Chapter 3070: Mercury Chronicles (20)

The core problem actually lies in Jenna's enthusiasm.

If Jenna honestly admitted, "This is the Psychoanalysis Method, and I derive conclusions by empathizing with the perpetrator or the victim based on the atmosphere," there wouldn't be so many contradictions.

Others would simply think you have an extra talent, and while they might be envious, everyone has their own strengths, and I am not necessarily weaker than you in my areas of expertise.

But Jenna felt that she could learn the Behavioral Analysis Method. She didn't intend to make things difficult for Bruce or other students, but she genuinely believed she was making sense and that her analysis was quite good, completely unaware that she was taking a hammer searching for nails.

For example, the thesis papers she handed to Bruce were among the top in all four classes in terms of word count and the detail of inferences, except that they were filled with absurd arguments similar to proof by contradiction; they seemingly had everything one could ask for.

This was what troubled Bruce the most, as Jenna was indeed seriously spouting nonsense, but unfortunately her conclusions were correct, and nobody could escape from being somewhat result-oriented, thus her correct results acted as strong supporters of her inference process.

Once the results matched, people would think her process of inference made sense, leading many students astray, and fabrication started to spread from person to person.

But Jenna indeed had a talent for mental analysis, and there were indeed a few others with a certain talent in this area among the four classes, though not as strong as Jenna, yet somewhat relevant.

But the majority of people were much like Bruce, who fundamentally lacked that particular channel in their brains—they lacked the hardware for using the Psychoanalysis Method but still found Jenna's approach very cool, and so they began to make wild guesses.

This also formed a trend; the more mysterious and illogical their guesses, the more they appeared to have detective talents, like those wittily brilliant detectives in detective novels.

Bruce was almost vomiting blood reading their papers, which, although couldn't be said to be logically clear, could literally be published as fantasy novels with just a cover added.

What pained him was that many promising students of Behavioral Analysis also began to doubt themselves, their inference processes seeming hesitant, and even with solid evidence, they began to write things like "not ruling out other possibilities."

Some, after submitting several papers with no progress in their conclusions, were called to Bruce's office. They fidgeted, saying they felt there were still some evidences not uncovered and needed thorough investigation, completely losing the courage to make judgments.

Bruce's heart ached as if it was bleeding, but he couldn't really reprimand them; how could he tell them to be decisive in making judgments, when making a wrong one would only further damage their confidence?

It could only be said that Bruce taught his adopted sons through an apprenticeship model, which indeed allowed education tailored to the individual, but during large-scale group education, he lacked the ability to perceive and guide group atmosphere, displaying a kind of deficiency in mental analysis talent.

Reading the atmosphere is actually a difficult skill, and the challenging part is that if a person entirely lacks the ability to "read the air," they could easily fail to integrate into the group and might be ostracized by the group, mocked for having low emotional intelligence.

But if someone's ability to read the atmosphere is too strong, they might care too much about others' opinions, afraid to go against the collective will, leading to a diminished sense of self and are more likely to become targets of bullying.

Balancing the atmosphere and self-awareness is difficult, and leaning too much towards one side can easily lead to psychological issues; leaning towards the former might lead to Empathy Disorder and the latter could develop into NPD, Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

And a group can also show these tendencies; whether everyone is willing to blend into the group atmosphere or maintain their self completely depends on the leader's guidance.

Leaning too much towards the former could lead to rigid thinking among the group members, turning them into assembly line workers, but the advantage is it can achieve absolute obedience with stronger execution capability; leaning too much towards the latter could lead to a disorganized organization with worrisome group work efficiency, but the advantage is a larger space for individual contributions, and more likely to produce good ideas.

Therefore, theoretically, Bruce should guide the group more towards the former, as after all, he is training agents, not artists, and blending into the group and improving execution are mandatory courses.

But the cruel part is that to guide towards such an atmosphere, he necessarily needs to suppress those libertarians, precisely speaking, to try and reduce individual spaces as much as possible, standardizing everyone's upper and lower limits.

However, Bruce found it hard to restrict Jenna's upper limits because, relatively speaking, the Psychoanalysis Method has a higher ceiling, entirely dependent on how deep the channel that God plowed is; if it's deep enough, it's almost like the Mind Reading Technique.

So in terms of personal capabilities, Bruce was unable to completely suppress Jenna; although he is the greatest detective in the world, it's tough when the opponent has a Gundam.

Not suppressing such a thorn early on, it was no surprise that it led to chaos later.

Now Bruce finally understood why Professor Shearer always made things difficult for him because if Professor Shearer hadn't figured out a way to hold him down back then, he would have been unable to teach the course.

Bruce would have been just like today's Jenna, convinced that his results and logic were correct, and naturally, some students would side with him and ignore what the teacher said.

Even if physical force could be used to maintain classroom discipline, it would only work short-term; if you could fight them, they'd only acknowledge you as stronger in physical skills, but still wouldn't respect your intelligence and knowledge.

