"What's this plan of yours?"
Harry had managed to sneak out of his boarding school, carving out time to meet with Ben.
They were now sitting in a smoothie shop. Harry took a sip of his drink and immediately gagged, as if trying to spit his own tongue out.
"What is this? It's disgusting!"
"I'm not a fan either," Ben said flatly, downing his own smoothie without changing expression.
It was his first time trying one, and the taste was genuinely awful. Following the principle of not wasting food, he forced himself to finish it.
"So? What's this plan?"
Harry had confirmed the moment he walked in that Peter wasn't here.
He, Peter, and Ben had known each other since they were kids. The three of them were close, especially Harry and Peter, who had been best friends long before Peter came to live with the Parkers.
After Peter was taken in by his relatives, Harry visited often, which was how he and Ben became familiar.
Because Ben was more mature, he'd always acted like an older brother to them, so Harry tended to trust what Ben said.
That's why when Ben mentioned having a plan, Harry had come almost without a second thought.
He trusted Ben not to waste his time.
And just as Ben had said, Harry desperately craved the approval of his father, Norman Osborn. Objectively, Harry was already an exceptional kid—good grades, wealthy family, well-behaved—but in Norman's eyes, it meant nothing.
Harry was excellent, but like Ben not long ago, he was ordinarily excellent.
In a world crawling with geniuses, that counted for nothing.
Norman either dismissed his son with contempt or criticized him harshly.
Of course, Norman's coldness wasn't just because Harry failed to meet his expectations. It was also because Harry's birth had left Norman's wife permanently weakened, ultimately leading to her death.
Harry was unaware of this. He simply believed he wasn't good enough, hence his father's constant rejection.
It was hard to imagine that the future heir of Oscorp's greatest wish wasn't for wealth or power, but simply for his father's recognition.
"I'm planning to start a company," Ben stated.
"Start a company?"
Honestly, Harry was a little disappointed by the answer.
For a moment, he'd genuinely thought Ben had some brilliant scheme to get his dad's approval. He hadn't expected this.
It wasn't that starting a company was a bad idea. The problem was, what could a hastily-formed small company possibly achieve?
Even without tapping into Oscorp's resources, the amount of capital Harry could personally provide was very limited. It might be enough to start a small business, but it would never be enough to impress his father.
Not to mention, whether the company could even turn a profit, and what its actual business would be, were huge questions.
Norman Osborn wasn't just a businessman; he was a scientist. Unless the company's focus involved genuine technological development, achieving a "significant lead" in some field, it wouldn't even register on his radar.
"If you want to start a company, of course I'll support you."
After his brief disappointment, Harry quickly composed himself.
Regardless, Ben's intentions were good. And based on Harry's understanding of him, Ben wouldn't take a risk without some confidence. If he was proposing this now, it meant he believed the plan was viable and profitable.
He just figured Ben didn't understand his father well enough to know that a small success wouldn't catch the eye of the famous Norman Osborn.
Even Harry himself felt that making a bit of money was just small change, hardly worth noticing. But his friend was asking for help, and he had no reason to refuse.
If this could help Ben and Peter's family live a slightly more comfortable life, Harry was all for it.
"Can you tell me the specifics?" Harry asked.
Ben knew exactly what was going through Harry's mind.
Anyone hearing a kid talk about starting a company and building an empire would find it ridiculous. But Ben's next words made Harry jolt.
"Nanotechnology."
"Nanotechnology? You're ambitious," Harry chuckled, pushing his smoothie away with the back of his hand. "Alright, stop joking. You're asking me to invest; you can't keep the business a secret."
In response to Harry's skepticism, Ben just smirked. "Why would you think I called you all the way out here just to joke around?"
"Wait, you're serious?"
Hearing Ben's tone, Harry finally realized he wasn't kidding.
While the concept of nanotechnology had been proposed last century, and some level of "nanotech" existed today, it was all protected by patents.
