**Chapter 26: Young Man! Do You Crave Power?**

That night, Peter Parker tossed and turned, almost sleepless.

Fate had indeed led him to his father's belongings, where he found the priceless formula. This time, he knew Dr. Connors from Oscorp early on, so he decided to show the formula to the doctor.

Just then, his phone beeped with a new email notification.

Getting an email in the middle of the night is rarely a good thing.

**"The stoic academic has an unknown side? Is this human nature's repression or a moral downfall?"**

"Another spam email?" He was about to delete it, but the picture attached caught his eye.

It was none other than his childhood friend, Gwen Stacy!

Even though guilt washed over Peter, his hand reflexively clicked on the email.

He had to admit, whoever sent the email knew photography.

It was a comparison photo.

Both figures struck the same pose with their left hands on their hips—on the left was Gwen, and on the right was a masked woman in black-and-white spandex, standing atop a skyscraper.

Peter immediately realized that the figure on the right was the same Spider-Woman who had recently become an urban legend across New York.

People might not recognize her, but Peter knew. The pose, the stance—it was unmistakably Gwen!

As he scrolled further, there were short clips of Gwen dodging attackers with agility, flipping over thugs, and swinging between buildings on webs, laughing joyfully.

All the evidence pointed to one truth!

"Gwen is Spider-Woman!?" This realization shocked Peter.

Near the end of the email, there was a bold, highlighted line in red:

**"Young man! Do you crave power?"**

That sentence struck a sensitive chord deep within Peter.

Getting beaten up by Eugene at school didn't mean Peter enjoyed it. The frustration was only the spark.

What truly gnawed at Peter was the long-standing repression in his daily life.

At his elite high school, most students aimed for Ivy League universities. Is that a place for regular people?

The annual tuition was a staggering $50,000.

While some truly brilliant students like Peter and Gwen could get scholarships and loans to reduce the total cost to just over $10,000, it was still suffocating.

Peter's aunt and uncle were just regular working folks.

In this situation, he couldn't afford anything extravagant.

The lifestyle of the wealthy students around him weighed on Peter.

Forget the rich kids; even thinking about Flash Thompson's retired football-star dad made Peter feel out of place.

This stark difference in status and wealth had piled up over time, making Peter feel suppressed, hence the sarcastic Spider-Man persona in other timelines.

So, despite knowing the email was sketchy, Peter couldn't help but scroll to the end.

Beneath the red text was a question:

**"What do you desire the most…"**

**[Apples] or [Power]!**

One icon was Gwen in her black-and-white suit, the other was a mysterious web.

Faced with these str4nge and mysterious options, Peter, being a teenager, may have desired "apples," but what he craved more was power! The power to rise above the ordinary!

Sure, Gwen was enticing, but with power, wouldn't he be just like Gwen?

With trembling fingers, Peter clicked on the **[Power]** option.

His phone screen suddenly went blank.

For a moment, he thought it was a cruel joke.

Then, a line of text appeared:

**"Young man! Since you've chosen power, you are destined for solitude! This is the price of power..."**

Below the text was a photo.

It had been a while since he last visited, but Peter immediately recognized Gwen's room. In the small open cabinet above her desk, a red arrow pointed to something.

Before Peter could process it, the screen started a five-second countdown. Before he could react, the countdown ended, and the screen went blank again.

Did the email just self-destruct?

"I... what...?" Peter was confused. He knew he shouldn't trust such an email. But when he thought about Gwen's recent secretive behavior and her subtle distancing, he instinctively knew everything in the email was true.

"Gwen became a superhero and didn't tell me?"

Peter felt a faint sense of betrayal.

"No, I just need to check Gwen's room. That mysterious person planted a camera in a girl's room—that's too much. I need to make sure Gwen's privacy is protected."

Driven by intense curiosity, the next day, Peter handed over the formula to Dr. Connors. This, of course, earned the doctor's praise, even inviting Peter to join his cross-species research project.

This made Peter feel respected, but also gave him a subtle sense of satisfaction—he had gotten ahead of Gwen.

But before Gwen's internship ended, Peter snuck out and went to her house.

"Oh, Peter! Here to see Gwen?" It was Gwen's mom. Both Gwen's parents had always treated Peter like a son, and her mom was no exception.

"Yes. Is Gwen back yet?" Peter lied, feeling guilty.

"She's still at her internship, remember?"

"Oh, right! Wow, how could I forget?"

"Is there something important?"

"Not really. I'll just wait for her in the upstairs living room."

"Of course, Peter."

Taking advantage of the trust, Peter went upstairs, and, once out of sight, snuck into Gwen's room.

The door wasn't locked. This time, Gwen had been careless.

While Peter was curious about the room, he was more interested in that one spot.

Almost as if drawn by fate, Peter approached the box...

"Peter! What are you doing?"

Thanks to a meddling interdimensional traveler, Gwen had come home early.

Of course, she walked in just as Peter found the hidden item in her room.

Peter panicked, trying to explain, no—lie.

"Gwen! No, I just heard a str4nge sound and came in to check."

His words only made things worse. Gwen instinctively looked toward that direction and was instantly terrified. The mutant spider that had bitten her, giving her Spider-Woman's powers, hadn't been killed. Instead, she had secretly kept it. Her job at Oscorp was partially to study her condition further.

Somehow, the spider had escaped its acrylic container and was now creeping towards Peter from the top of the cabinet.

"Ahhh—" Gwen screamed instinctively. In that critical moment, she hesitated. Should she reveal her powers to stop what was about to happen?

That hesitation was enough. The spider leapt onto Peter's neck and bit him.

Peter never imagined that Gwen's secret power source was a spider!

Just like countless versions of himself across parallel universes, Peter had once again been bitten by a spider.

Under intense pain, he let out a miserable scream and accidentally crushed the world's only mutated spider.

"Peter, Gwen, what's going on?" Mrs. Stacy's voice came from downstairs.

"Ah! I-I got bitten by a bug." In pain, Peter felt the world spinning around him, knocking over quite a few things. Feeling guilty, he ignored Gwen's attempt to help him, shoved her aside, and almost crawled out of the room in a panic.

Gwen, who was equally rattled, was still just a high school student. A flood of terrifying consequences filled her mind: The spider bit me, and I mutated. What about Peter? I haven't even confirmed whether this power will kill me, so could he die from not being able to handle the mutation? And if he dies, wouldn't that be on me?

Overthinking leads to hesitation. When Gwen snapped back to reality, Peter had already rushed out of her house. By the time she dashed out the door like any ordinary person, Peter was nowhere to be seen.

It's no wonder she couldn't find him—Peter had just hopped on the first bus he saw, and the driver's quick acceleration had already taken him out of Gwen's range of perception.

Everything that had just happened in the house, along with Gwen's current confusion at her doorstep, was broadcast via a surveillance camera to the car TV of a Rolls-Royce a kilometer away.

The Lance sisters were utterly astonished.

Dana said, "Atreus, did you just… create a superhero?"

"Let's just say I did," Atreus replied, downing her glass of champagne.

Sarah cautiously asked, "If it's safe, could you make us Spider-Women too?"

"Spider-Man? No, no, no! Spider-Man is cursed. Why would you want to be Spider-Man of all things?" Atreus's words immediately scared them.

That's right!

Spider-Man's curse… perhaps it's like being doomed to a life of tragedy!

The greater the power, the more you lose!

(End of chapter)