"I... I can't hold it anymore! It's too much!" Peter Parker's spine began to curve under the invisible pressure, his muscles vibrating so hard they hummed. He let out a strained, panicked yelp, his instincts screaming at him to ditch the weight before it crushed him into a pancake. Subconsciously, he shoved upward with a desperate burst of adrenaline, expecting to be buried—only to find the massive iron block sailing into the air as if it were made of Styrofoam.
"Huh?" Peter blinked, his arms still raised in a defensive posture. "Wait... was that it? I thought I was at my limit, but it felt like... like I just tossed a pillow?"
A flicker of hope crossed his face, but Huang Wen was quick to douse that fire with a cool splash of reality.
"Don't get ahead of yourself, Peter," Huang Wen said, shaking his head as he waved a hand, letting his telekinesis catch the block and suspend it effortlessly in mid-air. "You clocked out at a maximum lift of thirteen tons. It's a solid start, and you definitely have more room to grow. This isn't just a regular hunk of metal; it's a specialized alloy. I can manipulate its internal molecular structure using electromagnetic fields to simulate different weights. For the record, this little cube can scale up to a hundred tons. You only handled thirteen."
"Thirteen tons..."
The room went silent for a moment. The spectators—the elite fighters of the academy—all had complicated expressions. For them, thirteen tons of raw, unassisted physical strength was a terrifying benchmark. Zhong Qiang, who had the benefit of the Blood Bodhi's mystical nourishment, knew his own limits. Using nothing but his bare muscles, he topped out at just over twelve tons. To see a scrawny high schooler surpass that without a single day of training was... humbling, to say the least.
"Thirteen tons?!" Peter's eyes practically popped out of his skull. He stared at his trembling palms as if they belonged to a stranger. "You're telling me I just lifted thirteen tons? Like, the weight of two or three school buses? Am I... am I invincible now? Can I stop a tank?"
He looked up, caught Huang Wen's amused, "don't-be-ridiculous" half-smile, and immediately deflated. "Okay, not invincible. Definitely not invincible. I'll just... shut up now."
Surprisingly, the fear that had paralyzed Peter earlier was starting to evaporate. Maybe it was the adrenaline, or maybe it was the realization that if Huang Wen wanted him dead, he wouldn't bother with a fitness test. He started to view the Master not as a monster, but as a bizarre, god-like mentor figure who just happened to be terrifyingly competent.
"I'm not seeing any signs of 'Awakening Shock' from him," Huang Wen observed, noting Peter's rapid mental recovery. This was the Tobey Maguire version of Spider-Man, after all—resilient, grounded, and genetically 'stable' in a way many mutants weren't. "Alright, let's see the rest. Aside from the wall-crawling and the bus-lifting, what else did the spider give you?"
"I think... I can do this?" Peter looked uncertain. He extended his arm toward the floating iron block and gave his wrist a sharp, flicking motion.
Thwip!
A strand of thick, white, glistening fiber shot across the room and latched onto the metal. Peter grabbed the line and pulled. He pulled with every ounce of his thirteen-ton strength, his boots skidding across the reinforced floor. But the block didn't budge. Huang Wen's telekinetic grip was like an anchor tied to the center of the earth.
"Wait, did I get weaker?" Peter muttered, a hint of frustration creeping into his voice. "Why won't it move? I just tossed this thing!"
"Your strength is fine," Huang Wen said, chuckling softly. "I was testing your traction versus your endurance. It seems your pulling force is consistent with your lifting capacity, but you need to learn how to use your weight, not just your muscles. Also, about this 'web' of yours... can you actually control it? Or is it just 'on' and 'off'?"
Huang Wen was intrigued. This Peter didn't need mechanical shooters or chemicals; he was a biological factory.
"It's... a bit sticky," Peter admitted, trying to retract the line. He tugged and twisted, but the web stayed glued to the block and his wrist. "Actually, it's really sticky. I haven't quite figured out the 'detach' button yet."