For Ben to start a company in nanotechnology, he would need a genuine technological breakthrough.
And the funding required for that wasn't a matter of a few million, or even tens of millions of dollars.
"Don't be stupid, Ben. Even Oscorp would think twice before diving into nanotech! My allowance isn't enough for you to burn through!" Harry said, shaking his head.
He had completely given up hope on Ben's proposal, even starting to think Ben had lost his mind. How else could he be so delusional?
Looking at Ben's confident face, Harry felt he was looking at a stranger, nothing like the mature, steady Ben from their childhood.
But then he reconsidered. People change. It had been years; maybe Ben wasn't the person he remembered anymore, but had become an arrogant, pretentious blowhard.
For the sake of their old friendship, Harry didn't just get up and leave.
And thank goodness he didn't.
Because Ben pulled a folder out of his backpack and slid it across the table to Harry.
"You might think I'm dreaming, but I already have some preliminary results."
The documents were notes Ben had written while transformed as Greymatter.
Even though he couldn't directly study the Omnitrix in that form, the innate physics knowledge stored in a Galvan's brain was more than enough to work with.
The Omnitrix was Level 20 tech. In the Ben 10 universe, Earth was only permitted technology up to Level 2.
He only needed to apply knowledge at a Galvan elementary school level to make waves here.
Harry numbly picked up the documents and started reading.
"Well?"
Ben's confidence in entering the nanotech field wasn't baseless.
While nanotechnology existed in this world, its development was slow, and the current tech was light-years behind what Ben was proposing.
The concepts Ben was presenting to Harry were for nanotech suit-level technology that wouldn't appear for over a decade.
Of course, the contents of the file were still theoretical. Realizing them would take time. Even with a Galvan's brain, Ben needed to fill in some knowledge gaps. More importantly, even if he fully understood the tech, the current level of scientific infrastructure couldn't support its implementation.
It was like dropping a modern person into ancient times. No matter how much knowledge they had, they couldn't build an atomic bomb from scratch.
Materials and laboratory environments were crucial.
Even Tony Stark needed the terrorists to provide missile components before he could build the Mark I. Without raw materials, he wouldn't have had a chance.
However, even with just the theoretical framework, Ben was sure it would convince Harry.
He watched as Harry's brow furrowed, then he sighed, closed the file, set it aside, and finally looked at Ben with a complicated expression.
This reaction was unexpected. Ben had thought Harry would agree immediately.
"Is there a problem?"
"Problems? There are problems everywhere," Harry said. "But the biggest problem is... I don't understand any of it."
With his current knowledge base, reading these documents was like a toddler who couldn't spell "physics" trying to understand advanced theoretical concepts.
He still wasn't hopeful. What Ben had written was too fantastical. The hardcore technical details were incomprehensible to him, and the simplified descriptions of the potential applications sounded like something straight out of a science fiction novel in this pre-tech boom era.
Achieving these concepts would require more than just nanotechnology; it would need highly intelligent nanobots.
And whether nanobots were even possible was still up for debate.
Harry could easily imagine taking Ben's file to his father. Norman Osborn would tear him to shreds, accusing him of wasting time on useless science fiction and disgracing the Osborn name.
In the end, Harry shook his head at Ben. "This is too far-fetched, Ben. I want to support you, but you can't just bring science fiction into the real world."
Ben's first reaction was surprise. Then, he smacked his own forehead, realizing the core issue.
"I forgot. When I transform into an alien hero, my thinking gets influenced by their mindset. What Greymatter considers 'not that hard to understand' is completely different for a human."
Humans weren't Galvans. Not everyone had that level of super-intelligence—even the dumbest Galvans, like Driba and Blukic, were top-tier scientists by universal standards, the kind who worked for the Plumbers.
But on Earth?
Forget Harry; the number of people in the world who could understand this document was extremely small. The number who could actually implement it was even smaller.
His mistake was presenting technology that was simply too advanced.
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