Chapter 49 - I am Spider Tobey

It has been three days since we met Tony.
 The day after that, Tony made his heroic debut, taking down terrorists occupying Gulmira and saving its hostage citizens. Gulmira is the hometown of Yinsen, the man who saved Tony’s life and sacrificed himself for him.
 And today should be the day he fights Stane.

“PETE! WE DID IT!” I heard Emily and Ursula shouting as they excitedly entered the room. The diner was closed today because the girls were just one step away from success.
 MJ, Gwen, Nat, and I smiled and quickly followed them.

Entering the research room hidden behind the wall, we saw six aquariums with six spiders weaving webs inside.
 Emily puffed out her chest and began the presentation.

“Since we established the rule that we can only receive powers from the system when the mutation has over an 80% success rate, we had to spend a lot of time developing these spiders. Otherwise, we could have just made a radioactive spider with a 0.0001% chance of granting us powers and been done with it.” She said, unhappy with all the work it took, but also satisfied that she succeeded despite the self-imposed limitations.

“Well, let’s not waste time. Everyone, pick your spider and drop a single drop of blood into the inlet at the top of the aquarium,” she instructed. Each of us, including her, approached an aquarium.

Pricking our fingers on a needle inside, the machine quickly extracted a drop of blood and began its work.

“At this moment, your drop of blood is being combined with a super-soldier serum we acquired from the semi-finished formula Natasha brought us, which we perfected here. After the mixture, it will be irradiated into the spiders along with a bit of radiation. This way, each spider will be compatible with our blood, ensuring over 80% compatibility. Then… we will become official totems.” Emily explained, ending on an excited note.

This time, we wouldn’t just connect to the Web of Life and Destiny, block our connection, and steal from it discreetly. This time, we would be real spider totems… with our second body, that is.
 We would be just like any other Spider-Man.

A few minutes after a display of lights and smoke inside the aquarium, we saw the spiders nearly double in size.

“You can put your hands into the inlet now,” Ursula said with a smile.
 Without hesitation, we all reached inside. The spiders quickly climbed onto our hands, walked around a bit… and bit down.

We all watched the spiders bite us without flinching.
 After injecting their venom, they dropped from our hands, dead.

[Ding New Ability Acquired]

A solemn silence filled the room for a moment.

“That’s it? I expected some pain, fever, fainting, rapid heartbeat…” Natasha said, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, I don’t know what I was expecting either. Those things usually happen, but I had the system suppress those side effects,” I said, shrugging.

“Let’s check the system. Special powers cost double the points to upgrade,” I said, pulling up my status.

[Player: Peter Parker
 Level: 15 (75,012 / 327,680 EXP)
 Skill Points: 58
 Abilities:

• Street Fighting - Grandmaster (Limit - Evolution conditions not met)

• Spider-Totem - Beginner (Upgradeable - 4 points)]

It’s been a month since I last checked my status, and in that time, we leveled up again… but now, we’ll need at least two months to reach level 15, then four months for the next, and it will keep doubling.

Now, let’s check our new ability. I clicked on Spider-Totem, and the following screen appeared:

[Spider-Totem - Beginner (Upgradeable - 4 points):

• Strength: 10 Tons

• Superhuman Agility

• Superhuman Balance

• Superhuman Stamina

• Superhuman Reflexes

• Superhuman Durability

• Spider-Sense

• Wall-Crawling

• Enhanced Healing Factor]

Basically, a Tom Holland Spider-Man.

