Peter rushed over the moment he heard Benter's words and handed him the notebook.
The dense wall of formulas nearly made Benter's eyes blur.
Truthfully, if not for the broken watch that let him transform into Little Battler, even ten more years wouldn't be enough for him to decipher this. But Peter had never once doubted him. In Peter's eyes, Benter could do anything.
"So I should—"
"Go find Dr. Connors," Benter said, already getting up.
Without a lab or equipment, even if he cracked the formula, he couldn't produce the serum.
"Osborn Tower is empty today?"
Peter shook his head. "Not a single person."
It puzzled him too. Even if something happened to Dr. Connors, why would Osborn Industries be completely deserted? Connors's condition hadn't even been exposed yet.
Benter, however, thought a bit deeper.
Considering the trouble Norman Osborn had been dealing with recently, none of this was surprising.
"In that case, I'll borrow the equipment inside Osborn Tower."After separating from Peter, he headed straight toward Osborn.
Just as Peter said, the building was completely deserted.
The tower that was usually packed with people now looked abandoned.
But he didn't enter immediately. Even if the place was empty, the systems and machines were still running—especially the surveillance. Benter did not intend to let any cameras record something that would expose him.
First, he went to the mall and bought a high-end laptop. Then he climbed to the rooftop of the building next door and set it up.
The watch's core popped out, locking onto Little Battler.
"First things first—hack into Osborn Tower's network."
If he could directly link into their internal system, shutting off surveillance or replacing the footage would be easy—and Little Battler was more than capable.
"Osborn's software security isn't even that hard to crack."
In his transformed state, Benter crouched in front of the laptop, frog-like horizontal pupils sweeping across the screen. Lines of code scrolled past faster than any human could follow—but to him, each symbol was crystal clear, frozen in perfect detail.
His eyelids closed sideways.
Gavinans had two ways of blinking—normal vertical blinking, and the occasional sideways lid closure.
"I didn't expect a company as big as Osborn to have such a flimsy firewall," he muttered in surprise.
Of course, what he overlooked was Earth's technological level.
The firewall wasn't weak—his technology was simply too advanced.
"This computer is way better than that antique at home." He tapped the machine lightly, nodding in satisfaction.
The two old computers he and Peter usually used were second-hand rejects Uncle Ben had scavenged. Even for their era, they were ancient. Every time they booted up, the tower roared like a sports car engine.
Now, a flood of notification windows flashed rapidly across the screen.
The system was already breached. His Little Battler form still had about twenty-seven minutes left.
Meaning he had cracked Osborn's system in less than three minutes—limited only by the laptop's mediocre performance.
If he'd used a more advanced machine, it would've taken mere seconds.
But he wasn't planning to go inside Osborn immediately.
Moving around in Little Battler's body was still inconvenient. Better to wait for the transformation to end.
"I really need to finish cracking this broken watch and get full access… Waiting around like this every time is troublesome."He glanced back over his shoulder. His wide field of vision only let him see a sliver of the watch face on his back.
With time to spare, he pulled out Peter's father's notebook and began working.
"No wonder Peter and Connors failed."
He immediately saw the flaw behind Connors's transformation.
Peter's parents had engineered mutated super-spiders, but even so, they hadn't actually perfected cross-species genetic transfer.
To make the serum stable, pre-adaptation of the host's genes was necessary.
Peter and Connors had completely overlooked this—or rather, Richard Parker's notebook never mentioned it. With Benter's current intelligence, he saw through the flaw at a glance. But Peter and Connors couldn't have.
And even with genetic adaptation, stability wasn't guaranteed.
Truthfully, the formula Richard left behind was already flawed—and he knew it. That's why, even after adapting Peter's genes inside the mutated spider, he never attempted to experiment on Peter directly.
In other words, Peter now carried the same risk as Connors: he could mutate into a spider-like creature.
Peter's spider genes were simply more stable. Unless something went wrong, he was safe—for now.
But as his spider abilities continued strengthening, that balance would eventually collapse.
"You should be grateful you have a good cousin."
Benter pinched his chin and began recalculating the formula.
The antidote for the Lizard Serum was easy—just reverse the formula. But stabilizing Peter's genes would take a little time.
Just a little.
Ten-plus minutes later, Benter stretched lazily.
The notebook in front of him was now crammed with formulas.
He hadn't just produced a stabilizing agent for Peter—he'd derived a perfected version of the Lizard Serum as well.
Of course, he removed every enhancement-related function, leaving only its medical applications. He had no intention of turning the world into a playground for superhumans.
The serum hadn't been tested yet, but Benter felt completely confident.
"With this, the Primus medical project is complete," he thought happily. "But this formula is too perfect… If I release it immediately, it'll cause a headache."
A single vial could regrow lost limbs. Benter didn't even want to imagine how many medical corporations would want him dead if something like that hit the market.
He planned to weaken the formula dozens of times before releasing it.
With the last bit of transformation time, he used Little Battler's mind to study.
Ten minutes later, back in human form, he packed up the notebook and looked toward Osborn Tower.
The sky had already darkened.
"Time to move."
He closed the notebook. Every step of the serum's preparation was written inside.
Under the cover of night, Benter leaped from the rooftop.
Meanwhile, inside Osborn Industries, a thin white-haired old man with a gloomy expression toyed with his small pet parrot.
"The Lizard Serum—what a magnificent creation!"
He lifted a small vial of the crystalline serum and admired it with open delight.
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