The others looked down at the pool filled with the hallucinogenic liquid, only to find that the various tals they had thrown in earlier had vanished. Instead, Peter's body was twisting with psychedelic light, and his eyes were flashing with a tallic sheen.
Jero's eyes widened in surprise as he walked over to Peter. He leaned in, sniffed, and clearly detected the scent of the Dionysus Factor. He grabbed Peter's hand and, producing a small knife from seemingly nowhere, appeared to be intent on cutting open Peter's palm.
Peter, frightened, tried to pull his hand back but, seeing that Shiller showed no emotion, knew that Jero didn't an to harm him, so he allowed Jero to hold onto his hand.
As Jero brought the knife to Peter's palm without applying much force, the tip of the knife touched his skin and lted instantly. The tal turned into a pool of liquid and rged into Peter's body.
Peter blinked a few tis, unable to comprehend what had just happened, as it was not of his doing. He took a deep breath and focused on the palm of his hand. A mont later, a small piece of black tal erged, clearly part of the knife that had just been absorbed.
What was this? A human steel furnace? Peter was confused. He felt as though he could control his skin, so he took another deep breath. A silver-white glow surfaced on his skin and quickly ford a new Spider-Man suit.
Cobblepot walked over and touched the suit, then said, "This looks like the tal piece that's in Alfred's mind, the one that Thomas found in the wreckage of a spaceship in Africa."
"That's Nth tal," Shiller interjected. "It has many magical properties, but most importantly, it's incredibly durable, practically indestructible."
"You must have absorbed five types of tals and now possess their abilities," Shiller said. "Think back carefully and see if you have any additional mories."
What Shiller was actually referring to was the most special of the five tals, naly Bat Gold. Theoretically, this tal should be connected to Batman and injected into him by an Owl Priest as the final key to open the door.
However, it might have been that the slightly inaccurate mix of tals catalyzed by Amber Gold underwent so sort of mutation, and all the tals were absorbed into Peter's body. But since Peter was not Batman, it was uncertain what the Bat Gold could bring him.
Peter closed his eyes, recalling carefully, then suddenly showed signs of pain, but quickly relaxed again. He said, "I saw a lot of different scenes, seemingly from ancient tis, with a group of people dressed like birds worshipping incessantly. Then there were bats and a giant furnace..."
At the ntion of the furnace, Shiller reacted, knowing the close relationship between Barbados and the World Forger. This furnace was likely the World Forge; he hadn't expected Bat Gold to be connected to it. Could it be a tal stolen by Barbados when he fled from the World Forge?
In the DC World, there are ten types of tals, the first five of which were fed to Batman during the tal event to open the gateway to the dark universe. The tenth beca the key to reversal.
Each of the five tals has its own mystical characteristics. So origins are described explicitly, like Nth tal, which is said to be a rare tal produced in the cosmos, similar to Vibranium, and used by advanced civilizations to create the outer shells of spaceships, known for its indestructibility.
But the origins of so magic-related tals are never clearly detailed, like Bat Gold. Its properties and functions are strange, capable of amplifying Magic Energy. Shiller had speculated whether this tal might be related to the Inverted Man, but now it seed that the mories carried within this tal suggested it could be a treasure of the World Forger.
Now that Peter had absorbed it, it should an that he has similar powers. Shiller pulled out the unused candle, broke a small piece off and handed it to Peter.
Peter was initially clueless, but the mont he touched the candle, he widened his eyes in shock as he felt a massive Energy flow into his body.
As he covered his body with this energy, he nearly turned into a flowing rcury light, shining brightly.
Peter felt as if he could use this energy to do sothing, but at the mont, he was at a loss. He had seen many books on the occult and Magic during his ti with the black sun and knew of the existence of Magicians in this world, but he lacked the energy then and didn't know how to use magic.
Now that he had the energy and knew the appearance of so spells, for so reason, he just couldn't cast them. He thought it might be because theoretical knowledge was insufficient, but it wasn't appropriate to experint here. He needed to return to the Black Sun to study it carefully.
For soone with a scholarly personality like Peter, not being able to research a new topic right away was agonizing. He had wanted to leave imdiately, but he then heard Shiller asking Jero about what really happened here. Peter was also curious about the truth and decided to stay and listen attentively.
Beyond the story of Martha and Thomas, there was also a tale to be told about Jero. It mainly involved his experiences after joining an insurance company as an investigator.
In fact, he had no real sches. Just like the saying goes: after beating up Batman, even Joker has to go shopping and cook dinner. After all, he wasn't a wealthy man. Without work, how would he have money to live?