"And to be blunt, the structural integrity is... lacking," Huang Wen added. He flicked a finger, sending a tiny, invisible blade of Sword Qi through the air. It sliced through the thick webbing as easily as a hot wire through butter.
Peter stared at the severed end of the web, his expression dazed. This was the second time his "indestructible" silk had been treated like cheap yarn—first by Huang Liang's internal energy, and now by a literal flick of a finger.
"It's good for swinging and catching civilians, but against high-frequency energy or sharp-edged masters? It's a liability," Huang Wen lectured. "Still, your baseline is excellent. Great strength, insane reflexes. And for the record, I've scanned you—you're not a mutant. No X-gene. This is something else entirely. So, Peter, what's the plan? You have the power of a god compared to your peers. What are you going to do with it?"
Peter went quiet for a second. He looked over at Huang Liang, the only person who knew the truth about his home life. "I need to master this," Peter said, his voice dropping an octave. "I need to be able to control it so I don't accidentally break someone's hand. And then... I need to find a way to make some money. My Aunt May... things aren't great at home, and if I can use this to help, I have to."
Huang Liang felt a pang of sympathy. He knew Peter was thinking about underground wrestling or maybe some kind of high-speed delivery job.
Huang Wen watched the exchange but didn't offer to hire the boy. Peter Parker needed to walk his own path for a while. If he were brought into the Wing Chun Academy now, he'd just be another student. He needed to become Spider-Man first. The "Great Power, Great Responsibility" lesson hadn't hit him yet, and Huang Wen wasn't about to force it—the cost of that lesson was usually a funeral.
"Liang, your classmate is your responsibility for now," Huang Wen said, signaling the end of the session. "Help him get a handle on his output. If he starts accidentally pulling doors off hinges, give me a call."
"Understood, Master," Huang Liang replied. He was a bit disappointed Peter wouldn't be joining them officially, but he understood the logic. Peter's pride wouldn't let him accept charity, and the Academy was a place for martial arts, not a soup kitchen.
They returned to the Wing Chun Academy shortly after. Life continued its steady rhythm as summer approached. The first floor was becoming crowded with college students looking for "self-defense" classes, though most of them were just there for the trend.
Huang Wen kept the second floor strictly off-limits. This led to some friction with the more "entitled" New York crowd. A group of wealthy frat boys had tried to storm the stairs a few days prior, screaming about "public access" and "freedom of movement." Reese Fisk had handled it personally, tossing them out onto the sidewalk with enough force to leave permanent impressions in their egos.
Speaking of Reese, the Fisk family—now rebranded as the Kingpin Group—was thriving. They had moved away from the more "extralegal" activities of the past, focusing instead on a massive consolidation of mid-tier defense contractors. Under Reese's guidance and Jack's military connections, they were becoming the go-to provider for "affordable and reliable" gear for local law enforcement and the Air Force. They weren't making Iron Man suits, but their body armor and tactical drones were top-notch.
However, on the other side of the city, Justin Hammer was having a catastrophic month. After his embarrassing display at the Stark Expo and his failed promise to the military about mass-producing "War Machines," his credibility had tanked. This failure had a ripple effect, leading the military to pull funding from several joint projects, including those with Osborn Industries.
Norman Osborn sat in his high-back leather chair, staring at a screen that showed a plummeting stock line. His face was a mask of cold, controlled fury. He didn't care about Hammer's incompetence, but he cared deeply that Hammer's failure was costing him money.
The military had grown cold. They were looking at the Kingpin Group for logistics and Stark for tech, leaving Osborn Industries out in the rain.
"Justin Hammer thinks he can play with the big boys and leave us to pay the bill?" Norman whispered, his voice vibrating with a dangerous, unstable edge. The green-tinted vials on his desk shimmered in the low light. "He wanted to show the military a monster? Maybe I should show him one instead."
The "Human Performance Enhancer" project was nearing completion, and Norman was losing his patience with "safe" testing protocols. He didn't just want his contracts back; he wanted to erase the competition. And Justin Hammer was officially at the top of his list.