Chapter 576

After leaving Schiller's office, Lex began to contemplate how to complete this assignment.

Truth be told, he had never received any formal education; all the knowledge he possessed had been self-taught during the periods he managed to break free from Lionel.

When his father was still alive and administering his medication, he would put on a show of hiring private tutors, but those tutors all knew they were merely tools for Lionel to display his paternal love. Who would seriously teach a child with autism such advanced knowledge? No one believed Lex was capable of learning anything.

Therefore, he did not know how a research project was supposed to be conducted. However, setting aside the standard procedures, as long as the goal of the assignment was met, Lex believed he could manage it.

First, he possessed near-infinite wealth, which solved the vast majority of problems. No longer constrained by cost, he could focus his entire intellect on solving the problem. The sixteen-year-old genius believed that under such conditions, there was nothing he could not achieve.

Before starting his experiments, he needed to make preparations. The first step was to find a laboratory. Lex figured that since he was now a student at Gotham University, borrowing one of their labs should be permissible.

It was only when he went to look that he discovered Gotham University's laboratories could hardly be called laboratories at all. To put it politely, the equipment there would have been just right for Galileo.

Gotham University possessed two old laboratory buildings located behind the administration building. From the outside, both appeared quite large—one six stories high, the other seven—housing over twenty laboratories.

Yet, upon entering, Lex discovered there was no modern equipment to be found, and almost no teachers or students were conducting research there.

Everyone crowded into the westernmost new laboratory building to work, but that building was small, with only five usable floors and seven laboratories, each assigned to a specific department, leaving no space for Lex.

Since that was the case, Lex didn't limit himself to the university. He reasoned that a major city ought to have a few research institutes or academies.

Much like Metropolis, which, aside from the Center for Research, had many private institutes that accepted independent researchers for a fee. Lex was not short on money.

Then he discovered he had truly underestimated Gotham. After buying various maps and questioning many people, he confirmed that there were no research institutions here. The last research organization to appear in this city had been a seminary established by Europeans.

Gotham was not a city built on a foundation of technology; or rather, the city's entire technological backbone relied on Batman alone. He was a one-man army, and currently, the vast majority of high-tech equipment in Gotham was provided by him.

Lex certainly couldn't bring himself to ask Bruce to borrow a lab. He had to find another way.

With his financial resources, building a new lab or establishing an independent research institute wasn't difficult. However, that required time. Even donating a building to Gotham University would take at least a year to complete, and Lex couldn't wait that long.

After searching around, he finally found one place that might be usable: Victor's cryogenics laboratory.

Victor had been here for quite some time, and the lab was one he had renovated bit by bit. It occupied the basement, first floor, and second floor of the second old laboratory building, sufficient for all his experimental needs.

As another super-genius, Victor had crafted his base to be quite comprehensive. Despite not being the supervillain Mr. Freeze, he possessed all the necessary cryo-chambers, cold storage, and weapon caches, along with equipment for most physics and chemistry experiments.

Victor had a decent relationship with Bruce, so many of his advanced pieces of equipment were obtained from him in exchange for cryogenics technology.

Furthermore, Victor took on side jobs for gangs in his spare time, and his cryogenics patents generated income. He was quite wealthy now, so his lab was even evolving toward the standards of the Batcave, with well-stocked equipment for various disciplines. Occasionally, teachers from other departments would come to borrow it, which was how the lab gained its reputation.

Upon hearing this, Lex naturally wanted to borrow the lab, but he was rejected by Victor.

In Victor's eyes, Lex was just a freshman who hadn't even taken basic courses; what need did he have for experiments? Moreover, experiments were not child's play; Victor's lab contained many dangerous items.

Hearing that Lex was only sixteen, Victor refused without a second thought. No responsible teacher or researcher would allow an underage child to run around their professional laboratory—it was irresponsible toward the equipment, and even more so toward the child's safety.

Would Lex give up? Of course not. He was not Batman, nor a superhero; he carried no moral burden. He would stop at nothing to achieve his goals.

Thus, on the second night after being rejected by Victor, Lex broke into the laboratory building.

In Lex's view, Victor was just an ordinary scholar. His refusal meant nothing; Lex had plenty of ways to open the doors and sneak in. Once inside, he could use the equipment as he pleased.

