I Can Copy Curses

"Prince, we are ready."

At that moment, General Khan came up with three other middle-aged men.

Looking at them and sensing their aura, Orion could tell they were only at the peak of their gold rank. Even General Khan was at the peak of his gold rank.

"Are there no platinum-rank experts stationed at the headquarter?" He asked General Khan.

General Khan's expression turned wry. "Prince, we are but on a small 3-star planet and a planet like that only has experts at the peak of its gold rank. As for platinum rank experts, they tend to stay away from 3-star planets, as monsters at the platinum rank have almost gone extinct on 3-star planets.

So in a way, a 3-star planet is useless for platinum-ranking experts if they can't increase their stats here."

Listening to General Khan, Orion understood the general situation of 3-star planets and why there was a need to categorise the planets into 1–3 star-level planets.

"How far is that tree from here?" He asked.

"It's at the other end of the planet, Roele," General Khan said. "But don't worry, Prince; I have already called upon the void shuttle. They would be here any time now."

As soon as he said those words, Orion felt a strong gust of wind pass by them before he noticed a void shuttle landing not far from them.

"Let's go, princes."

General Khan took them into the void shuttle and a moment later, it flew towards the barren lands.

***

In the middle of nowhere stood a huge tree. Its roots spread from the ground like ancient serpents, winding and twisting through the earth, creating a complex network of tendrils.

Its leaves, though, appeared completely black instead of the usual green. This made the tree look like a horrible entity, an ominous presence that seemed to absorb the light around it, casting an eerie shadow over the land.

Mangled in between the leaves were various flowers as big as a human's head, and it appeared they were about to bloom.

About a kilometre from the tree, various void shuttles were stationed, each bearing the symbol of an illuminating son etched on them.

Beside one of the void shuttles stood many young ones. If Orion were here, he would surely recognise one of them. It was none other than Kyle Valen whom Orion met in the Aethelgard city.

At this moment, all these young men stood with a sneer on their faces. Kyle was no exception.

"People from the Darkwood family are trash. They couldn't even defend a mana pool on their planet."

"Forget about that; they don't even seem to know about the benefits of the cursed tree at all."

"I say the Darkwood family must be the weakest of the seven magi families."

"I wonder how long it will take them to arrive here."

These young men sneered, mocking the Darkwood family, saying they were the weakest of the seven Magi families.

At that moment, a striking man and woman were seated in chairs outside the shuttles. They exuded an aura of dominance and arrogance.

The man had bright red, shoulder-length hair and the beginnings of a beard; his expression was serious. The woman also had shoulder-length hair, but it was a deeper maroon. She wore glasses that couldn't hide the haughty look on her face.

Together, they gave the impression that they were the top geniuses in the world.

"Brother Evans, would the people really fall for the rumours we spread?" The girl asked the boy, seeing no one else, if their family was here yet.

Evans smiled. "I bet they will definitely come and I am even more sure that there will be people from the six other Magi families."

"Won't this make things difficult for us if there are too many people?" She asked, thinking that the larger the number of people, the lower their chances of getting the fruits.

"Sometimes, you just have to take on risks to obtain something," Evans said, his eyes darting towards the cursed tree. "As for the tree, it would only bear fruit if there were more people here, so we didn't have much choice."

The girl nodded in understanding when she suddenly noticed a point in the distance was getting closer to them.

"I think the Darkwood family is here." She said, looking at the void shuttle that was closing in on them.

A playful smile appeared on Evans's face as he looked at the void shuttle coming their way.

"I wonder if they will go empty-handed."

He smiled thinking about that.

***

The shuttle carrying Orion's group landed near the Valen family group.

Orion's team and the group of elders, including General Khan, exited the void shuttle and came outside, where they were greeted with the mocking and sneers of the Valen Family.

"Look, they are finally here."

"They really took their sweet time coming here."

"At least they are here; they could now fight for their fruits, hahahaha."

"Do you think any of them would be able to compete with the geniuses in the elite ranking? Only Emily was that strong but she recently entered the platinum rank, leaving no one in the younger generation of the Darkwood family to compete for the fruits."

"We will know that eventually."

General Khan heard them loud and clear and was furious. Considering there were also princes present, he felt it was even more humiliating than if only they had been mocked.

But Orion had warned him along the way that whatever happened here, he shouldn't get agitated. So, he could only sigh about this.

'They are as arrogant as ever.'

Orion thought, recalling how Kyle mentioned to him that everyone in his family was arrogant and had pride above their noses.

At that moment, he noticed two figures from the Valen family making their way towards them.

"It took you guys long enough." Evans sneered as he came near the group from the Darkwood family.

General King was about to reply when Orion signalled with his hand not to.

"Yeah, not gonna lie, some trash attacked our family last night, causing a lot of ruckus so it took us some time to settle over the aftermath of the attack."

Orion didn't spare them any. If they came here to mock and sneer at his family, then they should be prepared to take it back as well.

As for Evans and the girl who came to mock them, their faces became ugly after hearing Orion.

"Who are you?" Evans asked angrily. "How dare you call our family trash when you aren't even in the silver rank?"

Orion smiled, seeing their anger. He had already expected their reactions. The more arrogant one was, the more they would feel humiliated and angry if one were just to say something disdainful to their faces.

"I am Orion Darkwood, the ninth young master of the Darkwood Family." smiling, Orion introduced himself. "It's nice to meet you two."

Evans trembled even more after hearing the boy introduce himself.

"Who asked for your name?" He yelled.

Orion smiled and was about to continue trolling them when he noticed various space shuttles making their way towards them. There were almost a thousand of them, given the dense cluster of dots he could see in the sky.

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*Some gifts would be appreciated as well, but up to you.... *