American comics: Starting with Luke the Maker

The Symbiote Lab initially housed only Quiet.

However, after Luke severed a part of her and learned from her that symbiotes could reproduce asexually, he forcibly split her, creating a new, blank-slate individual.

This added two long-term residents to the lab.

A clone.

And a newborn.

Compared to the original Quiet, these two were like sickly and premature infants. Quiet never considered them her offspring or partners. Her affection for the two small symbiotes was quite faint.

They were truly small symbiotes, only palm-sized, with a total area less than a quarter of Quiet's. Even their consciousness was hazy, like that of a little simpleton.

Okay, 'little simpleton' might be an exaggeration. But saying their intelligence was like that of a four- or five-year-old child would be accurate.

The clone might have been that way due to various factors, but the newborn's condition made Luke suspect Quiet was just going through the motions. After all, Luke didn't really know how much time, nutrition, or specific conditions a healthy symbiote needed from gestation to birth.

As for what Quiet said, Luke shrugged.

But this didn't mean these seemingly weak symbiotes were useless. At least, Luke felt his initial modifications were relatively successful.

Entering the Symbiote Lab, Luke first checked on his two little darlings: one was golden yellow, like flowing lava, with warmth but not scalding; the other was icy blue, like a flowing stream of cold, emitting chill but not piercingly freezing.

The golden-yellow, lava-like one, Luke called Habu.

The icy-blue, cold-stream-like one, he called Mistle.

Yes, Luke had endowed these two weaklings with attributes. Although, given their current weakness, these attributes seemed flashy and without much power, their growth potential was extremely high! Their potential ceiling might be higher than all other symbiotes, including Quiet.

But it would require a lot of resources and effort to nurture them well in the early stages.

This wasn't a problem for Luke. He didn't mind having more parasites. He himself was a bottomless pit, so he didn't mind his creations consuming some resources as well.

Luke went to Habu's "little room"—a small, square glass box with sides fifty centimeters long. Habu was lying on a hot red metal plate inside the box, diligently absorbing the heat it needed. The temperature of the metal plate needed to be constantly adjusted. Even though Luke believed in this little guy's potential, it was still a premature infant and could easily be overwhelmed by excessive energy.

Sensing Luke's arrival, Habu, lying on the metal plate, wiggled. Two tentacles emerged from the golden-yellow liquid, their tips twitching in the air, pointing in Luke's direction. Then, like a slime, it wriggled forward on the metal plate, approaching Luke.

Luke opened the skylight on the glass box and slightly extended his hand inside. Habu instantly became excited, the front sides of its body bulging out, like a child puffing out their cheeks to inhale, with a kind of infantile cuteness. Then, with a whoosh, its entire body sprang high from the metal plate and splattered right into Luke's hand, which caught it like a blob of jelly.

Habu's body thrashed a few times in Luke's palm, failing to escape. The entire ball was stunned for a moment, then quieted down, gradually merging into Luke's skin. When Luke retracted his hand from the glass box, his extended right hand looked like it was wearing a golden-yellow glove.

"Good boy!" Sensing a small, weak consciousness in his mind, Luke gently comforted it in his mind. After patiently coaxing Habu, Luke signaled Snoke to open Venom's glass container and stepped back.

"Boss, let me do it," Snoke said with some concern. He had witnessed the power of a symbiote rampage. A single symbiote, after finding a suitable host, had almost wiped out three fully armed elite squads. If they hadn't known the symbiote's weaknesses and prepared accordingly, the fierce battle at the Life Foundation wouldn't have subsided and returned to calm so quickly.

"No need. I obtained some information about symbiotes like Venom from Quiet before. She said that Venom, compared to Riot, was like a teenage boy, reckless, impulsive, and seemingly foolish. It's not easy to make Venom listen. I plan to teach him some rules first, so it will be easier for me later," Luke shook his head.

Venom was different from Quiet. Quiet had her own host, and was relatively calm and communicative. But it wouldn't be easy to get Venom to communicate with you properly. And Luke didn't intend to have Venom bond with him. He just wanted Venom to cooperate with him in his research. According to Quiet: To deal with a naughty kid, beat him up first, then give him a candy, and he will listen. If there's no candy, then beat him up a few more times.

Seeing that Luke was ready, Snoke put the container that once belonged to Quiet back to its original position in the room—on a stand.

The top of the glass jar slowly unscrewed. Without Luke's reminder, Snoke took the initiative to move away, and a layer of rising tempered glass wall blocked him outside.

The black liquid slowly flowed out of the unscrewed glass jar, looking like a liquid black spider. The moment Luke's gaze fell on it, Venom's entire body suddenly sprang towards Luke, extremely fast.

Boom!

A violent fire instantly formed a barrier of flames in front of Luke. Venom crashed into the flames, and its probing tentacles retracted under the high temperature. The flames circled on the ground, trapping Venom tightly inside.

Half of Luke's body was entangled in flames, but the flames didn't harm Luke at all, and didn't even scorch a single strand of his hair. This was Habu's ability. It was born with the ability to absorb and control flames and high temperatures! It was just that it could only accurately control temperatures of five thousand degrees for the time being, and hadn't been injected with various meme abilities by Luke. But it was enough to deter most symbiotes.

In a sense, little Habu was a natural nemesis that most symbiotes avoided.

The circle of flames continued to shrink. After Venom lunged left and right several times in the flames without success, it simply stopped in place, and the liquid of its entire body began to change, displaying words of surrender in front of Luke.

"You win! I'll obey!"