By the time the sound of approaching sirens rolled closer,
Ian was already walking away, humming to himself.
He took another couple of gulps of his science drink. As he passed the gym entrance, he had originally planned to leave right after achieving his goal. He had no interest in lingering around a place overflowing with what he considered a distinctly English atmosphere.
However,
the two nerdy-looking guys standing outside the gym caught his attention.
One was tall, the other was a short guy with glasses, and the two of them were pacing anxiously in front of the entrance.
"I can do this. I definitely can!"
The shorter guy in glasses was trying to psych himself up, both fists clenched tight.
"As long as I build some muscle, Penny will definitely fall for me!"
The skinny, short-haired man beside him rolled his eyes.
"Leonard, according to the research data on page 327 of Evolutionary Psychology, female preference for muscularity only ranks sixth in mate selection."
He offered the reminder.
"Shelton, science isn't always right! To hell with evolutionary psychology!"
The guy named Leonard clearly had no intention of listening to his friend's advice.
"I can absolutely become a muscle-bound beast! And then my love life will begin."
He clenched his fist, radiating a kind of misplaced confidence that Ian found oddly familiar.
"We're scientists. We should trust..."
Shelton paused, then took a few steps backward.
"Fine. If you insist, you'll first need to find a way to step through that door. Our friendship only allows me to accompany you this far. The inside of that place is basically a breeding ground for bacteria and viruses. I refuse to enter a place where I could die from syphilis or some other disease."
As he spoke, he pulled out his phone.
"What are you doing?"
Leonard suddenly had a bad feeling.
"I need to order some alcohol. When you get home tonight, I'll be dunking you in it. How does eighty percent alcohol sound? I respect my roommate's preferences and choices."
Shelton remained perfectly polite.
"Are you trying to kill me?"
Leonard snapped in frustration.
"That's true. Good point. I don't want to go to prison. So seventy-five percent should be sufficient."
As he spoke, Shelton immediately began furiously tapping at his phone to place the order.
...
Leonard clutched his head in speechless despair.
And at that moment,
"Hey, you two. Good evening."
Ian finally remembered why the guy's confidence had felt so familiar. He had once again run into two characters who should not have existed anywhere in the DC Universe.
Two leads from The Big Bang Theory.
Ian had watched that sitcom while learning English in his previous life. All he really remembered was that the characters were outstanding nerdy scientists.
The rest did not matter.
Even if he had never seen the show, he still would have cared about only one thing: the fact that they were scientists.
That was what interested him most.
He had a laser gun.
He had the Marvel world.
So of course he needed to know as many outstanding scientists as possible.
Copying novels was only the first step.
Copying science was the true golden road.
Ian also had a sincere desire to use technology to benefit himself and, incidentally, all of humanity.
"Uh..."
Seeing someone walk up to them, Leonard immediately waved his hand reflexively.
"I need to keep my brain clear, so I don't need any fitness enhancement products!"
Clearly, this was not his first time coming here. He was already very familiar with the usual sales套路 outside gyms.
"I'm not selling enhancement products."
Ian tucked his Coke bottle out of sight and defended his identity while the two physicists, who knew at least a little chemistry, stared at him.
Leonard frowned, unconvinced.
Shelton, meanwhile, looked thoughtful.
"He's right, Leonard. He's that handsome. Penny would probably be willing to spend five hundred, no, eight hundred dollars on him. He has much faster illegal ways to make money available to him."
"If he possesses even eighty percent of a normal person's intelligence, he should be approaching wealthy women, blackmailing wealthy women, and building a fortune. That path could definitely make him a billionaire."
Scientist Shelton delivered his perfectly rational analysis with total seriousness.
"!!!!"
Even Ian was stunned.
"You have superior intelligence too?"
For once, he was genuinely shaken from the heart.
"I'm a theoretical physicist and a future Nobel Prize winner, so of course I have superior intelligence."
Shelton tilted his head, then gave the response as if it were completely self-evident.
Smack.
Leonard pressed a hand to his forehead in helpless silence.
He felt like the boy in front of him and the friend beside him had just delivered a coordinated double attack.
