A week after the bank robbery, Alex decided to keep a low profile and stayed hidden inside the base.
Food was handled by Ray, since he had far more freedom than Alex, and by now he could use cursed energy with some ease.
His military training wasn't very useful for controlling cursed energy, but once he learned it, his strength increased to an absurd level.
Before, he could barely leave a mark on a container with a punch.
Now, he could destroy one with his bare hands.
When Ray first managed to cover his entire body with cursed energy, he became very confident and challenged Tyon to a fight.
Unfortunately, he learned the hard way that Tyon had a very troublesome technique.
As for Tyon, he had also evolved.
Since he was literally made of cursed energy, he could already manipulate it naturally, but he had learned new tricks—like influencing emotions.
What made him dangerous was his attacks. At first, nothing happened.
But after enough hits, the target would slowly lose the will to fight.
Alex suspected there was more behind it, but he refused to test it further after Ray almost died by completely giving up and leaving himself wide open.
Vox was still attached to Ray, but now Ray had gotten used to it.
He still said it was strange having to sleep with Vox, but it wasn't all bad.
He could now command Vox to release acid with just his thoughts.
The one who improved the most was Alex.
He had been training his control over cursed energy and Nen to the extreme, although Nen hadn't progressed as much as his cursed technique.
During a normal training session, Alex suddenly felt his palm heat up.
When he looked, there was a mass of fire in his hand—and it was red, almost like blood.
Holding it, he realized something strange.
It wasn't unstable—it was malleable, almost like clay.
That was the problem.
Alex remembered the destruction that flame caused in Sukuna's hands, and now he was holding a miniature weapon of mass destruction.
Panic hit him immediately.
He tried to extinguish it by draining his cursed energy, and thankfully, it disappeared without causing any damage.
That day, Alex let out a relieved sigh.
After learning how to summon that flame arrow, Alex stopped focusing on summoning it and began experimenting with different ways to use it.
He didn't make much progress, but he discovered something interesting.
If you infused enough cursed energy into an object, it would absorb it and start storing it as if it were its own.
The problem was that Alex still didn't know if it was useful, since he only had junk and scraps to test it on.
Meanwhile, the police were still searching for Alex nonstop.
Fortunately, his hideout was so remote and hidden that no one would find him unless they were extremely dedicated.
Like building a high-powered tracker specifically to locate him.
And right now, Alex wasn't that important.
He had only robbed a bank, and there were far more dangerous mutants and criminals out there.
So building a tracker just for him would be pointless.
Alex was sitting calmly on top of a barrel he used as a chair, while everyone stood around him, confused.
He had a serious expression as he stared at the pile of money on the ground.
"What is it, Alex? Why call everyone? I was almost figuring out how to spread cursed energy through my whole body."
"I know how to spend the money… the problem is how we're going to do it."
Alex stood up, grabbed a bundle of cash—easily around a thousand dollars—and tossed it toward Ray.
"I need you to find someone trustworthy. Someone we can rely on to handle the money."
At first, Ray hadn't been very reliable.
But after having several chances to take the money and run—and not doing it—he became more trustworthy.
Not completely, but enough for something this important.
Hearing the task, Ray didn't hesitate.
He had already told Alex that he knew someone close to him who was very good at handling money.
If Alex wanted, he could try to contact him.
"I can try to talk to him, but there's one problem… he'll probably want to meet the boss of the whole 'operation,' so to speak."
Hearing that, Alex immediately understood what that meant.
If he agreed, he wouldn't just be seen as some random criminal anymore.
If things went wrong, Ray alone wouldn't matter much—but with Tyon and Vox involved, Alex would be seen as the leader of a criminal organization.
And that would make him far more wanted.
"Sigh… fine. Just talk to him and tell him we need him to buy this place and make it as good as possible—legally."
Hearing that, Ray stood up, stretching as he grabbed a stack of ten thousand dollars.
"Alright, boss. I'll take care of renovating our base."
Ray teased Alex a bit about becoming a gang leader, which clearly made him uncomfortable.
Alex simply responded with a middle finger before going back to experimenting with cursed energy.
Alex was still very confused about the properties of cursed energy, since he had already seen it go out of control when Ray tried to manipulate it, and the backlash was extremely dangerous for the user.
If Alex hadn't intervened and absorbed Ray's cursed energy in time, he might have died.
Yes, Alex had learned how to pull cursed energy out of other people, and although it was complicated, it was incredibly useful, almost as if he owned cursed energy even when it wasn't inside him anymore.
At first, he struggled with it because he didn't realize that other people's cursed energy wasn't exactly the same as his own, but instead of pulling it directly from their bodies, he could simply force it outward into the air.
Of course, it was far more complex than that, and Alex still didn't fully understand how it worked, since the process was extremely instinctive—something that felt natural while also making no sense at all.
But now, Alex wanted to try something far more ambitious than anything he had done before, because while watching Tyon and Ray train together, he realized something important.