Jero, due to ntal health issues and low education, was rejected by many official companies and didn't want to get involved with the Mob. He could only find jobs that required intellectual work, straddling the line between the law-abiding and the criminal.
Previously, he had been doing false accounting for a financial agency company and got to know a colleague who later switched to an insurance company. The operations of this insurance company were also shady; in short, they duped people into buying insurance but never paid out. There were various ans to avoid paynt: either declare the accident as purposely caused or simply intimidate clients into cancelling their contracts.
When Jero's financial agency was taken down, he had nowhere else to go. Thus, he gladly accepted a job at the insurance company through a referral from that forr colleague. He was quite skilled at the job, especially in fabricating evidence, and he solved many problems for the company, quickly earning a promotion and becoming indispensable.
Around the sa ti, Gotham City began experiencing a rash of abnormal incidents, with many people dying in brutal accidents while nurous eyewitnesses claid they were killed by monsters.
So of these people had bought insurance from the company Jero worked for, and naturally, it fell to him to deal with these cases. At first, he didn't believe in the existence of real monsters, thinking that soone was deliberately spreading rumors to make his company pay out more money.
But as he investigated, Jero began to realize sothing was amiss; he discovered that this city indeed harbored an evil god. However, he did not yet know that the perpetrator was Little Bruce.
It was Jero who zeroed in on Bruce Wayne.
As ntioned before, Jero wasn't like his brother; he was a born sadist who hid it well. Not only did he attend a prestigious university, but his credentials were also impressive, which made it easy for him to get a job at Wayne Enterprises.
He hadn't initially targeted Bruce. He just wanted to add a stint at Wayne Enterprises to his resu, which was a considerable achievent during this ti, given that the company was the dominant force in the industry.
Then he t Bruce Wayne.
Jero was an excellent pretender and quickly beca friends with Bruce. Both young, talented scientists, they got to the point where they shared everything with each other. That's when Jero began to notice sothing off about Bruce.
Combining this with the ongoing monster attacks in the city, Jero thought Bruce was being controlled by the evil god, so he decided to stage a drama, play the hero, and gain further trust from Bruce.
Jero was a genius in many ways; he had already noticed abnormal brainwave patterns in those controlled and attacked by the monsters. So, he developed a machine called the Brain Wave Impact Device, which, once used on those under evil god's control, would completely disrupt their brainwaves and trigger the outbreak of corruption.
Jero tricked Bruce into the factory at just the right mont and hit him with the device. He didn't expect Bruce to not be one of those controlled; the blast revealed Bruce's true form, and the myriad tentacles nearly scared Jero to death.
Even so, Jero, with his twisted devotion, didn't abandon his plan. He left the device running; its range covered half of Gotham, easily enveloping the city's central area.
What he didn't know was that, other than Bruce, there were other contaminated creatures within its range. They imdiately went berserk, and the anomalies hidden within many buildings erupted, leading to the disaster 20 days ago.
"Arrogant" was an apt description for Jero, because when Bruce found himself in trouble due to the Brain Wave Impact Device, the first person he thought to seek wasn't Jero but his brother, Jero.
In fact, Bruce had interacted with Jero way less than he had with that damned insurance investigator. While Bruce may have had so common topics with Jero, he considered Jero a threat, so when big trouble struck, he instinctively turned to his nesis.
When Jero realized sothing was wrong, he turned off the machine, but it was too late. The entire city was already undergoing anomalies, and he had to scan the city's brainwaves again, discovering the most severely affected hotel and rushing over, only to find that Jero had also arrived, both of them stumbling into different dinsions.
Jero knew Jero would co, so he managed to use his advantage of being in the past to contact Jero. Despite their reluctance to work together, they had no choice but to begrudgingly cooperate.
However, Jero knew much more than Jero did, as he had been investigating Little Bruce and had also found out that Gotham Cathedral knew about Martha's plan.
In this universe, Little Bruce hadn't beco Batman, and Jero hadn't beco the public figure of Joker. However, during his investigation of the anomalies, Jero realized there was sothing unusual about himself; his body had resistance to certain anomalies and healed very quickly.
Jero wasn't a scientist but eventually realized that the problem lay in his blood. With the information he gleaned about Martha's plan, he believed that the mysterious Dionysus Factor with self-healing powers existed within his own body.
He kidnapped a hematologist and after extracting and refining his blood, he indeed isolated a green, mysterious substance, which matched the green tal ntioned in the clues left by Martha at Gotham Cathedral.
Jero wanted to rule the city, not destroy it. He knew that saving the city ant following Martha's plan to gather the tals that could open the portal. With the Dionysus Factor in hand, he entered the hotel and finally followed the guidance to the Underground Ancient City.
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