.