Perhaps it was some kind of magical connection, whenever he encountered a language or incantation he didn't understand, Shiller was always able to decipher the three most important words, and as a result, he obtained a lot of energy, such as the "Nataru" he used to curse Nal.
Shiller recalled that Aisha, having hardly learned the lyrics, would just keep repeating the first line. The incantation he had deduced originated from the end of the first line, so as soon as Aisha finished the first line, it would instantly summon the owl.
In that case, the first step to increase efficiency was accomplished. Shiller had the nuns organize all the children to start singing only the first line instead of the whole song.
As soon as all the children finished the first line, the owl arrived. Shiller teleported up to deal with the owl before continuing to sing, and then dealt with the next owl after singing again.
However, the first line was still a bit long. Although the lyrics were not many and the melody was not difficult, it was still not as quick as three syllables. After all the children were familiar with the first line, the nuns began teaching them how to pronounce the three syllables repeatedly.
However by this point, many children had lost their patience. Originally, when they were singing a song, they could skip a line or pretend to sing while surrounded by others, or quietly chat when others were singing loudly.
But as it shifted to the short three syllables, there was no room for slacking off. If one didn't sing seriously, the off-tune noise they made would be glaringly obvious.
These children didn't have much patience to begin with. Learning the song had already exhausted much of their patience, and when this task evolved into a boring repetition, many children began to complain.
But then, the restaurant owner drove a truck over, delivering delicious meals; it was arranged by Cobblepot from one of the most popular Italian restaurants in the neighborhoods near Living Hell, specializing in Margherita pizza and creamed spinach.
It wasn't that they couldn't afford fancier restaurants, but rather that these children, who had grown up in Gotham's lower classes, preferred high-calorie, heavily spiced dishes. Most upscale restaurants stressed simple, healthy ingredients and retaining the natural flavor of the foods. Such cuisine was not popular with the kids.
Taking advantage of the children eating, the adults sat together to discuss again. Although efficiency had increased significantly, there was still room for improvement.
Through this period of observation, it was clear that the owls that came were mostly paired one-to-one. In other words, one child with a special incantation could summon an owl. Assuming a completely standard pronunciation of the incantation, that would mean that the 30 or so children currently present could summon more than 30 owls.
The simple math was thus: Thirty children could summon thirty owls. Therefore, three hundred children could summon three hundred owls. Three thousand children could...
In the end, when Bruce arrived at the cathedral with the Ark Reactor, Shiller and the others were no longer there. Instead, they had followed Cobblepot to a newsboys' base.
This was a deserted basement located underground in the East District, and had been converted into a base. Almost all the big shots of the street newspaper boys came here. Whether it was traffic congestion, residents who gave generous tips, new stories from the residential areas, this was the place where they exchanged information.
Gotham had plenty of children. Besides the ones from rich families who regularly attended school, most of the children from mob families were always out doing all sorts of jobs: selling newspapers, flowers, cigarettes, running errands. There was always a job that suited them.
This place could connect with most of these children. The method of getting them to help was simple enough - just pay them.
Now, Cobblepot had taken over the position of the King of Children, and virtually all of these small vendors throughout Gotham obeyed his command. Whenever Cobblepot said he was looking for some children to sing, these kingpins scrambled to recommend their own boys. After all, singing for generous compensation was much better than spending a whole day working outdoors.
The children here were all pretty brave. After all, if you lived in this kind of environment, constantly being suspicious and cautious, you might scare yourself to death. Even during the last Green Lantern Corps invasion when people were emitting green glows, they were not frightened. Singing was definitely not going to stop them.
The place for extracting oil... I mean, dark energy, was no longer the Gotham Cathedral. Because its location was not ideal and its architectural structure was not suitable for capturing energy, the operation was simply moved to a vocational school in Living Hell.
One advantage of this place was that the school was located in the very center of Living Hell. The entire place was like a huge dumpling, with this room equating to the dumpling filling. No matter where you wanted to fly in from, you would have to pass through the dumpling skin before reaching the filling.
This arrangement gave Constantine room for maneuver. After studying a bit about this kind of energy, he came up with an array to absorb it.
Although one array was not able to intercept all the owls, as they flew too fast, if one didn't work, they would deploy a hundred arrays. If a hundred didn't work, they would deploy a thousand. Any problem that could be solved by mass production, was not a problem.
All the rooms around the vocational school in the center of Living Hell, including the underground ones, were emptied. Then Constantine took about a week to set up the array in all the rooms.
