By the next morning, Peter looked at the Bloodstone pendant in his hand and fell into deep thought. He had originally intended to deliver this thing to Strange, but he had ended up forgetting. Returning quite late in the early hours of this morning, he had ended up falling straight asleep. It wasn't until morning that he went to look for Strange, only for Strange to unexpectedly refuse to accept it.
Even now, Peter had no idea exactly why Strange had chosen not to take the Bloodstone, instead leaving it in his custody. And as always, Strange maintained his signature air of mysticism, refusing to tell Peter what this thing was actually useful for.
From what Peter knew, a Bloodstone had to be cultivated by tearing away half of a person's soul while they were still alive. It was the absolute best casting material for dark magic, as well as the finest source of mana for necromancy.
But the issue was, he had no use for necromancy, nor did he know how to use dark magic, so why give it to him?
After pondering for a while, Peter put away the pendant and looked around. He had arrived rather early today, and as usual, there were hardly any classmates around. Unexpectedly, Amadeus arrived quite early too. Peter curiously asked a few questions, "Has anything been going on in Greece lately?"
"Nothing, which is why I've been coming early recently. Peter, do you think it's necessary to conduct a four-dimensional topological experiment on the polymer materials at the Baxter Building? If we do..."
"...I didn't participate in that experiment."
Speaking of this, Peter felt a wave of emotion. He had gone to the Baxter Building to be an intern solely for the sake of traveling across the multiverse, but right now, it seemed like multiversal travel didn't really require him to do much of anything, and the Web of Destiny hadn't shown any intention of calling upon him lately either.
New York was truly peaceful. There weren't even any supervillains on the streets. Although everyone knew someone was up to something, no mistakes had been made, so everyone was just watching and waiting.
He began to wonder if he should find something else to do, since New York was truly becoming safer and safer.
Then, he and Amadeus saw Harry stumble inside looking utterly exhausted, disheveled, and haggard. Startled, Peter hastily asked, "What happened? Did you get beaten up or robbed?"
"Huh?"
Facing this situation, Amadeus offered an alternative theory, "Did you and Liz go to a hotel?"
"What?!"
This "what" was shouted by Harry himself. Because it was overly loud, it caused the surrounding students to look over. Harry gave a helpless sigh and scratched his head, "No, guys, where are you even getting these ideas..."
"Why don't you look at your own reflection in the window?"
Amadeus's words made Harry realize, so he looked toward the window. Upon seeing what a glorious mess he looked like, he burst into laughter himself, "Oh, uh, it's nothing. This is just from me playing video games at home. Didn't you guys play it? It came out last month—Three Men and a Dog! That Grand Theft Auto 5!"
Peter recalled that the game did indeed seem to have come out last month (September). Unfortunately, heroes had no time to play games; whether it was The Elder Scrolls or Three Men and a Dog, he had no time for either.
But the good news was that even if he didn't have time to play it, he had completely experienced it through others, so he knew exactly what was in the game.
Amadeus, on the other hand, spoke quite bluntly, "The young master of the Osborn family being addicted to electronic games—if word got out, I'm afraid people in your social circle would find it bizarre."
"First of all, I'm not a part of 'that circle' at all. In their eyes, my dad is just a nouveau riche, alright?" Harry rolled his eyes at Amadeus. "Besides, I already came to Midtown High School, which proved long ago that I can't mingle with them. Typical wealthy heirs go to private high schools, who would come here?—of course, I don't mean Midtown High is bad."
Midtown High was already one of the few public high schools in New York where serious test-takers gathered. At least the teachers at Midtown High would seriously grade exam papers, write test questions, and tell you that your math answers were wrong, rather than shouting "you're a genius" when someone couldn't even multiply single digits correctly.
This was likely thanks to the fact that the Democratic president was Matthew Ellis, rather than the Black Pharaoh of another timeline. "Progressive education" was not rampant. Although the level of education was still continuously declining, at least it wasn't happening quite so fast.
Meanwhile, Harry was still adding onto the benefits of his gaming.
"Secondly, being a gaming nerd is actually quite nice, and it even comes with advantages, guys. Do you know? Ever since I was kidnapped and my identity was exposed, so many clubs have come looking for me, hoping I'd join, and plenty of people wanted me to throw parties at my house."
"But as long as I prove that I'm a nerdy gamer, they instantly scatter like birds and beasts!"
For a moment, Peter and Amadeus were both somewhat speechless. They had no idea why Harry would think of this as a good thing, and they shook their heads in unison.
Then, Peter realized something wasn't quite right. Cindy still hadn't come to school yet, so he sent her a message asking if something had happened at SHIELD or something. But the other party didn't reply immediately either.
"Hmm... I suppose SHIELD really has a mission, though I don't think I've ever seen Fury give Cindy any assignments. On the contrary, senior sister has been taking leave every other day lately."
Peter muttered under his breath as he watched the teacher walk in. Then the bell rang, and everyone began their normal class. The coursework, as usual, wasn't very difficult for him, so after sitting for a while, his mind began to drift away.
Generally speaking, if there was no alarm indicating that something had happened in New York, Peter would just continue to daydream like this. Occasionally, he might be called upon by the teacher, and he would instantly utilize his Spider-Sense and superhuman memory to recall the sounds he had just heard to answer the question.
However, a sound interrupted his wandering mind. It wasn't the sound of any major crisis, but rather the snoring of a certain young master who had stayed up all night playing games and had slumped onto his desk fast asleep. Peter couldn't help but look back, then turned back around, scribbled a note, and tossed it to Amadeus.
The meaning was simple: it was fine for Harry to sleep, but stop him from snoring, as the whole class was about to hear it.
Amadeus understood this as well, so he shook Harry awake. Harry actually thought the teacher was calling on him to answer a question, so the moment he was shaken awake, he instantly stood up and looked at the blackboard, "Mr. Christopher, this question..."
The entire classroom was instantly filled with a cheerful atmosphere. The loud laughter left Harry completely baffled, until the laughter died down considerably and the teacher gave a helpless sigh, "Mr. Lyman, I didn't call on you to answer a question."
"Huh? Is that so? Oh, oh, okay."
Harry sat back down sheepishly amidst the laughter, while Peter glanced at his phone and found that Cindy still hadn't replied. Instead, a number he recognized as likely belonging to Fury sent him a message.
Cindy was sick.