Leo opened his phone and, when he saw that the sender was indeed Sandara, he wanted to keep reading the message in fear.
Just then, a silent crack appeared in the space behind Leo, and from within that rift, a constantly shape-shifting, 2049-themed cube emerged into the air.
While Leo, completely unaware of what was happening, was staring at his phone, he saw the luck tubes inside his body manifest outside his control.
At first, he assumed this was either an unlucky or a lucky encounter, but suddenly the test tubes containing luck flipped upside down and the liquid inside them spilled out.
Because Leo couldn't make sense of what was happening, the first thing he wondered was how he was supposed to overcome misfortune at this level. Maybe his luck energy could balance out part of the bad luck. It was a theory Leo had thought of before, but never tried.
However, things only got more complicated.
The liquid spilled from the test tubes didn't shoot into his body like before, but instead changed direction midair, rushing past his neck at a terrifying speed and shooting behind him.
When Leo turned around in shock, he saw that the good and bad luck energies were being pulled into a cube floating in the air.
As the cube rapidly absorbed the luck energy, it began to transform even faster than before.
One second it became a cube, the next it turned into a sphere, and a second later it shifted into a triangular prism.
At the same time, the good luck energy being drawn into the cube was completely depleted, and only the bad luck energy began to be injected into it.
And so the cube's constant state of evolution took on an even more terrifying form.
The dark red bad luck energy being absorbed slowly immobilized the cube.
As if the cube had lost its throne, it began to be slowly tainted by the red color.
At least, that's what Leo thought. The cube itself had no such idea; the only thing it needed—whether good or bad—was that energy. Only by using that energy could it stabilize itself and eliminate its existential flaw.
After a while, the bad luck energy was completely absorbed as well, and the cube's form finally stabilized.
Once the absorption ended, the two test tubes—now without a target—moved back toward Leo's body.
Throughout all of this, Leo had still been trying to understand what he was seeing, and reflexively backed up all the way to the room's door, peeking through it to watch what was happening.
At the same time, he was grumbling about how he should've finished that damned webtoon before coming to this world.
As Leo reached out his hand so the luck-collecting test tubes flying toward him could enter his body faster, the cube suspended in midair suddenly shot forward at teleportation-like speed and slammed into the two tubes.
Right after, the tubes sank into the cube as if they had hit a slime.
At that moment, Leo realized this damned thing was trying to steal his cheat, and he wanted to rush forward, but the 2049 theme scared him so much that, like a clever supporting character, he decided to stay quiet and just watch the show.
After merging with the test tubes, the cube's front face now looked as if two test tubes had been implanted into it.
In the next moment, the cube, thinking it had gotten what it wanted, tore open a small space crack and prepared to leave.
But when it tried to move, it realized it couldn't.
The test tubes began to emit black and white energy. These energies swirled around each other in the air like yin and yang, and were connected directly to Leo's heart.
When Leo suddenly saw himself shifting from third-person to first-person, he tried to sever the bond between him and his cheat with his own hands.
After all, even if you called this a cheat, it wasn't turning Leo into an actual superhero, and he still had to deal with bad luck.
Leo imagined he would probably become the top scorer in the university exams and decided he could live well even without a cheat in the future. Life was what mattered, right?
Even if you had a cheat, what difference did it make if you didn't have a life to use it?
Unfortunately, not even the strange cube floating in the air could sever this bond. And despite exerting a universe-shaking force in a way that defied physics, the cube couldn't move even a single centimeter, as if Leo were firmly anchored to the entire universe.
Before the cube could analyze what was happening, the power of the test tubes suddenly increased even more, and the cube—still connected to the tubes—was slammed straight into Leo's chest.
With the impact, Leo was thrown against the wall behind him, hurting himself as he lost consciousness.
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Hello everyone, if you enjoyed what you read, why not throw a few power stones at me?
By the way, what do you think about the story so far?