Chapter 9: Spider Sense Is Hard to Train
The noises drifted faintly from below, blending together into a distant, chaotic clamor. While everyone down there seemed excited by my appearance, I couldn’t care less.
I just kept swinging—one web to the next—savoring every second of freedom in the daytime air of Forest Hills, a smile I couldn’t suppress even behind the mask.
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Several hours had passed since I began swinging around Forest Hills, Queens, New York. In that span of time—long, yet somehow gone in the blink of an eye—I hadn’t merely been moving from one building to another. I was training. Over and over. Without rest.
I practiced firing Organic Webbing at different angles and distances, relying on Bio-Electrostatic Adhesion to ensure my palms and feet stuck perfectly to building surfaces, maintaining Superhuman Balance every time I landed at an awkward angle or slipped even slightly.
But out of all those abilities, one still felt like a thick wall I couldn’t break through: Spider Sense. Training it turned out to be far more difficult than the others, as if that sense refused to be summoned by force.
The late afternoon wind, already growing colder, brushed against my body each time I shot between buildings that were beginning to light up one by one. Yellow and white lights from the windows formed irregular patterns beneath my feet, while my own shadow occasionally stretched across concrete walls.
My arms and shoulders were starting to ache, my muscles tightening from being pushed nonstop, but my motivation was still burning. Every swing carried the faint hiss of webbing trailing behind me, a familiar sound now—like a repeated note accompanying a long training session that seemed to have no finish line.
It was already late afternoon, yet I still had no intention of heading back. The reason was simple, but irritating: I had to try training the ability that could sense danger—Spider Sense.
The problem was, I had absolutely no idea how to lure that feeling of “danger” into appearing. Did I need to almost get hit by something? Or should I jump from an extremely high place, close enough to the possibility of death, just to trigger Spider Sense?
Those thoughts kept spinning in my head without a solution. I even found myself grinding my teeth, annoyed at my own helplessness. How was someone supposed to deliberately provoke danger without actually wanting to die? It sounded stupid when I thought about it again, but at the same time, I had no other reference.
My body was agile and far stronger than that of an ordinary human, but even so, my heart had zero interest in trying an “almost dying” challenge just to trigger something as vague as a danger intuition. There was a thin line between training and suicide, and I was fairly certain I didn’t want to cross it.
In short, out of all the abilities I had right now, Spider Sense was the hardest to improve. Even the Accelerated Healing Factor felt much easier. Every time I fell, landed wrong, or slammed into branches and walls due to miscalculation, that ability kicked in immediately. Wounds closed. Pain faded.
The same went for Enhanced Immunity, which might improve if I got sick… or maybe if I was poisoned? Or even alcohol? Wait. Did alcohol count as poison? If I got drunk, did that mean my body was fighting toxins? I let out a small sigh. Right. Maybe dumb experiments like that were better saved for another day.
I sighed deeply, then hung for a moment from the edge of a building, letting my body sway slowly with one hand before launching myself forward again. The Accelerated Healing Factor clearly got plenty of use, especially when I mistimed things and smashed into something hard.
But Spider Sense? It felt like trying to teach instinct to work on a training schedule I’d imposed myself. Impossible to rush—and that was what made it so frustrating.
But… Spider Sense might really be the hardest one to improve. Hm? I frowned. Had I misheard something? Amid the rush of the wind and the constant murmur of the city, another sound slipped through. A police car?
The siren was faint, echoing like a low hum bouncing off blocks far away. I paused my swing for a moment, standing atop a low building, straightening my posture as I narrowed my eyes.
The sound rose and fell, not too close, yet clear enough to catch my attention. A small reminder from the world down below that something was happening—whatever it might be.
I resumed swinging. The sky ahead had fully taken on the deep hues of late afternoon, shifting steadily toward night. As I passed near a building with a massive electronic screen, I glanced at it in passing.
Five in the evening. Night would arrive soon. City lights would take over, and maybe… another opportunity would appear, whether for more training, or for something more serious.
The sky slowly faded from warm orange into a bluish purple, the gradient stretching like paint lazily brushed across the city’s canvas. In the distance, a huge advertising screen briefly displayed the number five sharp, its light momentarily dazzling before switching to another ad.
Streetlights began turning on one by one, orderly yet alive, like a line of stars descending to settle between asphalt and sidewalks.
I had spent nearly the entire day trying to level up my skills. No brawls, no masked criminals, no dramatic fights.
Just training, repetition, and focus on the basics. And it was precisely there that an irritating question surfaced in my mind. Was it possible that now was the time for me to face actual criminals?
My heart beat a little faster, not out of fear, but from anticipation slowly building. A full day of training without any action or combat at all felt strange, like eating food without any flavor.
Especially with the new abilities I possessed—everything felt like it was waiting to be tested in a real situation, not just simulations inside my head.
I kept swinging, letting my body follow a rhythm that already felt natural. Until I stopped. No. Not because I found the police car whose siren I’d heard earlier. The real reason was far more trivial—and annoying. I couldn’t find a tall building to swing from.
Suddenly, the web I fired only hung in empty air. No concrete wall, no high surface for it to latch onto. The line of tall buildings ended just like that. I was forced to land on the roof of a two-story house, my knees bending slightly to absorb the impact so I wouldn’t make too much noise.
Damn it. I’d forgotten that most of Queens consisted of residential areas. Low houses lined up neatly, small yards, wooden fences, and quieter streets.
There were only a few tall buildings in Queens; the rest was trees and parks. Maybe that was also why Spider-Man across various universes was more often seen operating in Manhattan.
I looked around. Rows of slanted rooftops stretched as far as the eye could see, yard fences forming broken lines, and tall trees swaying gently in the evening breeze. The atmosphere was calm—too calm.
Clearly not an ideal place for a superhero who relied on long swings and vertical movement. Manhattan, with its tightly packed towering buildings, really was far more accommodating for dramatic action.
Hah… damn it. I let out a heavy sigh. I guess it’d be better for me to head back and go home. The first day of training with these Spider-Man abilities had gone well enough; there was no need to push myself any further.
My shoulders slumped slightly, the tension in my muscles easing. The energy was still there, my body still ready to move, but my motivation slowly dipped. No tall buildings, no action—just the dimming calm of the evening, as if the city itself was telling me to rest.