Chapter 24: Emotions
Inside a restaurant in the Seventh School District.
Diners with various expressions sat inside the restaurant, their clothing differing, but their expressions were the same—their faces were blank, as if they had witnessed something extremely rare.
Su Xiao sat at a dining table, chewing food in his mouth, his mind contemplating countermeasures for later. He casually forked a piece of steak and bit off a small half of it.
"Woof!"
Bubu Wang suddenly barked, interrupting Su Xiao's train of thought.
"What's wrong?"
After snapping back to reality, Su Xiao was stunned. Unbeknownst to him, the dining table in front of him was piled high with stacks of plates, two of which were even half a meter tall.
Bubu Wang jumped down from the chair and bit Su Xiao's arm, clearly signaling for him to stop eating.
Su Xiao also realized something was off. He glanced at the clock in the restaurant. From the time he entered until now, about two hours had passed. Yet in his perception, it felt like only a short while. Even if he was thinking, two hours of contemplation was a bit too exaggerated.
Su Xiao rubbed his chin, pondering what had happened before. From the moment he entered the restaurant, it seemed he had ordered food more than a dozen times in succession and eaten six to eight times his usual amount. Without careful thought, he wouldn't have noticed these things at all.
Having consumed so much food, Su Xiao naturally felt something was off during the meal. A thought that had somehow appeared dispelled his doubts—that he had just recovered from a severe injury and urgently needed energy.
"Bubu, have I done anything unusual lately?"
Su Xiao checked his own status through the Reincarnation Mark. In a world like Magic Index, where magic was prevalent, it wasn't strange to fall victim to something without realizing it.
Bubu Wang crouched beside Su Xiao, looked up, and thought for a moment. Then, with his chubby front paw, he grabbed a bottle of orange juice, covered his dog head with a napkin, and mimed pouring it down.
Seeing this, Su Xiao smiled.
"Using water torture on that woman, huh? That's not unusual..."
When Su Xiao was halfway through his sentence, his pupils contracted sharply. He suddenly realized one thing: compared to physical torture, he was more accustomed to using words, clues, intelligence, and enemy weaknesses to break down the enemy's psychological defenses, thereby obtaining information. Compared to information gained through physical torture, breaking the enemy's mental defenses yielded more accurate results—this was a conclusion drawn from multiple practices.
But this time, Su Xiao hadn't even considered breaking the enemy's mental defenses. He went straight to physical torture, and the result was that the information obtained wasn't very accurate.
Thinking of this, Su Xiao's brows furrowed tightly. Not only that, but he also realized that killing Stiyl earlier was the right choice. As for the woman disguised as Kanzaki Kaori, there was no need to kill her immediately. That woman sought death. Killing her would benefit Aleister and Laura Stuart the most. If that woman were still alive, Aleister would likely offer some chips to have her killed.
"Indeed, it's not normal. I was too impulsive back then. No, it should be that I didn't think much when killing."
Su Xiao recalled his thoughts at the time. His only thought then was to kill all enemies and gain free movement within Academy City. As for anything else, he hadn't considered it at all.
"Bubu, punch me."
Su Xiao's words stunned Bubu Wang. His little eyes seemed to say, "This dog has never heard such a strange request."
"Stop wasting time, hurry up and..."
Bang!
Bubu Wang clenched his dog paw and threw a straight punch at Su Xiao's calf. Heaven knows how he learned to make a fist with his dog paw.
"Aim for the head..."
Bang!
Bubu Wang was indeed obedient. Before Su Xiao could finish speaking, he punched him right on the chin.
"Full force..."
Bang!
Bubu Wang had punched Su Xiao three times in total. Now, Bubu Wang looked somewhat resigned, as if asking Su Xiao, "Master, when did you awaken this kind of attribute? Don't stop taking your meds."
"Silly dog, I told you to hit my head with full force..."
Su Xiao stopped mid-sentence, and the red light in his eyes quickly faded. This red light had appeared once before, when he stood in a dark building staring at someone—that person was Ayumi Musujime.
"When the body suffers external damage, the brain's thinking becomes chaotic, ideas become singular, and stubbornness sets in."
Su Xiao left a few large bills on the dining table and walked out of the restaurant with Bubu Wang. He had repeatedly checked his personal information: attributes normal, vital signs normal, mental state normal.
But that abnormality just now—when he didn't notice it, it didn't feel like much. Once he did notice it, Su Xiao felt something was very wrong. Even on the battlefields of war worlds, surrounded by mountains of corpses and seas of blood, he had never experienced emotional impulses like this.
Moreover, the massive eating in the restaurant also felt abnormal to him. As soon as he stepped out of the restaurant, he felt the swelling sensation in his stomach. If not for his strong physical constitution, an ordinary person eating that much would have been literally stuffed to death.
Su Xiao walked while digesting the food and thinking. From his current situation, it seemed he might be affected by someone's ability. Perhaps the other party had left a magical mark, a spiritual imprint, or some skill that influenced his emotions. If it were a skill, the duration should be quite long.
A young, attractive female student walked past Su Xiao. The faint scent of perfume made him involuntarily glance sideways.
Noticing Su Xiao's gaze, the female student smiled politely at him.
Bubu Wang behind Su Xiao sensed something was wrong. He bit Su Xiao's calf.
A slight sting came, and Su Xiao snapped back to reality. He patted Bubu Wang's head. He had just had an extremely absurd thought—to carry that female student away and rub her on the ground.
"It's getting stronger."
Su Xiao walked briskly along the street. He found a hotel, opened a room, locked the door, and sat cross-legged on the bed, placing Dragon-Slaying Flash flat on his thighs.
Calming his mind, Su Xiao began to meditate. No matter the situation, meditation could stabilize his emotions. Bubu Wang crouched beside Su Xiao, ready to alert him if anything went wrong.
This meditation was different from usual. As soon as Su Xiao entered the meditative state, he sensed seven symbols on his arm. These symbols were: 々, ㄍ, ㄘ, ㄞ, ㄣ, ㄨ, ㄋ.
Sensing these symbols, Su Xiao took out a carbon pen from his hand and traced these invisible symbols onto his arm with the pen, keeping their positions and sizes unchanged.
After tracing the symbols, Su Xiao took a magnifying glass from his storage space.
[Uppis Magnifying Glass]
Quality: Blue
Category: Special Equipment
Equipment Effect: Emotion Amplification (Active): Can designate any target for a Willpower attribute check. If the target fails the check, the target's most intense emotion is amplified by one times, lasting 5 minutes.
...
Su Xiao had obtained this magnifying glass and had been keeping it in his storage space for emergencies. Now, it came in handy.
He activated the Emotion Amplification (Active) ability and used it on himself. When used on oneself, no Willpower check was needed.
He tried using the [Uppis Magnifying Glass] to amplify the symbols on his arm. Sure enough, after amplifying one symbol, a surge of greed appeared in his heart, as if he wanted to obtain everything in the world.
Five minutes later, Su Xiao figured out the meaning of the seven symbols on his arm. They were:
'々' represented Anger.
'ㄍ' represented Pride.
'ㄘ' represented Gluttony.
'ㄞ' represented Sloth.
'ㄣ' represented Envy.
'ㄨ' represented Lust.
'ㄋ' represented Greed.
These seven emotions would be amplified depending on Su Xiao's environment. They resonated with each other, and the amplified emotions were abnormal, extreme. When Su Xiao used water torture on the enemy earlier, the amplified emotions were Anger + Pride.
What made this more troublesome than the amplification of the seven emotions was that Su Xiao didn't know when he had been hit, nor whose ability this was. Aleister? Unlikely. Heaven Canceller? Even less possible.