Clark had already spent a full week circling that nail. At this moment, he lay on the beach soaking up the sun, seemingly relaxing when in fact he was completely out of ideas. He just wanted to know which godforsaken bastard had come up with this trick—and more importantly, wasn't this level of technology completely absurd?
Clark really had tried every method he could think of, including adjusting the laser's output, trying to pull it out with finesse, or drilling through the crust and attacking the roots directly from below. Over the past few days, he had worked without sleep or rest, using every ability he had developed over the years. The result was that he was now lying here, while the nail remained firmly embedded in the ground.
By this point, the main emotion keeping Clark trying was sheer refusal to accept defeat. He knew he could fly to Mars and try talking to those Martians, or seek help from others to see if they had a solution. But he felt that, at the very least, he ought to exhaust every method he could think of before asking anyone else for help. And because he really did have quite a few abilities, the Exhaustion Method took a long time.
Just as Clark stood up to give it another try, he saw a group of people approaching from afar. He turned around and saw Schiller walking toward him across the sand, so Clark turned back around again.
"Mr. Kent! Mr. Kent!... Clark Kent!"
Clark had no choice but to turn back. He looked at Schiller helplessly and said, "What do you want this time? Why does nothing good ever happen when you show up?"
"That's a stereotype." Schiller took a document from his bag and handed it to Clark, then