A month later, inside a room at Mutant School.
Hawking closed his eyes, sat cross-legged, and floated half a meter above the bed, concentrating his mind, trying to control his Ki to make his body defy gravity and maintain the floating state.
Suddenly, the alarm clock on the table rang, distracting him, and he immediately fell onto the bed.
"Finally, some progress. I need to spend more time practicing!"
Reaching out to press the alarm that rang at 10:30, Hawking leaped off the bed.
After a month of studying Ki, he finally found the knack for making his body float. Now, he could barely manage to control his body with Ki and stay off the ground when concentrating.
This also meant that it wouldn't be long until he fully mastered Bukujutsu for free flight.
With his current combat power, flying with Bukujutsu was naturally not a problem; after all, even someone like Gohan's wife, Videl, with dozens of combat power, could do it.
The key was to comprehend the technique, and he didn't have a teacher to guide him hand-in-hand.
Leaving the room through the window, he flew by column, as he did every night, to Queens Park in Queens, where he met Peter Parker, dressed in a Spider-Man suit.
"Congratulations on your graduation today!"
Today was Peter Parker's graduation day, and he had also been accepted into New York's most famous Empire State University.
"Thank you."
Peter Parker looked up, a very stiff smile on his face.
Hawking immediately noticed something was off:
"What's wrong? You seem a bit off. Did your Mary Jane reject you?"
After a month of getting along, Peter had long considered him a close friend with whom he could talk about anything. He had naturally confessed his crush on his classmate Mary Jane and the real reason he bought the sports car.
Hawking had encouraged Peter to pursue her if he wanted to, to be bold and not fear rejection.
Although he felt that Mary Jane was not suitable for Peter, as long as the parties involved liked each other, that was all that mattered. A White Moonlight was not so easily dismissed by outsiders, and persuasion might even cause Peter to resent him.
Moreover, personally, he actually felt that in such matters, one should always make their own decisions. Even if the outcome was not good, it was still their own choice, and if they changed their mind because of a few words of persuasion from others, regretting it later would be deserved.
Of course, this might be because he himself was someone with strong opinions and was extremely difficult to influence by external factors.
So, after hearing Peter say that Mary Jane and her boyfriend Thompson had broken up, he encouraged Peter to boldly confess to Mary Jane after today's graduation ceremony. If successful, he should take her for a drive, and then... then do what a man should do.
However, it seemed now that the confession had clearly failed.
This was also within his expectations. Would Mary Jane fall in love with Peter just because he had a sports car?
Clearly impossible.
Mary Jane fell in love with Peter because Peter was already a well-known Superhero in New York at the time, just like the unreachable star she always wanted to be, receiving everyone's attention, and he had saved her twice.
She loved not the nerdy Peter, but the famous Spider-Man.
"Hawking, Mary... she's dead!"
Peter looked up at Hawking, his eyes already red.
"Huh???"
Hawking was stunned after hearing this.
Mary Jane was dead; this was too unexpected for him.
"What happened?"
"On the way to the graduation ceremony, she encountered a robbery. In the end, I found and caught the robbers and handed them over to the Police!"
Peter choked up as he recounted what had happened.
Mary Jane took a taxi to school for the graduation ceremony, but she encountered two robbers who had just robbed a gold store attempting to hijack the car. Mary Jane was unfortunately shot and died on the spot.
Peter, grief-stricken and furious, put on his Spider-Man suit and searched, finding the two fleeing robbers first.
But in the end, he still couldn't bring himself to kill them. After a severe beating, he handed the two robbers over to the Police.
"It seems it still happened."
After listening to Peter's narration, Hawking couldn't help but sigh inwardly.
Clearly, Spider-Man's destined fate of losing a loved one still occurred, but due to his appearance, what Peter lost was not Uncle Ben, but his crush, the Goddess Mary Jane.
"My condolences. Take a good rest these next few days!"
Hawking patted Peter's shoulder.
With something like this happening, Peter must be feeling terrible. He didn't want to pressure him further, so he proactively gave Peter a few days off to rest.
However, at this moment, Peter's eyes became resolute. He took out a wad of money from his backpack and handed it to Hawking:
"No, precisely because of this, I can't rest even more. Just as Uncle Ben said, with great power comes great responsibility.
If those two robbers had been discovered and stopped by me during the robbery, then Mary wouldn't have been killed later.
So, from today onwards, I've decided to be like you and make fighting crime something I should do, not for money.
I sold the sports car for eighty thousand. I still owe you twenty thousand, which I will slowly repay later. In the future, I will help you fight crime without taking another cent."
Despite his best efforts to hide it during this time, he still aroused Uncle Ben's suspicion. After learning what happened today, Ben had a good talk with him, enlightened him, and helped him understand many things.
"No need, you are... alright."
Hawking didn't want to take the money back, but seeing Peter's determined eyes, knowing that he had transformed, he still took it.
However, his eyes shifted, and he continued:
"Peter, I've actually always had an idea: relying solely on one person's strength is ultimately limited, just like the incident that happened today.
So, I want to form a team. The members would all be people with special abilities like us, so we can help more people.
And for all of us to be able to use our abilities to help others with more peace of mind, without being bothered by the trivialities of life, we could also establish a related company to operate.
Everyone could occasionally take some photos, shoot an advertisement, sell some merchandise, and earn some money as a subsidy.
What do you think?"
"Ah, I don't see any problem with that; that would be great. But how would we go about it?"
Peter was stunned for a moment. He thought it was certainly a good thing, but as a high school graduate, these things were too unfamiliar to him; it wasn't his area of knowledge.
Hawking smiled:
"I'll handle the specifics of how to operate it. My question is, if I set it up, would you be willing to join?"
"I'm definitely willing!"
Peter nodded without hesitation.
He could use his abilities to help others and also earn some money to pay off his debt. How could he not agree?
The meaning of earning money this way was different from earning money when Hawking paid him a salary before.
Before, he did good deeds for money. Now, he does good deeds from the heart, and then incidentally earns some money to supplement his household expenses.
Moreover, even though he had just been very resolute about repaying the money, he was also very troubled inside, because, honestly, he really didn't know how many part-time jobs he would have to work to repay the twenty thousand he owed.
So, he was naturally willing to do something that killed two birds with one stone.
The most important thing was that he trusted Hawking's character; if it were anyone else, he definitely wouldn't be willing.
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