Chapter 376: Thank You For Everything
Realizing his shortcomings in curse energy control, Ace decided to visit Janice first thing in the morning and use his unlimited access to the McSuile family’s core inheritance to find arts that would help him reduce the effort and ti needed to raise his curse energy control to the limits of the Mortal-tier. For now, though, he decided to stick with the Body Reinforcent art. He planned to master it, along with the Curse Concealnt art, while his toy summons modified the curse arts he had obtained from the McSuile family to better suit him.
[ —Status Screen—
Specroll: 73 68 65 20 69 73 20 61 77 61 6B 65
Ace: I will be right there.]
Before Ace could begin practicing, Specroll alerted him through the status screen that Lyra was awake. Just like that, what little ti he had for himself was over. Still, he didn’t complain—Lyra’s awakening ceremony took precedence over everything else.
Without delay, Ace headed to the western wing of the Wooden Palace, where he had placed Lyra, only to find her calling out to him in a panic. No, she wasn’t afraid of waking up in an unfamiliar place—she already knew the Wood Palace. Ace had given her a full tour.
What had her panicking was the thought of her little brother taking out a loan for her awakening ceremony—a three-billion-dollar loan. Just thinking about the interest on such a massive sum made her head spin. She should’ve known that gaining superpowers wouldn’t co cheap. If she had, she wouldn’t have made such a big deal about getting her own to her baby bro.
Finally spotting her baby bro, Lyra desperately cried out, “Ace! Please, tell you didn’t take out any loans!”
“Relax, Lyra. I know better than to take unnecessary loans,” Ace answered quickly, worried that if his answer had been a second later, she might’ve had a full-blown ltdown.
“Thank God,” Lyra said as she hugged her brother and whispered into his ears, adding, “Forget about that stupid blood pact. I don’t want any superpowers. I’ll be happy just knowing you have them. So please, don’t even think about taking any loans for my sake, okay?”
“Really?” Ace asked, surprised. He knew it hadn’t been easy for her to say that.
“Really,” Lyra nodded, releasing him from the hug. Then, feeling a little cringed by her own words, she quickly changed the topic. “This palace is way too big. You should install so caras and intercoms so we can at least know where each other is.”
“You can get cell service and Wi-Fi in here. Next ti, just call ,” Ace replied.
“That’s better,” Lyra agreed with a nod.
“So, what now?” she asked as they walked through the Wooden Palace together. She honestly had no idea what to do next. Until yesterday, her dream had been to create a hit comic series that would one day get both a cartoon and a live-action adaptation. But now that she knew about the world hidden beneath the mundane one, her old dream felt… insignificant. She didn’t know what she wanted anymore.
“Well, you could have your mories erased,” Ace teased, “and go back to your old life like none of this ever happened.”
“No way. I’d rather die!” Lyra cried in panic. Just the thought of having her mories tampered with terrified her, let alone forgetting the truth about the world she now knew.
“Hahaha!” Ace burst out laughing, unable to hold it back. Yes, it was a little insensitive, but his sister was just too cute. Now he finally understood why she used to love ssing with him when they were kids—because it was just funny.
“Why are you laughing? What’s so funny?” Lyra asked, confused and glaring at Ace. She was being serious—how dare he laugh?
“You,” Ace replied simply. Then, taking her hand, he summoned the Jackpop and passed it to her.
“Jackpop!” Lyra gasped, nearly dropping it out of shock. But she quickly tightened her grip around it before asking, “Why do you have this?”
“Because I bought it,” Ace said, casually leading her toward the eastern wing, where the girls had set up their workshop.
“What do you an? Does this really cost three billion dollars?” Lyra asked skeptically, beginning to suspect Ace and the others were playing a prank on her.
“I don’t know, but that’s how much I paid for it, not adding the generous tip I gave Janice. Sis, don’t worry about the money. This little amount is nothing to ,” Ace assured her. “You’re part of the curse community now. Stop applying your mortal common sense here. In this world, curse cores and tools are the preferred currency, not dollars.”
“Still, that’s three billion dollars. How many curse cores and tools could you buy with that kind of money? I’m sure it’s a lot more than this old Goli soda bottle,” Lyra muttered, still struggling to believe that sothing as ordinary-looking as the Jackpop could be worth so much—even in the ‘World of Curses.’
“Lyra, stop stressing over the small stuff. You’re about to undergo your curse core awakening ceremony—focus on that,” Ace said, pointing out that she was worrying about the wrong things when there were more important matters at hand. “I’ve shared a detailed presentation and a video about the ceremony with your email. How about you familiarize yourself with it so we can get started?”
“What’s the rush?” Lyra asked, pulling out her phone.
Ace replied smugly, “I don’t an to brag, but your little brother is a very capable curse master. That ans I’ve got a lot of enemies—and a few friends too. Don’t worry, nothing I can’t handle. This is normal for . You’ll get used to it soon. That’s just how things are in this world. If you don’t have any haters or enemies, it probably ans you’re doing sothing wrong.”
He continued more seriously, “But now that you’ve stepped into this world, so of my enemies might try to get to through you. So, unless you want to end up as the damsel in distress like in those bedti stories, you need to complete your awakening ceremony as soon as possible.”
“I see. Go make the preparations. Let’s do this before sunrise,” Lyra declared firmly.
Ace nodded, but before he could leave, she suddenly hugged him tightly and whispered, “Thank you for everything.”
“Don’t ntion it.”
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