Days as a Spiritual Mentor in American Comics
Chapter 4754 - 3827: The School Doctor’s "Routine" (5)

Chapter 4754: Chapter 3827: The School Doctor’s "Routine" (5)

Shiller knew he couldn’t avoid this ordeal, and he didn’t refuse. He simply looked at the two of them and said, "I won’t hide it from you; in the universe I’m in, I have indeed made some small contributions to the development of the human race. But this isn’t limited to technology or magic, nor am I the leader of the magic realm. Some of your questions might only be answered by the Supreme Magician."

"I heard you have a good relationship with him," Primary Universe Batman said.

"We are friends, but you and the other Batmans are also friends," Shiller said tactfully, "Besides, whatever happens in the magic realm, the Supreme Magician is fully responsible, which means only he has the power to decide the direction of the magic realm. Although I can offer some suggestions, they’re limited to just that."

"We don’t intend to interfere with the magic realm of your universe; I just want to know about some things."

"Like what?"

"How did you acquire so much magic energy?"

"That is a long story," Shiller leaned back, preparing to explain in detail, but only said, "The key lies with the Supreme Magician, so you still have to ask him."

Primary Universe Batman could sense that Shiller wasn’t lying. In fact, what Shiller said was true. In their universe, having such abundant magic energy indeed originated from the Supreme Magician—but it wasn’t from Strange; it originated from the Ancient One.

The Ancient One was the person who wouldn’t take any nonsense, undefeated against cosmic sorcerers. Back then, Karmatiji, although not as rich as now, wasn’t too poor either—at least richer than the magicians of DC.

And in the original comics, after the Ancient One’s death, Strange took over. The situation of Karmatiji, in fact, worsened because Strange’s combat ability wasn’t as formidable as the Ancient One’s, and his way of dealing with things was very different from the Ancient One’s. He belonged to a faction that withdrew from worldly affairs, whether on Earth or in the cosmos, his attitude was that "the Supreme Magician shouldn’t meddle too much in mundane matters." This was also how he operated within the Illuminati, and therefore the intimidating power of the title of the Supreme Magician diminished significantly.

However, Shiller merely extended the methods of the Ancient One to the generation of Strange, preventing the Supreme Magician’s title from seeing a sharp rise and fall. Essentially, it was still the strong foundation laid by the Ancient One.

If it hadn’t been for the Ancient One’s title, those demon gods wouldn’t have cooperated obediently back then. Therefore, saying everything originated from the Supreme Magician isn’t wrong, and it certainly isn’t lying.

Primary Universe Batman and Arkham Batman exchanged a glance; both seemingly believed Shiller was telling the truth. Even if one Batman’s intuition could be wrong, if both of them felt that Shiller wasn’t lying, then he probably was being honest.

When Primary Universe Batman shared a body with Stark, he also had conversations with Strange, and he had already formed a preconceived notion of Strange being very difficult to deal with. When Shiller now mentioned that everything was thanks to the Supreme Magician, Primary Universe Batman accepted this point.

"What do you think he’s like?" Primary Universe Batman asked.

"Steven’s personality isn’t exactly kind," Shiller said, tapping his fingertips on the teacup, "This might have to do with his childhood experiences. He’s a small-town youth who, through his own efforts, gained a foothold in New York and became world-renowned as the Hand of God. The hardships involved need no further elaboration from me. Such experiences tempered him and also shaped his personality."

Facing Batman, Shiller didn’t tell a single lie, because lying in front of Batman was too easily seen through. Moreover, the stock phrases used to deal with Robin or other people from neighboring worlds weren’t very effective. Batman always gets to the point and won’t rest until he gets satisfactory answers. Without some real substance, he would be stuck here tonight.

Primary Universe Batman understood; the judgment Shiller gave was nearly identical to his own psychological profile of Strange.

In his eyes, Stephen Strange is a detached directional interest mental gratification seeker. His underlying personality is one of indifference, but this apathy towards everything brings about a unique focus. It’s this very focus that gives him a distinctive talent in magic.

And by directional interest, it means he is an obsessive and extreme person. When he immerses himself in a field, he’ll utilize the focus in his personality’s background to become fanatically absorbed in that one area, pursuing only the interests in that domain, regardless of decreasing or destroying potential benefits in other areas. He’s not someone who wants to reap everything; no matter how enticing the unwanted benefits are, they won’t sway him.

Mental gratification seeker refers to the fact that, compared to material enjoyment, he prefers mental satisfaction. In his domain of directional interest, achieving success and gaining benefits bring him the greatest mental gratification, which is also the most effective way to move him.

From his psychological profile, it can be seen that Strange is not a conflicted person. His personality and psyche are interlinked, using indifference and focus to immerse in a specific field, achieving results and gaining mental satisfaction. This allows him to be self-consistent without needing external objects or relying on others for mental stability. This, for many people, is incredibly difficult to achieve.

