"Harry..."
The scenery shifted outside the window, but inside the car, the atmosphere was silent.
In the passenger seat, Peter's gaze drifted across Harry's face several times. He found that this good friend he had grown up with showed no trace of worry or anxiety at all. Harry was even leisurely humming a little tune.
"Is your illness really not serious?"
After weighing his words again and again, Peter still asked with a frown, "But Uncle Norman..."
Screech.
Harry Osborn abruptly slammed down on the gas. The tires scraped against the road, letting out an ear-piercing sound.
Peter saw the relaxed look on Harry's face seem to vanish for an instant, but when Harry turned to look at him, he was still wearing that cheerful expression. "Peter, as long as you have money, there's no illness that can't be treated."
"You know Osborn never lacks money."
"Don't worry."
After lightly patting Peter on the shoulder, Harry smiled faintly, and the car started moving again.
"All right, Peter, stop talking."
In the back seat, Gwen lightly tugged at her blunt boyfriend, finally making him stop.
"Peter, I heard this academy isn't a place ordinary people can enter. Unless an insider recommends you, outsiders have trouble even getting close."
"It took me a lot of effort just to qualify to go inside. Rumor has it that the students here are peerless geniuses personally invited by the teachers..."
Harry's mood seemed completely unaffected. He continued talking on and off.
Before long, an ancient castle covering an enormous area entered the three of them's view.
"Wow. This place is way too beautiful!"
The moment they got out of the car, extremely fresh air instantly rushed into their noses.
Accompanied by a faint fragrance, beneath the blue sky and white clouds, everything within sight was beautiful.
A breeze swept past, making the three of them, who had long lived in a steel jungle, instinctively exclaim in admiration.
"There's actually a place this nice hidden near New York?"
Harry took a deep breath. For a moment, he felt his mind grow cool and clear. Even the mild discomfort in his body seemed to vanish like smoke.
"Peter, I feel like I might not need any medicine. If I could just live here for a few years, my illness would cure itself."
Harry moved his body in disbelief, his eyes shining as he looked around the school.
This discovery immediately excited him. Happily, he slung an arm around Peter's shoulders.
"What a strange feeling..."
Unlike Harry's excitement, after looking around, Peter's brows quietly furrowed.
His nose twitched slightly, and he cautiously took Gwen's hand.
For some reason, although the environment here was certainly pleasant, Peter's spider-sense kept warning him nonstop.
His body's instincts were urging him to leave this place as quickly as possible, as though he had unknowingly trespassed into some powerful being's territory.
"Let's go. We'll find Dr. Connors."
Harry waved a hand and strode forward eagerly.
A strange premonition in his heart was telling him that he had already found the direction toward solving his problem.
Ever since Norman Osborn had mysteriously disappeared some time ago, Harry, after learning of the hereditary disease, had fallen into irresistible self-doubt and self-destruction.
Though he acted as if nothing was wrong in front of Peter, the nightmare that had haunted the Osborn family had already left him utterly hopeless inside.
Connors was merely a straw he had found in desperation.
But after arriving here, Harry had already changed his mind. His intuition told him that this magical academy definitely hid the key that could save him.
"Come on. Let's keep up."
Gwen gripped Peter's hand in return.
"Danger!"
However, the warning in Peter's heart was growing more and more intense, even making the hairs on his arms stand on end.
He silently pressed the web-shooter on his wrist. Only then did his heart feel slightly steadier.
Leaving the parking lot and crossing a huge lawn brought them to the academy's main building.
"Who are you?"
"How come I've never seen you around the academy before?"
As they passed the lawn, a rough male voice suddenly sounded beside the three of them.
"Who's there?"
Peter, whose nerves had been stretched tight the entire time, almost reflexively jumped in place.
He instantly shielded Gwen and Harry behind him, but after scanning the area, he saw no sign of the speaker at all.
"Down here."
A pair of furry arms suddenly reached up from directly below Peter. After grabbing him by the collar, the owner even remembered to wave at him.
"Are you three new students Charles recruited?"
"How come I don't remember seeing you before?"
At the sound, Peter lowered his head.
The newcomer had thick hair and knotty muscles all over his body, giving him a wild, dangerous look.
Yet this tall and powerful-looking man was only a little over three feet tall at the moment.
Peter focused. The man's upper body was no different from an ordinary person's, but his lower body was especially thin and weak.
At a glance, he looked exactly like an adult whose lower limbs had not fully grown.
"Ah!"
Suddenly seeing such a strange person, Gwen instinctively cried out, turned, and tried to run.
Before running, she did not forget to tug Peter, yanking him until he stumbled.
"Making a fuss over nothing."
After looking the three of them up and down and confirming from their clear eyes that they were indeed students, Victor finally waddled away on his short little legs.
Gulp.
Harry had clearly been badly startled too. He stared at Sabretooth's back with lingering fear and swallowed. "There are people like that in the world?"
"So it really is an academy for 'geniuses.'"
Gwen instinctively leaned closer to Peter.
"Are you here to see Dr. Connors?"
While the three of them were still dazed, a mature and pleasant voice suddenly sounded.
Amid the crisp tapping of high heels, two beautiful figures, one older and one younger, walked toward them.
The older woman had a graceful, curvaceous figure. Her whole presence seemed noble and elegant.
The other girl looked about the same age as the three of them, with striking features. After lightly sizing Gwen up, she immediately shifted her gaze away.
"Yes. We're here to deliver an invitation to Dr. Connors."
The instant the two appeared, Peter immediately felt a faint pressure bearing down on him. For a moment, he even felt as though he could not breathe.
After quietly taking a deep breath, Peter took out an exquisite invitation and showed it to Emma. "May I ask if you're also a teacher here?"
"I'm not a teacher here. Do as you please."
Emma's gaze swept over the three of them before finally settling on Peter with interest. "Your physical fitness is good, but you stay up too much."
"You should keep a close eye on your boyfriend, young lady."
Emma covered her mouth and gave Gwen a meaningful smile, then took Wanda with her and left.
"Wanda, Fenris basically never teaches class. Taking a history book to him won't do you much good."
"He might not even know as much history as you do."
"I..."
"My brother went to bother Teacher Fenris again today. I'm going to talk him down."
"Are you really just going to talk Pietro down?"
"Mm..."
The instant the two brushed past them, Peter's ear twitched, and a faint conversation clearly entered his ears.
"Fenris is here?"
Peter's steps abruptly stopped.
(End of Chapter)
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