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Name: Lucrio Law

Titles:

{Bearer of the Emperor’s Curse}: You can only learn and level Bloodline Skills. You cannot learn and level normal Skills.

Bloodline Skills:

[Kneel]: Command the unfaithful to serve you.

Skills:

True loyalty is not earned. It is purchased with money or demanded through force. Luc laid in the darkness, wondering what he had done to deserve this. As far as he knew, his father didn’t have any political enemies, and everyone in Tosa seemed content with the leadership of the land. But that was only on the back of Luc’s mind. What was far more concerning was the sudden change in his Status.

Everyone in the land was born with the ability to see their Status. By closing their eyes, a person could see their name, Titles, Bloodline Skills, and normal Skills listed in front of them. Titles were earned through completing notable achievements. Normal Skills could be learned and leveled by anyone. Bloodline Skills, as their name suggested, were passed down from ancestors and were unique to family lines.

Lying there with his eyes closed, Luc tried to keep his breathing steady. Bloodline Skills, also known as Bloodlines, were extremely hard to learn. Most people were only born with one and never learned another. Lucky people were born with two or three. Learning Bloodlines wasn’t the same as learning Skills. You couldn’t just do something again and again to learn it and gradually improve over time. To learn a Bloodline, a trigger event was required. And there was no telling what a trigger event could be. It could be anything from experiencing a near death situation to sleeping fifteen hours in one day. In other words, {Bearer of the Emperor’s Curse}, which restricted Luc to only learning Bloodlines, essentially made him a useless member of society.

Maybe I’m seeing things, thought Luc. He opened and closed his eyes several times. His Status did not change. Brow furrowing, Luc pinched his arm. Please be a dream, please be a dream, please… His Status did not change. Cursing loudly, Luc slammed his fist down on the ground next to him. Pain burst in his hand and he curled into a ball, cradling his injured limb. Still, his Status did not change.

With nothing better to do, Luc cursed out Ryko and Mina, screaming obscenities into the darkness. From ‘traitor’ to ‘lying butt-sniffer’, Luc unloaded every single profane word and insult he knew. This went on for the better part of a minute before Luc’s voice finally gave out.

“All those years asking out girls for nothing,” Luc whispered into the darkness, rolling onto his back and trying not to cry. “Twenty years of my life gone. Just like that.”

Luc considered lying there for eternity, waiting for death to take him. But after several minutes, Luc, a self-proclaimed coward, reckoned that dying slowly and gradually was far too painful for his tastes. If he was going to die, he wanted it to be fast and painless. Resolving himself to finding a different method of death, Luc rolled over onto his side.

Pain shot through his body, making Luc slump back down to the ground. After the pain subsided, Luc gritted his teeth and pushed up with his arms, propping himself up. Gasping for air, Luc only got a mouthful of dust. He coughed and gagged for several moments, spitting to clear his mouth. Finally, he shifted his body into a sitting position.

Luc patted down his body, pressing his ribs and massaging his limbs. He wasn’t sure how far down he had fallen, but there didn’t seem to be any place that hurt enough to be broken. Satisfied, Luc clambered to his feet. That’s when he realized the crown was no longer grasped in his hands.

If I’m going to die here, might as well die rich! Luc got onto his hands and knees and began moving around the area where he had fallen, patting the ground with his hands. The ground here felt similar to the floor of the pedestal room – cold, smooth, and seemingly made of rock. How exactly did I survive that fall?

Luc decided that thinking in the dark wouldn’t answer any of his questions, choosing to continue searching for the crown instead. After scrabbling around aimlessly for several minutes, his hand finally hit something. However, it didn’t feel like a crown. Instead, it felt like a stone tile on the ground, slightly raised above the rest of the floor.

That’s kinda unsatisfying, thought Luc. He placed both hands on top of the raised tile and pushed downwards.

Bright light flamed to life in the chamber, blinding Luc momentarily. Wincing, he covered his eyes with his hands and waited for several moments. When his head stopped pounding, Luc lowered his hands and opened his eyes. Having been trapped in the darkness for so long, Luc’s eyes drank in the light like a parched man downed water.

He was in a round chamber about the size of a ballroom. Above him were gigantic cobwebs, strands as thick as bedsheets tied together. What could make a web that large, Luc did not know. He didn’t want to know. Glancing down, Luc saw the red robes he wore were covered with the sticky white strands of the webs. Try as he might, he couldn’t peel the strands off. At least I know how I survived that fall.

Through the thick cobwebs, Luc could see that the room he was in was tall. So tall that he could not make out the details of the ceiling. Glancing around him, Luc saw that the circular room was lit by torches lining the curved wall. The flames of the torches flickered green, casting an eerie glow throughout the chamber. In the center of the room was what looked to be a stone coffin, about eight feet in length. Symbols and pictographs were carved on the coffin, filled with gold to accentuate their existence. Besides the single coffin, the room was empty.

“You’re not tricking me again,” said Luc, jabbing a finger at the coffin.

Keeping a safe distance away from the coffin, Luc walked around the room. When he reached the opposite end, his eyes lighted on a glint of shininess in the shadow of the coffin. Wandering a little closer to the coffin, he saw the crown nestled against the side of the coffin.

Is it really worth it? Luc took a second look around the circular room. Everything – from the walls to the floor- seemed to made of the same stone bricks. There were no signs of exits in the room, as the stone wall wrapped around the entirety of the chamber. Luc suspected that there might be more hidden triggers like the one he had found, but frankly, he was too lazy to search for them. Might as well grab the crown and hope whatever made that giant web kills me quick.

Narrowing his eyes, Luc edged closer and closer to the coffin until he was a mere three feet away. He stood there for several long moments. At last, when he had accumulated sufficient courage, Luc lunged forth and snatched the crown from the ground, immediately dashing several steps back. Heart thudding in his chest, Luc stared at the coffin.

Nothing happened.

Eyes glittering, Luc clutched his treasure to his chest and glanced up at the coffin. If the coffin is this intricately decorated, I wonder what kinds of treasure could be inside?

Greed once again overcoming his common sense, Luc walked up to the coffin and pushed the heavy stone lid.