Days as a Spiritual Mentor in American Comics

Greed usually doesn't manifest strong aggressiveness. He is a person who values efficiency, so he seldom wastes time chatting with others. But that doesn't mean he doesn't have his own likes and dislikes; what he can't stand the most is seeing people idle around.

You can be good or evil; smart or dumb. But you cannot be idle. Even if what you're doing is completely meaningless, you still have to do it, and the busier you are, the better. Useless or not, you do it anyway.

Just like Batman. Ever since Shiller arrived, he hasn't really done anything useful. But at least he has been busy. Even though he's busy to no avail, at least Shiller finds him tolerable to look at.

The pale knight is the same. After the government shut down, he handled a massive amount of work all by himself. Although these tasks didn't make Gotham any better, and it wouldn't really matter if no one did them at all, he still buzzed around them, dizzy and disoriented. Shiller finds him quite tolerable, too.

But it's this Bruce. Wandering from East to West, from West to East. These past few days in Gotham he hasn't done anything else. The masters of Gotham are just masters, doing nothing but eating and playing.

Although at the start, he took control of most of Gotham's villains using his vampire bloodline, he didn't put these villains to work either. They just eat, drink, and be merry, or idle away time.

Shiller is starting to suspect that he's doing this on purpose.

If Bruce was actually preparing something secretly, appearing idle on the surface while busy behind the scenes, then Shiller would be a little more at ease. But judging from the results of this surprise check, he simply isn't preparing anything; he's purely idling.

Shiller is beginning to understand why Arrogance is always angry. Bruce always manages to precisely find the spot that annoys every type of person.

Shiller thought he was tolerant enough, with no type of thing considered trash in his eyes. But now he's starting to look at Bruce with some disdain.

"I need your help with something," Shiller said to Bruce.

"I won't do it," Bruce replied as he kicked a paper cup in the hallway. "You froze me into a block of ice before, and now you want my help? No chance!"

"Don't force me to go and complain to Arrogance."

"Then go ahead. All the stuff we're up to in this cosmos, if you tell him, it just means we'll both get scolded."

Shiller sighed; Bruce was truly a dead pig not fearing boiling water. Since that's the case, he could only resort to his trump card.

"You haven't graduated with your PhD yet, have you? What's your plan with your thesis?"

"I don't know," Bruce shook his head and said, "I'll have Arrogance correct it once I finish."

"Let him live a few more years," Shiller rolled his eyes and said, "Help me with some things, and when the time comes, I'll correct it for you."

"That won't do, I can't even tell if what you correct is right or not."

"You can't even tell if my correction is right or not?! My God, it's a miracle that Arrogance has lived until now," Shiller couldn't help but exclaim.

Seeing that Bruce was unmoved, Shiller had to change his approach. "Do you know that the content of your thesis isn't necessarily wrong?"

"Are you trying to encourage me?"

"I'm saying, what you've written doesn't qualify as a thesis. Arrogance, after reading so many narrative essays for years, is probably numb. Instead, you might as well write a truly terrible thesis; that'll really make him fly into a rage."

Bruce's eyes rolled around.

"Content that's incomprehensible naturally can't anger someone. Just like you wouldn't go online and argue with people who use a foreign language you can't understand; only content that can be understood has the power to attack," Shiller continued to persuade.

Bruce hesitated for about a second and then said, "Okay, what do you want me to do?"

"Don't worry, it's not difficult. First, you do this..."

After communicating with Bruce, Shiller went to the office of the warden of Arkham Asylum. But as soon as he entered, he felt somewhat disappointed. It was nothing like his own Arkham Sanatorium.

The office was actually quite large and lavishly decorated, but it clearly had last century's aesthetics. Dark-colored floors covered with red carpets, solid wood desks and bookshelves with golden patterns etched on their sides. The desk lamp had a green shade, and pens and ink were scattered on the table.

What surprised Shiller was that the office didn't have a computer but was equipped with a complete set of Eastern tea ceremony utensils and very soft and comfortable sofas.

There was another door in the office leading to another room. Upon opening this door, there were finally signs of modernity.

First, there was the computer for monitoring, and then what looked like a slightly complex control panel. From the wear marks, it was clear that Tuck probably never used it.

There were some panels embedded in the wall, each with a big button labeled "Emergency Containment Measures." Shiller guessed that these were probably used to immediately lock down the doors of certain rooms.

Arkham Asylum was divided into two parts, one was the main building where normal medical staff worked, and the other was the security building.

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Although it's called an insane asylum, it's actually a large prison, and the one with the highest security level in Gotham at that. Every super villain has their own individual cell, which looks quite like the containment units of the Foundation.

Many people who are not very familiar with the Batman comic series would think that not killing these super villains, but locking them up instead, is very foolish. But in fact, it's not the case.

