All the heavens, starting as the ruler of the universe

Peter Parker found the building by following the address on the business card.

Fifth Avenue, Midtown Manhattan.

He stood downstairs, looking up at the glass curtain wall that stretched from the ground to the sixtieth floor, reflecting a cool blue light in the afternoon sun.

The entire building resembles a prismatic crystal with its tip sharpened, embedded in one of New York's most expensive locations, surrounded by the Guggenheim Museum and the tree-lined Central Park.

There were no company logos hanging on the roof, only a minimalist geometric logo embedded above the entrance—three intersecting arcs forming a symbol whose specific meaning was unclear.

Peter placed the black metal card onto the card reader.

The glass doors slid open silently, revealing a high-ceilinged lobby.

The floor is polished dark gray granite, the walls are covered with warm-toned walnut wood veneer, and the air is filled with a faint aroma of white tea.

There was no front desk, no receptionists, just a long corridor illuminated by indirect lighting, as quiet as an art museum.

As soon as he stepped inside, a line of pale blue holographic text appeared on the wall:

"Mr. Parker, Mr. Li is waiting for you on the top floor. Please go straight and take the elevator."

Peter looked up and walked toward the elevator at the end of the corridor.

The elevator car's interior wall is made of a single piece of polished titanium alloy, and there is only one button on the control panel—the top floor.

When he pressed it, he barely felt any acceleration; all he could feel was the floor numbers on the display screen jumping rapidly.

Through the semi-transparent rear wall of the elevator car, he could see glimpses of each experimental area—researchers in white lab coats, neatly arranged biological culture chambers, and a robotic arm suspended in mid-air performing micron-level welding on a metal component.

60 floors.

When the elevator doors opened, Li Zheng was standing in the center of a wide-open space.

He was wearing a well-tailored black shirt with the cuffs rolled up to his elbows, and holding a cup of coffee in his hand.

Behind him was a full-length curved window, with the Manhattan skyline unfolding behind him, and the green of Central Park like a giant emerald embedded among the buildings.

"Peter," Lee said, a slight smile playing on his lips, "welcome to my company."

Peter stepped out of the elevator, his gaze sweeping across the entire top floor space.

This place doesn't feel like an office; it's more like a private technology museum.

On the left-hand display wall, several devices are suspended by magnetic force: a prototype of a micro pulse thruster, a set of folding carbon fiber gliders, and a disassembled handheld energy weapon. Each part is slowly rotating on an independent magnetic levitation platform.

On the right is a living ecological wall that extends from the floor to the ceiling. Ferns and orchids grow quietly under artificial light, and pale green nutrient solution flows in the transparent pipes between the roots.

In the very center is a three-story holographic projection sand table.

The image above shows a real-time orbital model of the solar system, with the flight paths of seventeen probes marked as golden arcs. Sixteen of them have turned gray—mission accomplished, recovered, or crashed.

Only one is still flashing, its trajectory pointing towards Earth.

"That's so cool." Peter had never seen such a cool office in both his previous and current lives.

"It's alright," Li said, a hint of smugness in his voice.

"Let's go." Li casually placed his coffee cup on the edge of the holographic sand table, turned and walked towards the corridor on the left. "I'll show you the real laboratory."

The corridor is flanked by transparent glass partitions, and each laboratory looks like it was taken straight out of a science fiction movie.

The first room is a materials science laboratory, where several researchers are conducting a tensile test on a piece of silver-gray metal, with a complex stress distribution diagram flashing on the screen next to them.

The second room was a biochemistry laboratory, where centrifuges emitted a low hum, and a row of incubators contained neatly arranged petri dishes of different colors.

The third laboratory was twice the size of the first two.

Through the explosion-proof glass, Peter saw several cylindrical culture containers filled with some kind of dark green liquid.

In the center of the liquid is a section of the forelimb of some kind of reptile, with muscle fibers clearly visible at the cut surface, growing slowly at a rate almost imperceptible to the naked eye.

On the surrounding monitoring instruments, real-time data on cell division was refreshed like a waterfall.

"Kurt Connors' research." Li tapped lightly on the glass, and the wall immediately transformed into a transparent display screen, showing dense experimental data and gene sequence maps: "Limb regeneration technology."

"I know about it." Peter knew about this technology; it was the one that forced Connors to become Dr. Lizard.

Li continued walking forward.

The door to the fourth laboratory was closed, and a red lock icon was flashing on the access control system.

Li pressed the fingerprint scanner and then entered a password on the touchscreen next to it before the glass door slid open silently.

The room is very large, with a high ceiling of at least two stories.

At the center is a huge mechanical testing platform, where a silver-gray aircraft is fixed to a multi-axis robotic arm.

The streamlined outer shell has four sets of miniature turbine propulsion units arranged at the bottom, and a sharp wing-like structure on each side.

It hovered quietly in mid-air, with monitoring instruments around it conducting some kind of static test. Occasionally, the turbine intake would emit a low, guttural sound, like a tethered raptor uttering a muffled murmur in its sleep.

Green Goblin skateboard.

Peter didn't need to ask.

He was all too familiar with that design—he had seen it in a movie before he even traveled through time.

"A single combat system capable of carrying people in flight has great potential," Li explained.

"How's the range?" Peter was genuinely interested, as anti-aircraft combat had always been his weakness.

"For an average person, it takes half an hour. For someone with your extraordinary muscle and bone density," Li glanced at him, "it takes ten minutes."

Peter nodded without saying anything.

The two continued walking toward the next laboratory.

At the end of the corridor, the last laboratory was isolated by a separate security system.

This is a room made entirely of polymer walls, with a yellow biohazard sign hanging on the door. The access control system requires simultaneous verification of fingerprint, iris, and voiceprint recognition.

Lee paused in front of the door, then turned to look at Peter.

"This is what you saw yesterday."

After passing all three verifications, the glass door slid open silently.

The room was more spacious than any of the previous laboratories, but it contained only one thing—a cylindrical magnetic confinement container, entirely silver-white, with its surface covered with a dense array of sensor interfaces.

The container was mounted on a stable platform, surrounded by rows of monitoring instruments and a cooling system. Dozens of screens displayed various data in real time: temperature, magnetic field strength, bioelectric signals, mass spectrometry analysis, etc.

Peter saw what was inside through the viewing window on the container.

Through the observation window, Peter saw what was inside.

Six symbionts.

Separated into six separate small containers of different colors—black, dark red, deep blue, dark green, grayish white, and a cluster with a dark purple sheen.

"The dormancy suppression has been reduced to the minimum." Li's voice sounded behind him. "In three more days, it will awaken due to its survival instinct and seek a host."

"What if we still haven't found a host after three days?" Peter turned to look at Lee.

"It'll be fine. I have enough live animals here for them to absorb energy from, so they can survive for the time being."

Li spoke calmly, as if he were talking about something completely under his control.