Chapter 2552: Ungrateful Lucine
Date: Unspecified
Time: Unspecified
Location: Myriad Realms, Card World, Central Region, Central Academic City, Morningstar University District, Morningstar University Campus, Garden of Beginning, Time Vestige, Morningstar University 2nd Campus
The more I looked at Lucine standing before me, the more satisfied I felt. How could I not be? She had achieved everything I expected of her and far more. It felt like assigning ordinary homework and receiving a masterpiece in return. No wonder teachers love their overachieving students. Watching them grow must offer a satisfaction that helps soften the sting of their meager wages. Still, Iâm probably overthinking itâany teacher would choose the fair pay they rightfully deserve.
"What are you doing?" I asked Lucine rhetorically when I caught her staring at me blankly. Clearly, she was once again using her future-finding time-rule meaning on me. I guess she had grown addicted to it. And who wouldnât be? It gave her a taste of omniscienceâso much so that even calling it godlike wouldnât be an exaggeration.
"Nothing. Now that Iâve formed my time-rule stream, I wanted to see if the Future Finding meaning would work on you. But no luck. It seems youâre a bigger variable than I expected," Lucine said, her voice edged with the same irritation and displeasure youâd see in someone trying to quit cigarettes. Being around me had cut off her reliance on Future Finding time-rule meaning for a while now, and she was starting to feel the withdrawals.
I shook my head in disappointment, expecting more from her having risen to the ranks of top strongest in the Card World. Just then, Lucine grasped my right wrist. I didnât even realize it before she grasped it. Thanks to the Viltronian physique, she now had the physical prowess that would contend with Field Marshal Lorn, who was a Martial Sage. With that, Lucineâs only weakness was also taken care of.
Before I could ask what she was doing, a coldness spread through my body from her touchâonly to vanish a moment later as if it had never transpired. I immediately realized that Lucine had used her fourth time-rule meaning, Eternal Stillness, on me. But it failed to break through my time-rule resistance. And in that instant, I finally understood why she had been trying to use her Future Finding meaning on me earlier. With her newfound strength, she wanted to measure herself against me.
Of all things, she had chosen to test me with her time-rule mastery. I couldnât really blame her; time-rule was her strongest field. Unfortunately for her, I also happened to have the strongest defense against it. So she quickly reached the conclusion that even with her new upgrades and prowess, she still wasnât a match for me and hurriedly let go of my arm.
"Arenât you being a bit ungrateful?" I asked Lucine, holding her gaze and looking straight into her frightened, guilt-ridden eyes. "I went through all that trouble to cure your time-rule dementia, even after you called me a liar, a fraud, insaneâand even accused me of trying to assassinate you. And now that youâre cured, the first thing you do is attack me? As expected of you Morningstar University types. Not only are you heartless, you donât even have the decency to show a shred of honor."
Lucine looked away, avoiding my gaze, and tried to defend her university with a weak protest. "Wyatt, youâre going too far. I wasnât being ungratefulâI only wanted to test my strength, and youâre the only one here strong enough for that. Besides, since youâre the one who suggested and led the procedure, arenât you responsible for helping me evaluate and adapt to my new prowess?"
"You remembered that? I thought youâd forgotten. Otherwise, you wouldnât have attacked me without warning and then tried to downplay it and defend your actions by claiming you were just testing your new prowess. You Morningstar University people set a new-record for ungratefulness and shamelessness every single dayâjust when I start to think Iâve seen it all," I snapped back at Lucine, irritated by her attempt to act clever with me.
Thankfully, as an academician, Lucineâs first instinct wasnât to test her strength with her fists but to rely on her time-rule comprehension. If she hadnât been cautious and had gone with the old-school method of testing oneâs strength, my cover would have been blown instantly.
As a hybrid CelestialâViltronianâWorld Calamity Tree, my physique was extremely strong for a card master, but with all my SSS-rank curses being used to nourish Slayâs egg, my physical strength was nowhere near that of a devil-realm Viltronian. It would have been an instant defeat.
I canât stress enough how overwhelming a Viltronian physique wasâespecially in the devil realm, even though Lucineâs still technically at the peak of the chivalry class. That alone would allow Lucine to fight opponents a whole class above her.
"Iâm being ungrateful?" Lucine snapped, glaring at me before firing back, "If I were ungrateful, would I have ordered my staff to return the time vestige to our present and treat you with the utmost respect, no matter what happened to meâeven before I entered the time-expansion chamber? That was before you even swore your oath in the presence of the worldâs will. Tell me, if I intended to be ungrateful, why would I make those arrangements?"
"Wyatt, tell me."
Lucine wasnât lying. She really had instructed her staff exactly as she claimed, long before I swore the oath to calm her nerves. In fact, that sincere gesture was one of the things that convinced me to take the oath in the first place. I still wasnât sure whether sheâd done it out of fear of the strength Iâd shown her or because she genuinely trusted meâbut regardless of her motives, she had done it.
"Anyone can claim anything now," I shot back, even though I knew perfectly well that none of her actions came from ungratefulness. I accused her anyway, deliberately trying to rile her up and coax her into proving how thankful she truly wasânot just for curing her time-rule dementia, but also for helping her grow stronger.
"If you were truly grateful," I added with a pointed look, "youâd hand over a few of the time-rule runes Morningstar University has been secretly nurturing in here."
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