Days as a Spiritual Mentor in American Comics -
Chapter 4773 - 3846: The School Doctor’s "Daily Routine" (24)
Chapter 4773: Chapter 3846: The School Doctor’s "Daily Routine" (24)
Strange had a reason for coming to find the notebook. After the meeting yesterday, Chris called him, lavishly praising the friend he had brought along, but upon learning from Shiller that the author of the notes was Batman, Strange couldn’t bring himself to smile.
Batman is indeed formidable, but unfortunately not someone he could readily use. In fact, in some ways, he and Batman are on opposing sides. Especially with the Primary Universe Batman, who’s a particularly troublesome character. Strange has been trying to avoid dealing with him, wary of getting ensnared in his schemes without realizing it.
Of course, Chris wouldn’t give up so easily. He wanted Strange to bring Batman over and have him join the props team. Strange said Batman’s identity was rather sensitive and might not be feasible. Then Chris demanded to hire Batman as a writer, and the first piece he wanted was Saphir’s notes.
Strange was reluctant to find Batman, so he planned to review the notes himself to see if he could replicate them from pictures. However, upon arrival, he discovered that the notebook was missing.
So he knocked on the door of the campus hospital again, looking at Shiller and asking, "Where’s that notebook kept in the library’s secret room?"
"What?"
"The one that contains Saphir’s notes."
"I don’t know," Shiller replied, "Could the props team have taken it for shooting close-ups?"
"Have you seen it?"
Shiller nodded, saying, "About two months ago, the assistant director gave us all the supplementary materials we needed to read. I roughly skimmed through it. There’s not much in there, just some theoretical knowledge about the Magical Defense Network, and it’s pretty superficial."
"Chris wants a notebook in the style of that illustration guide." Strange stood in the middle of the room with his hands on his hips, pacing and appearing somewhat anxious, "He wants me to find the author of the guide, but I really don’t want to find Batman, so I was hoping to see if I could complete the notebook myself."
"You mean you intend to write it yourself?" Shiller asked in surprise.
"Yes. After all, it contains knowledge about the Magical Defense Network. Who in this world understands this more than I do? Not even Batman, right?"
"But the style might be hard to match with the guide." Shiller said seriously, "Chris is very picky and absolutely cannot tolerate any discrepancy in this aspect. If what you write doesn’t pass, wouldn’t it be a waste of effort?"
"Then what do we do? You know how difficult Batman can be. If I have to approach him, I don’t even want to think about what I’ll have to trade off. What if he tricks me?"
"Let me think." Shiller said, "Look, we have so many Batmans in our school right now, it doesn’t have to be that particular Batman. Why don’t we find a more manageable Batman?"
"Which Batman is easy to manage?" Strange posed the soul-searching question.
This indeed is the crux of the matter—the Batmans that are easy to handle aren’t very powerful, while the powerful Batmans are all difficult to deal with. Employing them for a job might be very costly, and Strange worries they might take the opportunity to cause trouble.
"I will talk to Bruce." Shiller said, "Although he seems a bit unreliable, his skills are top-notch. Plus, he loves to join the fun, so his asking price shouldn’t be too high."
Strange thought for a moment and seemed to have no other options. He nodded reluctantly and said, "Alright, hopefully, he can satisfy Chris. But we still have to retrieve the original notebook; if it falls into someone else’s hands, we’ll get spoiled, and both of us will have to pay up."
"I will look for it." Shiller said.
After Strange left, Shiller started to ponder: Was Night Owl’s urgent visit related to the missing notebook? Could Night Owl have taken the notebook?
Almost as soon as he thought about it, Shiller linked these things together: It must be Primary Universe Batman manipulating the notebook, making Night Owl think he was suffering from some incurable disease. Since he couldn’t diagnose it, Night Owl could only start with the notebook.
And as expected, the notebook had indeed been tampered with by the Primary Universe Batman, but it was still unclear where he would lead Night Owl with it.
Hold on. If Primary Universe Batman deliberately let Night Owl get the notebook, then he must have altered its contents because reading the shallow content inside would easily blow his cover.
In other words, finding the notebook would complete Chris’s mission—after all, both the illustration guide and the notebook were written by Primary Universe Batman, so their styles would certainly match.
But this thing fell into Night Owl’s hands. Until he thinks his issues are resolved, he certainly won’t return it. And Chris is impatient; he can’t wait a few days.
Shiller indeed considered posing as the Divine Doctor and waving his hand to cure Night Owl’s illness. But on one hand, he doesn’t know what the illness is, so claiming to cure it wouldn’t be convincing; on the other hand, he had previously told Night Owl that he was baffled, and changing his explanation now would be too suspicious.
Shiller thought about it and indeed came up with a solution: the identity of school doctor Shiller might be unusable, but he could cure the illness under a different identity.
