NOVEL NEXT Chapter 542
Chapter 542
The next day, Kyon returned to his mansion on the outskirts of the city, sat in the lotus position, and swallowed "Golden Grace". When the breakthrough medicine entered the stomach, it flared up, turning into a golden ball of energy, which then rushed through the channels into the soul.
Lovr felt the energy of medicine in his soul shrink to a point, and then explode. He was overcome by a very unpleasant feeling of discomfort, which was followed by a rise in development to the 9th stage! The remaining energy, which seemed to be more than 70%, shrank back to a point and exploded…
{What the?..} – Kyon suddenly grimaced with the sharp pain. After the second explosion, there was no breakthrough to the 10th stage, and the energy of medicine dissipated completely.
{How is this possible?! I am in excellent condition, and there were no flaws in the medicine! How could I be so unlucky?!} – Lovr was 99.9% sure that he would break through to the 10th stage, but something prevented him from doing it. The discomfort after the first explosion also seemed strange to him. There shouldn't have been it! And the clone, located not far from the palace to which he was going to teleport, dissipated due to a sharp flash of pain.
{What a curse…} – Lovr laughed bitterly. There's nothing he can do about it anymore. He'll have to put up with it. So, he will have to fight Stein, who has an advantage of 26 stages… It couldn't be better! By the way, only an hour left before the tournament.
Sighing dejectedly, Kyon left his mansion and headed towards the menagerie. A cold wind blew into his face, bringing with it grains of sand that appeared from nowhere. Closing his eyes, he almost fell into the sewer, because someone forgot to put the hatch back in place, and immediately after he dodged a heavy cobblestone at the last moment, which for some reason had broken off from the roof of a neighboring building.
«What's going on?» – Lovr was puzzled.
~BANG~
Heaven rewarded him with a lightning bolt to the head for inappropriate curiosity.
«Are you completely out of your mind there?!» – Kyon cursed with his hair standing on end, raising his face to the clouds. He came to the conclusion that today he should show the utmost forethought and caution.
Lovr did not notice anything unusual in the menagerie, but just in case, he scanned his sled animal with Synergy, and, to his surprise, he noticed in the horse's digestive tract not hay, as expected, but a false dandelion.
After a short trial, he found out that today a newcomer was working in the menagerie due to forced circumstances. It was he who mixed up the diet of sled animals. Due to a series of coincidences, the horse got poisoned, and he would have found out about it a little later, at the most inopportune moment.
{What the hell is going on around?!} – Kyon was seriously alarmed. The tournament starts in less than an hour, and something seems to be trying to prevent him from being there on time. The clouds seemed to be gathering overhead, and the heavens were hindering him. He decided to get to the palace on his own, you never know if the sled animal will stumble or something…
«My dear man, spare me some alms…» – a hunched woman in a hood, whom he was just passing by, pulled the young man by the sleeve.
«Leave me alone, old woman, I'm being sad.» – Kyon waved her off.
«Old woman, jerk?! I am eighteen years old!» – enraged and baring yellowish stumps of teeth, the beggar woman attacked the young man, trying to stick a rusty kitchen knife, which she hid in the folds of a shabby cloak, into his throat.
«Sick chicken, get out!» – Lovr threw the crazy old lady away with a stream of wind and rushed into the palace. – {This is some kind of bad dream… Maybe the whole world conspired against me?! Am I cursed?!}
Before Kyon had covered half the way, the ground under his feet sagged and opened up, revealing a pit ten meters deep filled with fetid sewage.
«You are kidding me!» – Lovr released a jet of water, creating a thick crust of ice under him, on which he landed. But before he could get to the surface, a pink sled pig carrying a barrel of manure rushed at him with a deafening squeal. The coachman could not react to a hole suddenly formed in the ground and fell into it.
As if that wasn't enough, another lightning bolt struck the screaming pig, tearing it to pieces, and all this fetid mess of meat, organs, blood and feces was going to fall on him like a sickening rain.
«FUCK OFF!» – Kyon barked and blew away everything that flew into him with the element of wind, after that he got out of the pit with a powerful jump. He clenched his fists in anger until they crunched. If he were an ordinary person, he would definitely drown in these sewage. He seemed to be in a horror movie, where death tends to kill the main character by a series of accidents.
Lovr suggested that either the goddess was mocking him, or he suddenly became the most unlucky person in the world. But the goddess wouldn't do that… Too low for her!
Kyon decided to conduct an experiment, turned around and went in the direction opposite the palace, and, wow, even the wind blew in his back! But as soon as he turned back, clouds began to gather again overhead.
{Fuck… Curses seem to really exist! I'm cursed!} – the skin of Lovr got goosebumps. It was scary that the curse did not act thoughtlessly and straightforwardly, trying to ruin his life in every detail. It is aimed at a specific end result! So, the sad result can be hidden even behind something good. A curse is a series of good or bad accidents that will inevitably lead to disaster. Maybe it also favors his enemies.
