DC: Rise of the Kryptonian Tyrant

The next morning.

The sun remained unchanged. warm, radiant, while the air carried the crisp chill of winter.

The season had shifted.

In Manhattan, people had begun bundling themselves in thick coats, wrapping scarves tightly around their necks. Each exhale sent out a misty breath, a visible sign of the dropping temperature.

Some individuals might be undergoing personal changes at this very moment.

But for most, life continued as it always had.

Blissfully unaware.

Lucky? Or unfortunate?

Perhaps ignorance brought them peace.

But Bardi didn't see it that way.

To him, ignorance was a sin.

When danger arrived, those who lacked knowledge couldn't control their own fate. They wouldn't even have the ability to resist.

There was no happiness in that.

---

Zatara arrived, bringing with him an extensive collection of magical artifacts, ancient staffs, scrolls, gemstones, bones infused with magical energy, withered branches, noble swords encrusted with jewels, intricate incantations, arcane symbols, sacred inscriptions, and runes.

More than 120 languages from various races detailed the formation of magical circles, each inscribed with knowledge passed down through the ages.

With a wave of his hand, Zatara transformed the luxurious sofa and glass coffee table of the Presidential Suite into a massive, gray, spectral hand. The conjured appendage swept all the furniture aside, clearing space.

Then, with another flick of his wrist, an enormous pile of arcane relics, glimmering noble swords, exotic talismans, and countless strange artifacts descended onto the soft carpet.

And this was just the beginning.

If Bardi couldn't comprehend the foundational principles of magic, there would be no need to present him with anything more advanced.

---

The windows of the suite were wide open, allowing sunlight to flood the room.

Standing in the brightest spot, where the golden rays shone the warmest, Bardi's silhouette was solitary yet resolute.

The fate of the magical world and perhaps the entire Earth now rested upon him.

His eyes flickered under the sunlight as he reached into his coat pocket, retrieving a solar capsule.

Opening his mouth, he bit down.

The stored solar energy surged through his body, absorbed by his cells.

But this time, he did not allow it to simply replenish his strength.

Instead, he directed all of it toward his brain, channeling every ounce of energy to enhance his mental processing.

At that moment, Bardi felt an intense pressure swell within his skull.

His mind expanded.

It was as if the floodgates of his consciousness had burst open, his synapses firing at an unimaginable rate.

The entire world around him seemed to shift—hum—as if he had stepped into a clearer, more refined reality.

He became acutely aware of everything.

The exact composition of the air.

The microscopic movements of dust particles.

The warmth of the sunlight.

Even the way molecules vibrated around him.

It was all crystal clear.

An irresistible pull gripped his mind, like an ant itching at his consciousness, like a black hole drawing him toward the depths of knowledge.

This was understanding.

A rush of calculations, endless variables, a flood of thoughts flashing through his brain at breakneck speed.

Even the faint breeze stirring through the suite, Bardi could now calculate the precise number of dust particles it carried, track their trajectory, and predict exactly where they would settle.

His mind had become a supercomputer, firing at speeds beyond comprehension, surpassing a billion calculations per instant.

This was the level of cognition Superman had once displayed, able to read and memorize every medical textbook on Earth in just five minutes, mastering in moments what would take a human a decade to learn.

Now, Bardi could do the same.

Though his genes were flawed, his intelligence was unmatched.

He had broken past the limitations of Kryptonian biology, exceeding even the expectations of his own kind.

And under the sun's radiance, his brain already formidable was further strengthened, his synapses crackling with energy.

He took a moment to stabilize his thoughts, suppressing the sensation of his mind swelling beyond its limits.

Then, he spoke.

"Let's begin."

Zatara nodded.

"The most fundamental aspect of magic originates from spiritual power."

"If we compare it to the physical body, spiritual power is like the hands and feet, acting, shaping, and casting spells."

"The heart and brain represent the soul, its core essence."

"Magical bloodlines exist because they are naturally attuned to specific forms of magic, allowing spiritual power to be harnessed with greater efficiency..."

Zatara did not cloak his words in mystery.

Instead, he explained the foundations of magic in a way that made it accessible, using metaphors where necessary.

He detailed the requirements for spellcasting, the essential components, the significance of magical bloodlines, and how they influenced the user's abilities.

The sunlight bathed Bardi's face, illuminating his sharp features, casting a soft halo around him.

Silently, he listened.

Absorbing.

Processing.

In his mind, magic was taking shape, a system, a structure, a science.

To him, magic wasn't some unfathomable force.

It was merely another branch of science, one that dealt with the spirit and soul, intertwining the forces of nature, the universe, and the mind.

Of course, Bardi knew he couldn't wield magic himself.

He lacked the ability to cast spells.

But that didn't matter.

Because at its core, magic had rules.

And rules could be understood.

Zatara continued his explanation, and gradually, Bardi began to see it, the framework of magic itself.

It was no different from physics.

It followed the same principles, force meeting force, particle fluctuations, spell frequencies, infrasound wave manipulation.

The arrangement of runes and incantations in a magic circle—to Bardi, they resembled the circuitry of an electronic board.

It wasn't electricity that powered them.

It was spiritual energy, the soul, the activation of magical bloodlines.

This was what made magic so mysterious and unpredictable, its fluctuations in mental energy were too polymorphic, too elusive to be measured scientifically.

"The human spirit, the soul, has carried inherited information since ancient times, passed down through the mother's placenta. From birth, it absorbs vast amounts of knowledge from the natural world, embedding it into the bloodline. As individuals grow, this manifests in different magical affinities, some excel at controlling elements, others at manipulating animals and plants, and some at influencing the mind. Each bloodline is unique."

As Bardi listened, an unconscious thought surfaced.

On Krypton, all life forms were artificially engineered.

Kryptonians were not born from a mother's womb.

They did not inherit genetic information through the placenta, nor did they receive the ancestral imprints passed down through generations, those subtle, intrinsic transmissions that shaped the soul and mind of a species.

Kryptonians were powerful.

Yet their minds were an invisible weakness, easily manipulated by magic.

Perhaps there was a reason for this.

Their rigid genetic engineering had produced physically superior beings, but their souls had never undergone the natural process of inheritance, never received the instinctual knowledge that biological species acquired through the bond between mother and child.

If that was the case…

Was the Kryptonian mind fundamentally flawed?

Bardi considered the possibility.

Perhaps his ability to break free from Kryptonian genetic limitations was due to his soul, a reincarnated consciousness.

Perhaps Kryptonian-engineered beings followed a different developmental path.

Their bodies were shaped first, dictated entirely by genetics, while their consciousness and souls formed later, if they even fully formed at all.

It was a theory.

A strong one.

But Bardi wasn't yet certain.

Because this was only the beginning of his understanding of magic.

***

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