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"A fantasy has become reality—humanity is honored to welcome its greatest hero: Superman!"
The next morning, after a long night, New York City—and really, the whole world—was buzzing with a single message.
Whether it was the giant digital screens around the city or the newspaper headlines in every street corner kiosk, all of them showed that mighty figure.
Superman's name had gone viral overnight, praised by every media outlet around the globe.
He was now officially being called "the greatest hero in human history."
"Ha. So they're trying to morally trap me, huh?"
On the way to school, Peter glanced casually at the newspaper in his hand and instantly saw through their intentions.
"Too bad I don't have morals. Or… let's just say I have flexible morals."
He casually ripped the paper into pieces, tossed it in a nearby trash can, and walked calmly toward school—ignoring the crowds around him still gossiping about him and the strange changes on the Moon.
"Did you guys catch last night's live stream? Superman was absolutely awesome!"
Yeah, no chance of peace and quiet for Peter today.
The second he stepped into the classroom, he heard several classmates huddled together, excitedly talking about what had happened the night before.
"Totally! That monster didn't stand a chance! If I had Superman's powers, I'd definitely... heh heh heh..."
A Black kid was waving his arms around dramatically, as if he had fought the Hulk last night.
"Hmph, I still think Superman's too far removed from us. Maybe he is like the comics say—some alien from another planet. And who knows what his real reason for coming to Earth is…"
That was Flash Thompson, arm in a cast and all bandaged up. He shrank back a bit when he noticed Peter walking into the room, clearly still a little scared.
But when Peter just went back to his usual seat and didn't seem to care about him at all, Flash quickly got his confidence back and kept chatting with his little gang.
"Dude, are you crazy?" one of his buddies whispered, quickly covering Flash's mouth. "You know Superman has super hearing, right? Aren't you scared he'll come after you for talking crap?"
Flash swatted the hand away with his uninjured arm, but he didn't keep pushing it. Instead, he grumbled, "Whatever. I still like Spider-Woman more. At least she actually helps us normal folks."
"Spider-Woman? Seriously? Nah, she's old news now…"
Clearly, no one really cared about Spider-Woman anymore.
Then suddenly, one student glanced around nervously and whispered, "Hey, did you guys hear about the weird thing on the Moon? A friend of mine from another class is in the astronomy club."
"He said that giant crater on the Moon wasn't caused by a meteor at all, but by—"
RRRRING!
The bell cut him off, and the room gradually quieted down as a teacher walked in.
"For our first class today—Moral Education—we're not going to talk about the usual cliché Captain America stuff. Instead, we're going to focus on the selfless spirit of Superman, who fought bravely against a monster for the sake of all humanity!"
At the beginning of every school year, there were always a few mandatory moral education classes.
Peter just didn't expect that this time, instead of the usual Captain America fanfare, the topic would be… him.
"Hah. So now they want me to worship myself? That's hilarious."
After a long day of zoning out in class, Peter finally made it home.
Late at night, once Uncle Ben and Aunt May were both fast asleep…
He leapt straight out the window, accelerating in the air, heading toward his "research base" in Antarctica.
Before long, Peter arrived in the frozen south.
BOOM!
With one hand, he lifted the heavy steel door of the base and flew right in.
He quickly unloaded the supplies he'd brought—food, water, daily necessities, and some important experimental gear—into the storage room.
Then he headed straight for the research lab.
"YES! We finally did it!"
Just as he stepped into the nanotech lab, he heard an excited voice shouting from inside.
Peter rushed in, and immediately saw a glass container holding a strange black substance—it looked like thick, oily goo.
And it was squirming around inside the container.
Right now, nearly every researcher in the entire base had gathered in that lab.
They all stared intently as the black nanometal particles twisted, wriggled, morphed, and combined in response to Reed's tablet commands. Every face was glowing with excitement.
Because they all knew—this meant their research had been on the right track.
And more importantly… it meant they were one step closer to finally leaving this damn place.
"Well well, look who showed up at just the right time," Tony said, still lounging on a couch.
"Hey, Superman, next time can you bring some decent wine? Like the stuff I've got in my home cellar. This cheap stuff you brought—I seriously can't drink it."
Tony raised a glass of red wine, clearly not impressed, and tossed his request Peter's way with a smirk.
Honestly, aside from losing their freedom, life here wasn't all that different from a vacation.
After some time setting things up, the environment had gotten way better than when they first arrived.
And Tony had figured Peter out pretty well—so long as the research could keep moving forward, Peter would basically agree to anything that wasn't too outrageous.
Peter casually glanced at Tony lying on the couch, then walked straight up to Reed and asked, "I think I heard you guys say it worked?"
"Yeah," Reed nodded. "Thanks to Dr. Zhao's 'Regeneration Cradle' concept and Princess Shuri's research on nanomaterials, we managed to create nanobots that can be directly controlled."
"But, it's only a preliminary success so far."
This time, Reed didn't seem scared of Peter like he had before.
And when he talked about their research results, there was a clear spark of excitement in his eyes.
For scientists, nothing's more thrilling than a successful experiment.
"Mr. Superman, take a look…"
As he spoke, Reed pointed to a glass container filled with nanobots and gave Peter a demonstration using a controller in his hand.
In the next moment, under Peter's curious gaze, the mass of nanobots inside the container—which looked like liquid—started to twist and squirm rapidly.
In front of everyone, they slowly formed into a jet-black dagger.
The blade on both sides gleamed with a cold, deadly edge—sharper even than a real dagger.
But it only held its shape for about three seconds before shattering and collapsing back into a formless, liquid state.
"So… it can't hold its shape because there isn't enough energy stored in the particles themselves?"
Peter hadn't even fully awakened his super brain yet, but he still instantly spotted the core problem.
"Exactly. It's an energy issue," Reed confirmed, surprised that Peter had nailed it so quickly.
"Unlike standard biological nanobots, the nanotech suit you want needs a much stronger energy source to keep the nanobots locked in place. Otherwise, they'll fall apart just like you saw."
"Unless we can find some special material that naturally contains a massive amount of energy—and honestly, that kind of stuff basically doesn't exist on Earth—"
"Well, our alternative plan is to create a portable energy unit that can provide a steady, long-term power supply. That'd solve our problem too."
"Unfortunately, our energy research team hasn't made much progress on that front yet."
As he said this, Reed glanced over at Tony, who was lounging on the couch sipping cheap red wine—the guy in charge of the energy project.
"....."