D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad

1019 Chapter 1019 The Financial Possibilities of Curse Energy

Bing clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention, “Right, cool. That was an awesome fight and I’d love to geek out about it like the martial arts nerd that I am but I’ll need to head off for my own fight soon, pretty much as soon as the next match starts, maybe a bit later then that… but it’ll take at least a little while to fix the arena. So, hit me, what questions and or comments do you have because I can’t stay long?” Lily looked over at the button to hide the outside view, “Yeah that’s turned on,”

With that confirmation Lily transformed and asked, “Why did Lian remain sitting still even after the shield was broken, it didn’t seem to have regenerated at all, she just took that lightning attack straight to her hand… but she had time to dodge right? Not that being able to dodge lightning seems normal either but it was SLOW even I could see she had time to move,”

Bing nodded and said, “Yeah she totally could… but curses are, ultimately, a form of trade. Most of them are simple ‘I pay X amount of qi to let Y thing happen’ but you can scale up from there, sacrificing important objects to yourself, or your target. Putting additional conditions on yourself, and plenty of other things.

“The biggest one Lian has, is that she limits the speed of everyone who fights her, and prevents people from noticing. Everyone is brought down to peak mortal condition and the way she does that? She limits herself to that as well. The shield? She sacrifices her own freedom of movement for a strong shield.

“It’s a good combination, because it doesn’t matter much to her that she’s moving so much slower than she possibly could. She’s not moving at all, and it makes playing her zither easier. Her shield can regenerate of course… but not all that quickly. Her qi is somewhat limited after all. If she had a swiftly regenerating shield that took major effort to break and also threw her opponent away when it finally does? She’d need so sacrifice something major like an eye or a lung for that, maybe just her feet entirely… or be a higher Rank of course,”

Lily winced, “I didn’t think it could be that serious… is… is that common? Having such strict conditions”

Bing shrugged and said, “Yeah somewhat. According to Lian, actually, you can ask her about this later, I’ll give her a memo to come chat up here if she loses, or when she wins! Um… right anyway, according to Lian it’s actually a lot harder to sacrifice small, temporary things. It’s easy to make a curse with some grand sacrifice and no knowledge of what the heck you’re doing.

“Lian’s got a saying, ‘If you see a village cursed to endlessly die and be reborn as punishment for their sins, it was a novice curse mage who did it. No a cultivator doesn’t have that much qiʼ” Bing broke out into giggles at the punchline of the joke, and the rest of the girls joined in after a few moments. When Bing eventually got a hold of herself she continued, “Lian does actually say that… but yeah it’s one of her favourite jokes. Still, apparently curses really like to do nasty shit. It’s part of the whole domain, curses always want to create stronger curses.

“It’s a bit like that… weird pot thing people do with poisonous insects but with curses. Except in this case, you’re the vessel and the curses are always trying to escape. It’s not all that pretty… and another reason that Lian chooses to fight the way she does. Playing an instrument calms her, and keeping everyone locked to a slow speed, while she gets to strum away prevents her from accidentally sacrificing something major to win a match that doesn’t mean that much to her compared to whatever might be lost,” explained Bing.

.....

“Right… should she even be in this tournament then?” asked Sue.

Bing had the confidence to look mightily offended for her best friend, “Do you want to rephase that Sue?”

“Just… is it safe for her? The risk seems unduly high compared to everyone else,” mumbled Sue, looking suitably abashed.

Bing let out a long sigh and started to explain, “Don’t worry I’m not all that mad… but I asked the same question once, and she pointed out to me that if she never gets any practice, she’ll never have the chance to be better. What if the first time she’s attacked she goes straight for sacrificing her own life? It’s a worry. I’m glad Lian has always been the more careful of the two of us.

“The worst thing she’s ever sacrificed was all of her hair for… hmm… I can’t remember what it was but I think it was that time my father tried to stop her from having so many sleepovers at my house. Lian’s parents… have not been the most supportive people in the world… and she was somewhat upset. Traded her hair to stop my dad talking for a while. Basically as long as she could make it…”

Bing winced, remember the day, “… it really wasn’t that long? My dad is much stronger then Lian and she wasn’t properly trained at the time… I think it lasted maybe ten minutes tops? Still, that just goes to show you the sort of danger that can happen. Want if Lian hadn’t sacrificed her hair, but the ability to grow hair altogether? Or something worse? Plus, it made her bald everywhere and gave her the idea of how to avoid needing to shave as she got older. Girl has the smoothest of legs,”

Lily whistled innocently, trying to pretend she wasn’t thinking of anything questionable. It was made a bit easier by hanging around so many Succubi who had a similar thing going on. Especially when she could shift her focus back to Kat. It was still embarrassing, but much less so when the attention was focused on Kat’s legs instead of Lian’s. It just took a bit of mental effort to adjust.

“Her thing is legs” supplied Sue when Bing shot Lily a weird look. “You basically did the equivalent of telling her… well I was going to Lian knowing how to double her dick size, but you’re recent sexual awakening…” Bing glared at Sue, “… means maybe I should’ve just said Lian knows how to increase the size of her tits. Actually… IS that a thing you can do with curses?”

Bing shook her head, both to deny the question and to remove those images from her mind. Lian was practically her sister! That was just wrong, no matter how good of friends they were, or how her hold on her sexuality was slipping. “No, curses by their natures have to do something negative. Sort of. There can be a bit of mental gymnastics, and for minor things you can get away with it… but curses are always a removal of something, in exchange for something else, normally also bad.

“Hair removal is fine, because there’s less hair at the end of the process. Even if that’s something you want. The voice curse was also fine, because Lian temporarily took away his voice. In the fights? She took away portions of Goroth’s speed. You’ll notice she wasn’t making herself faster,” explained Sue.

“So what you’re saying is… breast reduction is totally on the table?” said Sue with zero shame. “What about ass reduction? Ooh, what about moving fat from somewhere undesirably like the stomach and putting it in her tits or ass?”

“Ok… first off… yes probably… and Lian is going to love those ideas… but that’s really not what you’re supposed to be doing with it. Curse energy is dangerous, not some easy weight loss solution!” grumbled Bing.

Sue shrugged, “I think it’s a great business opportunity, all the girls would be willing to pay big money for Lian to… do a little work…”

“I hate the fact that this is a good idea SO much right now,” whined Bing. “But she’s always talking about needing her own money and not mooching off my parents so much. I’d be a horrible friend if I don’t point this out to her… but I just… it feels so wrong. Like… like seeing the sun come up in the West. Wait, no, I’m forcing her to meet you three when she’s finished with the tournament. YOU can tell her. And if she asks why I didn’t? Please take credit for the idea,”

Sue gave a shrug just as the announcer started to talk about the next fight. “Dammit that’s my queue to leave. I wanted to go over more of Lian’s fighting style and what Goroth did right and wrong… but I guess that will have to wait for now. See you both later! Hopefully we can chat more after my next fight or two!”

With that Bing waved to them all and waited for Lily to transform before heading out the door. Off to do her own fighting. Kat, Lily and Sue watched her go. A little sad they wouldn’t be able to watch Bing’s match themselves. Perhaps for the later rounds, if she made it that far.