Chapter 611: The Electric Theft Quartet (Part Two) (Patreon)

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Efficiency in acquiring energy can be likened to the comparison with oil production.

Global daily oil production is measured in millions of barrels. Just in the region of Saudi Arabia, the daily oil production hovers around ten million barrels. As of March 2022, global daily oil production is approximately one hundred million barrels. Although it is currently 1989, and production levels are temporarily below this mark, they are still substantial.

As mentioned before, the volume of Dark Owls is similar to real-life owls, with approximately a hundred thousand of them. It may sound like a large number, but if you were to compress them all together, their output wouldn't even match a minute of global oil production. How can such efficiency suffice?

Thus, Schiller began organizing everyone to further enhance production efficiency. The primary focus was on compressing time costs and full-process automation.

Regarding the compression of time costs, these children found it challenging to concentrate for extended periods. If they weren't willing to sing or make sounds themselves, there was no way to attract the Owls.

Moreover, it was challenging to ensure that all these children attended on time. Some had family matters, others fell ill. The essence of this task was to protect the children, so exploiting them would be contrary to the goal, and time costs couldn't be compressed in such cases.

Using human employees had these drawbacks. Therefore, everything relied on the development of mechanization. If machines could replace humans, as long as there was sufficient energy, they could work continuously without absenteeism or poor performance.

In this regard, Schiller nearly drove Constantine to madness. He exclaimed, "You want to use magic with robots??? Are you serious?"

"They don't even have a soul! Even if they could emit those sound waves through recording devices, it's impossible to attract the Owls!"

"That's why I need you," Schiller said, looking into Constantine's eyes. "Your task now is to research how to create something that won't get tired and then use it to deceive the Owls."

Hal looked at Constantine with sympathy. He had never seen Constantine in such a disheveled and exhausted state.

Normally, Constantine had a sense of style about him. After all, he couldn't go around charming people without taking care of his appearance. In the past, he had always portrayed the image of an elegant British rogue, and when he was serious, he had a unique charm that unintentionally attracted others.

Although he occasionally appeared crazy and decadent due to excessive drug use, it added a punk-like aesthetic to his persona, which still appealed to some.

But now, Constantine could no longer be called punk. He was just one step away from being like Robinson.

In the plan proposed by Schiller, Constantine had the most strenuous task. He had to set up a Magic Circle around the entire schoolroom, encompassing hundreds of squares. He hadn't slept for over a week, and he looked disheveled and haggard.

If Schiller hadn't promised to allocate a share of the energy to him, he wouldn't have agreed to do this. And now, even with Schiller's promise, he didn't want to continue this task.

Constantine cursed, "You damned capitalist, vampire! You want me to risk my life for a small share..."

Schiller extended a finger, waggling it in front of him, and said, "Add another share, and you can have two for yourself. Hal and I will only share one, and Bruce won't get any."

Constantine was on the brink of madness. He felt that a demon called Greed was coming after him again. He could almost see the dark fire burning behind Schiller, even more maddening than any demon.

He gritted his teeth and said, "You forced me into this. It looks like I'll have to talk to an old friend."

After saying that, Constantine left. Schiller didn't know who his old friend was, but he knew that some demon was about to have a bad time.

Two days later, a more exhausted Constantine returned. He also brought back a small voodoo doll. He said, "I contacted every friend I could find and finally found a method."

He placed the voodoo doll in his hand and then in front of everyone, saying, "This is a type of sorcery from Africa, somewhat similar to the spell used by the Ghost Mother, both designed for children."

"In African tribes, they place the souls of deceased children into a special voodoo doll. A specific devil can sense this soul and infuse power into the doll in exchange for the soul. Tribe priests can then use this energy to cast spells."

"But where can we obtain the souls of children?" Hal asked. "Please don't tell me you intend to..."

"I never considered it. I'm a good person," Constantine sighed.

Bruce glanced at him, seemingly surprised, but what Constantine said was true. In matters of principle, he was just like Batman, unwavering.

"I contacted a devil capable of responding to this spell. He told me that human sacrifices are quite cunning. With modern medical advancements, there are fewer deceased infants. However, the practitioners still wish to use the spell, so they came up with another method."

