"World-shattering Wisdom"

It didn't take much time for Li Wei to effortlessly deal with the Rune Warrior—Teresa. From then on, Otherworld Teleportation officially became Li Wei's exclusive superpower.

In Li Wei's view, the cruelty of many of Vought's third-tier superheroes clearly surpassed that of top-tier big shots like A-Train. Because most of these third-tier heroes understood that they likely had no significant room for improvement in their lifetimes, so they gave up, generally not caring much about external opinions or evaluations.

They indulged themselves more—flour, the Heroes' Gathering, blood, and so on were all manifestations of this, and Teresa was one of them. People like A-Train, on the other hand, carried various endorsements, TV shows, and movies, meaning any negative news could cost them a huge amount of money, dragging Vought into losses as well. Under these circumstances, even Homelander had to play the fake-smile boy every day.

In a sense, this could also be understood as the difference between a hypocrite and a true scoundrel—the former at least still cared about face most of the time. Similarly, someone like Firecracker, who was striving to climb up, also made sure not to leave any black marks on his record. Li Wei did a quick check and found that Firecracker had never killed anyone, which was genuinely rare among third-tier heroes.

After handling this matter, Li Wei changed course and headed to Detroit. He had already pinpointed the exact location of the Sage Sisters, and incidentally uncovered something even more interesting. Her seniority turned out to be surprisingly old—she had once joined the Teen Superhero Team Kix at the same time as A-Train, making them former teammates. But despite claiming to have the world's greatest intelligence, she couldn't even meet Kix's basic training requirements and was quickly kicked out in a very humiliating fashion.

Since then, she had tried to debut again but hit dead ends everywhere, eventually ending up as a shut-in in Detroit, a bankrupt city. There was almost no information about her online either; the latest intel Li Wei could find was a photo of her buying groceries six years ago, uploaded by an old black woman. It was easy to imagine how badly she was doing—probably worse than Firecracker. At least before meeting Li Wei, Firecracker had managed to get a personal movie released on the big screen. Even though Li Wei later learned she had talked her way into it with her silver tongue, that still proved she wasn't useless. It was only in comparison to Li Wei that she seemed to be struggling.

This made Li Wei hold little hope for today's meeting. But considering that the temporary apartment Teresa had rented wasn't far from Detroit and was quite convenient to pass by, and that if he didn't make personal contact, it would always nag at him, he decided to come take a look.

He knocked politely on the door. After a few breaths, a female mute with a head full of dreadlocks, looking very much like a fathead fish, her dead fish eyes brimming with "wisdom," appeared in Li Wei's line of sight. The moment he saw the Sage Sisters looking like that, Li Wei felt a bit of a headache—it fit his stereotype of female mutes all too perfectly. He mentally switched her to "it."

"Oh, I'm genuinely surprised this time." Li Wei's mouth twitched. "Actually, I'm a bit surprised too."

Codename: Sage Sisters Type: Physique Type Special Ability 1: Brain Regeneration—When the brain is damaged, it will repair at a certain rate; death will not occur from partial brain destruction. Can be fully copied. Estimated contact time required: 9 minutes. Special Ability 2: "World-shattering Wisdom"—Believes herself to possess world-shattering wisdom, thus looks down on ordinary people. When actively activated, can ignore conventional fear effects or mental control, etc. However, if used repeatedly and the body's overall constitution cannot bear the load, it may lead to a fog of thought, firmly convincing herself that she truly has world-shattering wisdom, leading to a series of fantasies, etc. Can be fully copied. Estimated contact time required: 5 minutes. Special Ability 3: Rapid Reading—Can be fully copied. Estimated contact time required: 20 seconds. Special Ability 4: Super Memory—Can be fully copied. Estimated contact time required: 1 minute. Special Ability 5: Random Enhancement—Intelligence. Can enhance intelligence up to 130. Can be fully copied. Estimated contact time required: 1 second.

