Ninja Spider

Peter gently pushed open the door, holding a stack of documents. He saw a middle-aged man in a white lab coat packing up his things and asked, "Dr. Connors, are you leaving today?"

The middle-aged man had graying hair and looked somewhat haggard. More importantly, the right sleeve beneath his lab coat hung empty. Clearly, he had only one arm.

"Oh, Peter? Yes, the research collaboration is over, so I have to leave."

Peter gently placed the documents on Dr. Connors’s desk, then said in a low voice, "I’m sorry. If I were a little more capable, maybe we could have achieved results before the research ended…"

"You’re already very capable." Dr. Connors said gently, "You’re still only a high school student, yet you’re far smarter and more hardworking than any graduate student I’ve met before. If you’d like, I’d be willing to write you a letter of recommendation."

"Thank you, but I haven’t decided which university I want to attend yet, and I still have some time before college."

Peter moved his lips and said, "Then where are you planning to go next? The serum research is already in its final stage. As long as you have a decent laboratory, you should be able to finish it."

Dr. Connors looked around his office and said, "Nowhere else will have conditions as good as Stark Tower. When they first approached me, I agreed largely because of the laboratory equipment here."

Using his only remaining hand to pack his things, he said, "But it’s all right. Just as you said, the experiment has reached its final stage. If I put in a little more effort, I’ll succeed."

"By then, perhaps I won’t be the only one who can regain an arm. I know many of them lost arms and legs in the war. The military’s compensation is barely enough for them to get by, and prosthetics are far too expensive. If there really were a regenerative serum, they could become normal people again."

Peter could hear the excitement in Dr. Connors’s voice. During his internship, this Dr. Connors had left the deepest impression on him.

Originally, Peter had not been interning with this research group. But while running errands for his own group leader, he happened to meet Dr. Connors, who had just been invited by the military to participate in Stark’s medical research collaboration.

When Peter first met him, he was astonished. Dr. Connors had only one arm, yet that had not hindered his scientific research in the slightest. He possessed a genius mind and was among the best in the world in bionics and serum technology.

Peter was deeply impressed, because even someone with all four limbs intact might not have been able to achieve so much. So he applied to transfer into Dr. Connors’s research group.

After all, he had mutated after being bitten by a spider, and he also wanted to find out exactly what had caused that mutation.

Peter was extremely intelligent and hardworking. Although he had a bit of a bookworm streak, he was the kind of kid teachers liked best. Before long, Dr. Connors grew fond of the young intern.

From Connors, Peter learned that he had originally been a military doctor and an old soldier. It was on the battlefield that he had lost one of his arms, but that had not obstructed his path in scientific research.

On the contrary, he had embarked on an unusual path in medicine, beginning to study the effects of serum within living organisms and achieving quite impressive results.

While working as Dr. Connors’s assistant, Peter learned a great deal about biology. After undergoing Spider Mutation, Peter’s genius mind worked even faster. With two geniuses working together, their research speed naturally soared.

But just when they were only one final step away from completion, Stark’s collaboration with the military was terminated, and the researchers had to leave Stark Tower.

Normally, even if an invited research project was terminated midway, the researchers could still receive their pay. They would be delighted for it to end early so they could use the remaining time to go on vacation.

But Dr. Connors was different. He had not come to coast along. He genuinely wanted to develop serum technology that could regenerate severed limbs, restore his own body, and benefit disabled veterans who had lost limbs in war just like him.

So it was inevitable that he felt somewhat disappointed. Still, seeing Peter’s reluctant expression, Dr. Connors said, "It’s all right. Once you get to college, perhaps I’ll be teaching at an eastern university. You can come to my laboratory, and we can continue the research."

"Then it’s a deal!" Peter said happily.

Actually, Stark had tried teaching Peter about powered armor and artificial intelligence before, but Peter was not very interested.

He was not an industrial fundamentalist like Stark. He preferred exploring the unknown mysteries of humanity, such as the secrets hidden in nature or the wonders of outer space.

While studying with Dr. Connors, he had learned many secrets about cold-blooded creatures such as spiders and lizards. It fascinated him, and he felt that becoming a biologist or entomologist in the future would not be bad either.

If he could truly invent some life-saving technology like Dr. Connors, that would be even better.

Although Peter had become Spider-Man and actively fought crime every night, as a good student, he was not content to merely become a superhero as his life plan.