"Killing innocent children might be an option, but it's not efficient. They choose to deceive the devils by forging a special ritual that creates fake souls for the children. After attracting the devils, they trap them, enabling them to use the devil's power."

Constantine said this matter-of-factly, but Hal looked at Schiller. Schiller, after assessing him for a moment, said, "Why are you looking at me like that? This only shows that humans are like this. I'm not exceptional."

Constantine nodded in agreement. "If you ask me, deception is something humans excel at. We have various tricks up our sleeves, even deceiving cunning devils occasionally."

"However, this trick has become outdated. Once devils fall for it, they won't be fooled again, at most losing a bit of power. So, they've developed many alternative versions, but we don't need any of them."

"I found a practitioner who knows how to use this version of the deception. He told me the method for forging children's souls. The other materials we need are relatively simple, but there's one tricky part: we need breast milk."

"That can be arranged," Schiller said to Bruce. "Wayne Enterprises should be able to solicit breast milk from society under the guise of medical research. As long as the price is high enough, we should be able to gather it quickly."

"There's one more question," Schiller looked at Constantine again. "Can these forged children's souls sing?"

"Of course not. They are just decoys. So, I need to use another form of magic to control the voodoo dolls to sing."

"Do you need to control them continuously? What if you get tired?" Schiller raised another concern. Constantine took a deep breath and said, "Although I don't need to control them continuously, you're being overly greedy. You won't even allow me to take a break..."

Schiller turned his head away, refusing to look at him, and said, "On an extremely efficient production line, nobody gets to rest, including me."

The others shook their heads, clearly finding it hard to stomach. Even Bruce, who enjoyed pursuing efficiency, thought it was a bit too extreme.

Fortunately, Schiller wasn't exploiting them. In the end, it was the Owls who would suffer the most.

After a few more days of preparation, Constantine began manufacturing the raw materials at full capacity. To prevent him from overexerting himself, Schiller had Hal provide him with Green Lantern energy treatment.

Whenever Constantine grew tired, Hal would use his healing abilities, revitalizing him. Under this inhumane exploitation, Constantine managed to produce thousands of voodoo dolls in just a few days.

Then, he began casting the puppeteering spell on each doll, the same one he had used to control Ghost. Once cast, he could make the voodoo dolls sing on their own.

Placing these dolls in the center of the arrays and repeating the process significantly increased efficiency, but Schiller still wasn't satisfied.

His dissatisfaction stemmed from the fact that he had to manually clean the Magic Circle every time and then infuse energy into the Ark Reactor. Although he didn't get tired and wasn't bored, it still wasted time, and in their extreme high-efficiency production mode, there was no room for waste.

As a result, he once again pressured Constantine to start a technological reform, instructing him to establish automatic energy transfer lines between several Magic Circles and then connect these lines to the Ark Reactor. This way, they could realize the fully automated plan to extract Dark Owl's energy.

Constantine was truly out of luck. He had contemplated running away several times, not even caring about the sunk costs. However, Schiller managed to bring him back every time.

In the end, Constantine gave in and began researching how to set up energy pathways between various Magic Circles.

As is well known, optimizing these pathways was the most significant challenge in automated gaming. Constantine struggled with this for over a week, but eventually, the fully unleashed Constantine managed to create the most efficient version.

Finally, this massive device for automatically extracting Dark Owl's energy was completed. When the entire assembly line started running, efficiency reached its peak. In fact, even one storage module of the Ark Reactor wasn't sufficient, so Bruce had to add a few more...

If one were to view it from a spiritual perspective, the entire Living Hell had turned into a colossal oil drilling operation. Countless Magic Circles were interconnected, forming a sphere emitting a red glow. Dark Owls, akin to moths to a flame, rushed toward it, ultimately perishing within the radiance of the Magic Circles. The extracted energy flowed through energy channels like blood vessels, pulsating into the Ark Reactor, where it was stored.

Until one day, all the Owls disappeared. Standing in the monitoring room, Schiller turned to everyone and said, "...It appears that this plan has come to an end."

