At the top of Schiller's Mind Palace, the towering Khonshu sat cross-legged on the edge of the High Tower, his freshly repaired staff resting across his lap. Jörmungandr's enormous snake head leaned close beside him, and the two of them stared at a room within the tower.
Their posture was only one small stool away from that of old men cooling off beneath a big tree after dinner. If they had a bag of sunflower seeds, it would have looked even more fitting.
However, Lex's state inside the room was completely unlike their relaxed demeanor.
Some might still remember that Batman's test involved one of the masterminds behind the murder case at Gotham University, while Lex's opponent was Schiller.
Of course, it was not DC Schiller himself. Even DC would not personally step in to beat up the teenage version of Luthor. He had Moonlight Schiller do it instead.
But there was good reason for that. First of all, Lex was different from Batman. He was not facing those villains who only knew how to talk trash, nor was he facing Joker, who staged kidnappings every day to force Batman into making choices. He was facing Superman, the embodiment of justice.
If Lex was destined to confront Superman face-to-face in the future, then the first lesson he needed to learn was not how to be a good villain, but how to stay alive while minimizing the damage.
Superman was unlikely to kill Lex outright, but it was like a grown elephant telling you it meant no harm and merely wanted to play. If Lex wanted to cause trouble in Metropolis, the first thing he had to learn was how to dance with an elephant without being trampled to death.
In terms of raw strength alone, Moonlight Schiller was certainly no