"Fantasy had become reality, and humanity had the honor of welcoming its greatest hero—Superman!"
After one night, the next day, all of New York City—and indeed the entire world—was spreading the same message.
Whether on the massive screens along city streets or in the newspaper headlines displayed at newsstands on every corner, that towering figure was everywhere.
Superman's name had resounded across the world overnight, receiving praise from every media outlet and newspaper.
He had been bestowed with the title of humanity's greatest hero.
"Heh, looks like they want to tie me down with moral pressure."
On his way to school, Peter casually glanced through the newspaper in his hand and instantly understood their purpose.
"Too bad I have no morals! Or rather, my moral bottom line is flexible."
He casually tore the newspaper into pieces and tossed them into a roadside trash can. Ignoring the countless pedestrians discussing him and the changes to the moon overhead, he slowly headed toward school.
"Did you watch the broadcast yesterday? Superman was insanely cool!"
However, Peter was not going to get any peace today.
The moment he entered the classroom, he heard several classmates gathered together, excitedly discussing what had happened the night before.
"Yeah, Superman was way too strong. That ugly monster was no match for him. If I had power as strong as Superman's, I would definitely... hehehe..."
A Black boy gestured wildly with his hands, as if he had been the one fighting Hulk the night before.
"Hmph, I think Superman is too far removed from us. Maybe, just like in the comics, he's an alien from another planet. And who knows what his real purpose for coming to Earth is..."
Flash, his arm in a cast and wrapped in bandages, saw Peter enter the classroom and hurriedly shrank back, seemingly somewhat afraid.
But when he saw Peter merely return to the seat he had occupied yesterday, seemingly with no intention of coming over to trouble him, his courage returned, and he continued discussing last night's events with his lackeys.
"Fuck, Flash, are you trying to get yourself killed? Don't you know Superman has powerful Super Hearing? Aren't you afraid he'll come settle the score with you for saying that?"
One of his lackeys heard Flash actually daring to slander Superman and immediately reached out to cover his mouth.
"Anyway, I still prefer Spider-Woman. She's the only one who helps ordinary people like us."
Flash used his uninjured left hand to remove the hand covering his mouth, but he ultimately did not dare continue slandering Superman. Instead, he continued stubbornly.
"Spider-Woman? Forget it..."
Clearly, they had lost interest in discussing Spider-Woman by now.
Suddenly, one student looked around and cautiously lowered his voice. "Have you heard about the changes on the moon's surface? I have a friend in another class who joined the astronomy club."
"According to him, that enormous crater that suddenly appeared on the moon wasn't caused by a meteor impact, but by..."
Ring-ring-ring...
As the class bell rang, the classroom gradually quieted down, and a teacher walked in.
"Today, in our first Ideological Education Class, we won't be talking about the somewhat outdated spirit of Captain America. Instead, we'll discuss Superman's spirit of dedication—his brave and fearless victory over a monster for humanity!"
In the first few days of every new semester, the school would, as usual, hold a class on ideological education.
Peter simply had not expected that a course that had once almost entirely praised Captain America would today be praising him instead.
"Alright, being asked to worship myself is actually pretty interesting."
Having finally endured the school day with his eyes closed in rest, Peter returned home.
After waiting until late at night, when Uncle Ben and Aunt May had both gone to sleep,
he leaped straight out the window, instantly accelerating through the air as he flew toward the Antarctic "research base."
Before long, Peter arrived in Antarctica.
Boom.
With one hand, Peter lifted the heavy iron door above the base and flew inside.
After casually placing the food, water, daily necessities, and several essential experimental instruments he had brought this time into the storage room,
Peter headed toward the Nanotechnology Lab.
"Great! We finally succeeded!"
The moment Peter reached the Nanotechnology Lab, he heard an excited cry from within.
Entering the laboratory quickly, Peter's gaze immediately fell upon a transparent glass container holding a mass of special black matter, like a pool of viscous liquid.
It was constantly writhing inside the container.
At that moment, nearly every researcher in the entire base was gathered in the laboratory.
They watched the Nanometal particles in the glass container continuously writhe, twist, transform, and combine in response to the commands Reed entered through the tablet controller in his hand, their faces filled with immense excitement.
Because they all knew that what lay before them proved that their research direction had not been wrong.
It also meant they were one step closer to leaving this damned place.
"Heh, our Mr. Superman sure arrived at just the right time."
Tony, still sitting on the sofa, was the first to notice Peter entering the laboratory.
"Mr. Superman, could you bring us some better red wine next time? Something of the standard I keep in my villa's wine cabinet would be fine. I really can't get used to this cheap stuff."
Sitting on the sofa with a glass of red wine in hand, Tony made his request to Peter expectantly.
In truth, aside from losing their freedom, life here was not much worse than a vacation.
After a period of arranging and furnishing the place, the environment here had become much better than it had been at the beginning.
And Tony had also figured out Peter's personality. As long as the research continued normally, Peter would basically agree to any request that was not too excessive.
Peter casually glanced at Tony on the sofa, then walked straight over to Reed without hesitation and asked slowly, "I heard you seemed to have succeeded?"
"That's right. Based on Dr. Zhao's Regeneration Cradle concept and Princess Shuri's research materials on nanomaterials, we successfully created Nanoparticles that can be artificially controlled."
"However, it can only be considered an initial success."
When Reed saw Peter this time, he was no longer as fearful as before.
And when speaking of his research results, a hint of excitement shone in Reed's eyes.
For scientists like them, nothing was more exciting than a successful experiment.
"Mr. Superman, please take a look..."
As he spoke, Reed gestured toward the Nanoparticles in the glass container for Peter to see.
Then he operated the controller in his hand once more.
The next moment, under Peter's astonished gaze, the Nanoparticles in the container, which resembled a mass of liquid, suddenly began writhing and twisting rapidly.
Under everyone's watchful eyes, they slowly condensed into a black dagger.
The sharp edges on both sides glinted with a cold light, seemingly even sharper than an ordinary forged dagger.
However, while everyone watched, the dagger maintained its form for less than three seconds before abruptly collapsing and returning to its previous liquid-like state.
"This is... the energy contained within them isn't enough to sustain that form indefinitely?"
Although Super Intellect had not fully awakened yet, Peter instantly saw the true cause of the problem.
"That's right. It's an energy issue."
Reed was also surprised that Peter had identified the heart of the problem.
"Unlike ordinary biological nanorobots, the Nano-Suit you require needs a more powerful energy source to maintain the fixed structure between the Nanoparticles. Otherwise, the Nanoparticles will collapse at the slightest touch, just as they did earlier."
"Unless we can find a special material that inherently contains enormous amounts of energy and use it to create the Nanoparticles. Unfortunately, such material barely exists on Earth."
"Of course, according to our idea, the current problem could also be solved if we had a compact portable energy storage device capable of continuously supplying it with energy."
"It's just that the team responsible for energy has not made much progress so far."
As he spoke, Reed looked toward Tony, who was leisurely drinking cheap red wine on the sofa. Tony was the person in charge of the energy team here.
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