Especially when teaching a class of geniuses, what use could subduing them with force be? They might even secretly mock you as being nothing more than a brute, and that would completely erode the teacher's authority.

Moreover, at that time, Professor Shearer might not necessarily have been able to overpower those Gotham students physically, so he could only rely on Wisdom.

"What is called realizing parental grace after raising a child," Bruce finally understood why Professor Shearer always had to clash with him back then.

In fact, he had thought about this question before. Although there were reasons related to the ties between Batman and Joker, it still comes down to the saying that all the paths Professor Shearer chose were his own, without being forced. His choice to act this way proved he wanted to act this way, and Bruce now fully understood the reasons behind it.

Moreover, Jenna was just an alien, not a particularly famous one, and the class also had a variety of bizarre-looking students; she wasn't outstanding in terms of hardware capabilities.

But at that time, Bruce Wayne was quite renowned; he didn't have to do anything—just appearing in the classroom could attract everyone's attention.

If Professor Shearer hadn't firmly suppressed him, adding some responsibilities on him, no one would have paid attention to the teacher in the classroom at all, all eyes would be on Wayne.

Then Bruce, to maintain his playboy persona, would have led some antics, and they might as well have not had the class at all, turning the classroom into a party venue instead.

So when they first met, Professor Shearer attracted his attention in the simplest way, thus creating the opportunity to suppress someone who was clearly a rebellious troublemaker.

But Bruce missed the best chance when he first met Jenna, failing to create a good opportunity, not arousing enough hostility and curiosity in her, and thus not being able to firmly capture her attention either.

Originally, he wanted to learn the Psychoanalysis Method just to compete with Professor Shearer, but Jenna was now studying the Behavioral Analysis Method because she felt she could really learn it. She had nothing to do with Bruce, viewing him merely as an ordinary teacher.

It was already impossible to completely suppress her academically, and now emotionally it was off the table too.

Questioning Professor Shearer, understanding Professor Shearer, becoming Professor Shearer, only to find himself not as good as Professor Shearer.

Of course, the main reason for not being able to suppress emotionally might still be that Bruce and Jenna were of different genders. If he were to engage in emotional manipulation, it might cause some unnecessary misunderstandings. Bruce and Selina were currently in a heated relationship, and he didn't want to waste his current emotions on someone else.

But Batman had also faced tough situations; although this situation started disastrously, Bruce had no plans to give up.

He felt he could talk to Jenna.

The reason for this decision had two factors. On one hand, Jenna's mental state was much healthier than his had been initially; this young girl and her brother must have also experienced some stories, otherwise, they wouldn't have ended up on Earth. Overall, her personality was very stable, her demeanor relatively positive and sunny, having no prejudices about herself, which created a basis for communication.

On the other hand, the environment here was much better than Gotham had been. The Justice League members all took good care of the students. Not to mention Clark's great personality, even the normally impatient Oliver and straightforward Diana were quite popular among the students.

Although he had messed up before, after explaining it, everyone understood relatively well. Both sides felt less pressure in reality, making their emotions more stable, and communication more efficient.

Bruce called Jenna to his office and sincerely discussed this issue with her, sincerely admitting he was truly not adept at psychoanalysis. If Jenna continued this way, it could seriously affect the progress of teaching.

He suggested if she wanted to advance in psychoanalysis, he could introduce Professor Shearer to her. If she wanted to study behavioral analysis, then he could tutor her outside of class, just asking her not to cause disputes and disagreements in the classroom.

Jenna was also full of grievances with nowhere to express them. Recently, she had been targeted by a lot of students, each wanting to argue with her to make the truth clearer: some out of curiosity, some out of defiance, which frustrated her quite a bit.

The two of them discussed and agreed that continuing this way was not a solution. Jenna was indeed more sensible than Bruce Wayne had been initially. She immediately declared that from now on, she would say that her Mind Reading Technique was an innate superpower. She would only be responsible for revealing answers, not the deductive process, believing that couldn't stir up arguments.

Bruce reciprocated by letting Jenna become his assistant, sharing the burden of preparing lessons and organizing discussions. Jenna could also learn some other knowledge from him in which he was proficient.

Both parties were very satisfied with this outcome. Bruce thought the issue had been perfectly resolved.

He had just thought to appreciate that communication was indeed the best way to solve problems when he discovered another paper in the pile of submitted essays that had a level of accuracy and fabrication similar to Jenna's.

What's going on here? How could there be another expert? Whose subordinate is this???

Bruce looked at the name signed below the essay - "Lilith Clay."

He called Miss Lilith to his office, wanting to see if she also possessed a strong Mental Analysis Talent like Jenna.

The result was the flamboyantly-dressed redhead flicked her long hair carelessly and said, "What Psychoanalysis Method? I've never heard of it."

"Then how did you know who the culprit in this case was?"

"I can read minds."