Marvel: A Lazy-Ass Superman

Chapter 239: Chapter 239 — Sheephole Valley

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”Sheephole Valley” was actually just a literal translation — the place’s full name was Sheephole Valley Wilderness.

Located east of Los Angeles, right next to the northern border of Joshua Tree National Park, the area was a mix of basins and mountains — part of the Mojave Desert.

In ancient times, it had been a hunting ground for Native Americans. Scattered granite boulders formed natural shelters from the sun, and wild bighorn sheep once roamed among them — hence the name ”Sheephole.”

Nowadays, the sheep had long since migrated north, and the land had turned into a sparse, desolate desert. Technically it was a protected natural reserve, but few people ever set foot here.

And it was in this forsaken wilderness that Henry had built himself a shipping-container laboratory.

He had considered setting it up in one of the national forests north of L.A. — the trees would’ve hidden the structure from satellite view — but with wildfires breaking out every summer, he’d quickly dropped that idea.

The desert might look barren and exposed, but Sheephole Valley had a feature that made it perfect: granite caves. They weren’t deep — most were little more than shaded alcoves — yet they offered enough cover to hide a forty-foot container from aerial surveillance.

With Kryptonian construction abilities, reshaping a rock formation into a shallow cave that perfectly fit a lab was trivial work.

Accessibility wasn’t a concern either. Henry didn’t need roads — he flew in and out. No tire tracks, no trail. No outsider could follow him here.

The only real risk was a freak encounter — some wilderness explorer wandering off-trail and stumbling across the place by pure luck. But that probability was so low it barely deserved a thought. And if someone did stumble on it, they’d still need serious tools or lockpicks to break in.

To make the place self-sufficient, Henry had dug a well and a septic tank, installed wind turbines, solar panels, and large batteries, plus a backup diesel generator. Water and power — both covered.

The lab’s purpose was to manufacture the medications his black clinic needed — everything from antibiotics to rare cancer treatments.

He used to produce these in Old Gary’s apartment building, but the chemical smells were becoming a problem. Rather than endlessly upgrading the ventilation system downtown, it was simpler to move the operation to the desert.

That decision led to the creation of this isolated sanctuary — crude, but efficient — his personal research base.

He’d also moved most of his equipment fabrication here. With his flight speed, commuting between L.A. and Sheephole Valley took less than a blink.

Why make his own drugs at all? Because diving into the legitimate pharmaceutical industry was a bottomless pit. The red tape, the ”intelligence taxes,” the regulated ingredients — everything cost a fortune or required shady channels.

Henry had no interest in starting a company or competing with Big Pharma. He just needed specific compounds for his own medical use. So, he made them himself.

Using what he’d learned from public libraries and university databases — journals, theses, and research papers — and occasionally ”visiting” a few major pharmaceutical labs to take a peek at their data...

With his Kryptonian intellect and precision, as long as the ingredients weren’t too exotic — like Borneo Blood Orchid levels of rare — there was nothing he couldn’t synthesize.

He kept his word to Big Old O: he wouldn’t turn into some kind of Breaking Bad figure. Everything he produced had established formulas and verified efficacy.

As for painkillers — he didn’t even touch them. His clinic wasn’t a real hospital. If patients felt pain, that was their problem. Endure it or die — pain meant you were still alive. That was Henry’s philosophy.

After all, his clients were never decent people. If his custom painkillers ever became a cheap supply source for junkies, he’d just be breeding addicts. Better to let them feel what being alive really meant.

For now, Henry only replicated existing drugs, not developed new ones. Researching original medicine took too long and required endless trials — including human ones — and he had no interest in crossing that ethical line.

Coming to the lab during this two-month hiatus was part of his plan — time to restock. Up until now, he’d only synthesized what he needed on demand. But with six months of experience, he now knew which medicines were used most often. Stocking up made sense.

Chemically synthesized drugs, if kept dry, could last years.

As for traditional medicine, Henry’s response was a simple snort.

First, he was in the United States. Second, it wasn’t that traditional medicine was useless — but the few herbs that actually worked were absurdly rare.

Could cultivated American herbs really compare to wild mountain herbs? Could cow horn substitute for rhino horn? Was safflower the same as saffron?

Somewhere along the way, people had convinced themselves that substitutes were just as good — probably because the real stuff had become too scarce. Experts were spreading smoke screens to keep what little remained for themselves.

This wasn’t just a matter of price — most of those rare ingredients literally no longer existed on the market.

Even with the same recipe, herbs from different regions varied wildly in potency. People really thought medicinal plants were uniform, like mass-produced pills? Even fruits on the same tree didn’t taste the same — some sweet, some sour. Why would herbs be any different?

So after a few trials using what he could buy locally — guided by medical texts — Henry gave up. The books weren’t wrong, but the ingredients here were just too inferior.

As for Native American herbal medicine... Henry only knew about coca leaves. The rest of that knowledge had been wiped out by European colonization.

Even the tribes themselves hadn’t preserved much of it, let alone written records Henry could study.

Thus, in North America, Henry abandoned any notion of pursuing traditional remedies. Chemistry was his battlefield now — strengthening his biochemistry and pharmacology skills.

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