If cursed energy could condense into a complex lifeform like Tyon or Vox, then creating physical constructs with it shouldn't be impossible.
That thought led him to a somewhat absurd idea—trying to shape cursed energy into something tangible.
To do that, Alex split his focus into multiple tasks at once, first releasing an enormous amount of cursed energy while simultaneously pulling it inward without absorbing it.
At the same time, he used his control to gather all the cursed energy—both from himself and the environment—and concentrate it into his hand.
It was extremely difficult to manage everything at once, but if Alex were normal, he wouldn't have reached this point in the first place.
When an absurd amount of cursed energy gathered in his palm, something finally began to happen, and a black sphere started forming in his hand, made entirely of condensed cursed energy.
It was perfectly shaped, and the moment Alex saw it, he couldn't hide the smile forming on his face.
He wanted to analyze it more carefully, but he didn't have the time, because in the next moment he realized the sphere was becoming too dense, as if its structure couldn't handle the amount of energy inside it.
Since Alex was compressing cursed energy purely through focus, he wasn't paying attention to his surroundings, where Tyon was crouched in a corner, trembling in fear.
The amount of cursed energy Alex was releasing wasn't just greater than before, it was thousands of times denser, and even Tyon, a curse, couldn't stop shaking in front of something so overwhelming.
Realizing the sphere was about to collapse, Alex had to think quickly, because if that much cursed energy leaked out, hiding his location would become impossible, and he had no idea what it could do to normal people.
So he tried to find a way to stabilize it, and seeing that the sphere was reaching its limit, he decided to expand it instead.
If it couldn't withstand that size, then increasing its volume might solve the problem, so Alex tried to stretch it like a balloon.
But something went wrong, because it wasn't just expanding—it was growing at an alarming rate.
The sphere quickly began swallowing his arms, which immediately made Alex panic, and the first thought that crossed his mind was that he might have accidentally created a black hole.
However, he quickly dismissed that idea, since there was no gravitational pull around it, and instead he tried to absorb the cursed energy back.
But the moment he attempted that, the sphere began collapsing again, which was exactly what he was trying to avoid.
At that point, Alex seriously considered letting it collapse and release all the energy, since at least he could try to absorb it afterward.
As the sphere got closer to his body, he suddenly noticed something strange, because even after being swallowed, his arms still responded to him and moved normally.
Realizing that, Alex hesitated for a moment before letting the sphere continue expanding naturally, driven by curiosity.
Eventually, it completely covered his entire body, and at that moment, Alex realized he was still in the same place, just inside the sphere itself.
It was still expanding slowly, restrained only by his attempts to control it, but seeing that it wasn't harming him, Alex loosened his control slightly, allowing it to grow faster.
Even so, he still felt uneasy, because if the sphere didn't stop growing, he would be forced to collapse it himself.
Putting that concern aside, Alex began to notice something interesting, since instead of using his own cursed energy to sustain itself, the sphere was drawing energy from the environment.
That alone was already strange, but the second thing he noticed was even more unusual, because he felt like he could modify it, almost like adding rules to a contract.
It was difficult to explain, but the sphere seemed to be waiting for something to be added.
Realizing that, Alex tried to impose a condition.
"Invisible."
The moment he did, the sphere reacted instantly, and its pitch-black surface began to fade, revealing the warehouse again as if nothing had happened.
Even Tyon was now visible, standing in front of the barrier that was slowly approaching him.
Alex could still feel the sphere, but now it was more like an invisible barrier than a solid object, and as he observed it, he noticed it was expanding beyond the warehouse itself.
Just as he was about to destroy it, the barrier suddenly stopped, perfectly enclosing the entire building.
Confused, Alex focused on his connection to it and realized he could still add things to the "list" of properties that defined the barrier.
Tyon, on the other hand, was completely lost in the situation, having witnessed Alex release such an overwhelming amount of cursed energy that his body froze in place.
But the most absurd part was what came next, because out of nowhere, Alex had created something so dense that it felt like it could devour everything around it.
When the sphere completely swallowed his father, Tyon panicked and was about to attack it, but suddenly it disappeared without warning.
Where Alex had been, there was now nothing, yet Tyon could still feel cursed energy, and in place of his father, there was something distorted.
He couldn't see it clearly, but it felt like a wall made of cursed energy.
Then, suddenly, that invisible wall began moving toward him, which only confused him even more.
His instincts were extremely sharp, and he could always tell when something was dangerous, but this time, he felt no threat at all.
Even so, he almost reacted when it got close, but in the end, he chose not to.
Because he needed to find his father.
So Tyon easily accepted the barrier's "embrace," and before he realized it, he was in the same place as before.
But now the environment was so filled with cursed energy that it felt like he was swimming in it, almost like a dense liquid surrounding his body.
His father stood at the center, releasing an absurd amount of cursed energy, something so overwhelming that it was hard to believe anyone could possess it.
