An ordinary man, who hadn't slept for more than two hours one night, felt deep resentment after being abruptly woken by the clamor of a battle between several individuals and agents. The irritation was deep enough to drive him to drink.
Of course, it wasn't his style to drown his sorrows alone. As such, he sought out his former drinking mate, Joker Jack. Largely disgruntled due to his insomnia, he unintentionally divulged what he had seen in the Metropolitan Mayor's Mansion to Jack.
Jack, on the other hand, was jobless and stuck at home due to a traffic accident and snowstorm in Gotham. Incapacitated by boredom, he was eager to be part of the excitement upon hearing about it.
However, a more pressing challenge at hand is how to get Jack into Metropolis.
Of course, there is a peculiar law in DC called the "Batman-Joker Convergence" law.
Wherever there is Batman, Joker is never far. Similarly, wherever Joker goes, Batman is bound to appear. If they happen to be separated, the other will defy all physical laws, appearing out of nowhere to deal a crippling blow to the other's plans.
In simpler terms, if Batman resides upriver by the Yangtze, and Joker lives downriver, by the next day, the Yangtze transforms into a superhighway then.
However, Schiller found that this phenomenon seems to follow the observer effect. By keeping a close eye on Batman and observing Joker in his dreams, the two couldn't seemingly defy physics and come together.
Thus, the simplest method was to retrace Schiller's steps—moving downward from Joker's dreams, traversing the Dream God Kingdom, and returning to Schiller's dreams.
Brushing aside the shock and a touch of admiration in the Dream God's eyes upon hearing Schiller's plan to let Joker enter his dream, this conduit was indeed faster. In order to prevent Joker from lingering too long in the Dream Kingdom, the Dream God opened the door directly in their faces. Joker arrived there in an instant.
Once Joker was in place, it was time to deal with the important characters. Schiller chose to deal with the easiest one first—Lex.
While Lex was incredibly intelligent, his physical health was lacking. Schiller managed to knock him out using some random excuses and put him into a dream state, using the scent of the Mad Liquor.
The challenging one was Bruce. After Constantine got affected the last time, he had come to understand the principle behind Mad Liquor. If Schiller approached Bruce with a bottle of the drink, he would definitely keep his distance.
So Schiller exploited Selina's kleptomaniac tendencies, luring her into the mansion's wine cellar. He then had her take a bottle of red wine—swapped for the Mad Liquor—and bring it back to her and Bruce's guest room.
While Bruce did not drink, Selina didn't mind, and Bruce didn't demand that Selina abstain either. The moment Selina popped the bottle of wine, Bruce was caught off guard, and they both got ensnared.
However, Schiller did not put Selina into that dream; he only gave her a separate room, letting her play in an amusement park full of gems.
Afterwards, to prevent Bruce from waking up midway, he moved Bruce to another room and poured a bit of Mad Liquor into his wine glass. This way, the scent would continue to evaporate, maintaining the dream's stability.
The most difficult one was Clark. Before making a move, Schiller wasn't even sure that Clark could absorb the scent.
Fortunately, Clark was the least suspicious. Schiller simply walked into Clark's room with the remaining half bottle of the Mad Liquor.
Clark didn't drink either, but that was not because he didn't want to. He had just grown up in a rather innocuous environment where his parents did not allow him to drink. After coming to university, since he did not have good social relations and was not invited to parties, he never had a chance to drink.
His curiosity towards alcohol got the better of him, and upon hearing that Schiller had brought a bottle, he was eager to try it.
He gobbled down most of the bottle in one go.
It was when he consumed half of the original, potent Mad Liquor that Clark finally showed signs of tipsiness. Unbeknownst to him, if he had not gotten drunk at that point, Schiller would have given up on his plan, as it was becoming quite pricey.
Fortunately, once Clark finished the remaining Mad Liquor, he was finally inebriated. But this was only the beginning.
After Clark passed out from the drink, Schiller found out that he couldn't connect to Clark's dream.
The worst-case scenario had taken place—Kryptonians' brain waves may not be compatible with those of humans. Simply put, a Type C charger just wouldn't fit into an Android plug.
Fortunately, just as with different plug types, Schiller could still find a way to create a converter. After putting in considerable effort to finally craft one, Schiller realized that the data stored on the other end was enormous.
As everyone knows, Superman possesses a super brain. Even though he doesn't use it very often and spends half of his time controlling his powers, the remainder of his brain capacity is something that humans can only dream of.
While Kryptonians may look like humans, they are completely different beings. As such, the structures of their brains are entirely different from ours, leading to varying data storage capacities for the same brain size.