This means he is almost impenetrable in the mental aspect, and others find it hard to sway him. Even if there might be alluring things in the field he pursues, he can rely on his high talent to obtain them himself. Or it could be said that only what he acquires himself would satisfy him; what others offer, he has no interest in at all.

For this reason, to Batman, someone like Strange is extremely difficult to deal with. He possesses formidable magical power, almost impossible to subdue by force; mentally, he has almost no weaknesses, more like an impenetrable dragon egg. Not to mention flies, even if you brought a Sabretooth, it wouldn’t leave a dent, truly a tough nut to crack.

But after all, Batman is Batman; no matter how tough the bone is, he’s chewed them all, it’s just a matter of biting it to pieces or slowly tackling it. Batman knows that obtaining magical power or establishing a Human Alliance, Strange is that bone he must chew. Since that’s the case, he chooses to take it slow.

"Mr. Strange’s experiences are truly admirable, reminding me of my friend Clark Kent. He, too, comes from a small-town background. Do you think they would have common ground?"

Shiller’s alarm bells went off. Bringing a bunch of Batmans over, Nick is already on the brink of spontaneous combustion, if there’s a group of Supermen, the whole Congress would explode. Although Congress is of little use, nobody wants the sewage system to burst, do they?

Shiller believes that Batman’s threat is blatant. If he doesn’t cough up something today, Batman will call Superman over to stir things up.

He sighed inwardly, then said, "Although the upbringing environment is similar, the family environment and personal qualities differ, naturally leading to vastly different personalities. In my opinion, Steven probably wouldn’t have much common ground with your friend. They have similarities, yet they are entirely different."

Primary Universe Batman understood Shiller’s hint. Batman may not know Strange very well, but he understands Superman very well. If Strange and Superman have similarities and diametric differences, many things can actually be inferred from that.

Batman probably knows what kind of person Superman is better than Superman himself. Primary Universe Batman began to consider the similarities and differences between Superman and Strange carefully.

In reality, this isn’t a very difficult question, because it’s obvious that their overlapping personality traits come from being raised in the same environment, namely the countryside and small towns.

Batman is not the type to engage in regional discrimination, he just knows very well that countryside and small-town places are more news-isolated compared to big cities. Slow information flow has both good and bad aspects, but the personality traits shaped by such environments have their uniqueness.

For example, because channels for information acquisition are few, and there aren’t ways to confirm its value, people from small places often believe more in "subjective evidence." They are more willing to use their own inner-created values and methodologies to judge whether information is true or useful.

Conversely, people in big cities are more willing to engage in "information corroboration," which means verifying the information they know is correct by acquiring other information. This is a more objective judgment method but cannot be said to be necessarily superior to the former.

Superman and Batman represent these two methods. Superman is more willing to act based on his internal sense of right and wrong; he believes that if someone is doing something wrong, he must stop them. Batman, on the other hand, is more focused on law and evidence, his prerequisite for arrest is that a person has broken the law and there is proof.

It seems Superman is cleaner and quicker, without so many concerns, but this is only because he received extremely good education in the Kent family. His internal sense of right and wrong matches public ethics, however, if someone were to teach him wrongly, flipping his sense of right and wrong, it would definitely be a disaster — like Homelander.

Batman’s way may appear indecisive, possibly missing many chances to stop evil, but as long as he believes in law and rules, he is actually believing in public ethics, less prone to big mistakes.

The similar personality traits between Strange and Superman are that they are more willing to rely on subjective evidence. Strange also acts based on his internal sense of right and wrong, rather than necessarily following laws and rules.

So bring the question back, what kind of sense of right and wrong does Strange have in his heart?

Batman thinks this is what makes him entirely different from Superman. Superman’s sense of right and wrong comes from his happy family, while Strange’s family situation, Batman can guess without investigation.

But actually, the true opposite isn’t their definition of right and wrong — not that Strange thinks it’s normal for someone to be extremely evil, committing arson and murder, he knows that’s not normal, but he just doesn’t care.

Superman detests evil as an enemy, Strange is indifferent; Superman seeks to benefit the world, Strange seeks to safeguard himself. He lacks strong empathy, he only cares for what he chooses to care about. Laws and morals condemn this apathy, yet Strange prefers to follow his own heart, indifferent to external rules.

Superman received too much unconditional love from his parents, he wishes to spread this love to everyone in the world; Strange almost never received love without a reason, admiration, praise, and affection for him come from his talent and strength. He takes it all in but doesn’t take it seriously, thus naturally having nothing to share with others.

If Superman’s inner world is a thriving rainforest, then Strange’s is probably a desolate desert. To speak of high, low, good, bad, nobody but themselves is qualified to judge. If one insists on finding some patterns, perhaps it’s "how the world treats them is how they treat the world."

Having figured these out, Primary Universe Batman probably has some semblance of order in his heart. He finished the last sip of tea in his cup, contemplating whether to use this night’s excursion as an opportunity to engage with the renowned Supreme Magician.