"This Charm earring's abilities are every girl's dream ability," Ace remarked, reading the charm earring's abilities, and wasn't surprised by the low compatibility rate between Dame Wasp and the charm earrings. After all, they had different skill sets and had nothing in common.
"Master, I have to remind you, Loki will be here in a day. Even if he claims it's for investigating Gloria's murder, I believe he's headed here to harvest the corp Gloria planted. That is you, my dear master. Considering the proximity between Gloria's house and your home, the chances of him finding you are good. If he has a better curse detection art, his chances of finding you increase considerably. So, I suggest you go into hiding for a few months. But, if you choose to stay, you need to make adequate preparations to avoid running into him at all costs," Dame Wasp cautioned Ace about Loki and suggested that he leave town during Loki's visit to avoid running into him.
"Going into hiding is not an option. However, many kids in this neighborhood attend my high school. As long as I practice Gloria's curse shroud art to hide my aptitude for curse energy, it will be hard for him to find me among all the kids in the neighborhood even if he has a higher-tier curse detection art," Ace rejected Dame Wasp's suggestion. If he were of legal age and alone, Ace might have considered Dame Wasp's suggestion, but he was still a high schooler living under his parents' roof.
"But master, can you learn the curse shroud art in a day?" Dame Wasp pointed out that he did not have enough time to master the curse shroud art.
"I have to," Ace asserted, adding, "Gloria did it, I too can."
"Gloria could learn the curse shroud art so fast because it is compatible with the Charm Earring's abilities." Dame Wasp and Ace knew this because Gloria bragged about it in the Steal Song Society's group chat.
"Speaking Charm Earrings, I just recalled something that I think will be compatible with them," Ace did not argue with her. Taking out his phone, he video-called his elder sister.
Answering his call, Ace's sister connected his call to a conference video call with their parents, "Hi, Ace. I was just showing my room to Mom and Dad."
"Hi, sis—" Before Ace could greet his sister, his mother interrupted him, "Ace, you are still in your school uniform. Didn't I ask you to freshen up like an hour ago? Boy, don't make me come upstairs."
"Honey, let the boy talk to his sister. I am sure he will get to it after the call, right, son?" Ace's father came to his son's rescue, knowing his wife's temper.
"Yes, I will," Ace nodded and then asked his sis, "Hey, sis. Do you remember the apex earring you got me? By chance, you didn't throw it away, did you?"
"Why would I do that? Even if you don't like it, it's a collectible. I paid good money for it," Ace's sister raised her eyebrows, wondering if her brother was crazy.
"Where is it?"
"I remember placing it on the top shelf of my closet."
"You're the best, sis. Gotta go, bye!" Hanging up the call, Ace rushed to his sister's room. Only to hear his mother yell, "Ace, dinner will be ready in 10mins. Clean yourself and come down."
"Yes!" Ace replied aloud, on his way to his room, holding a glass case containing a gold-plated stub earring.
Locking his room, Ace found Dame Wasp blankly gazing into the void. Concerned, he asked, "Rose, what are you doing?"
"Master, I am updating my software to integrate the four curse arts we got from Gloria with my cybernetic components," Dame Wasp informed Ace what she had been up to while he was fetching the apex earring.
"You can do that?" Ace had no idea Dame Wasp was capable of something like that.
"Yes. By doing this, I can not only master these curse arts faster but use them efficiently," Dame Wasp answered Ace, looking at the glass case containing a gold-plated stub earring in his hand.
"Awesome," Ace nodded, then taking out the apex earring from its casing, he said, "I am going to pair 'Apex Earring' with 'Charm Earrings' to create a new toy summons."
"Apex Earring, what does it do?" Dame Wasp asked curiously.
"It supposedly has transformation abilities like the Charm Earrings. Connect to the home wifi and google 'Apex Boy Band' for details," Ace did not go into details about the apex earring and asked Dame Wasp to learn about it on Google.
'Apex Boy Band' was a widely acclaimed television series spanning 12 seasons. The show centered around a globally renowned boy band enlisted by the government for a clandestine mission: utilizing their fame to covertly gather intelligence and conduct missions in nations lacking diplomatic ties.
Each member of the band received an 'Apex Earring,' a state-of-the-art device created using top-secret technology, to compensate for their lack of spy training and physical prowess. These earrings enabled them to transform into their apex spy personas, granting them superhuman abilities to help them complete their mission.
Each one of the cast was handsome and dreamy. So, the TV show was popular among teenage girls. But It was discontinued because the actors had grown too old to be in a boy band.
After learning about the Apex Earring, Dame Wasp asked Ace, "Master, did you like this TV show?"
"No, I did not. But my sister did, and she bought this earring to dress me up as one of the boys from the Apex Boy Band for Halloween, but I didn't agree with her. So, it was eating dust in her closet till now," Ace hurriedly denied as the cursed clown returned to the cursed toybox, taking the Apex Earring from him.
[ — Status screen —
Curse tool: Charm Earrings
Toy: Apex Earing
Compatibility: 95%
Recommendation: The success rate of using the curse tool 'Charm Earrings' to animate the toy 'Apex Earring' is High. ]
"95% compatibility rate, heck yeah!" Ace shouted aloud. Then he commanded the cursed toybox, "Cursed Toybox, animate, apex earring."