The real question was—what the hell was his father even doing?
Meanwhile, Alex was dealing with a problem, as he had managed to add four conditions to the barrier's "list."
"No entry without authorization."
"Keep the cursed energy inside from leaking out."
"Increased durability."
"And prevent curses from being born inside."
But there was a major issue—Alex didn't know how to stop concentrating on maintaining the barrier.
Every time his focus wavered even slightly, the entire structure felt like it was about to collapse.
The barrier no longer needed Alex's energy to exist, as it was already feeding on the cursed energy in the environment.
Yet, for some reason, it clung to him like a koala.
Alex didn't even understand half of what this thing was, but he had created it, and that alone was already a victory.
Now the real problem was figuring out how to make it sustain itself without him.
Since he had just created it, his understanding was still shallow, so his first attempt was to make it detach from him and anchor itself independently.
That didn't go well.
On the first try, it almost collapsed completely, forcing Alex to stop immediately.
So he moved to a second idea—one that sounded completely ridiculous.
As a friend of a certain fantasy-obsessed nerd, Alex bit the tip of his finger and began drawing on the ground with his own blood.
'Peter… if this works, I'm going to start doubting you were just a normal nerd.'
Once, Peter had been reading a comic where a mage drew a magic circle and summoned a giant monster, something Alex had always found ridiculous.
Considering the amount of energy required and the idea that a drawing could summon anything, it just didn't make sense to him.
But Peter had simply said, "All energy needs a conduit—and in magic, that's a magic circle."
At the time, it made so much sense that Alex couldn't even argue.
And now, he had energy that seemed to come from nowhere, using him as a conduit.
So the only idea he had was to try making the drawing act as a substitute conduit.
Was it ridiculous? Yes. Completely.
But it was still worth trying.
If it failed, he would just move on and figure something else out, but if it worked, it would be a massive breakthrough.
And honestly, after everything he had experienced, this wouldn't even be the strangest thing in his life.
The drawing itself was unusual, because instead of a normal magic circle, Alex found himself writing in Japanese.
He couldn't read or understand it, yet his hand moved on its own, as if guided by instinct.
Once he finished, he tried to transfer the barrier's burden onto the drawing.
At first, it seemed like it wouldn't work, as the barrier still depended on his concentration.
But the moment he injected cursed energy into the drawing, something changed.
The pressure on his mind began to fade, and little by little, the burden shifted completely to the drawing on the ground.
That alone was enough to shock him.
He hadn't expected much from such a ridiculous idea.
Since it worked, Alex noticed Tyon staring at him like he was some kind of monster, as what he had just done was completely absurd from Tyon's perspective.
And the worst part was that it hadn't even been that difficult for him.
Alex let out a long sigh and sat down.
Even if it didn't look like it, that had nearly exhausted his mental stamina, as he had split his focus into three different tasks at once.
It was like pushing a supercomputer to its absolute limit.
Fortunately, Alex had an absurd level of intelligence, so he managed to endure it.
Now sitting on the ground with a headache, Alex still felt satisfied, as he had created something incredible.
If it worked the way he imagined, being found by the police would become nearly impossible.
Even heroes wouldn't be able to locate this place, since only those capable of sensing cursed energy could interact with the barrier.
In his mind, only curses would be able to detect it.
"Father, are you alright?"
Hearing Tyon, Alex simply nodded as he stood up.
"I'm fine, Tyon… just a bit tired. Creating this thing wasn't easy."
Stretching slightly, Alex began analyzing the drawing on the ground, which was now the very foundation of the barrier.
Then it hit him.
If that single drawing was supporting everything, then it was a massive weakness.
If anything erased it, the entire barrier would collapse.
That was a serious problem.
Realizing this, Alex started thinking of a way to create "pillars" to support the barrier, which took four exhausting hours to complete.
While wondering if drawing more symbols around the base would help, he suddenly felt something.
The barrier reacted.
Someone was trying to enter.
Focusing, Alex checked the presence and recognized Ray's energy, allowing him inside.
He turned toward the entrance, preparing to hear what had happened.
But what he saw surprised him.
Ray entered the warehouse completely injured, covered in bullet wounds, missing one eye, and without the money he had taken.
From the outside, he looked like he was about to die.
But his reaction was the complete opposite.
"That son of a bitch Jack teamed up with that bastard and betrayed me for that little? What a joke!"
Seeing Ray like that, Alex's expression twisted with anger.
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Hey guys, sorry for disappearing for a while. My damn computer just wouldn't turn on no matter what, and I was starting to get worried until a friend of mine managed to fix it.
And since I'm a good author, I got back to writing the moment it started working again.
As for questions—I don't have a phone due to, well… not having the money for one, so that's why I went silent for a bit.
And you don't even know the worst part—I felt really bad about not being able to write for you guys.
I truly apologize for the situation.
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Good night.
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