I upgraded as much as I could. Let’s see only the new abilities added:

[Spider-Totem - Apprentice (Upgradeable - 8 points):

• Strength: 20 Tons

• Organic Webbing]

[Spider-Totem - Intermediate (Upgradeable - 16 points):

• Strength: 30 Tons

• Retractable Stingers

• Retractable Claws]

[Spider-Totem - Advanced (Upgradeable - 32 points):

• Strength: 50 Tons

• Enhanced Spider-Sense (Silk-Sense)

• Resistance to Mental Attacks]

[Player: Peter Parker
 Level: 15 (75,012 / 327,680 EXP)
 Skill Points: 30
 Abilities:

• Street Fighting - Grandmaster (Limit - Evolution conditions not met)

• Spider-Totem - Advanced (Upgradeable - 32 points)]

A strength of 50 tons isn’t the best, but combined with the other abilities, it will be quite formidable.
 My strength will continue to grow, but as far as the events of Infinity War go, my current power is already enough to survive without major issues.

Aside from Natasha, the girls didn’t have as many saved points as I did, but they still managed to upgrade their Spider-Totem ability to Intermediate before running out, reaching a strength of 30 tons.

Now, Natasha is the most impressive. She upgraded her ability to Master.

[Spider-Totem - Master (Upgradeable - 64 points):
 Strength: 100 Tons
 Venom Blast
 Invisibility]

She now possesses an impressive 100 tons of strength and the main abilities of Miles Morales.
 Make no mistake, Miles isn't as strong as a Master Spider-Totem—it's just that his abilities are very powerful.

"Wow, I feel so strong!" Natasha said, clenching her fist in front of her eyes, amazed.
 She then made the famous spider gesture, and a web shot out from her bare wrist at high speed.

"Huh? It feels kind of funny to shoot a web from my own wrist," she said with a small smile at the corner of her lips. She found it fun.

She then clenched her fist and extended her wrist, from which a sharp adamantium stinger emerged.

"Huh? Why is it metal? Shouldn't it be bone?" Natasha looked at her stingers, confused.

"Well, that was kind of my fault. I thought the bone stingers looked really ugly, so I tweaked the system a bit to turn the retractable stingers into adamantium. And since I changed that, I also made it so that when you summon claws, they transform into the same material," I said, scratching the back of my neck with a bit of guilt.
 The truth is, I felt weird seeing my own bones and my wives' bones protruding from our bodies and stabbing people with them.

Natasha then retracted the stinger and extended her claws, which emerged from her fingertips with a metallic shing.

"Oh? Interesting." She looked at the claws on her fingers with admiration.

"And what about this enhanced spider-sense?" Natasha asked, curious about the differences.

"Well, the Silk Sense lets you perceive danger more intuitively and quickly than the regular spider-sense, allowing you to react faster with greater spatial awareness. It also gives you a more intimate connection with your webbing, letting you easily use your senses and reflexes to quickly weave clothes puff," I said in a serious tone but ended up laughing when I mentioned that she could use the power to weave clothes.
 Although it's true and demonstrates the Silk Sense’s capabilities, talking about using superpowers to make clothes is still funny.

The girls just rolled their eyes at my antics, and Natasha shot a web at my face.

Amidst the playful banter, Natasha tested the abilities of a Master-level Spider-Totem.
 Unlike Miles, with Nat’s experience, she quickly managed to control her new powers.

She raised both hands, and electricity began to dance between her fingers. She then concentrated it and thrust her fists forward, sending a wave of energy toward a nearby wall, where it exploded.

Unfortunately for her, this earned her a smack on the head from an irritated Emily.

"Don't destroy the lab, I work here!" Emily scolded with an eye-roll.

"Sorry, Emi. I got carried away having powers for the first time," Natasha said apologetically, holding Emily’s hand.

"Don't worry, Nat. When we got our powers, we were super excited too. Luckily, Pete took us to the simulation room, or we would’ve made a mess," Ursula reassured Nat, telling her it was no big deal.

As we were chatting and having fun, we saw a breaking news report on TV.
 When we saw the chaos in the images, the girls and I immediately remembered that we had another task today.

"Damn, we got caught up and forgot!" MJ said, frustrated, as she quickly ran to grab her suit.

The girls and I hurried after her, and soon, six figures were swinging rapidly through the city toward Stark Industries.