SUP Chapter 68: Another Day of Law-Abiding Behavior
Added 2025-08-07 08:04:33 +0000 UTCWhile Constantine felt chilled to the bone by the pronoun the angel used, on the other side, Ian, who had become the object of his deep fear, finally arrived at the gym he had been eyeing for the past two days.
The setting sun's afterglow fell on the neon sign of "Big Muscle Gym." The pink-purple lights looked particularly ambiguous in the evening mist. Perhaps it shouldn't be located in Metropolis but should be in England instead.
His old home before crossing over.
The Land of Corruption also lacked such gyms.
"Such a bromantic color scheme. Jonathan actually likes coming to places like this. It's really easy to misunderstand." Ian stood at the entrance with his hands in his pockets, looking up at the gym's sign.
He didn't plan to go in and show off his physical qualities that surpassed ordinary people tenfold. Some showing off wasn't absolutely necessary. Mature show-offs only showed off things that gave them a sense of achievement.
"Where are the drug dealers hiding?"
Although Ian already had a Breaking Bad chemistry teacher, he still wanted to meet the legendary dragons as soon as possible. After all, even if the Breaking Bad chemistry teacher could make dragons, he needed to get the raw materials.
A law-abiding good student of Metropolis didn't have such channels. Ian was wondering if he should find someone to ask around when he saw a hooded black man in a sweatshirt walking toward him.
"Hey, brother, I can tell you need help. Want to know about quick fitness secrets?" The black guy showed off pearly white teeth that could endorse black toothpaste.
"Swimming and fitness personal training? Sorry, I don't need it." Ian thought he had encountered a sales person pushing personal training courses. These NPCs loved to spawn at gym entrances.
"Brother, I'm not a trainer. I'm a chemist." The young man looked around and lowered his voice. "Latest formula, results in three weeks. Technology can give you a strong physique."
"Trust me, with a muscular body, girls won't be able to walk when they see you." The black youth's tone was full of temptation. He really understood what teenage boys pursued.
However, Ian wasn't buying it.
"You mean muscles like these?" He lifted his school uniform shirt, revealing perfect abs, then pointed at his still somewhat youthful face.
"What I need isn't girls being unable to walk when they see me, but being able to protect myself when facing girls." His words were completely serious, and even the black youth thought they made some sense.
"Alright, I admit you have some damn Hollywood looks." The black youth told the truth, then showed Ian his Nike backpack.
"Maybe I misjudged. You're not a fitness newbie, but brother, you definitely haven't tried my products. No side effects and very good results."
"You can get even bigger. Believe in yourself, believe in the power of technology." He was trying his best to exploit fitness enthusiasts' greed in his tech potion sales pitch.
"Have you used it yourself?"
Ian asked a question most newbies would ask.
The black youth immediately responded.
"I don't need technology. My muscles are purely natural talent... though I occasionally use a little technology." His answer was very decisive, with a kind of unthinking certainty.
"Mm, I can see that, Metropolis Arnold."
Ian nodded.
"You're saying I look like Arnold Schwarzenegger? You really have good eyes!" The black youth immediately became happy. "Just for your vision, I'll give you a 10% discount today."
"Three hundred dollars a bottle. I suggest starting with ten bottles to test the effect. With the 10% discount, that's 2600 dollars." He tried to calculate, so the result he came up with was very resultful.
Right or wrong was secondary.
It generally matched the average education level of black Americans.
"I'm still a minor. Is this really okay?" Ian pulled out his student ID that he had lost and found again, probably because his old man had pulled some strings, so it reappeared in his drawer.
The black youth didn't look at it.
"That's exactly why you need to not lose at the starting line, right? You know Superman, right? I think everyone knows Superman. He used my family's hereditary technology since childhood."
Bragging without drafts was actually a traditional skill of black brothers.
"Is that so."
Ian pretended to believe it.
"Then give me one case, no, two cases."
After pondering for a moment and estimating the inventory the other party might have, he spoke directly, making even the black brother instinctively shudder.
"You sure?"
The black brother looked Ian up and down, examining his clothing.
"If you have enough money, of course there's no problem. I'm just a businessman." His implication was obvious - he was distancing himself from any relationship with whether Ian would ascend to Happy Planet.
"Mm."
Ian nodded.
So the black brother led him to one of Metropolis's ubiquitous deserted alleys, where a broken Ford was parked. Using the most primitive key, he opened his trunk that was bound with iron chains.
More than ten iron chains.
More than ten keys.
No surveillance around.
The black brother knew very well what he should trust, and it definitely wasn't his other brothers on this street.
"One case is eight thousand. I'll give you a 10% discount, so that's sixty-nine hundred." His math skills remained consistently poor, not sure if it was because "69" looked close to a 10% discount.
Ian didn't mind this.
After all, he was a superhero. It was time for him to intermittently fulfill his duties.
"Look up in the sky! Wonder Woman! She's not wearing clothes!"
This trick worked especially well on black people.
While the black man instinctively turned to look at the sky.
"Don't sell contraband to minors, you bastard! You've failed this city!" Ian played a deep little voice, and before the black man could react, he threw a punch.
Right to the noggin.
Although it wasn't an intentional power punch, Ian's strength could probably handle ten Ip Mans with one punch, so the strong black guy directly rolled his eyes and collapsed unconscious.
"Another day of saving Metropolis's innocent minors." Ian pulled out his unfinished Coke and poured all the flat soda into the trash can.
"Human! You're going too far!"
The trash can's complaint was only brief.
Ian took the empty bottle and poured bottle after bottle of the small vials of potion into it. Bacterial contamination wasn't important - this could only be considered a buff enhancement.
Three cases of tech potions.
Just enough to fill one Coke bottle. He tasted it lightly, the flavor wasn't bad, so he decided to use the trash can as a test subject later to try the effect of muscle injection.
Demons had muscles too.
"Phone."
Ian used the black brother's iron chains to tie him to a streetlight, then instinctively and skillfully searched out the black guy's phone.
"Hello, is this Officer Kate Beckett?" He called the female officer who had taken him home after the convenience store incident. "This is innocent bystander Ian Kent, the Ian you gave your personal number to last time saying I was very punchable and likely to encounter mishaps when going out."
"No, I wasn't stabbed or killed. My corpse hasn't learned to call the police yet."
"I just encountered criminals again, but fortunately I was saved by Silk Superman, who wishes to remain anonymous and has a deep hatred for contraband and wants to process it harmlessly."
Ian sometimes had to brush up his presence.
Independent NPCs were most afraid of having no popularity.
But also afraid of being too popular.
The balance between moderation was a matter of degree.
"No, not a female Superman wearing stockings, but a new member of the Superman family. He said he's been practicing for exactly two and a half days. Appearance? I don't know why I completely can't see his face clearly."
"I'm telling the truth. I don't like lying, just occasionally tell little lies. Eh, it's working really fast. Nothing, I'm drinking the new version of Coca-Cola."
After finishing the police report, Ian turned to look at the little black guy under the streetlight.
"One hundred, two hundred, three hundred." Ian counted out three hundred dollars, then looked at the phone call duration and counted out three cents in coins, stuffing them all into the unconscious black man's pants pocket.
Honest trading.
The agreed price of three hundred dollars per bottle.
Ian would naturally respect market prices. After all, he was a law-abiding citizen of America who didn't even like to take advantage of small discounts.
Such noble character.
You probably couldn't find many like him in all of Metropolis.