The Strongest Curse Master

Ding!

The elevator door opened on the seventh floor. We stepped out of it. Actually, I tried to keep up with Agent Marcus's pace. Doing my best not to let this perfect window to ask him about the curse caster's innate curse tool slip by.

"Something happened, didn't it? No wonder you looked so bummed out earlier," I guessed, catching up to Agent Marcus.

"You noticed, huh," Agent Marcus said, shaking his head helplessly.

"It was either that, or you just like to mutter to yourself like a crazy person. So what happened? Did they cut you out of the deal?" I asked, pretending to be eager to blame the government for everything wrong in this world, as if having just guessed that Agent Marcus got screwed over by the government.

"No, the deal fell through," Agent Marcus replied with a palpable sense of loss and disappointment.

His words astounded me, and I had to fight to keep from grinning from ear to ear. I managed to control my overflowing emotion in the nick of time, as I didn't want Agent Marcus to get the wrong idea—that I was taking pleasure in his misfortune.

My happiness stemmed from the fact that if the deal had fallen through, it meant the curse caster's innate curse tool was still in this building, and I still had the chance to make it mine.

Speaking of which, why on earth did the deal fall through? If they couldn't reach an agreement with the Cyclops, there were still many other potential buyers from the 'World of the Curses' for the invaluable sky-tier curse caster's innate curse tool, such as the Wisemen representing the Curse Council. There was simply no need for them to throw Agent Marcus out on the street like that. Unless he did or said something truly drastic.

"What happened? Why exactly did the deal fall through?" I asked, attempting to get a clear picture of the full situation before I began scheming to get my own greedy paws on the sky-tier curse caster's innate curse tool.

Nothing about this made any sense. Especially, I needed to know who actually had the sky-tier curse caster's innate curse tool? Was it still with Marcus, or did the C.I.B. take it from him?

I had more questions than I knew what to do with, but Agent Marcus's lips were sealed tight. He'd only reveal what I asked of him and not a word more. I guess he didn't really want to recall it, let alone speak about it. Unfortunately for him, I didn't plan to stop until he answered every one of them and helped me get to the bottom of this and then some.

"The sky-tier curse caster's innate curse tool I got is actually tainted with a taboo tool. Meaning if someone other than a curse caster wants to use it, they will have to pay the taboo tool to make use of curse abilities," Agent Marcus replied briefly, as such nothing made sense to me. I wondered if he was purposefully being confusing.

"Why is that?" I asked, pretending to have understood what he said earlier. Because it wasn't just me who was listening to him. But my Toy Summons were listening to him through me too. And they were a lot smarter and experienced than me. As long as one of us understands it, all of us understand it.

"That's because curse casters can perform the curse rituals they learned to avoid paying the taboo toll, but regular curse users simply can't do that. However, if my sky-tier curse caster's innate curse tool wasn't tainted by that horrible taboo toll, one could just use the required amount of curse energy to activate its curse abilities. To make matters worse, the taboo toll for it is human sacrifice; the higher the tier, the better. Therefore, the buyer concluded that it was completely useless for regular curse users unless they were truly prepared to pay the sinister taboo toll to even use it," Agent Marcus finally spoke far more than he had intended, elaborating upon why his priceless artifact was truly worthless to everyone except the curse casters.

"Aren't taboo tolls basically human sacrifices?" I asked based on my little knowledge about curse casters and curse spells.

"That was what I initially thought, but apparently that is just not the case. The taboo toll, though it involves human sacrifices, can absolutely vary based on the taboo and tier of the curse spell one is using. For instance, an eye or an ear is enough for some low-level curse spells, while some others need a kidney or a lung. Also, if the curse ritual is efficient enough, the required taboo toll can be reduced without affecting the power of the curse spells whatsoever.

"The absolute kicker here is that the taboo toll to use the curse caster's innate curse tool I have is a complete human sacrifice. It's the bare minimum. To increase its power, we have to increase the tier of human sacrificed, or you can make up the difference with numbers. It's basically a murder monger.

"I shouldn't have truly expected much from a curse terrorist's innate curse tool. Instead of making trillions through royalties, I just ended up making a complete fool of myself up there. I am too disappointed with what happened up there to even be sad about this turn of events," Agent Marcus explained, making it clear why his curse caster's innate curse tool was deemed useless by the Cyclops. He also confirmed my earlier guess that he had done or said something he could never take back, and now it was haunting him.

Listening to Agent Marcus, I got the gist that he was down on his luck. What he thought was a jackpot ticket turned out to be nothing more than a mere discount coupon. To make matters worse, he somehow ended up making a fool of himself and angering his higher-ups.

Enough about him; my focus now was on figuring out whether the sky-tier curse caster's innate curse tool was truly worthless to me. Regardless of whose custody it was in, I planned to make it mine after I helped Dee3 throw a decent funeral for Mr. Birdie.