His animosity towards Superman stemmed from Superman's alien identity. He believed that Superman's existence turned humanity into birds confined to Earth, weakening human potential. Therefore, he judged Superman to be humanity's greatest threat, constantly striving to prove himself superior to Superman.
"What do you intend to do?"
Shimizu asked the question again.
"It's obvious. We can all guess who that alien hiding his identity is—that guy running around in the sky with a red cape. The appearances of other capable individuals can be traced, either through their own intelligence or through some kind of mutation. Only he is different."
Luthor said to Shimizu.
"Once we know how to deal with Superman, we'll know how to deal with his kind. So, our initial goal is the same as the government's: find someone who knows Superman's identity and can get close to him, then lure him out. He's the key to this whole thing."
Shimizu glanced at Luthor.
This guy must have already prepared some strategies for dealing with Superman, perhaps even prepared contingency plans against himself, like Batman.
These smart people have an extremely strong sense of paranoia, as if they have persecution fantasies. But once an accident like today happens, they will be the most reliable teammates.
"We need to divide the work. Perhaps I can help you modify and upgrade your armor, further equipping you with the ability to resist alien forces. Viktor is a good helper. As for you, I will mobilize all the resources LexCorp can contact to help you. You need to help us find someone: Lois Lane of the Daily Planet. We need to follow her to find Superman and learn how to deal with his kind."
"The armor won't be given to you, but I can give you some blueprints. You can try to assist in the modification through the blueprints," Shimizu said indifferently.
Of course, he knew that Luthor was plotting against his armor.
Although the current White Knight possesses a significant amount of technological content after Shimizu absorbed a large amount of engineering and high-end puppetry knowledge, Lex Luthor's level would definitely allow him to create something even better.
He guessed that Luthor was genuinely curious about what means he used to control the armor.
However, even though only he possessed Chakra, Lex Luthor wouldn't be able to discover anything from his armor.
It's just that with his ability, even with Viktor watching from the side, it would be easy to leave some tricks on his armor.
Lex Luthor said with a look of regret:
"Is that so? It seems we don't have enough trust. What a pity. My company still has some promethium metal stored, which was originally intended to be used as an energy storage material for a newly developed giant particle collider. I was just thinking of using it to plate the surface of your armor, but now it seems…"
"Cough cough… It seems our friendship is still very deep," Shimizu coughed, interrupting Luthor's words, and pressed his shoulder.
"I'll drag the armor over in a moment. You can watch and modify it," Shimizu said, already thinking of a strategy.
Later, he would remove the Speed Force Dagger and Freeze Gun, which were more critical parts of the White Knight, and hand them over to Luthor.
Anyway, he wouldn't be able to research anything, and it would be like getting a set of promethium-plated armor for free.
Even if Luthor left some tricks on it, he wouldn't be afraid.
Lex Luthor smiled and extended his right hand to Shimizu. His shiny bald head shone brightly under the illumination of the incandescent lamp.
Shimizu also extended his right hand, shook hands with Luthor, and reached an agreement.
… …
… …
The search for Lois Lane was not difficult.
In fact, it wasn't necessary to search, because the fact that Superman and these Kryptonians feared Kryptonite was already well-known comic book content in his world before he time-traveled.
Finding Lois Lane was mainly to go through the motions.
Through Luthor's channels, Shimizu contacted her at an interrogation room in a military base in Kansas.
"Miss Lois, it's a pleasure to meet you," Shimizu said, walking into the interrogation room in a suit and placing a timer on the table.
"What does this mean? Some kind of intimidation tactic?"
Lois looked at the timer counting down from three minutes.
"No, these three minutes are non-existent. With our ability, we can only take advantage of the time before the real person in charge arrives to modify the monitoring and recording signals through some means. Three minutes is a conservative time estimate."
"Sounds like you guys have a lot of power. Is it a secret organization?"
Lois Lane sat calmly in her seat, asking Shimizu, looking like she was using her reporter's instincts to dig out some secrets from Shimizu.
"No, I only represent myself. Forgetting to introduce myself, Kiriel Vought, from Gotham City, a law-abiding businessman with some assets."
The biggest gangster in Gotham City introduced himself to the reporter.
"Looks like you and the government and the military are not on the same side."
"Indeed not, but at least at this moment I am the same as them, standing on the side of humanity. I think Miss Lois, you are too. We don't want to see humanity's only home destroyed by aliens."
"You're right, so what's the purpose of you coming to me?"
Lois Lane asked Shimizu.
"We are now facing the threat of Superman's kind. We want to know what their weaknesses are in order to take targeted measures."
Lois had a 'I knew it' expression.
"So you ambitious people want to know Superman's weaknesses through me, and then control him for your own use? Sorry, I don't know."
Shimizu glanced at Lois's expression and then at the timer counting down to one minute.
"Okay, thank you, I know, they are afraid of something called Kryptonite."
Lois tilted her head, dumbfounded.
What the hell is Kryptonite?
"What are you talking about?"
"Can you tell me where there is Kryptonite?"
Miss Reporter was stunned.
"Are you kidding me?"
"Very good, there may be samples near Smallville, where Superman landed from outer space. Thank you, Miss Lois, thank you for your contribution to humanity."
Shimizu snapped his notebook shut and put it and the pen into his pocket.
After all, he was just here to go through the motions.
