Following Bruce into the backyard’s small woods, they came upon an uncovered well. The lid was rusted and coated with a yer of dust.

  "Give me a hand, old man’s getting weak."

  Bruce brushed off the dust and turned to Norin.

  Norin didn’t buy Bruce’s act. After all, no matter how old Batman got, he was still Batman. He’d seen him take down plenty of mercenaries in The Fsh and even swap pces with a Kryptonian.

  Stepping forward, Norin joined Bruce, and together they lifted the well lid, creaking as it came off with effort.

  “By the way, it seems your eyes have some kind of special ability? You should go ahead; you know, old eyes don’t work as well anymore.”

  Bruce held onto the well’s edge, breathing heavily as he spoke.

  His appearance suggested that opening a well lid had really taken a toll on him.

  Had Norin not known he was still the tough-as-ever Batman, he might’ve been fooled.

  It was clear that Bruce was probing his abilities, trying to lower his guard.

  However, Norin wasn’t pnning on hiding anything. Gaining Bruce’s trust was already hard enough; any deception would ruin the possibility of a successful colboration.

  In addition to being Batman and a master of money, Bruce’s intelligence was also staggering.

  He had mastered fields like microexpression, psychology, and criminology, so reading people was no challenge for him.

  With his frequent dealings with criminals, Bruce could easily detect lies by analyzing voice tone, heartbeat, and microexpressions.

  Norin, just an ordinary person with newly acquired powers and no special training, didn’t think he could lie his way through things with someone like Bruce.

  Doing so would only spoil an already fragile partnership.

  Not answering was also an option.

  But there was no need to hide the truth.

  Norin led the way, climbing the iron dder to the bottom of the well as he casually expined his ability to sense heat.

  “You can perceive the temperature differences around you and present them in your mind with precision? Nice ability. No wonder you could pinpoint my location in a crowded room.”

  “Maybe you’re more suited to guarding Gotham than I was. The night is your domain!”

  Bruce, hearing this, couldn’t help but compliment him.

  He had suspected that Norin might have tricked him into coming out with words alone.

  But in the st three seconds, Bruce had decided to show up himself.

  This was a matter of universal safety, and he wouldn’t take a gamble on it.

  Most importantly, he could tell from Norin’s tone that he wasn’t lying.

  If that was true, then either Norin was mentally unstable, a psychological expert, or he was telling the truth.

  It was ridiculous, but Bruce was still willing to listen.

  Now, with Norin’s honest response, Bruce started to trust him a little.

  But it was still only a little!

  He needed more evidence to verify this.

  “The Dark Knight, huh? You’re the one suited for that role, no matter the universe.”

  Norin said this with sincerity. After all, the Dark Knight wasn’t an easy role to take on, and he had no intention of becoming that type of hero.

  He was very much fond of his life.

  Everything he was doing now was for personal growth.

  “You’ve been to many worlds?” Bruce caught the underlying implication.

  “Let’s just say so.” Norin didn’t eborate further, leading Bruce into the Batcave.

  The facilities here, though unused for a while, weren’t outdated.

  Wayne Enterprises’ technology was still highly reliable.

  And Bruce had his own private satellite, which could bypass other nations’ surveilnce systems and monitor the entire world.

  “Sit for now. I’ll handle things shortly.”

  Bruce wiped off a chair next to him, gesturing for Norin to sit down, while he moved to the computer and began performing a series of dazzling operations.

  Norin took one look and quickly decided to give up.

  Now this was a professional. Even though he had studied coding before, Norin knew his typing speed and proficiency were no match for Bruce’s.

  Compared to Bruce, he was an amateur.

  And most of what was on the screen was beyond his comprehension.

  There was no point in staring.

  Instead, Norin wandered around the Batcave, marveling at the legendary pce.

  Meanwhile, Bruce noticed Norin wandering off and didn’t stop him.

  He skillfully opened another window, pulling up footage of Norin from the manor’s security cameras, feeding it into a database and tagging it with the name “Norin” to search for relevant information.

  To ensure accuracy, Bruce cross-checked with global-level databases for simir images.

  He also gained access to Gotham’s full surveilnce data.

  After several minutes, Bruce’s furrowed brows rexed.

  He had matched and eliminated hundreds of simir images.

  Finally, the information he found about Norin was completely wrong.

  The most recent monitoring data on Norin was from earlier that morning.

  It was from an alley in Gotham.

  Before that, there was no record of him in this world at all.

  Now that Bruce had a clearer idea, he shut the search interface and focused on finding any information about alien spacecraft in Siberia or Russia.

  Though Bruce had the tech, obtaining information from another superpower was never easy.

  It took him half an hour before he found what he needed in an obscure report.

  “Asteroid impact... alien life on the ship…”

  “Siberia… mercenaries…”

  “I found it!”

  By now, Norin had already come up behind Bruce and was staring at the familiar images on the screen.

  He felt a mix of excitement and mencholy.

  Excited because he was about to meet Supergirl, Kara, and gain Superman’s powers, ensuring his safety in the early stages.

  Mencholy because Supergirl had already arrived on Earth. Was it too early for The Fsh to show up?

  Perhaps somewhere in Central City, Barry Allen had already met this universe's Barry Allen?

  Time was running out!