The spider who had failed to adopt a bat sat in his school classroom, slumped over his desk, catching up on sleep in peace.
If the world had even a shred of a conscience, it should at least let him sleep until noon.
Unfortunately, though.
This was Gotham.
Gotham's conscience generally existed only in suspects' courtroom testimony, and even there, it frequently went missing.
Because Gotham's criminal suspects often started laughing before they could finish playing the victim.
Chen Mo was sleeping soundly, the arm beneath his head nearly numb, when a notification only he could hear suddenly sounded in his ear.
[Phase assessment complete.]
Chen Mo's eyelids twitched.
Don't want to get up.
[Blackgate incident, food chain cleanup, preliminary establishment of student relief system.] [Overall assessment: slight improvement in survival conditions for the city's underclass.] [Distributing rewards.]
Chen Mo groggily rolled over in his dream.
In the dream, he was eating a giant meat bun.
The bun was bigger than a Batmobile tire, released a rush of broth with every bite, and didn't cost a thing.
Then the system coldly took the bun out of his dream.
[Base physical strength threshold increased.] [Current upper limit: sixteen tons.]
Chen Mo's eyes snapped open.
As he sat up, the desk gave a quiet creak, its legs nearly announcing their retirement on the spot.
A boy in the row ahead, who had returned at some point and currently looked to be in a lovely mood, turned around. "What's up? Dream Gotham's city government was chasing you for back taxes?"
Chen Mo looked down at the desk.
Good.
It hadn't cracked.
He glanced at his hands again.
Sixteen tons.
The number circled through his head.
What did sixteen tons mean?
Roughly speaking, the next time he wanted