Chapter 40: Life's just a game full of Disappointment

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"Knowing you're different is only the beginning. If you accept these differences you'll be able to get past them and grow even closer."

-MISS KOBAYASHI, (DRAGON MAID)

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<Bruce Wayne POV)>

"So, let me get this straight. You went to Zatanna's father to ask him to teach you magic after telling him that you know all about him and his family being a real magical family which you had been planning for the last few months and after just asking once, he agreed to teach you magic without even being surprised... just like that?" Cortana asked in somewhat a surprised voice.

"Yep just like that." I smiled, satisfied at having managed to surprise my AI assistant which was a pretty rare feat.

Truthfully, even I was surprised about the turn of events. In fact, I had made about a dozen countermeasures in case the senior Zatara wanted to erase my memory to make me forget everything to keep the concept of magic a secret or if he suddenly determined that I was a threat to him or his daughter and decided to eliminate me.

I had taken my anti-mind manipulation necklace with me at that time to make sure that nobody mind rapes me or something.

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I had also worn my new John Wick-inspired bulletproof suit although I doubt it could tank the bullshit power of magic. Additionally, I had my now improved and heavily armed Bat-tool with twenty-plus different weapon modes.

But still, my biggest defense against him was not any of these but it was none other than his own daughter, Zatana who was supposed to hide during my conversation with her father and come out of hiding to stop or persuade her father(whichever was required) if things went south.

But contrary to both my and Zatana's expectations, Giovanni Zatara just sighed after my big reveal of knowing about his family's magical heritage and just agreed to teach me magic.

It was that easy. I didn't even have to use my puppy eyes which was my number twelfth countermeasure to convince him in case everything else failed.

But unfortunately, not everything was as simple as it seemed. Giovanni had agreed to teach me 'about' magic but had also informed me a certain thing about magic that I wasn't privy to before.

***(Flashback starts)***

"I had suspected you of knowing about magic and my family's special talents in it for a long time Bruce, especially after I started sensing such an influx of... life inside you. Also, I knew that my daughter would never be able to keep her mouth shut for long even if you don't figure it out yourself, Can you now my little sugarpie?" He concluded while looking at the door of his office room.

"You knew?" Zatana asked as she entered the room with a guilty face.

"You might have learned a lot of magic Zatana but you still aren't as good as me and you will have to work a lot harder if you ever want to be... Also, I knew someone was stealing my unused magical contracts. Those things are not cheap to make and I keep count of every single one of them." He added with a mock smile.

"Yeah sorry." Zatana laughed a little nervously.

"It's okay. How can I be angry at my little baby witch for stealing my extremely expensive contracts? Just remember to ask Daddy next time." He teased.

"Oh COME ON Dad. Stop embarrassing me. Geez." Zatana huffed as she marched to the nearest sofa and sat down there with a pout on her face to show her anger at her father's teasing.

"Anyway, so that means you can teach me magic?" I asked with excitement bubbling in me. Giovanni might have an idea about my chi as he had referred to it as me being filled with life and as every weeb knew it, life force was basically qi or chi or whatever else fancy name you call it by.

But I am sure he didn't know about any of my other abilities or inventions. And, since he still hadn't tried to delete my memories, there was a high chance of him taking pity on me and teaching me some magic as self-defense to survive in Gotham.

"Well, I can teach you escapology, how to trick people, how to confuse the five senses, I can give you as much knowledge on demons, gods, monsters, and magic as you might possibly need. But unfortunately, I can't 'teach' you magic, at least not the kind I know and excel in, not the kind you might want to learn." He looked at me apologetically.

"What do you mean? Is it some kind of secret forbidden family secret that you can't reveal or something?"

"No, not really. *Sigh* You see 'we' in proper formal terms are called mages. We can manipulate mana, the purest and most fundamental form of magical energy in this world to do magic. But this ability cannot be learned, it can only be inherited. Only the branch of humans called homo magi who have a particular genetic trait in them can be a mage and directly manipulate mana.

But you sadly do not belong to that group of people. Of course, one can always become a magician by other means like borrowing power from someone else like a God or an object or a Demon or some other interdimensional entity but that's called a sorcerer, not a proper mage. Sorcerers are by the way the most common magic wielders in the world." the senior Zatara explained.

"So can't I just be a sorcerer? I mean, I don't see any harm in it since it sounds like mages and sorcerers possess the same level of strength." I asked.

"The same level of strength? What sorcerers can do seems like little tricks in front of what true mages can do. Sorcerers get a lot of power pretty easily, yes but that power comes with a lot of baggage including but not limited to the gradual corruption of the person's soul, a life debt to the being who is granting him his powers, control of the object or entity granting those powers over the person receiving them as well as a capped limit on how much magic he is allowed to use. But a mage on the other hand manipulates the very fabric of reality itself and can virtually do anything he or she wants with it, the only limit being his or her own imagination and talent."

"Oh, that's cool," I respond, not able to find anything better to say at the explanation.

'Yes, it's very cool indeed. But that's why even if I give you all the knowledge of magic I have, the spells you can use as a sorcerer will be very limited and most of them will come at a heavy price, a cost even more expensive than what mages like us pay to use magic." He finished.

"Yeah, but until I figure something out to overcome that little hurdle, I can still at least learn the theory and history of magic from you. And, who knows, maybe I can become a powerful sorcerer if I find a just and merciful entity to borrow or maybe some unoccupied dimension to draw power from." I showed a weak sad smile to Giovanni who just looked at me with pity in his eyes.

It looked like he wanted to say something else, something important but at the last moment controlled himself and just nodded at my words with an expressionless face.

