Following his godfather's instructions, Clark immediately activated his X-ray vision and focused on Marcus to study his physical structure.
The moment Clark's enhanced vision engaged, he let out a sharp cry of pain and immediately dropped to a crouch, pressing his palms against his eyes.
"Ah! My eyes!" he exclaimed, his voice filled with genuine distress.
Looking at Marcus normally was perfectly fine, but when Clark tried to examine him with X-ray vision, Marcus appeared like a massive human-shaped ball of brilliant light—so intensely bright that it was almost blinding.
Having looked at Marcus without any preparation for such an overwhelming visual assault, Clark's sensitive eyes were immediately stung by the radiant energy emanating from his godfather.
"What's wrong?" Marcus asked, genuinely concerned about Clark's reaction. The boy had simply looked at him for a moment—how could such a basic action cause this kind of distress?
While Marcus was aware of the vast amounts of void energy contained within his body, he had no idea what that energy looked like when viewed through Kryptonian-enhanced vision.
Seeing Clark crouched on the ground in obvious pain, Marcus quickly moved to comfort him.
"Godfather, why do you look so different from other people?" Clark asked, tears streaming down his face as his stimulated eyes continued to water. "When I look at you with my vision, you look like a sun!"
Marcus was momentarily stunned by this description, then quickly understood what was happening. His enormous energy reserves were literally radiating light that was visible to Clark's enhanced perception—light so intense that it was painful to observe directly.
Recognizing the problem, Marcus immediately began suppressing his void energy, containing it more tightly within his body to reduce the visible emanations.
"What about now?" Marcus asked once he'd brought his energy under control. "Do I still look like a sun?"
Following Marcus's question, Clark cautiously raised his head and looked at his godfather again. This time, he didn't see the overwhelming brilliance from before. Instead, he saw a normal human skeleton—exactly what he would expect to see when using X-ray vision on any ordinary person.
"Huh? Why is there no light anymore?" Clark asked, his face filled with curiosity. "I could see all that brightness just a moment ago, but now there's nothing special at all."
"I blocked that light," Marcus explained simply. "It's normal that you can't see it now. This time, try to look for my weak points."
Under Marcus's guidance, Clark carefully examined his godfather's body structure, searching for any vulnerabilities or areas that might be targeted in combat. But no matter how thoroughly he studied Marcus's form, he couldn't identify any weaknesses whatsoever.
This wasn't particularly surprising—Marcus's strength was so far beyond Clark's current level that even if the boy could identify potential weak points, he wouldn't be able to exploit them effectively. More importantly, Clark's combat experience was still too limited to recognize subtle vulnerabilities in a master fighter.
"Godfather, I can't find any!" Clark said, his voice tinged with disappointment. "Everything looks perfectly strong to me."
He genuinely couldn't locate any part of Marcus's body that seemed attackable or vulnerable. From his perspective, his godfather appeared to be completely without flaws.
"Can't find anything on me?" Marcus asked thoughtfully. "Then try looking at Jonathan instead. See if you can identify which parts of his body might be weak points."
Clark's eyes immediately lit up with excitement at this suggestion. He ran toward the garage where Jonathan was working, eager to test his abilities on a more typical subject.
After a few minutes, Clark returned, but the smile had completely disappeared from his face.
"What's wrong?" Marcus asked, noting the boy's obvious distress.
"There's a crack in Jonathan's arm bone," Clark said quietly, his voice heavy with concern.
Clark had indeed been able to identify numerous weaknesses in Jonathan's body, but these discoveries weren't the kind of tactical advantages he'd been hoping for. Instead, he'd seen various health problems and physical issues that Jonathan was dealing with.
Some were bone fractures that hadn't healed properly, others were joint problems that would likely worsen with age, and still others were minor but concerning issues throughout Jonathan's body.
These problems did represent weaknesses in the tactical sense—if someone knew about an opponent's physical vulnerabilities, they could focus their attacks on those areas to gain an advantage in combat.
But while this might be valuable information when facing an enemy, discovering health problems in a beloved family member was deeply troubling for Clark.
Seeing Clark's dejected mood, Marcus placed a reassuring hand on the boy's shoulder.
