Author note
I'm gonna call the living cursed energy trait LCE from now on for less confusion.
Ch4
I traversed deeper into the forest, holding my bat ready for combat. I focused on sensing the cursed energy and following it while my LCE thinly spread itself around me, trying to sense threats.
'Hmm… the cursed energy around here is pretty strong, but I still haven't seen the cursed spirit.'
I rubbed my chin. "Should I just travel deeper?"
Suddenly I felt my LCE surge. A tingle ran up my spine. On instinct I dashed forward, my sneakers focusing their CE and giving my movement a substantial boost. At the same time, my LCE tried to condense itself on my back, barely blocking the light graze that scraped across it.
As I turned around, I saw the cursed spirit. It was similar to me in height and seemed to be made of layers of white paper that blackened at the ends. Three straight vertical black lines served as its face.
'Fuck, it got me. Okay, lock in. Thank god I made these sneakers. I wasn't gonna be able to focus my CE into my feet fast enough to move quicker. Good thing the shoes did it themselves.'
The cursed energy that had grazed me lightly surged, and my control over my CE nearly vanished, making it drastically worse. A thought was forced to the forefront of my mind, splitting my focus away from the paper cursed spirit rushing at me.
'1 + 4'
'Huh? That's obviously 5.'
The moment I answered, my full focus realigned along with my control over my cursed energy. I realized my body had already been backing up—my LCE had channeled itself into my sneakers and burst me backwards, buying me an extra second. I raised my bat just in time to block the incoming blade shaped like the number 1, held in one of the cursed spirit's paper pseudopod-like arms.
Clash!
The cursed spirit's black vertical-line eyes locked onto mine during the clash. While I was still stressed and confused, its pseudopod began to blacken. Then it spoke.
"5."
The 1-shaped blade and a plus sign appeared above it, then grew five times larger until it matched my body in size. At the same time, the cursed spirit grew another white paper pseudopod that immediately blackened and shot a small question mark at me.
I ordered my bat, "Bunt!"
Vraboom!
The swing knocked the cursed spirit away as my LCE focused on where the question mark was aimed, blocking the majority of the cursed energy inside the attack. Remembering the feeling of my focus and control lessening, I preemptively put up my guard.
'(12 + 12 − 6) ÷ 2'
'I don't have time for this. Fuck.'
With only minor focus left, I jumped backwards as hard as I could to buy time.
'Okay, just think of it like 24 − 6, which is 18, and that divided by 2 makes 9.'
As I refocused, the cursed spirit landed right after my bunt—just as my feet touched the ground again. It spoke once more.
"5, 4."
It created another question mark with a plus sign above it. The mark grew five times larger. At the same time, the 1-blade gained a plus sign of its own, which I could clearly see made the blade much sharper.
I sneered at the fuckery I was witnessing.
"Damn it. My first battle and it's against a gimmick character. This is bullshit."
'Well, whatever. I've basically come to understand its cursed technique now. Those question marks it shoots force math questions into the forefront of a target's mind. The difficulty of those questions is tied to how much CE in them hits the target. Then the curse can use the total of my answer to temporarily empower its own abilities in various ways.'
'Damn it… this thing is probably near being a newborn too. Judging by how the previous owner of this body died, this curse can probably just keep shooting questions and stacking them until brain death. I've been lucky to block a lot of the CE in its attacks so the questions weren't hard and the numbers it got weren't large either. But still—if I didn't have LCE and my cursed technique wasn't as suited for this fight, I'd probably be dead. So it's gotta at least be Grade 1. Maybe it's a math or numbers cursed spirit?'
The curse prepared to shoot the large question mark while getting into a stance.
'It's probably going to run at me to kill me while I'm answering the question. Too bad I have something different planned. Since I can't afford to clash with that sword now… plus I've been wanting to test this anyway.'
I got into a batting position and spoke.
"Evolution."
Crack—zzt—zzt!
The bat surged greatly with cursed energy, gaining red markings across its surface as it reverberated with powerful energy.
The massive question mark shot toward me with clear deadly force, the cursed spirit chasing right behind the projectile.
I swung right as the question mark was about to make contact.
Boom!
The cursed energy inside the question mark completely swapped directions and was shot straight into the cursed spirit, carrying it away.
Braksh! Braksh!
The cursed spirit was slammed through two trees and completely exorcised.
I immediately had my bat un-evolve. It began breaking apart. Evolution was an aspect of the technique I had discovered that forced out the full potential of a treasure spirit, making its cursed energy signature skyrocket and become destabilized while burning nearly all of its cursed energy.
To preserve the treasure spirit, I imbued it with my cursed energy so it would be fueled and wouldn't degrade while it took time to stabilize.
After that battle, I decided to head back to the orphanage to cash out so I could do a spin.
Once I got home, I was happily greeted by Yuma and Yui. Yuma curiously questioned why I was gone so long, while Yui called me dirty.
Not gonna lie—getting called dirty by a kid sucks. So I decided to take a bath. Once I finished, I headed back to my room to cash out my rewards, ready to test out the system.
_______________
Hey guys hope you enjoyed the chapter please power stone the fic and let me know what yall thought
Shout out to The_One_0724 for being the first power stoner
Goal is 10 power stones