"Glutton's Curse? What's that?"

Julian put his hand on Luke's shoulder.

"It's nothing serious, but it is annoying to deal with. This curse is ancient and not well known. Even modern technology can't detect something like this. The Glutton's Curse increases the aura pool requirement for unborn children. Whenever the child siphons some of their mother's aura, that's when their alpha cells form. You, on the other hand, didn't siphon enough aura from your mother for your alpha cells to form."

Luke was trying to take everything in.

"I think I get what you're saying, but that's still not telling me how she died."

Julian started to feel sorry for Luke. Especially with what he was about to tell him.

"It's true that you didn't siphon enough aura from your mother, but only because she didn't have enough to give. In short, your mother died because you siphoned all of her aura pool. That's normally the case with this curse. If the mother doesn't have a large enough aura pool to satisfy the curse then she will die."

Luke fell to his knees. He stared at the ground and tears began to roll down his face.

"I killed my own mother? I'm the reason my dad has to live alone now? A life ended because of me?"

Julian tried to comfort him. He had seen this before he died as well. If he had been there when Luke was born, then he could've saved her, but that's impossible since Julian would've also been an infant.

"Look at it this way. The aura in your body was supplied to you by your mother. She gave everything she had for you to be born. If you asked her now, I'm sure she would say that she doesn't regret it."

Luke looked up at Julian with his puffy eyes.

"I killed her, though. She's dead because of me!"

Julian crouched in front of him with a stern look.

"Look, you can't spend the rest of your life feeling guilty about it. Doing that would just make her sacrifice in vain. If you want to be worthy of the life that she gave you, then you need to get stronger and overcome this obstacle. That way your mother's soul can rest easy knowing that what she did wasn't a waste."

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Luke's tears finally stopped streaming. He wiped his face and stood up to look at the stars.

"Julian…"

Julian also stood up beside him.

"Yeah?"

"Teach me everything you know. I want to be strong like you are."

Luke had a face that looked more determined than a gazelle trying to escape a lion.

Julian gave him a smile and a punch on the shoulder.

"I'll warn you, this isn't going to be easy. The first thing we'll do is teach you a martial skill, and then we'll get rid of that curse."

Luke smiled and nodded his head.

"Right!"

........................

Sitting in a large tree beside a lake, sat a young man with dark skin and black hair. His red eyes were glowing under the moonlight. He was wearing all black and was barely visible in the night.

From under the tree, another young man with tan skin and blonde hair was leaning against the trunk with his green eyes closed.

"Hey Mamba, do you think there will be any problems with the operation?"

The guy with blonde hair looked up into the tree for Mamba's answer.

"I doubt there will be anything to worry about. You're the Drunken ape, after all."

Mamba was looking into the sky as he talked. His ace didn't show any emotion.

"Haha! Yeah, you're right! I doubt anyone will even notice us being here."

Drunken Ape fell to the ground with a smirk on his face.

"The Crystal Tear will belong to the Inquisition very soon…"

.......................

Julian and his squad were on a flight to their location. The Imperium didn't tell anyone where they were going to keep the location of each team a secret.

Luna and Shio were asleep while Iris was sitting next to them reading a book. Luke and Julian were playing a game of chess on their link watches.

"How do you keep beating me?"

Luke was getting frustrated because he had lost every game he played so far.

"Haha! Chess is the game of the gods. It takes a calculating mind to predict the flow of the game."

Luke shook his head and closed the game.

"That wasn't a very helpful answer"

He folded his arms and kept muttering while looking out the window.

Julian closed his game and slept for the rest of the flight.

When he woke up, the pilot came over the intercom to announce their arrival.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we are now arriving at the Grand Mountain City Airport. Please stay seated until we have landed. Thank you for your patronage!"

Julian's face lit up.

'Grand Mountain City? That's where the Crystal Tear was located before it was stolen by the Inquisition. This is a golden opportunity!'

Grand Mountain City is located in the U.S. around the area where the state of Utah used to be. After the rise of the world government, all countries adopted the One-State Law. This law made it so that all existing countries would get rid of their old system of separating different states and regions. For example, the U.S. no longer has different states and the country as a whole is one state.

After the law was put into effect, many places around the world were bought by the Imperium and renamed. The names of the countries themselves were not renamed so that each country could still have a sense of patriotism.

"This is awesome! I've never been to the U.S. before."

Luna was excited at the prospect of seeing a new country.

"I've only been once with my family when I was a child."

Shio was still reading her book and didn't even glance out the window. Luke looked as if he were starstruck looking at the city below.

"This is where you were born?"

Julian nodded in response.

"I was born about 10 hours away from here, but I have visited a few times."

Julian was excited, but not for the same reasons as the rest. He was only interested in finding the Crystal Tear.

'With a relic like that, my ascension this time will be a breeze."

************************************************************

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