Free from Peter, Ben drifted over New York City like a phantom.
From a distance, the world's capital was undeniably luxurious, its sprawling lights resembling the veins of a starry sky.
"Too bad up close, you find the filth and crime festering beneath the glamour."
Ben let out a cold laugh.
For the wealthy at the top of society, New York was the true capital of the world, an empire of excess where the rich partied all night, drowning in liquor and desire, spending money and indulging whims until dawn.
But for everyone else, this prosperous world was separated from them by an unbridgeable chasm!
The glittering lights in the darkness didn't belong to them. The dark, damp corners under those lights were where they congregated.
This untouchable, prosperous city, with its towering skyscrapers, pressed down on those at the bottom like a mountain, making it hard to breathe.
Those living in the underbelly had once dreamed of prosperity and fought for it, but in the end, this vast city ruthlessly shattered their dreams and stomped them into the dirt.
This city's splendor had always belonged only to a select few.
The glamorous New York was New York. The New York filled with crime and violence was also New York.
It was the same city, but what different people saw was entirely different.
And the more tragic part was that the prosperity of that select few was built by constantly feeding on the flesh and blood of those at the very bottom.
They stood atop skyscrapers that scraped the heavens, eating every piece of meat from ordinary people, drinking them dry of every drop of blood, smashing their every bone, sucking the marrow clean, and finally leaving their desiccated corpses to pile up and form the foundation of the city.
Every brick of this city, every cent, was stained with blood!
Yet those who built the city would never be its masters!
Just like Uncle Ben and Aunt May. They worked themselves to the bone, yet their reward was still a life of struggle, a situation almost impossible to change. Those born in the slums would most likely spend their lives wrestling in the mud.
In this dazzling city, they were like cockroaches scurrying in the shadows.
"But not anymore!" A ghostly fire flickered in Ben's eyes. "I will change this!"
Though the change he sought wasn't for the entire city, but only for his family.
Of course, he knew it wouldn't be simple.
Once he baked his cake and made it big, the capital holders would swarm like sharks smelling blood, ready to devour him and his company whole, leaving not a single scrap of value behind.
Just like our poor Dr. Connors.
He spent over a decade painstakingly researching cross-species genetics, only to have it all handed over to Oscorp in the end.
Ben thought of Connors because he happened to be floating past Oscorp tower. He saw Connors, clutching his arm, painfully and狼狈 (lángbèi - disheveled/miserable) climbing into a taxi.
Clearly, the desperate doctor, in his attempt to stop the Oscorp executives from human trials, had become the first test subject himself.
"So, Connors becomes the Lizard tonight?"
Kurt Connors was a rare talent. He might be a useful recruit for his future company.
"Not just Connors. Dr. Otto Octavius is another brilliant scientist." Ben was already scheming to recruit both the Lizard and Doctor Octopus.
Both men were driven by a desire to use their inventions to help the world, only to be twisted by fate into becoming villains.
Despite these thoughts, Ben didn't immediately follow the Lizard.
In his view, the Lizard was a perfectly suitable first real opponent for Peter as a superhero.
There was no need for him to interfere now. Besides, he had his own business to attend to.
Leaving Oscorp tower behind, Ben drifted in the opposite direction of Connors.
It wasn't long before he reached another famous New York landmark, several times more luxurious than Oscorp tower and the tallest building in the city—Stark Tower.
Ever since he'd taken the suit from Tony, Ben had wanted to get his hands on the Arc Reactor too, to study it.
Cold fusion had always been theoretical. He was dying to know how Tony had actually made it work.
"The fact that even Obadiah Stane couldn't replicate it after getting the reactor shows how advanced the technology must be."
Ben phased through the outer glass of Stark Tower. His form was now semi-transparent. In the darkness, he was nearly invisible if you weren't looking carefully.
Besides the reactor, Ben was also very interested in Stark's artificial intelligence.
Tony Stark: ???
So you're just shearing the same sheep over and over, huh?
J.A.R.V.I.S.'s level of A.I. was so high that he eventually developed near-human emotions and thought patterns. In comparison, the later F.R.I.D.A.Y. was much more rigid.
Given enough time, Ben could develop both A.I. technology and the reactor himself using Greymatter's intellect. But ultimately, having a ready-made sample to study would drastically shorten that timeline.
Even though it was late, a few people were still working inside Stark Tower.
Corporate drones. Even a dog would shake its head at their plight.
Ben flew straight towards the penthouse.
The top of the tower was Tony's private area and his workshop.
Most of Tony's inventions were born there.
However, Ben was slightly surprised to find Tony still at Stark Tower at this hour.
"This guy... instead of sleeping with a cover model, what's he hiding in here for?" Ben wondered, puzzled.
It was a good thing Tony couldn't hear him, or he'd be furious.
After all, someone had stolen his suit, forcing him to build a new one.
"Sir, a... reptilian humanoid has been sighted on the Williamsburg Bridge," J.A.R.V.I.S. reported, pulling up surveillance footage from the area.
Hearing the word "reptile," Tony seemed to have a flashback. He immediately dropped everything and walked over to J.A.R.V.I.S., casually picking up a glass of chlorophyll juice on the way.
Then he frowned. "And what is this thing?"
He'd thought it might be XLR8 appearing again, but the monster on the screen looked more like a miniature Godzilla.
"This thing is almost as disgusting as the chlorophyll juice!" Tony took a sip of the green liquid and made a face. "It's all that dinosaur's fault I have to drink this stuff."
"However, from another perspective, XLR8 taking your suit has also slowed the rate of palladium poisoning," J.A.R.V.I.S. analyzed rationally.
Ben had indeed caused a palladium leak from the Arc Reactor, but thanks to him, Tony's inability to use the suit had also slowed the poison's spread.
With his new suit not yet finished, Tony could only watch helplessly for now.
"Dammit, I should have prepared a few spare suits for emergencies," Tony grumbled, forcing down the bitter chlorophyll. Suddenly, he saw a figure in a red-and-blue skin-tight suit swing past on the footage J.A.R.V.I.S. was playing.
"What was that?"
He was about to ask J.A.R.V.I.S. to rewind and slow down the footage when his body froze in place as if hit by a petrification spell.
No one noticed the semi-transparent, milky-white phantom slipping into his body.
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