Returning to the Wood Palace, Ace placed his sister in a wing far from the one occupied by his toy summons and went to check on them, only to find Emi practicing curse crafting instead of helping her senpai create her new body with Specwork.
"What's wrong?" Ace asked Emi. From the looks of it, it appeared as if his two senior-most toy summons had a disagreent enough to ignore his direct orders, but he did not jump to any hasty conclusions. He decided to give both of his toy summons a chance to explain themselves.
Emi looked at her master in confusion, not understanding what he was referring to. But following his gaze, she realized his concern and quickly explained, "Senpai doesn't need my help anymore. Specwork alone is enough."
"What about making the wig and face mask using Janice's DNA for Rose's new body?" Ace asked, as this was important to significantly improve Da Wasp's chances of undergoing her second enchantnt.
"We scrapped that idea," Emi replied and continued to explain, "In Cyclops's notes, we learned of a thod to extract iron from a victim's blood and use it to craft a dium that allows curse casters to cast a curse spell directly on the victim. Senpai plans to use iron extracted from Janice's blood to craft her new body, instead of following our original plan that involved growing Janice's hair and skin from scratch using her DNA."
"After producing enough of Janice's blood for Senpai's use, I began to craft a Wakizashi to pair with my katana. So far, I've successfully crafted two, but the curse abilities they manifested don't suit my fighting style. So, I'll keep trying until I get one that does," Emi added, surprising Ace with how much progress she had made in curse crafting.
"That's quick," Ace remarked, unable to hide his amazent as he glanced at the two beautifully crafted cursed Wakizashi tools Emi had neatly arranged on a nearby rack.
The craftsmanship of the Wakizashi curse tools was simply exquisite. Most impressively, both of Emi's attempts to create them had been successful, though the resulting abilities didn't align with her fighting style. Still, that level of success rate in curse crafting was remarkable. Ace was genuinely amazed by Emi's progress.
"Master, don't misunderstand," Emi said quickly. "I used my family's forbidden thod for forging cursed blades, along with Cyclops's notes and techniques, to create these Wakizashi-shaped curse tools. I don't think I could achieve the sa success rate with other curse tools."
"Also, the basic curse crafting apparatus we borrowed from Janice was just too good and handy—they cut the crafting ti by a quarter," she added, eager to clarify any misconceptions.
The Nakamura School taught its students to forge their own weapons, believing it would help them better understand, appreciate, and wield them. In the worst-case scenarios, they would be able to craft makeshift weapons to arm themselves. So, in addition to being skilled in talisman crafting, Emi also possessed enough forging knowledge to make her own ninja tools in ergencies—skills that were now serving her well in crafting ninja tool-shaped curse tools.
"Oh. Still, great job. If you need any materials, just let know—I can get them from Janice," Ace said with a nod of understanding, offering to cover any supplies she needed.
As a wealthy and well-known curse crafter, Janice was a walking warehouse of curse materials. With her living nearby, Ace never had to worry about making trips to the Curse Malls. Though this convenience ca at a hefty premium, until he found a better alternative, he had no choice but to pay it.
"No, thank you, Master. I think I'll stop here for now and start preparing for Miss Lyra's awakening ceremony with the remaining Speclis and DD," Emi said, then waited for Ace to summon the rest of the Speclis and DD.
"Janice shared her family's research on the curse core awakening ceremony with via email. Please go through it before you all get started," Ace advised as he summoned the remainder of his toy summons into the Wood Palace. Then he turned to Specroll and instructed, "Go. Stealthily keep an eye on Lyra. Let know as soon as she wakes up."
Specroll buzzed in its native language before leaving to carry out its task. It wouldn't be of much help to Emi and the others, so Ace decided to assign it as a sentry instead.
As Emi and her team began preparations for Lyra's awakening ceremony, Ace watched Da Wasp and Specwork from a distance. They were completely engrossed in their work—so much so that they didn't even notice his presence. For a toy summon to overlook its toymancer's presence, that was so serious focus. It seed like they had everything under control and that progress was smooth. Not wanting to disturb their flow, Ace chose not to approach. If they needed him, they knew how to reach him.
With that, Ace found himself free—finally with so ti for himself. He considered checking on Dee3 but decided against it, wanting her to settle into her new house on her own. Besides, he had no intention of wasting his ti idly. Instead, he chose to examine the changes brought about by the awakening of his latent curse senses and to familiarize himself with his new strength. After all, in combat, knowing one's own abilities was crucial.
Since awakening his latent curse senses, Ace's schedule had been packed, leaving him no opportunity to fully test the extent of his newfound powers or understand how they interacted with his updated stats. He decided to begin by summoning his Status Screen.
[ — Status screen—
Na: Ace Lander
Race: Human (♂)
Class: Toymancer
Title: Curse Master
Health: (17/200)yrs
Physical Power: 179
Spiritual power: 445
Curse Energy: (4921/4921)
Skills: Cursed toybox(9/20), Status screen.
Arts: Body Reinforcent, Curse Concealnt, Latent Curse-Sensing.]
Going through the status screen, Ace discovered that his spiritual power had increased by 266 units, his curse energy had increased by 2,900 units, and the Cursed Toybox's toy space had expanded by eight additional slots. A new skill, Latent Curse-Sensing Arts, had also been added to the Arts column.
When he expanded the descriptions for Cursed Toybox and Status Screen, he found that the recall range for Cursed Toybox had doubled—from one mile to a two-mile radius. Additionally, a new function, Curse Map, has been added to the Status Screen's additional effects.
The increased recall range brought Ace more joy than any of the other stat changes. Until now, despite his steady growth, the range of his toy summons' recall ability had remained the sa—a fact that had begun to concern him. But now that he saw it could be improved, he just needed to determine what conditions were required to keep increasing it.
Lastly, he noticed that his lifespan had not increased at all, indicating that it had reached the upper limit for a Mortal-tier being. If he wanted to extend it further, he would need to advance to the Knight-tier.
Though Ace's stats had t the requirents to advance to the Knight-tier long ago, his control over curse energy was still far from the necessary level. His combat style remained heavily reliant on his toy summons and curse tools. As a result, he had never truly focused on improving his curse energy control, aside from the occasional practice of Body Reinforcent and Curse Concealnt arts. Not to ntion, he had no shortcut to increasing control over curse energy, like increasing his stats by swallowing curse cores and processing them with the help of his curse toybox. So, if he wanted to advance to Knight-tier anyti soon, he would have to buckle down and increase his control over his curse energy the old-fashioned way, the hard way.
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