Centering on the room in the school, arrays stretched out in all directions, up, down, left, and right, covering a distance of about 10 squares, while Green Lantern Hal stood in the center of the school room, using abundant green lantern energy to maintain a shield, ensuring no missed targets would attack the children.
After each wave of summoning, it was Shiller's turn to collect the energy from each array and then convey the information to Hal. Hal would then inform the nun, who would organize the next wave with the children.
Before the next wave arrived, Shiller would put this energy into the Ark Reactor that Bruce was researching.
Speaking of which, one had to mention that the Ark Reactor Bruce developed was drastically different from Stark's. Bruce's Ark Reactor was about the size of three rooms.
About this point, Shiller, who could only screw in light bulbs, wasn't without questions. He asked Bruce, "The model I gave you is so small. Why did you make the actual product so big?"
"I should be asking you..." Bruce stared at Shiller and said, "What was the person who made this model thinking? Why didn't they make it bigger?"
Shiller didn't know the answer to this question, but Bruce didn't expect him to either. Apparently, he knew that Shiller could only fumble around this area, so he asked and answered himself:
"The principle of this thing is quite fascinating. It uses a new element. Cracking it took a bit of time, but what confuses me is that he could have made the output power greater and added even more functions."
"For example, you previously mentioned using it to store energy, so I added an energy storage module to it. If necessary, I can add several output modules. It can entirely act as an energy center."
"At present, I have already used it to replace the lighting energy source in the Batcave. After a series of tests, it can replace all power sources. In fact, as long as it's large enough, it can provide all the energy a whole city needs."
"But if it's made into this miniaturized version, it can only supply a few robots. Any more and, although there's a sufficient energy source, it'd be restricted by output power. There's absolutely no need for this unless there's a special requirement."
"The inventor of this thing installed it on his battlesuit."
"Battlesuit? Do you mean like an exoskeleton?"
"Almost, it's a bit more advanced than that, it can fly and has weapons."
"And then?"
"Then, he wore it." Shiller didn't understand Bruce's point.
"And after he wore it?" Bruce continued to ask.
"Uh... He became a superhero."
"You mean, he harnessed such forms of energy, only to wear it into a battle?" Bruce asked.
"Aren't you doing the same?" Shiller counter-questioned. "Having such technologies, you used them to develop all sorts of Bat Equipment to go out and fight."
Shiller shook his head and said, "In some ways, you two are very similar."
"So, you admit there is such a person?"
"Don't focus on that. Tell me, how much energy can this huge reactor you've got here store?"
Bruce got confused again, but he knew that he probably wouldn't get an answer from Shiller. At this time, Bruce was still focusing on Gotham and didn't think about things like the cosmos.
As the saying goes, "People without long-term worries must have near-term troubles." Given the current situation in Gotham, Bruce's approach seems reasonable. He's tackling the hardest part first so when he moves back to the basics, he could deal with issues in a freewheeling manner.
Bruce thought for a moment, and then said: "Place your hand here and input that energy you previously stored. You will then be able to see how much of the total storage is occupied by the energy now stored."
Shiller placed his hand in, and let the gray mist output the energy. The energy previously obtained from the cathedral and the subsequent experiments was all stored. You couldn't even see the progress bar, probably occupying less than one ten-thousandth.
Shiller gave an estimate, if it was all filled up, the energy amount was no less than what he obtained from Nal. This way, all elements of their plan had been accomplished.
The current situation was that Shiller had created an initial machine to extract and mine dark energy. Using countless energy extraction arrays, the children who could attract dark energy were wrapped within. The owls bearing dark energy, no matter their flight path, would be intercepted by the arrays.
After the arrays intercepted, Shiller absorbed these energies and then went underground, pouring the energy into the Ark Reactor buried there. Meanwhile, Bruce had hooked up a power line to his Batcave to study and analyze this energy.
Efficiency greatly improved after the machine was activated.
There were 4 batches of children, 200 per batch, a total of 800 children. Divided into four shifts, each shift worked for 6 hours, two hours of which were rest time and four hours were singing time.
At the beginning, when they were still unskilled at singing, it took about one minute to attract a group. Including the time before the owls arrived and after Shiller absorbed the energy, it took about two minutes.
In one work shift, one batch of children could attract 30 groups of owls in one hour. One group had 200 owls, meaning the total harvest in four hours was approximately 24,000 owls.
So, within a 24-hour day, after the four shifts had worked, the total harvest could be 96,000 owls.
While it sounded like a lot, Shiller was still unsatisfied with this number.