"So, kid, what exactly do you want from us?"
Leonard took a deep breath, calmed himself down, and looked at Ian, who could be identified as a middle schooler at a glance.
Ian responded immediately.
"I'm a student determined to become an outstanding capitalist. I need a group of scientists to become my workhorses and labor for me."
He extended an olive branch to the two of them.
Leonard naturally thought he was joking.
Shelton, on the other hand, lit up.
"Comparing employees to workhorses. Mm. Very vivid, and very honest. I enjoy talking to honest people, even though most honest people aren't very intelligent. Don't misunderstand me. I'm merely saying that lying requires fabricated details, and fabricating details is a high-difficulty behavior that demands exceptional intelligence."
It was impossible to tell whether he was complimenting Ian, insulting Ian, or praising himself.
It did not matter.
Ian was broad-minded.
"Shelton! Shut up!"
Leonard was even more bothered by his roommate's rudeness. He turned apologetically to Ian.
"Listen, kid. We're professors at Metropolis Institute of Technology."
"Our income is decent. We don't need to switch jobs."
Even though he still thought Ian was joking or playing a prank, he at least offered him a degree of courtesy and sincerity.
To that,
Ian blinked.
"I'm backed by Wayne Enterprises."
He was not lying. He just was not telling the whole truth.
As a contracted author signed under a tiny publishing house owned by Wayne Enterprises, how was he not backed by Wayne Enterprises?
The boss himself had faith in him.
"Huh?"
Both Leonard and Shelton were visibly stunned.
"Wayne Enterprises! That Wayne Enterprises?"
Shelton was suddenly electrified.
"Bruce Wayne ranks third among the sixteen people I admire most!"
"Only Batman ranks higher!"
"Bruce Wayne is absolutely the most underrated capitalist and inventor of this century!"
It had to be said, Shelton might actually be very consistent in his own strange way.
Compared to Shelton's instant faith, Leonard was not nearly as easy to convince.
"You're connected to Wayne Enterprises? What kind of connection?"
Leonard looked Ian up and down in disbelief. To him, Ian only looked like a kid from a normal upper-middle-class family.
"What kind of connection? Put it this way. Bruce Wayne owes my dad his life."
Ian answered seriously, and what he said was completely true.
"A life debt!"
Leonard suddenly looked enlightened. At least, he felt enlightened.
"So your father started a company and got support from Wayne Enterprises?"
Despite his amazement, he still did not think a kid like Ian could possibly be trying to start a company himself.
"Sorry."
After weighing it for a moment, Leonard still looked ready to refuse.
But at that moment,
Ian opened his schoolbag.
He intended to appeal directly to the tastes of two nerdy scientists.
"Wow. That bull-head figure is incredibly detailed!"
Shelton was the first to notice the unusual object inside Ian's bag, though naturally he did not imagine anything supernatural.
Leonard was the same.
"It even moves!"
He was genuinely amazed, and for a brief moment he had a very bold thought. He really wanted to ask Ian where he had bought the figure.
"I'm not just a future capitalist and a future bestselling author. I'm also a comic artist."
Ian pulled out a sketchbook.
On the cover was the original art for The Boys.
It had to be said,
he had a very good grasp of what made two nerdy science types tick.
"It's actually a comic. The artwork is really good."
Leonard was instantly drawn in, even setting aside his earlier bold thought for the moment. He unconsciously took the draft of The Boys from Ian's hand.
Shelton leaned in too.
A moment later,
"Whoa! This comic is intense!"
The two longtime comic fans could not help but marvel.
"Genius! He's a comic genius! Leonard! Leonard! We have to work for him! Then we can threaten him into drawing us into the comic too!"
Shelton was clearly fired up. Ian was just about to strike while the iron was hot and pull out the kind of ruthless contract terms he had learned from great entrepreneurs of the people.
And then,
something completely unexpected happened without warning.
[The dormant class has met the conditions for awakening.]
The system's voice rang out abruptly.
Sufficient recognition.
That was the true power capable of surpassing everything.
(End of Chapter)
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