"Not surprising," Bruce concluded, adding, "Even though these rules are automated, judging by the efficiency of this energy-extraction device, they would have noticed it sooner or later."

"I'm more inclined to think they ran out of power," Hal pondered. "If they had noticed, it should have happened when we completed automation. After all, suddenly extracting so much energy would have triggered an emergency response if someone were monitoring."

"As soon as I absorbed energy for the first time, I knew these rules were likely unsupervised," Schiller shook his head. "And the reason it stopped this time is probably that we depleted their energy."

The reason Schiller dared to extract this kind of dark energy so recklessly, without worrying about Barbatos coming here, was because he discovered that this energy was probably not Barbatos' original energy but had undergone some special treatment.

In other words, they weren't constantly fleecing Barbatos; the Dark Owl's sacrifices had already collected the wool for them and even woven it into a blanket. What they were stealing was, in fact, the stored blanket.

As for why Schiller believed these rules were unsupervised, it wasn't just because there was no response when Aisha absorbed energy before. It was also due to Gotham's historical records indicating that the era when the Owls Nursery rhyme was prevalent had long passed.

In recent modern history, this song was no longer popular, and children didn't sing it anymore. In other words, these rules had been obsolete for a long time.

Being awakened once again and becoming effective might be because the batteries left here still held some residual power. And Schiller's goal was to deplete this remaining energy as quickly as possible.

Some might wonder why they couldn't steal the energy at any time if the batteries were already discarded. This relates to Schiller's prior arrangements in Metropolis.

He already knew that Metropolis had Owls, so he deliberately handed the medal to Pikachu and, using Clark, informed Agent about Lex. Then he let Lex approach CIA Agent.

Having experienced what happened at Metropolis mayor's mansion, Schiller was well aware that after Benjamin's death, the CIA's Metropolis base's head was replaced by a female agent named Kayla, who was a KGB agent and Alfred's student.

Once Kayla learned about this and obtained the medal, she would undoubtedly notice the presence of other mysterious forces within Metropolis. Following the KGB's modus operandi, after a month, Metropolis's Owls were likely in deep trouble...

In a secret meeting room beneath the Metropolis sewer, a mysterious figure dressed in a black robe and wearing a bird-mask spoke, "The unbelievers have nearly located us. While the great Dark Master is omnipresent, for the sake of His cause, we must temporarily retreat..."

"But where should we go?" another figure in a black robe asked.

"Initially, we left Gotham to expand our influence in Metropolis. Now, we possess several secret bases in Metropolis and many Owl council members still stationed here... It's time to return to Gotham."

"Correct," another deep, raspy voice chimed in, "When we left, we left the most precious Dark Relics behind in Gotham. Due to our absence, the people of Gotham have not uttered our names in years. This return will allow us to utilize those potent energies once again..."

"Do you still remember the incantation?" a sharp female voice chanted, "Moulitz... Moulitz..."

Suddenly, she halted and said, "What's going on? Why isn't the Relic responding to my summons? Come... Owls... come find me. Under your guidance, I will return to that promised land..."

"Moulitz... Moulitz..." all the figures in black robes began to chant.

However, no Owls came flying to them. They gradually stopped their chant, and the room fell silent once more. The leader waved a staff, and the Magic Circle in the room lit up. In an instant, everyone disappeared and reappeared in a room with a massive Dark Relic.

This room was not only situated beneath Gotham but was also concealed by a mysterious spell, invisible and inaudible. It could only be accessed through special teleportation arrays, a secret measure set up by the Owl priests to protect themselves.

As soon as the leader of the Dark Owl's sacrifice set foot on the ground, they froze because the black Owls, previously brimming with dark energy, had turned gray by this time. All the energy they had purified from their bodies over the years through prayers to the Dark Master had vanished completely.

And at that moment, Schiller, Bruce, Hal, and Constantine, the four energy thieves, stood in a row in the underground room.

Schiller took a step forward and asked, "Lately, the Dark Owl's sacrifice has suffered significant energy losses. Do any of you have any insights?"

Then, he looked at the pile of energy storage modules that had turned into small mountains and said, "...Anyway, I don't."

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Next Chapter>>Chapter 612: Owls Are in Trouble Again (Part 1)