Chapter 1670 - Batman's Trust, and International Friendship
Chapter 1670: Batman’s Trust, and International Friendship
Batman had nothing to worry about with a killing machine like this.
Want to run? The moment he thought he had escaped might be when a knife stabbed him in the back.
But Ivan didn’t really care. In any case, he had no intention of running.
Batman had restricted his movements to just shy of making him disappear without a sound.
In fact, as long as Ivan reported it in advance, he could wander around America; nobody cared about his daily life.
Besides, why would he run?
He now had resources, a lab, and all sorts of tech support. When he was free, he could go to a bar and talk about life with girls.
More importantly, as long as he was on this team, Tony could only pretend not to see him, even if he knew who he was.
For Ivan, it was the sense of “I like it when you see me but can’t do anything about it.”
He wasn’t an idiot.
He had been analyzing Batman’s behavior all this time, but had to concede that this was an open conspiracy.
If he wanted to be a superhero without any special ambitions, the Bat Squad was his best option.
It offered security and freedom. He also got equipment and tech support for acting righteously, and could rake in money like it was scrap paper.
A random mission could start at 100,000 dollars and go up to one million.
It had to be pointed out that the reward for the team was credit – money really was just a bonus.
In the past three months, Luke had been issuing missions almost every day.
However, since they were for ordinary enemies without extraordinary powers, the mission reward was only between a few dozen to 100 credit points each, with a bonus of 100,000 to 200,000 dollars.
After dozens of missions, the team members who participated more often could get a couple of thousand credit points and five million in reward money.
Even at the very least, a team member could still get several hundred credit points and more than a million dollars.
For the sake of credit points, Ivan had actively participated in more than 20 missions, and the credit points he obtained were all exchanged with the bigshot for high-end materials and components.
Buy them with money? Sorry, no.
Since the team members had credit points, the bigshot declined transactions with money.
The bigshot even indicated that he was willing to buy resources and services from the team with money first.
After a period of time, all the team members understood that credit was the most precious.
Points could be exchanged for money, but not vice versa.
It was only at the very beginning that Ivan spent a million dollars to buy 1,000 credit points from the Ninja Squad.
It wasn’t that the little turtles were greedy, but that Ivan claimed that he was at a critical juncture in his research, and needed to buy some important components for it.
The innocent little turtles had initially offered to lend Ivan the money, but in the end, they were swayed by his words, and foolishly accepted the million dollars.
Nobody had said anything in the group.
Batman’s “guide price” was 500 dollars for one credit point.
In that respect, it couldn’t be said that Ivan had tricked the little turtles.
However, Mindy still talked to the little turtles in private. “Adults are very cunning. You have to learn to use adults to deal with adults. If you run into something like this again, ask your master first, or Batman.”
Tears flowed down the little turtles’ faces as they felt that they were too naive.
This “bullying” case hadn’t affected the team’s harmony.
Firstly, everybody had a lot of credit points at that point, and secondly, they would have more credit points later. 1,000 credit points really wasn’t a big deal.
But everybody took their credit points seriously.
Ivan also realized how amazing the combo of Batman and the bigshot who sold everything was.
Batman’s existence ensured that everyone trusted each other.
Tony, as an external teammate, further boosted Batman’s credibility — if even Iron Man trusted Batman, then what was there to doubt?
On top of that, the bigshot who sold everything laid the benefits out in front of everyone.
Everybody was equal when it came to making deals.
Batman was the leader, and you needed to fork out credit points and reward money in order to issue a mission – these were the rules that were set.
In turn, credit could be used to buy most of what they needed from the bigshot.
There were few people in the world who wouldn’t want this.
Thus, a small team with Batman as its backbone and a bigshot connected to benefits was officially formed.
Although Ivan had sneered many times in his heart, he had to admit that it was great.
Everybody believed that Batman wouldn’t sell out his teammates.
Trust was the most difficult thing to obtain among superhumans.
What the team members didn’t know was that Luke’s trust didn’t come out of thin air.
Putting aside the preliminary screening, only those who passed the teammate assessment would be more likely to get more back from Luke.
For example, the reason Ivan was doing well now was because he had discarded his doubts and put his trust in Batman, and finally passed the system’s teammate assessment.
Even Wade, who wasn’t a teammate, could spend time idyllically with his wife – Luke couldn’t let Ivan live a more miserable life than that lunatic.
Ivan was lost in thought for a long while, until a voice rang out next to him. “Excuse me, are you in some kind of trouble?”
He turned around and saw two Japanese girls in high school clothes looking at him both nervously and excitedly.
A devilish smile crossed his face. “Yes, I do need some help.”
The Japanese girl spoke English, so Ivan did as well.
However, he spoke slowly so that the two girls could hear him clearly.
A moment later, he left arm-in-arm with the two Japanese girls and said, “If you take me to Jozankei Onsen, how about I buy you dinner? Just to seal our friendship. There’s no other meaning…”
…
Luke didn’t get that sort of treatment since the face he was wearing was rather plain.
After all, he was a decent man, unlike Ivan.
Luke found his target — a middle-aged Japanese man named Kouji Tanaka.
In a hotel, Luke first turned off the camera that was on the counter before he picked up the unconscious Kouji Tanaka from the bed and threw him onto the couch.
As for the unconscious girl on the bed, he wasn’t even interested in looking at her.
Kouji Tanaka was of Japanese-American blood, and was also an American citizen.
At the same time, he used to be a member of the Japanese Hydra SHIELD branch, but he hadn’t been called Kouji Tanaka back then.
Luke used Mental Hypnosis and Illusion, and spent an hour squeezing the guy dry before throwing him into his inventory.
Then, less than ten seconds later, he turned into Kouji Takagi.
As a mixed-blood, he was about 1.85 meters tall, which was one of the reasons why Luke had chosen him.
After everything was done, Luke started making plans in this room.
He waited two hours before he walked to the bed and woke up the girl.