"Current medical technology is quite advanced," Marcus said gently, "and when you're older, you'll be able to access your spaceship and use its technology to help heal Jonathan's injuries."
At these words, Clark's eyes brightened considerably. During his time learning about his alien heritage, he'd gradually accepted his identity as a Kryptonian, though he still preferred to think of himself as an Earth-born human with special abilities.
Because of this preference for his Earth identity, he'd been subconsciously ignoring the spacecraft that Marcus had mentioned—the vessel left for him by his biological parents.
Although Clark had no memories of his birth parents, he believed they would have provided him with something useful, something that could help the people he cared about.
Perhaps when he was older and could access that technology, he would be able to restore Jonathan's health completely, allowing their family to continue living happily on the farm.
Seeing that Clark had recovered his spirits, Marcus smiled and said, "Alright, let's continue with our training. This time you can use any of your superpowers. I want to see how far you can take the Crushing Punch technique."
As soon as Marcus finished speaking, Clark positioned himself properly and looked at his godfather with renewed determination.
Clark's eyes flashed red, and his heat vision activated instantly, sending waves of superheated air streaming toward Marcus.
However, the power of this thermal vision was still quite underdeveloped. The energy couldn't even condense into focused beams—Clark could only manage to create visible air distortions from the high temperature.
Such an attack posed no threat to Marcus whatsoever. Even if Homelander—who possessed similar abilities but far greater mastery—were to use heat vision at his current strength level, it wouldn't be able to harm Marcus at all.
A small amount of void energy gathered around Marcus's fingertip, and he casually pointed toward the incoming thermal attack.
In just a moment, the heat vision that would have struck his finger was completely neutralized.
Clark hadn't expected to win with his still-developing heat vision. While Marcus was dealing with the thermal attack, Clark took a deep breath and exhaled forcefully.
A powerful gust of wind immediately erupted, kicking up clouds of dust and debris from the farm's dirt ground.
This was another of Clark's emerging abilities—super breath, though it could also be called freeze breath when used differently. Like his heat vision, this power was still quite immature, producing little more than a strong wind that stirred up dust and reduced visibility in the immediate area.
Thump!
Marcus, standing calmly in the middle of the dust cloud, suddenly raised his hand and deflected Clark's follow-up attack with a casual gesture.
"Good thinking," Marcus commented approvingly. "You're learning to use environmental factors to your advantage. But simply blocking vision isn't enough on its own."
Marcus was pleased with Clark's tactical development. The boy was learning to use his surroundings as cover and concealment after just a few training sessions—a sign of natural combat instincts.
While the specific technique hadn't been effective against Marcus, it demonstrated genuine strategic thinking that would serve Clark well against more conventional opponents.
After hearing Marcus's feedback, Clark prepared for another attempt.
He understood that his individual superpowers weren't yet strong enough to be decisive, but he was pleased with his progress so far.
Clark paused briefly to gather his energy, then suddenly increased his speed dramatically. Since his other superpowers weren't providing significant advantage, he decided to rely on his most basic enhanced abilities.
Combining super speed with super strength, Clark executed a Crushing Punch that generated considerably more power than his previous attempts, accompanied by a noticeable wind effect as he approached Marcus.
Crack!
Facing what was currently Clark's strongest possible attack, Marcus stepped forward and raised his palm to meet the incoming strike.
The moment he made contact with Clark's fist, Marcus used specialized techniques to harmlessly disperse all the power that Clark had built up.
"That should be your strongest attack right now," Marcus observed. "The power is impressive, but have you considered that you might injure yourself using that much force?"
This was an important lesson for Clark to learn. As his strength continued to develop, he would need to be increasingly careful about collateral damage—not just to his surroundings, but to himself. Raw power without proper control could be as dangerous to the user as to their target.
Clark looked down at his hands, suddenly aware that his knuckles were slightly sore from the impact. Marcus was right—he'd been so focused on generating maximum force that he hadn't considered the consequences of striking with such intensity.
"Remember," Marcus continued, "true strength isn't just about how hard you can hit. It's about knowing when to use your power, how much to use, and how to use it safely. As you get stronger, these lessons will become even more important."
Clark nodded thoughtfully, understanding that his training was about much more than just developing his abilities. It was about learning wisdom to go along with his growing power.