Pretending to be another professor was too risky—after all, Night Owl had contact with other professors, and poor acting would easily give him away. But transforming into a custom virtual persona tailored for himself would be much easier.
Shiller decided to disguise himself as Saphir.
After all, there’s no internet at the school, Batman hasn’t seen any movies, and the traces in those secret chambers and the Magic Forest are real as can be. Who can say that Saphir doesn’t exist?
Moreover, the identity of a seasoned Black Magician is quite handy: regardless of the ailment, it’s cured in my hands.
After thinking it over, Shiller took out the black robe he used that day to create traces in the Magic Forest and went to the Magic Forest under the cover of night. He knew that deep in the Magic Forest there was a small hut, which was also one of Saphire’s bases, a scene the props team had just set up, with a rather realistic arrangement thanks to Mephisto’s aesthetic touch, perfect to fool Night Owl.
Shiller initially just wanted to scout the area, familiarize himself with the surroundings, and see if there were any flaws in the prop team’s setup. But as he was checking around the hut, he suddenly heard some movement not far away.
Shiller lightened his steps, slowly approached in that direction, and then found a figure by the lake.
Night Owl was untying a small boat tethered to the wooden dock, seemingly wanting to head into the depths of the lake.
Shiller watched his actions from behind a tree, feeling a bit puzzled: What is this Night Owl doing, not sleeping at midnight?
However, it was exactly what he hoped for, as he originally intended to treat him anyway, regardless of when. So he no longer concealed his footsteps and slowly walked out.
Night Owl was extremely vigilant, and just as Shiller took a step forward, he spun around abruptly. Seeing a stranger in a black robe for a moment, he threw several darts.
A thin gray fog flashed by, and the darts seemed to hit some invisible barrier, instantly falling to the ground and slowly dissolving into powder.
"Who are you?" Night Owl asked.
"You should have heard my name in Magic History class," Shiller got into character and said, "Or is it that you don’t like that class? I don’t like it either. No one does."
"Are you Saphire?" Night Owl’s tone grew increasingly solemn.
"It seems your Magic History isn’t bad."
Night Owl’s heart skipped a beat. He immediately tightened the rope in his hand. The forest was dark and lightless, the lake’s depths unfathomable, how unlucky he was to encounter this brutal Black Magician under such circumstances.
"How are you feeling?" Shiller asked deliberately, with a hint of teasing in his tone, as if he was certain there was something wrong with Night Owl. He had to do this because Saphire was a very powerful Black Magician, and to maintain this persona, he had to spot the problem at a glance, otherwise, he wouldn’t seem that formidable.
Night Owl clenched his fist. The opponent’s cat-and-mouse-like attitude was very displeasing to him. He knew that the opponent had certainly recognized the curse inside him and realized that he was the unlucky one who sent the letter.
"What do you want?"
"I can help you."
Even Night Owl wanted to curse: You cursed me, then you come to remove the curse and say you’re here to help me?
"Terms," Night Owl spat out a word.
Shiller certainly knew these Batmans were plagued with paranoia — if you simply offer to treat them, they will absolutely not trust you, they’ll definitely think you have ulterior motives; instead, a transaction is more likely to gain their trust. So before coming, Shiller decided what he wanted Night Owl to do.
"First, return my notebook to me," Shiller said, "I know you have it with you."
Night Owl hesitated for a moment. Because Shiller had already guessed the issue might be related to the notebook, he said with a bit of mockery: "Or do you want to gain more from it?"
Night Owl had no choice but to throw the notebook to him. Then Shiller turned to leave, saying: "Follow me."
Shiller led him to the hut. This hut was what most people’s stereotype of an abode of a Black Magician looked like, gloomy on the outside, inside was even more sinister.
Earlier, Shiller was startled when he first walked in — Mephisto had decorated it as if it were his palace’s side hall, though most of the luxurious elements were removed, the evil ones were well-preserved, giving one the feeling of losing a lifetime of merit just by taking a glance.
Night Owl was evidently shocked too. He could completely see that this was a different system of power, distinctly different from the mysterious and magnificent universe displayed in the magical school, but equally powerful.
Night Owl was someone who craved power greatly, otherwise, he wouldn’t have followed a path that was different from most Batmans to an evil road. He never considered his trait of acquiring power by any means possible as a fault but rather always took pride in it.
He felt a surge of heat inside his heart.
He knew the Supreme Magician did not favor him, those righteous Batmans would not spare him, he had no way out from the start. So why couldn’t he take another path?
Shiller just turned around, and when he looked back at Night Owl, his eyes were shining like light bulbs, really like an owl perched on a tree branch.
No way. Shiller thought to himself, you’d better not want to learn Black magic from me.
"Can I learn Black magic from you?"
If you find any errors (non-standard content, ads redirect, broken links, etc..), Please let us know so we can fix it as soon as possible.
Report