Volume 1: Welcoming Gotham Chapter 28: Catwoman, take whatever you like. Don't be polite. Your husband has plenty of money anyway.
Nightwing led the pursuers away, and with the help of the Batmobile and the entire Bat-Family, he will most likely be fine.
Mason and Catwoman also used the magical effect of the invisibility cloak to leave the war zone, and "borrowed" a car to cross the Gotham city and arrive at Pier 7 in Miller Harbor.
This is the oldest dock area in Gotham City and one of the oldest and most complex areas in this city that started out as a shipping and heavy industry city.
The entire dock has been renovated many times over the past 100 years, and even dock workers cannot fully grasp the complexities here, especially the underground areas.
It's like a maze.
Mason didn't know much about this place, but his little brother Kite Man was active near Miller Harbor for a while when he followed the Joker and was chased by Batman. He told Mason that there was an underground passage at Pier 7, so this became a temporary stop for Mason and Catwoman.
"You know so much at such a young age. I didn't even know there was such a place to hide people."
In a specially opened hiding place in a sewer that was not dirty, Catwoman looked at the light above her head in amazement, and turned back to Mason who was disassembling the gun for maintenance behind her and said:
"I feel more and more that you don't look like a 17-year-old boy. You also have a hidden identity, right? Little guy, since we are already in the same group, I think you should be more honest with your sister."
"My hidden identity is Mason Cooper."
The young man said without raising his head:
“It’s not as complicated as you think, you should take a rest.
Aren't you tired after all this time? My friend will meet us here tomorrow afternoon, but before then we need to be prepared for a surprise attack.
Can you use a sword?"
"Sister, I grew up in Gotham and have been entangled with Batman for more than ten years. What do you think I can't do?"
Catwoman said as she leaned against the wall with her hands on her hips.
The next moment, Mason threw the strange sharp blade with a golden eagle hilt over with its scabbard. Catwoman caught it in her hand, pulled out the blade in a very professional manner, and swung it in a sword flower.
She held the beautiful, majestic sword before her eyes , examining it with the eyes of a world-class thief, running her fingers over the sharp edge and examining some of the decorative features of the hilt.
A few minutes later, she gave a very accurate evaluation like a treasure appraiser, saying:
“It’s at least eight hundred years old. Judging from the inscriptions on the sword, it should have come from a monastery in France. The strange refraction of light should be the result of some supernatural power.
But even if we exclude those unscientific forces, the material and craftsmanship of the hilt alone are enough to make it sell for an astonishingly high price in any auction house in the world."
Catwoman squinted her eyes and covered her mouth with her hands, chuckling softly, then made a coquettish gesture and said to Mason:
"Hmm, so this is the first gift you gave to your sister? From my experience, men who are so generous are most likely to have bad intentions."
"Just loaning it to you."
Mason pressed the shotgun clip filled with buckshot into the explosive shotgun with a click. He glanced at Catwoman who was playing with the long sword and said:
"I am not good at close combat and I don't like close combat. It can play a greater role in your hands. We are now on the same side. A little more trust will give us more chances to survive.
Now if it's possible, I would like you to leave me alone, Lady Selina, while I start preparing some potions and weapons for us to use in the battle.
This job requires me to stay highly focused.
So whatever you want to do, just don't make any noise, okay?"
He took out a complete set of simplified alchemical containers from his bag. In fact, authentic magic crucibles and alchemical test tubes were found at Hogwarts, but they were real big ones.
The complete set of special-shaped test tubes alone was as big as a wardrobe. Mason put them in a suitcase, which is still with the Kite Man.
After arranging the medicinal materials in different categories, Mason took out a lot of C4 and disassembled drone components and placed them beside him.
Catwoman, who was watching, couldn't help but raise her eyebrows when she saw the young man taking out one dangerous object after another from the small bag on his waist like a magic trick.
She was becoming more and more interested in this young man who was twenty years younger than her.
When Catwoman saw Mason seriously lighting the alcohol lamp and squeezing some chopped herbs into a bowl, she stood up and walked out of the hiding place.
"Where are you going?"
Mason asked.
The elder sister put on her unique ruby goggles and said:
"Of course, I'm going to retrieve the thing that's killing us both. Do you think I'd carry something like that with me? And since I'm determined to fight back, I have to get the weapon that's right for me, right?"
"There are people out there chasing you and me."
The young man said, then threw the folded silver-gray invisibility cloak to Catwoman and said:
"Put it on. Just put it on without much movement. But it's best not to wear it in battle. This thing has a bad temper and a very vicious personality. It hopes to see bad luck happen to the person who uses it."
