Chapter 41

"The literal meaning," Mark shrugged, playfully looking at Dr. Octopus without any fear of him laying hands on him.

Although he had just activated his ability to travel through time and space, it had consumed a considerable amount of his energy. However, it didn't affect his combat abilities too much.

If we were to set the total time-space power he could store as 100%, then after absorbing some energy from the collider earlier, his time-space power was at 90%.

Later, when he traveled back to his reality, it consumed about 40% to 50% of his power, which meant his genetic hunger was due to having just over half of his time-space power left.

However, he discovered that his time-space power was slowly increasing these past few days.

He could recover about 1% to 2% every day.

This discovery was pleasantly surprising.

It meant he didn't need to specifically find colliders or similar objects; he only needed enough time to restore his energy.

During this multiversal travel, the energy consumption was also not as much as he had initially imagined, roughly around 20% to 25%, about half of what he expected.

The time-space energy in his body now was enough for him to travel back once again!

Through this travel, he also understood something crucial.

His true power should have awakened on the second day when he was bitten and transported to the world of Miles.

And it was precisely because of this awakening that he could capture the spatial fluctuations when the collider first opened and triggered his ability to travel through space-time.

However, at that time, he had just awakened, and the energy in his body was probably only enough for him to travel through once.

This resulted in almost all his power disappearing after he traveled to Miles' universe, leaving him with only the Spider-Sense, making him nearly as ordinary as an ordinary person.

Yet, based on his experience with Miles, he knew that as long as he retained over 10% of his time-space power, he could perform at his normal strength.

And if this energy reached a higher level, such as almost full capacity like before, he could exhibit even greater power!

As for whether exceeding the threshold would make him stronger, Mark didn't dare to think about it now.

It might be worth trying, or it might lead to his demise.

Moreover, even if he truly wanted to attempt it, he didn't have enough space-time power to absorb.

...

Dr. Octopus was not an easy adversary.

Though he boasted that his intelligence was his greatest talent, now that he had combined with the mechanical tentacles, his thinking was partly influenced by them, becoming more savage.

Seeing the mockery in Mark's words, Dr. Octopus sneered, and his two mechanical tentacles, one on each side, attacked Mark.

"I won't kill you; I'll catch you and extract what I want!" Dr. Octopus declared.

"Is that so?" Mark smiled and pressed something on his chest while simultaneously pulling out a mask from his pocket.

Swoosh—

As if a stream of water swiftly flowed from his chest, spreading throughout his limbs and body.

In less than a second, his body, along with his clothes, was completely covered by the nanotech suit.

Simultaneously, he executed a backflip with ease, deftly evading the attack of the two mechanical tentacles.

At this moment, Mark had already donned the mask on his head.

Soon after, a Spider-Man clad in red and blue appeared before Dr. Octopus.

Dr. Octopus was slightly taken aback, "You are Spider-Man? Then who's that person beneath you?"

At this point, he still didn't know that Spider-Man was his friend's student, the same Peter Parker whom he had used to conversed with joyfully.

"No, no," Mark hadn't spoken yet, but Dr. Octopus shook his head and denied his own words, "Your attire is different from his, and yours seems more advanced? The one you just used, is it nanofluid metal? Wow, that's quite an impressive technology! Did you come from some new experimental lab?"

Dr. Octopus truly lived up to being a mad scientist; just from observing Mark's recent actions, he quickly extrapolated a plethora of possibilities.

Though Mark couldn't help but find it amusing, he also felt a hint of admiration for Dr. Octopus.

In all fairness, although this male version of Dr. Octopus was short and chubby, and nowhere near as attractive as the female version (of course he's a guy), given the choice between the two, Mark would definitely pick the male version in front of him.

The female version was inherently mad, with no cure.

On the other hand, this male version was only suffering from a degree madness due to the control chip on his back being damaged by electric shocks.

His willingness to reflect upon and regret his actions at the last moment, opting to sink into the sea along with the mistakes he had made, demonstrated that he wasn't beyond redemption.

Moreover, there was a detail in the movie.

Even in his paranoid state, Dr. Octopus remained fixated on continuing his research; he never killed anyone, whether it was during his robbery or when he encountered the people protecting Spider-Man on the train.

This indicates that his nature is not inherently bad.

He's only gone mad in pursuit of his goals.

"Wanna know?" Mark's feet pushed against the ground as he launched a counter-attack toward Dr. Octopus.

After learning that Mark wasn't the Spider-Man he sought to capture, Dr. Octopus lost interest in him. He harbored no animosity towards Spider-Man himself; he merely needed to obtain tritium from Harry Osborn to serve as the core material for his artificial sun experiment. In return for capturing Spider-Man, whom Harry Osborn believed had killed his father, Harry proposed to exchange him for the tritium.

So, Dr. Octopus didn't want to get entangled with an unknown and healthy Spider-Man like Mark. His intention was to go down to the train below, capture the already worn-out Spider-Man, get what he wanted, and then return to continue his experiment.

The disinterested Dr. Octopus used one mechanical tentacle to block Mark's attack, while the other swung fiercely, attempting to knock Mark away.

But Mark wouldn't let him have his way.

Having dealt with Dr. Octopus's attacks before, both versions of Dr. Octopus—this male one, who had only recently become Dr. Octopus, and the female one from the alternate universe—relied on the artificial intelligence within their mechanical tentacles for core combat capabilities. However, artificial intelligence also required learning and improvement.

As a result, the original version of Dr. Octopus, the one currently facing Mark, had a slightly lower combat proficiency compared to the female version.

Mark didn't even need to employ his spider senses against these straightforward attacks.

He extended his hand, firmly gripping the mechanical tentacle that was brought closer. Then, with a strong pull, he brought its center lower, directly affecting Dr. Octopus's balance.

A strand of webbing shot out, sticking to the mechanical tentacle.

At the same time, Mark exerted force to the side, pivoting around the head of the mechanical tentacle, and with a swift movement, he circled around Dr. Octopus, now behind him.

A/N: Stones, please

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