After seeing the second and fifth abilities, Li Wei fully understood why the Sage Sisters were the way they were. Even if it got lucky and had its intelligence boosted to 130, that was at best a genius among ordinary people, not some unparalleled prodigy. Intelligence, IQ, and wisdom—though they seemed similar, what they represented was vastly different. IQ was the only one that could be quantified, and the mere 1-second copy time already hinted at its value from the side. But combined with "World-shattering Wisdom," it easily led the Sage Sisters to misjudge its own limits. Its body, which had received almost no enhancement, clearly couldn't bear the cost of using that wisdom.

Still, the Sage Sisters' other abilities were fairly useful. The last few didn't need elaboration—they just weren't significant to Li Wei, and Kimiko's Super Healing was superior anyway. But regardless, with the latter two abilities and a room full of books, the Sage Sisters should have a considerable knowledge base. Perhaps he could try to have it analyze Compound V. Hmm, just a try—Vought hadn't invited it, likely because they had long seen through what it really was.

"Please come in, Angel."

"Hello, Sage Sisters. Please forgive my sudden visit." If necessary, no matter what he thought inside, Li Wei could maintain basic politeness even when facing a mute.

"Just Sage is fine. 'Sisters' was added by Vought." Li Wei was a bit speechless—so "Sage" was indeed something you came up with yourself? He had never heard of any truly smart person constantly labeling themselves a sage!

Li Wei looked around. "I thought the 'smartest' woman in the world would live in a better environment."

Detroit had been bankrupt for years, and houses there were practically as cheap as cabbage, yet the rundown place she lived in probably didn't even total fifty square meters.

"Because she's too smart, she simply doesn't care about such external things."

The moment the words left his mouth, Li Wei was almost certain the other party had overused World-shattering Wisdom.

Such inflated self-confidence even gave him the urge to strike her down on the spot.

He couldn't be bothered to waste words with her and cut straight to the point: "Sage, no, Jessica, do you know about Compound V?"

Jessica Bradley was her real name—easy enough to find out; Vought had it on record.

"I do. Vought once invited me to join their research team, but I refused because I didn't want my findings to be abused at their whim."

Seeing the Sage Sisters' face practically screaming "I'm the best, praise me," Li Wei's fists only clenched tighter.

"So, if I wanted to hire you to help me crack Compound V and pay you handsomely for it, would you accept?"

"Since you've put it so plainly, I doubt I have the right to refuse. But I don't think you can use it to stand against Vought."

Half-mad as she was, Sage could still grasp the basics clearly.

Li Wei chuckled and casually picked up a sharp steel awl over a foot long from the table.

The traces of blood, bodily fluids, and nerve tissue left on it made him realize what she had used it for.

Since her brain could regenerate, it wasn't so hard to understand why she might occasionally drive it into her own skull.

And judging by the color and smell of the residue on the awl, she had done this many times before.

"Don't say that. Though this is our first meeting, I'd very much like to be friends with a 'smart person' like you."

"Friends?"

The Sage Sisters paused to think for a moment. "If that puts your mind at ease, then we can be friends."

"Good. Then let's talk."

Before the words faded, Li Wei moved with lightning speed, driving the steel awl cleanly into the upper part of her eye socket, straight into her brain—the textbook motion for a lobotomy!

Before she could react at all, in an instant, all of the Sage Sisters' movements ceased. A genuine, innocent smile spread across her face, pure as a newborn's.

Li Wei let out a long sigh of relief. "Finally, that feels better."

"Sit." "Stick out your hand." "Roll over."

He issued several commands in a row, and seeing her execute each one with maximum efficiency, he nodded with considerable satisfaction.

"Good. Now, take my hand."

Since he was already here, even if he couldn't recruit a researcher, he'd first take a few of her abilities for himself. Then he would make the Sage Sisters disappear from this world completely.

After that, he'd find a chance to meet those two candidates.