Humans forget things because their brains instinctively filter out less vital information. The reason they fail to recall certain details about certain environments is due to the brain processing received information more efficiently.
Kryptonians, however, do not have this function because their brain capacity is virtually infinite, which means that they remember every single detail of their surroundings. None of their memories will be forgotten.
Worse still, this youthful version of Superman hasn't realized that he's a Kryptonian yet, so he's using his brain just like a human would.
And it's not even the genius human usage like that of Bruce's, what Clark is using is the method of an ordinary person. However, the difference is that all the memories and details he thinks he has forgotten are actually preserved in his brain.
Since this information is completely out of his control, Clark doesn't restrict their output. Therefore, the moment Schiller connected to Clark's consciousness, he was inundated with a deluge of useless information.
As a result, Schiller had to limit the output of Clark's consciousness, but this led to another problem. Clark needed his consciousness to curb his superpowers. If the consciousness he accessed was inadequate yet he tried to mimic normal superpowers, Clark would definitely notice something was off.
The superpowers of Kryptonians are different from the ones that Peter and others acquire through mutations. Instead, Kryptonians' superpowers are innate, and the control and application of such powers are ingrained in their genes.
So, Schiller could not make Clark believe that he was completely ordinary. This would make Clark feel very awkward. Since the connection was unstable to begin with, he would wake up from the dream the moment he noticed something unusual.
The consciousness can't access too much, but it also needs to preserve superpowers. The only solution then, was to weaken the superpowers.
But weakening the powers also requires finesse. Firstly, Schiller used the known fact about radiation to weaken Clark's upper limit of abilities, leading him to believe that some unknown radiation made him weaker. Just because your character is strong now, doesn't guarantee that he will be in the future.
Next, in the accessed consciousness, the part that handles emotions was given more importance. A more emotionally charged thought process would lessen his precision in controlling abilities. Just because your character is strong now, doesn't guarantee that that part is what makes him strong.
Finally, in the latter part of the scene, kryptonite was used to limit the exertion of Clark's superpowers, reducing the computational capacity used on him. Just because your character is strong now, doesn't mean there aren't other characters that could control him.
In short, after several rounds of heavy cuts, the original version of the Son of Superman, Clark, had essentially become a discarded version. At least, that's what Schiller initially thought at this stage.
But Superman is far more than a simple character.
Originally, Clark's part was to end when he was thrown back into the banquet hall, but Schiller didn't expect that his butler, Merkel, would choose that moment to search his mansion and happen to come into contact with the bottle of wine that was previously used to pit Constantine.
Normally, Schiller could determine who could access the dream world, but at that time, he was busy watching the show and painting the wall next door, and didn't notice a small consciousness entering the room.
As a result, Superman, who should have been out of the scene, suddenly exploded.
And evidently, Superman is the cure-all for every flashy move.
Whether it's the arrival of a light screen, Consciousness Isolation, Consciousness Extraction, or even the psychic defenses of Ye Meng Jia De, all proved futile in front of him.
The titles of God of the World or Son of the Sun weren't given to Superman in vain. Even in Schiller's dreams, he could descend from the heavens in a law-defying and physics-defying manner.
Normally, even if Superman retrieved his weakened powers, it would not have such serious consequences. But the problem was, Clark had experienced great stimulation at that time, and he didn't have good control over his powers, and hence, he exploded.
The aftermath of the explosion needs no detailed explanation, the once high-floating Ye Meng Jia De, was directly blown away, and when he hit the ground, the entire snake was stunned.
The two rooms Schiller built before had completely disappeared, along with the more than 20 floors within the blast radius.
But this was not the worst consequence.
On the eve of the explosion, Schiller, realizing things were now beyond his control, kicked all the other consciousnesses out of the dream to free up more memory space to handle the potential impact.
The result was that only three people were left to face the blast directly: DC Schiller, Joker Schiller, and Joker Jack.
Not to mention Joker Jack who ran back crying, both DC Schiller and Joker Schiller were at the epicenter of the explosion.
Though this was Schiller's dream and he had some defensive measures, both were still blown down.
Inside the hospital on the 200th floor, Schiller, donning a white coat, looked gleefully at Black Suit Schiller lying in bed.
At this point, DC Schiller had plaster on one arm, a bandaged forehead, and lay on the bed with a face full of abject despair.
White-coated Marvel Schiller put away his stethoscope and stood up, saying with a touch of excitement:
"I've wanted to play in the DC World for a while, believe me, I'm not going to mess anything up."
DC Schiller, lying on the bed to the left, and Joker Schiller, lying on the bed to the right, exchanged glances and then both sighed deeply.