SUP Chapter 23: An Interesting Soul Deserves a Reward

Good thing Ian had already left the living room.

Otherwise, he’d surely have connected Clark’s injury to the passenger plane crash he couldn’t fully save this morning, a clear sign Superman had faced a rather mysterious crisis.

Of course, even if he knew, Ian could do nothing about it. He was still far too weak, and anything capable of harming Superman was beyond his current reach.

Upstairs in the hallway, Ian chatted with his two brothers for a bit, flexing his writerly talents, before returning to his room. Jonathan was still outside, shouting for Ian to join him in working out.

“I’ll add exercise to my schedule!” Ian called back through the door, sitting on his bed only after their footsteps faded.

“What the heck is going on?” He tugged open his jacket, pulling out the pendant from under his shirt. It was still glowing, its eerie black light pulsing like breathing.

The dark glow cast across Ian’s face, chasing away the room’s light. Frowning, he held the pendant up, studying it closely.

He mainly wanted to spot the evil spirit’s form inside.

“Anyone there? Say something?” Ian tapped the pendant with his finger, a half-hearted move born of boredom, not expecting it to actually do something.

But as soon as he spoke, the pendant’s glow suddenly flickered wildly, faster and faster, as if answering his question. Ian’s breath caught, and he instinctively glanced at his status bar below his vision.

No new negative status appeared.

“Buzz~”

The pendant abruptly began to tremble faintly. The metal patterns on its surface twisted, wriggled, and stretched like a living thing, as if opening some kind of gate. Then, wisps of black matter seeped out, light as silk, drifting softly and weaving together in the air.

Ian’s eyes widened.

He watched the black matter condense and reform before him, until, finally, it shaped into a sentence. A proper, textbook-like English phrase.

[An interesting life deserves a reward.]

The words floated in midair.

Neatly formed.

As if penned by a gentleman.

Each stroke carried an ancient, mysterious aura. They hovered, swaying slightly, as if stirred by an invisible breeze, ready to drift away at any moment.

“What the hell?”

Ian was baffled. He reached out to touch the words, but the moment his fingertip nearly made contact, the black text scattered like spilled ink.

“Whoosh~”

It swirled and gathered in the air like stirred ink.

Ian thought he heard a familiar wail.

The voice of that nun spirit from before.

“As expected! It did slip into the pendant!” Ian marveled at his earlier clever guess, though he also sensed the nun spirit hadn’t entered willingly.

As the spirit’s wails faded, the black matter coalesced in the air before Ian into a floating, thumb-sized black crystal.

It slowly descended.

Ian hesitated, then reached out to catch it.

The moment the crystal touched his palm, a chilling sensation spread through his skin, like gripping ice from the polar depths or truly touching a cold soul.

“The pendant gave me a gift?” Ian muttered, holding the crystal up to the light for a closer look, debating whether he needed to swallow it. The black crystal wasn’t fully transparent; faint shadows flowed inside, like trapped mist.

It didn’t look all that appetizing.

“But it seems pretty hard.” Ian swore he only wanted to test whether the crystal or his teeth were harder, figuring even if his teeth broke, it’d count toward today’s “leveling.”

This spark of curiosity nearly scared him witless. No crisis occurred, but the outcome was completely unexpected.

The black crystal barely neared Ian’s mouth, not even close enough for a taste, when it melted into a cool liquid and slipped past his lips.

It truly melted on contact, refining instantly.

No bitterness, no evil burning sensation, just like a gulp of icy spring water, cool to the bone, spreading through his limbs like slippery jelly.

A newfound clarity swept through his mind.

Ian felt stronger.

Especially his mental state, which improved noticeably.

And more.

[Strength: 5.6 → 5.8]

[Constitution: 4.5 → 4.7]

[Intelligence: 2.4 → 2.6]

[Mental: 4.2 → 6.8]

Not just [Mental] and [Intelligence], but even [Strength] and [Constitution] saw slight boosts, though [Mental] gained the most.

This was more than Ian expected from consuming the remnants of the evil spirit, pushing him, a [Berserker], into a state where his [Mental] surpassed his [Strength].

A bit impure for his bloodline.

“Didn’t expect an actual gift.” Ian was thrilled at first, but then noticed a strange pattern had appeared on the back of his hand, unnoticed until now.

It looked bizarre.

Like a black eye.

“The price of a pie falling from the sky?” Ian was startled but didn’t panic. He tried rubbing it off with his other hand, but it wouldn’t budge.

His skin reddened from the rubbing, but the pattern stayed put.

It was like a brand.

Ian instinctively checked his status bar, expecting a new negative status, but to his surprise, the [Soul Corruption] status was gone.

Replaced by a new status display.

“No wonder I feel like my wisdom’s drained a bit.” Ian felt a pang of regret, believing [Soul Corruption] could’ve brought surprises at key moments.

But now, it was gone without a trace.

Not even a sleeve waved in farewell.

Too late for goodbyes.

The new status in its place resembled a pair of eyes, matching the pattern on his hand, clearly an “official” explanation for the brand.

However, unlike the negative statuses Ian liked, this one had no effect, bringing no change to him.

[Death Knight Kin]

The status name alone revealed what it was.

[NEXT CHAPTER]