As long as you treat these super villains as containment items of the Foundation, you can completely understand the rationale behind Batman's approach.

The reality, indeed, is that many of the criminals here are not even carbon-based. You can't kill someone like Clayface with a gun, and even nuclear bombs might not be able to completely kill him. In the end, you still need to find a place to lock him up.

So, if you're going to lock up one, you might as well lock up a group. As long as you build a jail that can contain someone like Clayface, those carbon-based creatures that can be killed by guns won't be able to make much of a splash.

This is how it's portrayed in the comics as well—those who can break out of jail are very rare. But the comics keep reiterating these few cases, which makes it seem like they're breaking out every day, making Batman's no-kill policy seem a bit foolish.

But in actuality, if you look at the annual death rate in Gotham, aside from supernatural factors like the Court of Owls, it's still pretty safe.

This also shows that the containment safety of the Batman Foundation is even stronger than that of some foundations. At least when things go out of control here, Batman doesn't run away.

Shiller found that, theoretically, if everything is functioning normally, the restrictive measures that Batman designed for each super villain are quite effective. Even if this group of criminals could forcibly break through the security measures, they would pay a high price and likely wouldn't be able to carry out their subsequent crimes.

However, judging from the history of this city, these security measures have never operated normally, not even once. If nothing else, someone must have tampered with them.

There are no ordinary criminals inside the whole insane asylum—the doctors and nurses only perform routine check-ups and consultations, generally don't provide long-term treatment, and leave after a period of time.

Thereby, the only ones who could tamper with something would basically be the wardens who stay here long term. Judging from Tuck's greedy and cowardly demeanor, he wouldn't possibly sneak into a jail to sabotage something. It must have been remotely controlled.

Shiller wandered around this room for quite some time but still didn't determine which devices Tuck had tampered with through. Gray Mist told him that apart from that emergency restriction button, this room contained only basic surveillance equipment.

After walking around, Shiller stopped in front of the emergency button panel again. It was the only device that showed significant signs of usage. Over the past few years, Tuck probably only used this device.

Shiller asked Gray Mist to go into the wall and check. After a short wait, Gray Mist came back and said, "This is it. The wires inside the wall are connected backwards."

"Connected backwards?"

"Yes. This isn't an emergency restriction button; it's a button to release emergency restrictions. If pressed, all security facilities activated due to an alarm will become ineffective."

"I see," said Shiller.

He studied the button carefully and found the categorization was quite meticulous. It included each cell, every corridor, and all the doors within the insane asylum.

One could fully imagine that once these criminals broke out, Tuck would frantically press it relentlessly. Forget Bane and Killer Croc—even the Mad Hatter, who seems to have an underdeveloped brain, would be able to sprint a hundred meters in two steps and smoke his way out.

Shiller stroked his chin and told Gray Mist, "Reconnect the wires so this can become a real emergency restriction measure."

Gray Mist quickly took care of it, and then Shiller took out a map from the drawer and began to study it. As he looked it over, he scribbled all over it for quite some time before he finished.

The enhanced map had many new additions, which appeared to be gates or roadblocks of some sort, anything that could obstruct a jailbreak.

However, with the design in hand, Shiller felt a bit stuck. Gray Mist could indeed handle renovations, but they would be slow because he needed to synthesize materials himself, and he hadn't done this kind of work before. Children aren't the kind who can handle physical labor.

It would be best to find a renovation team, but Shiller didn't have many people to utilize at the moment. Fels was temporarily out of commission; he'd have to figure out a way himself.

After thinking for a while, Shiller took out his phone and dialed a number. A somewhat weary female voice came from the other end.

"Hello, who is this?"

"It's me, Shiller, Lady Lusi. I have a plan that needs some help over here, do you have time lately?"

The woman's voice immediately rose with anger, "How dare you call me?! You destroyed the Charabang Family!!"

"Without the Charabang Family, have you become a stray dog? If so, you really need to improve your business skills. After all, stray dogs are the last thing Gotham is short of," Shiller spoke with an even tone. He continued, "Find me a renovation team by tonight, preferably one that has experience with bank vaults. Have them bring materials and come over as soon as possible, we can negotiate the price."

After speaking, he hung up the phone, took a picture of the design plans, and sent it to Fels, then said, "It's a done deal, I am now the warden. I've found a renovation team to increase the difficulty of the jailbreak. It will definitely be quite a spectacle."

After a pause, Shiller sent another message, "It's too boring to sit at home waiting for the results. I found a complete set of surveillance equipment here, very clear and without delay. How about you invite everyone to the casino to watch the jailbreak process, and it might even bring you closer to them."

Fels replied quickly, "I knew I was right about you! If I can get those big shots to come to the casino at my invitation, let's see how my dad can still say I'm not as good as that little bastard!"

Seeing this message, Shiller smiled.

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