Victor pounded the table with his pen and slammed a stack of papers in front of Bruce, saying, "Is this the rubbish you produced this week? And the formula I asked you to research? What's the progress? The report?"
"You can't even make progress on your own project, let alone the ones you promised to help your juniors with. Just what have you lot achieved this week? Even the shit from a dog is more orderly than the work all three of you have done!"
Victor stood up from the table and said in a louder voice, "Don't you know what type of situation we are in? Do I have to drag you idiots to Arkham Mental Hospital and let you face Professor Shearer?"
"Setting aside his fury, do you guys take me for a pushover? Is that why you still deliver crap after I've been nagging you four or five times this week?"
Pamela listlessly rested her chin on the table and muttered, "I already said I don't have any more funding. The cabbage I grew last time caused a fight in the neighboring lab and all the medical costs have left me broke."
"Couldn't you have chosen a plant that wouldn't go crazy and attack people?! I told you when you chose cabbage! Don't pick a plant with massive leaves!"
"More so, how many times have I emphasized, any plant in Gotham could go crazy at any time! Why don't you bring a freeze gun along when you enter the greenhouse?!"
The sound of muffled laughter was heard. Victor immediately glared at Lex and said, "You dared to laugh?! Lex Luther, you were researching the Ark Reactor under Shearer, but now you're studying sociology under me. What a rebellious spirit you have!"
Lex went silent and looked down. The other graduate students trembled in fear, afraid their physics professor might pull out his freeze gun and turn them into ice sculptures. The embarrassment was their biggest concern.
Victor paced around the table, his gaze lingered on Elliot's face. Annoyed, he took out the freeze gun and aimed. "Whoosh," Elliot was frozen on the spot before he could react.
Elliot was caught off guard. In his eyes, Victor wasn't Mr. Freeze, but an ordinary university professor in Batman's day-to-day life. He originally planned on sleeping through the entire meeting so he could go out as Batman in the evening. However, he was frozen before he had a chance to react.
The meeting ended and Victor showed no intention of thawing him. Once everyone had left, Victor slapped the table and said, "I'll have Mayor Roy move you to the top of the building, and let your fans see the heroic sight of Batman sleeping during a meeting!"
He stormed off, leaving the dumbfounded Eliot frozen in ice, unable to free himself.
Thankfully, Victor didn't plan to leave him frozen overnight. Around midnight, the ice cracked, and Elliot fell to the floor, hitting his head on a chair leg.
He stood up, rubbing his head, and softly cursed. As he left the empty conference room and stood at the entrance of Gotham University, he had no idea where to go.
Firstly, he couldn't enter Wayne Manor. He had tried, but Thomas, being Batman, had installed an automatic security system on the front gate. Elliot couldn't get close.
Secondly, all the bank cards and credit cards under the name of Bruce Wayne had been frozen. So even if Elliot had the passwords, he couldn't use the cards to pay for a hotel room.
The lab and the mysterious outer space base were out of the question. Elliot isn't unintelligent, in fact, his IQ was above average, and his grades were decent, but only when it came to university knowledge.
Now Gotham University only had two types of people, outright illiterates who had given up, or super-geniuses who had awards named after their surnames.
Elliot couldn't mingle with those illiterates, neither could he become one of the geniuses. He couldn't understand any of the projects Bruce had previously taken over, he didn't even dare to interact with Lex or Pamela in case he exposed himself.
Elliot thought that his only difference with Batman was physical appearance. As long as he had Batman's look, he could replace him completely, inheriting his wealth, status, and prestige.
He also harbored the thought that if he became Bruce Wayne, he would do better, even better than Batman. He believed had a million ways to save the city better than Bruce and Batman.
Elliot thought Bruce was unproductive. He fantasized that once he took over, he would actively develop businesses, expand charities, help orphans, and let the media propagate his image, making everyone see him as Gotham's savior.
Elliot also thought Batman was indecisive. He should create mass destructive weapons, kill the mob bosses, put each street under his control, and not give the crazies opportunities to get placed in the mental hospital and just execute them all.
He could infiltrate every layer of Gotham with his Batwing, then thoroughly control the city, becoming the king of the City of Darkness, the true Gotham King.
Elliot realized, the path would not be pleasant, he might have pennyless losers coming after him, constantly interfering with his grand mission, or he might have many annoying villains to deal with by himself.
But reality is more brutal than he imagined, or directly speaking, too realistic for him.
The problems plaguing Elliott now were not how to outwit and capture the super villains, not how to wave his influence in the commercial world, not how to negotiate with the mob, or even how to deal with street fights.
Instead, it was pathetic and laughable real-life problems like a man in his twenties still being governed by his father, being chased by teachers for his thesis, not having money for a cab, having no place to stay, raining but didn't have an umbrella.
If Batman's embarrassing experience in slums was only because he wanted to imitate the life of ordinary people and didn't want to use his genius mind, then the absurd disasters that Elliot is undergoing should be purely attributed to his incompetence.
But the gap between genius and fool exists not only in IQ, but also in the sensitivity and acute reflections of their situation, and the thinking about the causes of the environment.
Bruce meticulously observed the situation of ordinary people's quiet cautiousness, their inevitable falls despite trying not to make mistakes, and reflected on the causes.
But Thomas Elliott, he began to curse, asking why can't Bruce also give him that brain that can solve all problems.