Just as Mei pushed open the door to enter the room, a flash of green light struck her, causing her to instinctively close her eyes. The light came quickly and disappeared just as fast. Mei uncomfortably opened her eyes and saw Banter lying on the bed, the blanket bulging high as if it were hiding an elephant, with only his head sticking out.

“Hi, Mei,” Banter greeted her, trying to sound casual.

“Are you okay?” Mei had quite a few questions she wanted to ask him. For instance, she wanted to know what that flash of light was, what the noise coming from the room was, and whether he had stuffed a two-hundred-pound pig into his blanket...

But in the end, she said nothing. Children always need a bit of their own privacy. Mei walked to Banter’s bedside with slight concern, extending her weathered hands to press against his forehead.

“It doesn’t seem like you have a fever, but I’d better take you to the hospital for a check-up,” Mei said, already preparing to gather her things and pull Banter along to leave.

However, Banter held onto the blanket tightly and shook his head vigorously. “Wait, Aunt Mei, I’m fine. There’s no need to go to the hospital.”

Go to the hospital? In this free country, getting medical care isn’t a cheap affair. Banter didn’t want to add unnecessary burdens to Aunt Mei and Uncle Ben.

“You’ve been taking several days off, Xiaoban,” Mei said seriously and with concern. “Ever since you and Peter returned from Osborn, both of you have seemed a bit off. At least Peter got better quickly, but you... both Ben and I are very worried about you.”

“I just don’t want to go to school, so...” Banter tightened his grip on the blanket even more.

“Don’t want to go to school?” Aunt Mei couldn’t help but raise her voice, surprised and angry, wanting to lecture him. But just then, the sound of Uncle Ben’s car came from downstairs.

It was an old clunker that always made noises that didn’t belong to this era when it started and stopped.

“Uncle Ben is back? I thought he had to work today,” Banter quickly changed the subject.

“Peter got into a fight at school,” Aunt Mei said, her face full of sadness.

Then she sighed, walked to the door, and turned to look at Banter seriously. “Now I need to go check on Peter. Later, Ben and I will talk to you again, okay?”

Banter obediently nodded, and only then did Aunt Mei leave, closing the door behind her. Banter listened to her footsteps fade away before he let out a sigh of relief and pulled back the blanket.

His body still retained some characteristics of the spider monster; the Omnitrix had not immediately fully repaired his genes, which was why Banter had covered himself with the blanket.

[Omnitrix energy insufficient, energy replenishing... Gene therapy expected to take 1:37 seconds.]

“Incredible, it only takes a few days of charging to destroy the universe with the self-destruct program, and yet it’s out of energy?” Banter looked incredulously at the watch still spinning on his wrist, while at the same time, he felt the mutations in his body gradually disappearing.

After gene repair, he probably wouldn’t be able to obtain Spider-Man’s abilities anymore. However, Banter didn’t care: “As long as the little broken watch can activate, Spider-Man's superpowers are nothing to worry about.”

Among the one million alien genes in the Omnitrix, countless alien heroes have abilities similar to Spider-Man, the most typical being the Araknan, also known as the Spider-Monkey.

A minute and a half quickly passed. Banter no longer felt any abnormalities in his body, but before he could check thoroughly, the Omnitrix on his wrist automatically switched from green to blue, and on its surface, countless strange black shadows were jumping rapidly.

[Entering calibration mode]

“Calibration mode? Has the little broken watch reestablished a connection with Plamos?” Banter immediately got excited!

The original little broken watch did not directly store over a million alien genes; it needed to download them from Plamos to transform, similar to cloud storage. Once in calibration mode, the watch would randomly acquire ten alien genes.

“I wonder which alien genes I’ll get.”

Among the over a million alien genes, the most powerful naturally would be the almighty X-Men! However, Banter wasn’t too keen on obtaining genes from this race because the limitations were too great, and one could easily become trapped in the consciousness universe with two personalities.

Just as Banter was thinking, the Omnitrix completed its calibration. The initial calibration seemed not to change its appearance, but indeed many icons had appeared inside the watch.

Banter pressed the two buttons on the side of the watch, and the core bulged out, the two triangular blocks resembling an hourglass overlapping to form a square, inside which was a human-shaped shadow.

“Fire Guy?”

Banter recognized this as the icon of the Pyronian, and after twisting the core, familiar shadows like the Energy Beast and Diamond Warrior all appeared before him.

“It’s the original ten heroes.”

Most of the superpowers of the original ten alien heroes were quite strong, and the combination of the ten could handle a wide range of situations, not to mention that one of these heroes was the small Gadgeteer!

The Gadgeteer’s gene comes from the Galvans, who are from the same family as the creators of the Omnitrix, five of the most intelligent Azmuths in the galaxy.

Theoretically, the Gadgeteer’s intelligence could break all the restriction programs of the Omnitrix. However, this would also require a certain level of knowledge as a foundation; in the animation, little Banter initially struggled with repairing the air conditioning of the old clunker.

Banter didn’t immediately try to transform; instead, he pulled down his sleeve to cover the watch because he heard someone coming up the stairs again.

“Sounds like Peter,” Banter immediately pictured Peter walking up the stairs in his mind.

Then he paused: “Strange, when did my hearing get so good?”

Before he could ponder, the door opened once more.

“Hi, Ban, are you feeling better...” Peter walked in and greeted him, but before he could finish his sentence, he was caught off guard. The moment their eyes met, a strange feeling surged from deep within their souls.

It was as if a ring of diverging lines had appeared next to both of their heads, like bristling hairs standing on end.

“Wait, you too!” Peter’s eyes widened!

“Don’t tell me you were bitten by a spider too!”

A few days ago, Peter had been bitten by a spider at Osborn, and after one night, he found himself becoming unusual. Now, some instinct told him that his good cousin seemed to have the same ability.

Banter was also a bit surprised; he thought the Omnitrix had completely removed the spider genes, but unexpectedly, they had been retained. Now, even without the little broken watch, he had a certain level of self-defense capability.

However, in response to Peter’s question, Banter thought for a moment and replied, “Technically, it was me who bit the spider.”

Peter: ???