Academic gathering with a lich-Chapter 163 - 156: Past Events

The mild smile on the man’s face on the coin, in Lyle and William’s eyes, carried a faint hint of mockery, mocking the ignorance and narrow-mindedness of two self-proclaimed rookie Mystics.

"So powerful! Kevin, you can really control good fortune!" Having been beaten down by those around him numerous times, Lyle quickly accepted the fact that his noble friend Kevin possessed such a bizarre talent. After regaining his senses, he sincerely expressed his envy. The world wasn’t scientific, and if his dear friend could secure himself with such an excellent talent, Lyle should feel relieved in his heart, right?

Kevin smiled awkwardly. "Actually, my ability has its limitations. It can only help me change the situation I’m currently in, and moreover, it’s only my own luck. That means my good fortune doesn’t affect other people. Most importantly, it’s almost uncontrollable on a day-to-day basis. It silently alters my destiny, and when I want to actively use it, I have to pay a significant price."

That made sense, the cost of power—the greater the sacrifice, the more one gains.

"What’s the price, Kevin, the consumption of magic power?"

William used ice to soothe the pain in his fingers. "Spiritual power or physical strength, I guess. Kevin doesn’t exhibit any fluctuations in magic power."

Lyle looked at Kevin closely and thought of an answer that was both terrible and fitting. His face suddenly became worried as he tried to find signs of pallor on Kevin’s face and spoke uneasily.

"Kevin, this cost... it isn’t your life force or... your lifespan, is it?"

Exchanging lifespan for luck, isn’t that quite fitting?

"No, it’s not." Kevin first eased his friend’s concerns, then his face became slightly embarrassed.

"This ability, it’s a bit... a bit... costly to friends."

"????" "What do you mean?"

Kevin’s earnest eyes carried a trace of apology.

"My good fortune doesn’t come out of thin air. My talent is more like a tool that extracts good luck. Whenever I get lucky, the people around me tend to get unlucky. So, my good fortune is, in a way, costly to friends, which is also why I have very few friends. Because they find it hard to stay by my side for too long."

... ...

Lyle instinctively took a step back, while Nia completely hid behind him, only peering out with one big eye at Kevin, as if watching some primeval fierce beast.

William felt the burn on his hand start to hurt again.

Lyle took a seat not far from Kevin.

"So, the reason I can be your friend is that you’ve been holding back on me?"

"No, it’s not that, Lyle. It’s not something I can control actively. The reason we could become friends is really because we share common interests, plus, you’ve endured all the bad luck and still came out unscathed. Even if Eiffel Academy closed down, you’d still be living well."

"... Is your curse that severe?"

"When I was six, I had a little friend. We were sitting in the shade of a tree. At that time, I felt a bit thirsty, and a big apple fell from the tree, hitting his face and knocking him unconscious, while the apple rolled towards me. Afterwards, his worried parents rushed him to the hospital."

"And you?"

"I was eating the apple." Kevin seemed to be reminiscing about the taste of the apple while watching the sparks fly into the sky and become stars. "Lyle, do you still remember that incident with Boerwen and his gang from Eiffel Academy?"

"Boerwen? You mean that time when that short and chubby trio gave me trouble? I remember that."

"Actually, they had an issue with me and wanted to pick on me. But when you grandly gestured and said, ’I’ll do it!’ they ended up dragging you into it as well. That was probably my talent at work too."

Lyle recalled the beginning when he seemed to believe that those guys disliked him for being a standout poor kid. Thinking he couldn’t drag his friends into this, he stepped out on his own accord; at the time, Kevin stood by his side, and he felt touched. So they were after him all along!

"I remember it was supposed to be the two of us against four of them, but it seems like talent played a part, the punches aimed at me all swung your way. You were tough, returning fire, and in the end, they all ganged up on you..."

"So we’re not friends? You just watched me get beaten up?"

"No, I went to find Mr. Ralph, and in the end, those four got the worst of it."

"But I saw them back at school like normal afterward."

"That was a week later. Their parents’ two illegally operated bars were forced to shut down, and one was directly confiscated due to legal violations. It seems like Mr. Ralph collected quite a sum from them, and those guys got a severe beating from their parents. It took a week for them to heal their wounds." At this point, Kevin couldn’t help but shiver, and as if it were contagious, William also shuddered. It was as if the night air carried the howling of evil wolves.

William amplified the flame with magic, "Lyle, you have a good uncle, or else you would have suffered a lot, you silly boy."

Kevin immediately retorted, "Lyle is not silly, he’s from the Butler family. He’s never been at a disadvantage in the academy, he just acts mild. You have no idea what he did to those who offended him."

"What did he do?"

"He poisoned them."

William nearly slipped and fell, barely keeping his balance. Looking at his two companions, faces shadowed by the firelight, William regretted agreeing to join this trip. "What did Lyle do?"

"He stole the flesh chunks used for cultivating pathogens from Professor Manssstan and added them to a classmate’s food. To ensure it worked perfectly, he did it three times, and finally succeeded. That poor devil became our live teaching material due to a respiratory infection."

"From then on, anyone who crossed Lyle always suddenly fell severely ill and became teaching material. Okay, I participated a few times too."

"Didn’t your teachers notice?"

Kevin and Lyle exchanged glances.

"They must have noticed, but they didn’t stop us. On the one hand, we chose mild pathogens as a lesson to teach; the professors could handle it. On the other hand, there was a real shortage of live samples for teaching at that time, as those who fell ill tended to seek help from the church. Our teaching samples were rare."

"In the end, this behavior evolved into a kind of lunacy."

"What phenomenon?"

"One day, while we were writing assignments in class, Professor Browerger paced in front of us, muttering to himself."

["Ah, it’s so hard to find live subjects for my digestive system experiments recently, what to do, I really want to show our students new diseases. I think I left my pathogenic bacteria in the second drawer’s third brown-yellow bottle in my office, oh my, I accidentally forgot to lock it, if a student drinks it with room temperature water, won’t they get infected with that disease? Although it’s just a minor illness, sigh, tomorrow morning I must remember to lock that drawer."]

"Your professor actually encouraged you?"

"Obviously, Lyle became a specialist in disease causation, and maybe because of his high success rate, the professors liked him and always hovered around our desk."

Lyle patted Kevin’s shoulder, "Don’t you think the scariest is Professor Feller? To this day, I still don’t understand if he was trying to subtly stop me or really wanted it done!"

"What about that professor?"

"Professor Feller is our anatomy professor. One day, during class, he paced up to our desk, talking to himself." 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

["Ah, I’d really like a corpse with a level two puncture and a crush fracture of the rib and abdominal cavity, oh dear, I forgot to lock the hazardous material cabinet at the bottom of my office, inside there are flails, knives, and Meteor Hammers! What if a student takes them out to play and ends up being my corpse!"]