Yeah, there's no way I am going to form any contract with any type of entity in this world, no matter if they are good or bad. I had even heard of a certain hero called Dr. Fate who was controlled by his helmet even though they were both supposed to be the good guys or something. Maybe I can think deeper about the 'drawing power from some other dimension' part but I would probably just use my knowledge and ability to try to come up with some way to use magical power without getting enslaved to some deity or getting my soul corrupted somehow.

Hell, maybe I could even figure out how this homo magi gene of the unique magical human race works and get something like that for myself. That sounds more promising and safe than just doing random contracts with demons and entities to use magic while hoping for the best. By the way, I wonder how Constantine uses magic. I never really read his comics but I did see the movie. That one single movie had made him one of my favorite DC characters ever but again that might just be my inner Keanu Reeves fan talking.

"Fine, then from now on Bruce, I Giovanni Zatara declare you as my apprentice, just like my daughter." The mage declared proudly after thinking for a few seconds.

And that my friends was how I, Bruce Wayne started to learn magic... kinda.

***(Flashback ends)***

"You were having a flashback, weren't you?" Cortana asked with a straight face as her digital teenage avatar on the screen stared at me intensely.

Perhaps, I should make a hologram projector for her to interact better with the physical world.

"Uh, maybe. Anyway, let's continue to what we were doing. We still have to debug and catalog all the information we collected from Aethyr's psyche to our database. Make a simulation of the entire Krypton planet and all its colonies according to her memory, as well as her knowledge of every Kryptonian she ever knew and every technology she had ever interacted with or seen in her life that we could rebuild.

Also, make a separate folder for the training she received. I want to know if she or her race knew anything about magic or chi and if they had any method of practicing them. Wait, maybe we can even make her into a simulated digital avatar so that I could use her as a training dummy in my simulations but again that would be useless since we only need her knowledge. As a thinker, she would be absolutely worthless. But perhaps we could copy other people's minds and simulate them digitally. To have the minds of individuals at the top of their respective fields working for me, for free...

Yeah, that's actually a brilliant idea. I would not have to work so hard in the lab all the time and could just leave inventing normal stuff to others. Imagine digital simulations of Lex Luthor and Harry Wells, if they exist with their original intelligence as my employees. Yep, that's doable but the processing power and data storage required will be immense, so I'll have to do quite some upgrades and improvements to the servers and computers. That will probably be a long-term project..." I continued to ramble incoherently not even noticing Cortana staring at me with awe and excitement in her face.

What I was planning was any AI's wet dream, to not just bring people to digital simulations but be able to host and simulate actual thinking beings within itself. It was some next-level shit of computing.

<(Omniscient POV)>

"AHHHHHH AHHHHHH, please, I told you, I don't know anything. Just let me go. Pleaaaase. AHHHHH." A well-built man tied to a chair with blood everywhere on him was crying his throat out as a group of intimidating people wearing formal suits continued to torture him.

"Now, do you remember anything?" An African-American woman sitting in front of him asked in a calm voice, not showing even an ounce of emotion.

"I told you. I d-don't know anything. I just did w-what Lionel Luthor hired me to do. I only collect certain things for him and do s-some security work. I have no idea about any attack. P-Please just please believe me god please." The man shouted and cried shedding tears trying to plead his case.

"You know what Richard. I know liars when I see one and you are not lying. I know you are innocent but you see my bosses do not know that and I'll have to answer them. The government really likes to pin its faults on innocent common people like you and I'll have to do exactly that if you do not cooperate. But I want to help you. So let me help you. Give me something significant enough and I'll let you go and I promise you'll be with your family in no time." She said, still not showing a single expression.

"I-I..."

"And don't say 'I don't know' because I neither have the time nor the patience to hear that come out of your mouth even one more time." She interrupted.

"... Look, Lionel Luthor found something in Smallville, some sort of super secret technology that he excavated from one of the old caves in the city. He was doing illegal experiments with it. Whatever happened that day was because something from those experiments got out. He tried really hard to cover it up and recover whatever got free but as far as I know someone else did it before him because he never found what he was looking for." The man named Richard confessed.

"I see and what happened at his black site research lab that night? I heard a lot of people lost their lives and it got completely destroyed." She enquired further.

"I don't know, I wasn't there but the people who were said that they were attacked and some ninja infiltrated the site to steal information and they were successful. The thing that Lionel found from the cave would have been stolen as well if Lionel hadn't already moved it to somewhere else that evening."

"Anything else?" Waller asked with a raised brow at which the man could only shake his head.

"No, that was all, am I free now?" The man asked, hopeful for once.

"Oh yes of course. You are very much free but you see I can't have you go back to your old employer wagging your tail like a loyal little dog. I know it as a fact that once Luthor complains about me to my corrupted superiors addicted to his fat pockets and sugary titties, they will find a way to demote me or shut down the investigation. But I really am sorry to do this." As soon as she completed speaking, one of her subordinates suddenly slit the tied-up man's neck from behind not giving him even a chance to defend himself.

"Get me a list of everyone important who was in Smallville on that day, anyone with money or political connections or public influence or some other shady background, and get a team in that cave. I want to know exactly what Luthor has as well as every dirt you can get on him. I want to know everything that happened in Smallville, EVERYTHING." She ordered at which her subordinates nodded respectfully and went to do their designated work.

'This is a golden opportunity for me. There is a chance that I can use this to get a hold of the Luthors and climb the ladder that those fat pigs aren't allowing me to climb. All I have to do is just either figure out what Luthor found in that cave or who infiltrated his little illegal laboratory. And soon I'll be one of the people playing the game instead of letting myself be manipulated by others like a pawn." She thought as a small cold smile manifested on her face.

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