"Why not? There might be talent in the San Fernando Valley too. You know the crisis Earth is facing." Thea's gaze drifted as she looked at her secretary. The secretary was one of the few in the company who knew about the coming evil invasion.
Miss Queen thought for a moment. "To avoid damaging my reputation as a superhero, handle this under CEO Felicity Smoak's name. That woman's off playing somewhere with Ray Palmer, who knows where."
Even though she'd handled countless problems for Luthor, the secretary still felt the sticky note weighed a thousand pounds in her hand, her steps unsteady.
Having delegated the major trouble to her subordinate, Miss Queen felt refreshed. However, the training issue still required her consideration.
As the God of Literary Arts, her artistic attributes had reached maximum value. Diana had already told her (specifically, last night) that her every expression now carried deep artistic resonance.
But asking her to personally train those actors, singers, and artists—she simply didn't have time. Thea also couldn't pull a bard from New Genesis for on-site instruction.
She could only cultivate a teacher from Earth's existing mages. The candidate selection was tricky. After all, they'd been training as proper mages—switching to bard was somewhat of a trap. She passed over several subordinates.
Just switching classes wasn't enough. This person had to have presence, be able to command a crowd of stars, and most critically, have thick skin and not care about worldly criticism.
Wait—there was someone perfect for this!
A simple divination spell, and Thea quickly found her target. Constantine! Nickname "Scumbag Con." Thick-skinned, powerful, clever, cunning, and most importantly, beneath his slovenly appearance, he actually had a strong sense of the bigger picture.
She snapped her left hand fingers. Sky-blue light flashed, and two layers of light flickered across Constantine, who was thousands of miles away in Metropolis. Unfortunately, against absolute power, his caution didn't buy him even one extra second.
Like the Spectre casually teleporting Miss Queen, she could teleport ordinary mages without much effort.
Constantine's reaction was lightning-fast. He immediately surveyed his surroundings. When he saw Thea, his expression showed annoyance, though he quickly concealed it with exaggerated British court gestures.
"Oh, Your Majesty the Queen, what orders do you have for this humble subject?"
Thea ignored his antics and spoke gravely. "John Constantine, do you know that Earth is about to face a great calamity?..."
She'd lost count of how many times she'd told people the Darkseid story.
Constantine wore a perfunctory smile. Thea continued, "I know your usual principle—magic is magic, mundane is mundane. But Constantine, before the evil overlord, there's no boundary between magic and mundane. Your magical attainments are excellent, even world-class, but before that evil, you're just a stronger ant."
"Heh heh." Constantine lowered his head with a light laugh. Using magic, he conjured a grimy chair and sat down heavily.
"Your explanation is vague and incomplete. Why would such a formidable villain target Earth? It's because you lot—or specifically you—superheroes running around playing hero attracted him, right?"
Thea avoided the topic. "Don't dirty my office." She blew a breath—no spell, no incantation, just a gentle breeze that directly reverted Constantine's chair to its original magical energy.
Their understanding of magic was on completely different levels. Constantine dropped his smirk, pulled out a small knife with his left hand, and quickly moved it toward his right.
Blood sacrifice? Unfortunately, his movements, however fast, couldn't exceed human limits. To Thea, it looked like slow motion.
"Blood sacrifice? You really won't rest until you've dirtied my office, will you? Fine, let's talk somewhere else." She didn't want her office covered in blood stains—disgusting to look at. She directly activated teleportation, taking Constantine to the New Continent.
"All right, this place is very short on water. If you want to irrigate the earth, you can start now." Thea spread her hands, gesturing for him to begin his performance.
Constantine wasn't an idiot. He wouldn't bleed for no reason.
Faced with Thea's teleportation, he really had no solution. No matter how many techniques he mastered, without sufficient power, it was useless.
The disorientation from teleportation quickly faded. Following habit, he first surveyed his surroundings, immediately noticing the problem. "The magical energy here..."
Thea had anticipated his perceptiveness.
"If I told you I created this continent with magic, you probably wouldn't believe me. I don't need to prove anything to you. I just want to say—humanity's magical age is returning, whether you support it or not."
Created with magical power? Constantine's first reaction was disbelief. Nonsense! Even observing with magical sight, he couldn't see the edge of this continent. He didn't believe the gap between them was that vast. This wasn't magical at all!
He pulled out a cigarette of indeterminate brand, lit it, took a light drag, squeezed his forehead with his left hand, and within a minute had sorted out the connections. "What exactly do you want me for? I'm not joining you superheroes fighting bad guys."
Thea had compiled all her ideas about bards, training methods, and spells from low to high levels into a light sphere and tossed it to Constantine. Of course, as a jack-of-all-trades profession, a bard's high-level spells were only mid-to-upper level among mages.
Benefiting from the superheroes' good reputation, Constantine hesitated briefly but still sent his mental power into it to examine the contents.
The bard's low-level spells didn't impress him. He just found this method of using beautiful sounds to cast spells somewhat like Spirit Words. But facing several high-level bard spells, his expression finally changed. He couldn't cast these spells.
Beneath his casual exterior, Constantine revered knowledge. The more knowledgeable someone was, the more they could see this light sphere's value. Thea hadn't just detailed the casting process and effects—she'd also simplified them to her level of understanding.
If given time to research these high-level spells, even without using singing methods, he felt he could cast them. But the methodology was priceless. Many scientific breakthroughs hinged on methodology. With just a glance, Constantine felt many long-troubling problems seemed to have new solutions.
But now he was even more confused. Why give him this knowledge? There had to be a catch. He chose to ask directly. "Your knowledge exceeds mine a hundredfold. I'd be useless against enemies you can't beat. How can I help you?"
Constantine truly didn't think he could be of use. She had money, power, and now her only advantage—knowledge—she surpassed him by a hundred times.
You can't possibly want me to investigate someone as a private detective, right?