Since that day, I've holed myself up in an abandoned training ground on the outskirts of the estate.
I wasn't sure if a lowly son of a live-out handyman would even be allowed training opportunities in the main Zenin household. Regardless, this place was a wreck. Nothing remained but dust-covered, worn-out sandbags and a steel plate riddled with old fist marks.
An old diary left by my father. A few basic jujutsu manuals I'd managed to pilfer from the Zenin archives.
That was the sum total of my instructors.
Vrrr—!
Above my head, the Dharma Wheel, looking suspiciously like an angel's halo, manifested.
Step one.
The fundamentals of Cursed Energy manipulation—experience the limit.
That's what the manual said.
Do not concentrate Cursed Energy in one place. Spread it from the brain, the source of Cursed Energy, throughout the entire body as if it were boiling over. Give it everything you've got.
The first problem was the Cursed Energy losing control.
Power born from negativity does not submit easily. If you can't control it, that curse has nowhere to go but back into yourself.
My vision began to warp.
My head felt like it was burning up.
Simultaneously, a searing pain ripped through my entire body.
Click.
The Dharma Wheel above my head turned.
My body began to 'adapt' to the runaway Cursed Energy.
I gave the directionless rage a destination.
I twisted the berserk flow, forcing it back onto the correct path.
…This was a bizarre sensation.
Normally, I would be the one burning Cursed Energy to fuel a technique. But now, it was the opposite.
The technique was manipulating the Cursed Energy for me.
It was like a pencil wasn't drawing the picture, but the picture itself was moving the pencil.
A divine feat of recreating the 'reversal of host and guest' through jujutsu.
I gritted my teeth.
"Yeah… this is it."
I had finally taken my first step in mastering Cursed Energy manipulation.
- One Month Later -
Since the day I got the hang of Cursed Energy, I had been focusing on physical reinforcement, pounding away at the old steel plate and sandbags in the training hall.
Recalling the movements from the UFC fights I used to watch in my previous life, I incessantly threw punches and kicks.
'Regardless of Adaptation being a high-tier technique, the lack of long-range attacks is a real pain. Guess I've got no choice but to double down on Cursed-Energy-infused brawling for now.'
Thwack! Bam! Rip—.
Between the dull thuds of hitting the sandbag, I heard the sound of something tough tearing.
"What? Did it burst already?"
It was then. From a hole in the corner of the training hall that I'd assumed was just a drain, I heard a sickening, mucosal squelch.
Emerging through the cloud of dust was a Cursed Spirit with grotesquely twisted legs. It looked like it had been born within this long-abandoned hall. It shuffled toward me, emitting an unintelligible, metallic rasp.
Must run... have to run... only by running can I live...!!
"What is it even saying? Doesn't look like it has any intelligence. At best, it's a Grade 3 Cursed Spirit."
Actually, this was a great opportunity. I was getting sick and tired of hitting silent sandbags and steel plates for an entire month.
"Fine! This isn't like when I first woke up. My Jujutsu-Bro Punch has gotten pretty damn strong."
The moment I lowered my stance to throw a punch.
The Cursed Spirit's head snapped at a bizarre angle, and it began to charge at me with insane speed. A crude, full-body tackle.
"Wha—!"
Surprised by the sudden burst, I quickly canceled my attack and raised both arms to guard.
As soon as the Cursed Spirit hit my guard, it bounced back without hesitation to create distance. Then, it started circling me, picking up speed with every rotation.
"Its speed is increasing? Ugh!"
The spirit maintained its distance, carving out an orbital path before launching surgical strikes and retreating instantly.
Thwack! Bam!
Even when I tried to find an opening to close in, catching the irregular timing of a target that had built up such momentum was nearly impossible. Worse, proportional to its speed, the spirit's blows were becoming heavy enough to rattle my bones.
"Speed is weight, is that it? Dammit, I can't touch it."
Run! Run! Faster, faster, I have to run faster!!
Was it because my concentration was wavering from the repeated hits? Or perhaps because I'd let my guard down due to its pathetic appearance and low intelligence?
A strike from the Cursed Spirit's blind spot caught me squarely on the jaw before I could even think to dodge.
CRACK—!
'Huh? The floor is shaking. Is it an earthquake? Why... why are there two of them?'
"Get it together!"
I forced my feet to root into the ground and grabbed my head, trying to steady my rattling brain. Meanwhile, the Cursed Spirit circled me with even more ferocious speed, waiting for the perfect chance to go for the kill.
While my vision flickered from the impact to my jaw, a faded memory suddenly flashed through my mind.
I had seen that bizarre movement before. It belonged to the father of this body. The technique he had shown his young son as a parlor trick, even while lamenting his own limitations.
'Shark-Swimming Technique.'
A technique where acceleration builds progressively with every stride.
However, the human body was too weak to withstand that extreme acceleration; the knees and ankles would shatter first. It was a technique with a clear ceiling—scorned by the clan as a 'perfectly inferior version of Projection Sorcery.'
The blow to my jaw confirmed it. What this thing was using was the Shark-Swimming Technique, born from the residue my father had left behind. Only, because it wasn't bound by a human body, it was performing flawless acceleration, completely ignoring the physical strain!
"I should have caught it and killed it right at the start. And that babbling... it was an 'Opening of the Technique.'"
A Binding Vow to increase output by revealing information to the opponent. I realized it too late. But the moment I perfectly understood the principles of the opponent's technique, a heavy sensation settled atop my crown.
I bent my knees and lowered my center of gravity.
The Cursed Spirit, having reached its peak acceleration, lunged toward me, thinking I had lost my will to fight.
BOOM! THUD!
I didn't dodge.
'I'll endure it... until the moment the wheel turns.'
In the instant my skin burst and my bones were shorn away—
Click!
The wheel above my head finally spun violently.
"Heh... haha."
A laugh mixed with blood burst from between my lips.
Adaptation complete. The trajectory of the creature that had been moving like a blurring madman now appeared in my vision as clearly as if it were standing still. The technique granted me the kinetic vision to perceive its speed and the physical reinforcement to match it.
"I can see everything. Every bit of that pathetic body."
I took a step forward, directly into the Cursed Spirit's flight path.
I snatched it by the waist like a wild beast and, using its own rotational momentum against it, slammed it directly into the concrete floor of the training hall.
CRAAAAASH—!!!