"Just give it to me like this?"
Catwoman looked at the magic invisibility cloak in her hand in surprise. This cloak was a priceless treasure for all thieves and thieves. She said in a strange tone:
"I'm increasingly convinced that your motives are not pure, little Mason. Take my advice, don't waste your time on my sister. I'm no longer at the age of liking young hunks."
"You don't really think I'm a virgin who has never seen a beautiful woman, do you?"
Mason replied, imitating Catwoman's sentence pattern.
He glanced at his elder sister and whispered:
"And what a coincidence, I am no longer at the age where I would be obsessed with the amorous feelings of a queen and feel restless. I now appreciate the beauty of the soul more. Unfortunately, your soul has been branded with a bat.
Good things have their owners, and taking them without permission is stealing."
"What a vicious word!"
Catwoman snorted, stopped arguing with Mason, put on her invisibility cloak and disappeared on the spot.
A few seconds later, she suddenly popped her head out from behind Mason, as if to scare the young man, and said:
"Are you not afraid that I might take your sword and cloak away and never return? You know I am a heartless thief, and if I had such things I could steal all over the world without being discovered.
No thief can ignore this.
You're playing with fresh fish in front of a kitten, you're just trying to tempt me."
“I’m afraid, but I have no choice.”
Mason poured the ground herbs into the beaker, added clean water and shook it. Without even looking up, he said:
“Same to you, Ms. Selina.
Unless you are willing to stab Bruce Wayne to death in front of the League of Assassins... Oh, sorry, I blurted it out, I meant your beloved Batman."
He grinned, looked at the liquid in his hand that was gradually changing color, and said softly:
“Actually, it doesn’t matter if you take those two things. Anyway, you have a very rich reservist husband who is willing to spend money on you. I know who to ask for the debt.
So, it's okay, Mrs. Wayne.
Take whatever you like, but remember to leave me a signed receipt."
Catwoman fell silent.
Her fingers hidden in the invisibility cloak had already grasped the hilt of Suger's Eagle. She only needed a brutal backstab to kill the young man who revealed Batman's true identity.
Catwoman is confident that she will never fail.
"When did you know that?"
She asked.
Mason thought for a moment and said:
"It was probably when we first met. Remember that night when you gave me your phone to call Commissioner Gordon? I saw the number you had set as an emergency contact and marked as 'Love Nest'.
Then I tried calling once, and guess who answered? Well, all I can say is that Mr. Alfred had a really authentic London accent.
"You evil bat-boy!"
Catwoman screamed in anger:
"I won't let you become the next Robin! Bruce will definitely be killed by a treacherous ghost like you."
"Thanks for the help, because I really have no interest in being Robin."
Mason said no more.
After showing off his skills to make Catwoman afraid to act rashly, he relaxed and began to make the primary healing potion. This time he strictly followed the steps of the recipe.
With the precise hands of Engineering Lv2, after failing twice, he finally got a test tube full of light red liquid on the third try.
"Successfully make a standard alchemical compound, and your alchemical skill proficiency will increase."
When the prompt popped up, Mason held the test tube in front of his eyes and examined it carefully, and the information label quickly popped up.
Primary Healing Potion
Quality: Standard item, mediocre workmanship
Effect: Heal all injuries no higher than [Moderate Damage] within 30 minutes and have a slight [Hemostasis and Analgesia] effect.
Item Description: A reminder for novice pharmacists, adding some lemon juice can make it taste better and more nutritious, and it tastes better when mixed with fine wine.
“Mediocre craftsmanship?”
Mason frowned when he saw the quality evaluation. He had followed the procedure exactly, and there would definitely be no fakes in the materials he took out from Batman's herbal warehouse.
How could this be a mediocre review?
Are there any other tricks that you haven’t discovered yet?
"You seem distressed about the quality of the finished product?"
Just then, Catwoman's voice suddenly rang out.
As the invisibility cloak was removed, Catwoman changed into a leather tights that was more suitable for combat. With a cat-tail whip around her waist, she played with a bag of luxurious gems and took out a black USB flash drive from her waist bag and threw it to Mason.
She bent her beautiful legs into an amazing arc and squatted in front of the young man, looking at the magical light red potion in his hand and said in a listless tone:
"You may need a little female wisdom. Let me ask you, do you know the difference between cheap industrial standard products and expensive works of art?"
"Um……"
Mason frowned and thought for a while, then said tentatively:
“Craftsman spirit?”
"Are you stupid? Have you been fooled?"
