Clark had a feeling that Schiller was indeed the kind of person who enjoyed watching the world burn. His methods proved that he must have done this sort of thing many times before.
But precisely because of that, Clark felt this time was different. Schiller had not come entirely to cause trouble. Otherwise, Earth would have burned to ashes in the time it took him to devise and carry out this scheme.
There was indeed some mischievous delight in messing with people throughout the plan, but that was not the point. He had not devoted all his energy to it. He definitely had some more pragmatic goal.
So he could not have chosen to hide and refuse to cooperate just to gather all these people at the exhibition for a huge fight and make a massive spectacle. He had to have another purpose. What could it be?
Clark did not plan to ask Lois, even though he felt she probably had the answer. But he could not rely on others forever. He had to learn to think independently, at least succeed on his own once.
In some respects, Clark was very stubborn. He had an intense obsession with proving himself. He did not want to rely on Batman, nor did he want to rely on Lois. Even if he had no choice but to depend on them in the end, he could not simply give up from the start. He had to keep trying until the very last second.
Calm down, Clark. You can do this. Clark encouraged himself inwardly. This was not actually difficult, because there were plenty of known clues. Bruce and Lois had already analyzed things clearly, and Schiller's patterns of action could be traced as well. As long as he combined them and drew inferences, he