He still wanted to get into a good university step by step, choose a field and direction he liked for research, preferably earn a few doctoral degrees, then remain at the university to teach or establish his own Research Center.

Perhaps because of the effects of Spider Mutation, Peter felt a special affinity for these cold-blooded creatures while researching with Dr. Connors. Thus, he gradually settled on his future goal.

The motivation of having a clear goal largely washed away the sadness of parting from his teacher. After leaving Stark Tower, Peter was once again full of energy and ready to continue his Spider-Man career.

His last battle with Bullseye had taught him a great deal. Peter realized that although he had web-shooters and could swing back and forth among skyscrapers, that method was not actually very fast. At best, it was only a little faster than driving. More importantly, moving around so openly meant that the moment he made a move, all of New York knew he was out fighting crime again.

By the time he swung over, any robber with a little experience would already have vanished without a trace.

During the previous operation, the only plan of Peter’s that received universal praise was his use of New York’s intricate underground sewers.

It was an excellent tactic. New York’s sewers were not in good condition; the walls and floors were slick with moss and grime, and they were dark and damp. Ordinary people could not move around there freely.

But Peter was different. He was Spider-Man. He could cling to all kinds of walls and did not have to worry about the ground beneath his feet making him slip when he ran.

Moreover, the straight, broad ground of the underground sewers was practically a track tailor-made for Spider-Man. There were no traffic jams and no pedestrians. When he sprinted at full speed, he was far faster than any street racer.

Most importantly, it was sufficiently hidden. He could move underground and emerge from the nearest sewer opening. No one would ever notice where he had gone or where he had come from.

This was especially useful against experienced robbers.

There had previously been a group of bank robbers who were all seasoned professionals. They had three or four lookouts alone. Peter had crossed paths with them before, but the moment his silhouette appeared on the horizon, they disappeared in an instant.

Later, Peter caught them off guard with the sewer tactic. Before they could load the bundles of cash into their getaway car, Spider-Man crawled out from the nearest manhole cover at the street corner and punched the engine of their escape vehicle into scrap. The robbers were naturally captured by him afterward.

That was when Spider-Man discovered just how convenient the sewers were. To him, they were practically express elevators that could take him to any point in New York at any time.

So Peter began taking an interest in the layout of the sewers.

New York’s sewers had been built long ago and renovated countless times. Almost no map could fully depict every sewer route.

So Peter planned to personally explore every sewer and draw a route map.

His studies were not too demanding anyway, he had plenty of time, he was fast, and he did not have to worry about exhausting himself. He could cover half a district in a single day.

That day, Peter was wandering through the sewers again. He held a map in his hand and was using a marker to indicate the sewer layout.

He had been drawing so intently that he had not watched where he was stepping. Then his Spider-Sense stirred, alerting him that a section of bricks beneath his feet had lifted up. If he kept walking without looking, he might trip.

So Peter put down the map, intending to look at it again after he finished this section.

At that moment, he noticed a small difference.

Generally speaking, most of New York’s sewers received no visitors. The ground was covered in slick moss and water stains, but the moss here looked as though something had cleaned it away.

Peter walked to where the wall met the floor tiles and found a tiny amount of white powder. He leaned closer and smelled it, discovering that it was an acidic substance, apparently used specifically to clean moss.

Who would have nothing better to do than come down here and clean? Peter thought. Even he would not want to stay in this dark, damp hellhole if he were not fighting crime.

He followed the traces forward and found signs of human activity at a sewer maintenance station that had been abandoned for a long time.

It was easy to tell. There was a smell of burned fuel here, clearly indicating that someone had made a fire. Peter glanced through the Iron Gate of the maintenance station, and his sharp vision allowed him to spot what seemed to be signs that someone lived inside.

Peter did not force the door open, because he knew that might alert whoever was inside. He also had no lockpicking tools on hand. So Peter took out his map, marked the location with a dot, and planned to return in a few days with some tools.

Whoever it was, living in the sewers was simply too strange. If he was a good person forced to hide down there, Peter was willing to help him. If he was a bad person, then Peter could bring him to justice.

Regarding updates:

During this period of writing ten thousand words a day, I have no backlog and post as soon as I finish writing, so I truly cannot maintain a fixed release time. If you want to read as soon as possible, you can join the group through the one-click group link beneath the description, or enable update notifications on Qidian.

But there will definitely be ten thousand words a day for thirty days. Currently (6/30), thank you, everyone! Please vote!