Kyon went to the nearest pub where drunks were playing craps for money, and played with them, betting a million, while promising himself to part with the money seriously in case of defeat. However, nothing unusual happened. Probability theory worked as usual. Then he decided to put his finger on the line, but it didn't work out either…
{As I thought, the curse understands perfectly well that with my income, I don't care about the loss of a million or even a severed finger, because I will restore it in a matter of seconds…} – now it became clear why he received one, not two stages from taking medicine: it was extremely important for him to get to this stage.
Kyon wondered who and when cursed him, because in recent weeks he hardly got out of the training room. Is it because of breakthrough medicine? It's strange, because he completely checked its composition before taking it… And the Golden Pig guild would not spoil relations with a VIP client who brings profit, who, moreover, may become the Bakers' trump ace in the future.
{It's either medicine, or I've always been cursed, but I didn't pay enough attention to it…} – Lovr thought deeply about his past. As far as he knew, Kyon was an extremely withdrawn child who was constantly bullied by his peers, which says something. He ended up in the mines for the reason that, while trying to study the architecture of the palace, he "accidentally" got in the way of princess Kara's carriage… In that cave in the mine, the key of reason killed him by getting into his head… And he also had the keys tied, which excluded any possibility of even establishing a connection with the soul… Isn't this all pure failure? So, he was always under the yoke of the curse!
Remembering his entire life in this world, Kyon confirmed this assumption. The curse manifested itself in the most crucial moments of life. In fact, he was even more unlucky than the previous owner of the body, but why?
{Does the curse feed on darkness, thereby becoming more powerful? This would explain why I get so few dark emotions…} – Kyon's already gloomy mood deteriorated completely.
Suddenly Lovr's eyes widened: {What if I'm developing slower than I should, for the same reason?!} – from this thought he almost fell into depression. Fortunately, in such a situation, it is allowed to use Synergy in order to normalize the mental state.
With a sullen sigh, Kyon thought about the main thing: {A series of accidents leading to disaster or triumph… Luck and failure… Curse and blessing… Why did god introduce such concepts into his world? Obviously, to make it rich in interesting events… But does it really turn out that no one has the freedom of choice?}
Lovr shook his head negatively. It would be uninteresting for god to watch a world in which everything is predetermined. Probably, luck and failure affect practitioners, even heavenly geniuses, very weakly, almost indirectly. They do not change their character and goals, but only push them in the right direction, like a fly pushes an elephant who wants to drink water.
The question is: how then does "luck" understand what the practitioner is capable of? It can't be that it completely scans his brain to understand how smart and skillful he is… Where he will screw up, and where he will cope… No, of course not. It probably relies on his development, the quality of a unique body and strong desires. Or maybe it even remembers which opponents he previously coped with, and which ones he lost.
In Kyon's case, for some reason, the curse works much more powerfully (especially today), so much that it even gives the false impression that everything from beginning to end goes according to its unchanging script. However, the truth is that it simply slowly but surely pushes him into trouble, from which he should not get out. However, he manages to escape due to his abilities, skills and, in particular, Synergy!
Lovr mentally ran through the key events of his life in this world: Martha found out that he had killed Martin and planned to turn him in, Synergy helped him convince her that he was special, and the terrible formacist wanted to profit from him; he got into Juno's mansion and could have died more than once, but Synergy restored his body, allowed him to quickly realize the element of pure energy and enslave the devil; he was supposed to perish in the tomb, but he was able to realize all the elements with Synergy, because of which he got out; Dina canceled all orders through XiaoBai and tried to kill him, but he blew up the spheres with the help of Synergy, which was why he was able to poison the maid; Kara almost took over his mind and soul, but he changed the memories with Synergy and redirected the curse to Dina…
Time after time, "fate" drove Kyon into the depths of darkness and despair, while he blindly trusted it (he did not know that it was working against him). Nevertheless, he constantly ruined its plans with the help of his abilities. Comprehensive skills, intelligence, complex calculations, planning, transformation into other personalities, regeneration, awareness of the elements, inventing techniques, alchemy, formacy, enchantment, soul capture and even "The sovereign's stare"! The curse can't take all this into account.
{This world is so cruel to me from the very first day… Do you want to make god laugh? Tell him about your plans! Well, now, I'm forewarned, so I'm forearmed.} – the gambling sparkle returned to the eyes of Lovr. Now, knowing that the curse exists, he can avert it.
He would like to conduct some experiments, or even find a recipe for immortality, but there is very little time left before the tournament. There is no time.
There is only one open question left: why is the curse manifesting itself so vividly and persistently today? Nothing like this has ever happened before…
{It looks like someone terrible will appear at the tournament…} – Kyon shrugged his shoulders convulsively.