Tthe only home that a man should ever need is within his heart."
- Lavi
...
On the other side, at the school dance at Gotham Academy
It would be more accurate to say that this is Dean Thurston's magic show than the school dance area.
Because almost half of the students gathered on the lawn, which was meant to be a place to rest, while the area for formal events seemed a bit empty.
On the lawn, there are a lot of students standing around Dean in the middle. The girls were mostly in the middle of the circle, while the boys were mostly on the outside.
It was hard to imagine how the girls managed to squeeze in.
Since Gotham Academy started the tradition of holding school dances, this situation is unusual.
In the middle of the crowd, Dean takes out a deck of cards and asks loudly, "Now I need a volunteer from the audience to help me perform the next magic trick. Which student would like to volunteer?"
As soon as the girls hear Dean, they start cheering and raising their hands while saying, "Me! Me! Choose me!"
The one shouting the loudest is Lucy, who is closest to Dean.
She is already deeply impressed by Dean's earlier performances and wants to experience it again.
"I'm sorry, Miss Lucy, although I would love to work with you again, it's best to give others a chance this time."
Dean gave her a smile and shook his head.
He looks around and sees that everyone has raised their hands high, and he suddenly feels troubled.
'Everyone is very excited, and it seems that everyone wants to be my assistant. It's hard to pick just one.'
Then he closes his eyes and says, 'To be fair, I'll just randomly pick someone.'
With his eyes closed, Dean started to spin in place.
One spin, two spins, three spins...
After spinning a few times, he suddenly stops and points his finger straight ahead.
Then he opens his eyes and sees a girl with medium-length brown hair and a slim figure standing in front of him.
Dean knows this girl by chance. Eva is one of his classmates, and she used to be one of his biggest fans.
"It seems like fate wants you to help me with this magic trick, Eva. Please come forward."
Dean extended an inviting smile to Eva.
Eva blushed, her eyes sparkled, and she looked very excited.
She runs over to Dean and asks eagerly, "Dean, what do you need me to do?"
Dean showed her the deck of cards in his hand and said, "I'm going to flip the cards over later, and I need you to see and remember one card from inside."
"Is that all?"
Eva looks a little disappointed.
Earlier, Dean borrowed a rose from Lucy, asked about her favorite color, and even personally held Dean's hat.
She had thought that she would get the same treatment.
Imagine, that was the very hat Dean personally wore!
If she could hold that hat in her hands, she swore she wouldn't wash her hands all night!
In the end, she didn't expect her task to be as simple as memorizing a card.
Dean didn't know what the girl was thinking. He held the card in front of Eva with his left hand, while his right hand was on top of the deck.
"Are you ready? I'm about to start flipping the card now."
Eva was a little disappointed at first, but she quickly got over it. She didn't want Dean to disappoint her.
"Yeah, I'm ready."
Eva gave a nod to show that she was ready.
Dean used his right hand to lift the top half of the card and swiftly flip it over.
Eva only vaguely saw a spade card and didn't even catch the number before it was gone.
"That was probably a little too fast. Don't worry, let's try it again."
Dean seemed to realize that he turned the card over too quickly, so he did it again, but this time he took his time.
Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle.
The deck of cards was quickly flipped again.
This time Eva finally saw the card clearly—a spade ten.
She made a mental note of that card.
"Do I need to tell you about the card, Dean?"
Eva asked.
"No. Don't tell me, and especially don't tell me what card you saw."
Dean smiled and shook his head.
He shuffled the deck and casually performed a fancy card cut known as the Pandora flourish.
Then he put the deck of cards out in front of Eva in a fan shape so that each card could be seen and none of them overlapped.
"Now, see if the card you saw earlier is in there."
Eva carefully looked and realized that there were all kinds of cards except for the ten of spades.
But she was sure that she indeed saw the ten of spades just a moment ago.
Eva looked surprised and shook her head, saying, "I didn't see it."
"The reason you didn't see it is that you were looking too closely."
Dean said it mysteriously.
"What did I say earlier? The closer you look..."
"The less you see!"
Lucy interjected.
"Well said."
Dean nodded and suddenly threw the deck of cards into the air.
The people in the crowd looked up at the sky and were very shocked by what they saw.
They saw the opposite building, which had all its lights turned off, suddenly light up.
However, the lights didn't all turn on at the same time. Each floor of the building had only a few classrooms with lights on.
When all these lit classrooms were connected, they formed a huge and singular "Ten of Spades".
This scene had a big effect on everyone, leaving them all speechless and with their mouths wide open.
Eva was the most surprised because she was the only one who knew which card she had just seen.
"Now, Eva, can you tell me which card you saw?"
Dean spread his hands to tell Eva that she could now give her final answer.
As soon as he opened his hands, Eva rushed straight towards him and hugged Dean tightly.
"It's the Ten of Spades! I saw the Ten of Spades!"
Eva excitedly shouted.
However, the other girls were no longer interested in the playing cards.
"Hey! Eva, you slut! Who allowed you to hug Dean?"
"Let go of him! Let me go next!"
"What did you say? Dean is mine!"
"I don't care! Since Eva can hug Dean, then I can too!"
Who knows who started it, but all the girls around Dean rushed towards him, each one violent and aggressive like hungry wolves.
"Hey, hey, hey... don't come over here!"
...
On the other side of the building.
Dick was sweating a lot as he clung to the railing on the twelfth floor.
He had raced against time and used a lot of energy to set up and turn on the light switches in different classrooms.
Looking down at Dean, who was now surrounded by countless girls, Dick felt extremely dissatisfied.
He thought to himself, 'Damn it! How did I end up like this when I was supposed to use magic to get girls in the first place?'
'Why are they focusing on Dean's show now? Why should I help him do magic?'
...
SEND MORE POWER STONES
patreon.com/Sothisq
You can find up to 20 advance chapters at my patreon.