Catwoman reached out and knocked Mason on the forehead, scolding him:
"It's uniqueness! Uniqueness! The personal characteristics of the maker can never be simulated by those industrial standard parts. Although I don't understand alchemy, I understand art.
Just now I saw you making the potion very methodically, like a robot.
Come on, isn't this just industrial production? Isn't the characteristic of handicrafts that even if they are made by the same hands, there are subtle differences in the finished products each time?
If two works of art are exactly the same, then they are certainly worthless.”
"Uh, let me think about it."
Mason lowered his head and pondered for a moment. He looked at the description of the potion, took a bottle of freshly squeezed juice from Catwoman, and when he finished making the second bottle of potion, he added some passion fruit juice according to the instructions.
"Successfully create a special alchemical compound, and increase your alchemical skill proficiency by x2."
Mason's eyes lit up, and he held the potion, which was darker in color because of the juice added, in front of his eyes to examine it.
Passion fruit flavored herbal juice
Quality: Waste materials, standard workmanship
Effect: Drinking a passion fruit-flavored potion will not provide any therapeutic effect but will make you happy.
Item Description: Look what you have done! You have ruined a bottle of good medicine!
"this……"
Mason looked at the bottle of medicine in front of him and his expression became very strange.
The potion was ineffective and he should have failed, but the prompt told him that the successful production of the alchemical compound also gave him double proficiency. So messing around is the essence of alchemy?
Is it really as the nursery rhyme says, "The secret to making great soup is adding a few poisonous mushrooms and an old shoe heel"?
No.
To be more precise, it should be "try".
The young man feels that he has found the key and should have the courage to try more unknown formulas in order to go further on the road of alchemy, but this attempt is definitely not to add juice randomly.
It is to carry out secondary processing with personalized characteristics based on the characteristics of different materials after thoroughly understanding the formula.
"I think I understand."
Mason narrowed his eyes, picked up a ginseng beard of very good quality, and started his third attempt. This time he got a hint of five times the proficiency, and the finished product turned into something very strange:
Primary Tonic Ointment
Quality: Standard goods, excellent workmanship
Effect: Unknown
Item Description: I feel like my body has been hollowed out...
"understood."
Mason drank the potion after seeing the item description, and then continued to make his own alchemical potion.
This boring attempt continued until the next afternoon.
There were already thirty-seven bottles of light red standard primary healing potions placed in front of him, as well as fifteen fancy things of various colors.
The effects of these things are all unknown, and we need to find someone to test them, but Mason can be sure that these things are not poisonous... Well, probably not, most likely not.
The young man stretched his numb neck and wrists, glanced at the alchemy skills that had successfully reached Level 1 on the light screen, put away his potion, and whispered:
"It seems we need to find some 'experimental subjects'."
"Someone's coming, Mason!"
Catwoman's reminder also sounded at this moment. Mason immediately picked up the double-barreled hand cannon at hand, while Catwoman, grasped the hilt of the sword at her waist.
As the two men were watching, a brisk sound of footsteps came from the sewer entrance, humming a strange song. When he approached, Mason heard the voice and waved to Catwoman.
Those who came are friends.
"Hey, Boss! You are here after all!"
The kite flyer Charles, dressed in a neat suit and a windbreaker, like a successful man with a rosy face, appeared at the door of the hiding place.
He was carrying a very nice briefcase.
He first hugged his boss, then opened the briefcase, revealing the retro magic suitcase hidden inside.
"I also brought you a surprise!"
The Kite Man opened the suitcase with a wink and pressed the switch of the Traceless Extension Spell. The next moment, a guy who was tied up tightly was thrown in front of Mason.
Judging from his drunken appearance, he must have been attacked, knocked unconscious, and thrown into the suitcase.
"This is the guy in the gang bar who is in charge of commanding the Penguin Gang to hunt you down, Boss."
Charles picked up a cigarette and put it under his nose to sniff it, then introduced it to Mason:
"I followed him all the way and found out that he was dealing with some mysterious guys. He must know something, so I knocked him out and brought him here."
"Very good, then start to interrogate him and dig out all the secrets in his mind!"
A hint of coldness flashed in Mason's eyes.
He took his briefcase and felt a sense of security. He took out the truth serum that made the hidden Catwoman hate him so much and threw it to the Kite Man.
Signal him to start working.
At the same time, the Hell's Eye pendant pinned on Mason's collar suddenly "opened its eyes", and Zha Kang's voice came out of it and rang in Mason's ears.
explain:
"Find a safe place, Mason! I want to talk to you about some progress in your curse research. I mean, prepare the reward quickly!"