Upon entering the first floor, just as Lex had expected, there was nothing special. It looked like an ordinary lab building. After opening the first room, the preparation area seemed unremarkable. Lex went in, changed into a lab coat, and even found an inventory list of the equipment.

He flipped through the catalog and discovered that the cold storage for special chemical reagents was in the basement. Thus, he headed toward the stairwell leading down.

Just as he descended a few steps, a bone-chilling cold wafted up from below. Lex shivered.

But he thought, it was normal for a place with cold storage to be colder than elsewhere. He was just going down to grab something and wouldn't stay long; he would be back up quickly.

An hour later, Victor looked at Lex, who was frozen at the entrance of the basement cold storage, and sighed.

Lex, trapped inside a massive block of ice, was still alive. Not only that, but his eyes could still move. He stared at Victor, clearly realizing that this elegant and gentle professor was not the ordinary scholar he had assumed.

"My cold storage is different from others. You must wear a special protective suit to enter, and specifically, you must wear special gloves to touch the door handle, otherwise, you end up like you—frozen solid in a block of ice instantly." Victor put on a pair of gloves and reached for the handle in front of Lex.

Lex's gaze fell upon that handle. That was where he had failed. He had come down the stairs, found the cold storage, and without a second thought, reached for the handle to open the door, only to be frozen instantly.

Lex had never seen or heard of such technology—capable of freezing a person into a massive block of ice in a split second. Moreover, he felt no discomfort, not even cold; his physiological functions and thoughts were normal, yet he was completely unable to move.

In his eyes, this technology was nothing short of a miracle. It was precisely because he understood the underlying science that he knew how powerful it truly was.

Victor, however, remained indifferent. He changed into a protective suit, walked into the cold storage, and retrieved a gun. With a "whoosh," a beam of light fired, striking the block of ice containing Lex.

With a "crack," the ice shattered. Lex stumbled twice as he landed, but managed to stand.

《First Clan》

"How is this even possible?" Lex turned left and right, examining the shards of ice on the ground. To him, they didn't look like ice; they resembled a high-density crystal similar to diamond.

"You should be answering my question first. What were you doing breaking in here? Your name is Lex, right? A freshman? Did no one tell you this is a restricted area of Gotham University?"

"I wanted to borrow the lab to complete an assignment given by Professor Schiller," Lex replied.

Hearing Schiller's name, Victor frowned. He stepped back and sized Lex up, noticing that although Lex appeared frail and pale, his eyes held a peculiar glow.

The last person to be personally assigned work by Schiller was Bruce, and Victor knew very well how much of a genius Bruce was. Did Schiller believe this teenager was on par with Bruce?

Victor suddenly became interested. He turned and walked back to the console, picked up a protective suit, and tossed it to Lex. "Follow me in. I'll ask you a few questions. If you can answer them, I might consider lending you the lab."

Lex said nothing, simply put on the suit, and walked inside. The sight within the laboratory opened his eyes even further.

Gotham was a strange place. The wealth gap here wasn't just reflected in the city's architecture and the lives of its citizens; it was also evident in technology.

The laboratory building adjacent to this one was dilapidated, as if it had returned to the Middle Ages, yet this lab Victor used looked like an alien facility transported intact from a flying saucer.

The walls were a grayish-blue, made of a metal Lex couldn't identify. The joints between the metal plates were sealed with the same high-density crystal he had seen earlier, and every two plates featured a strip of cold-light illumination.

There were four rows of experimental benches, oriented with the four walls. In the center of the room stood a massive machine that spanned two floors, fixed to the floor of the first level and the ceiling of the second, with blue liquid surging within, emitting a dreamlike glow.

Beside the massive machine were two consoles with buttons that would make anyone dizzy. Beyond that, near the windows, were rows of filing cabinets, and a workstation for test tube racks, where various reagents emitted a faint light.

In short, if one were to wake up in such a lab, it would be a blessing if the creature walking in to check on you didn't have six legs.

Just as Lex was surveying the entire laboratory, the door suddenly opened. Another slight, thin figure walked in, carrying a stack of documents.

"Professor Victor, the materials I took back to organize yesterday are finished. Should I put them in filing cabinet number two?"

Lex turned around, and both he and the newcomer froze. Lex saw a thin boy who looked even younger than himself, with a pale complexion and gloomy eyes hidden beneath his brow ridge.