Free Web NovelChapter 340: 340 Jujutsu Kaisen 5
I kept my promise and drove the Talaria campervan to the top of scenic Mount Fuji. Since global warming wasn’t an issue yet, despite it being summer, there was a lot of snow piled up, and the snowy scenery of Mount Fuji was beautiful.
"Wow~ look at the view! It’s amazing up this high!"
Yorozu glued herself to the window, taking in the scenery outside. Uraume looked at her as if she were a complete country girl.
’This one was also amazed at first, and now they act like an experienced veteran?’
I looked at both of them with a sense of pity, then we ate together, and I handed out snacks and drinks.
"Wow~ the snacks and drinks are delicious too!"
"Enough, primitive. I’ll take you home now, so tell me where."
"What? Already? I’ve only been riding for two hours."
"That’s plenty. Just tell me where you live. If not, I’ll just drop you off somewhere random and leave."
"Isn’t that too harsh? If your future wife went through all that trouble to find you, you should give her a meal and a place to sleep!"
"Who said you’re my future wife?"
"Tch! Fine, then take me to the Fujiwara clan in the Aizu domain."
I moved to the ruins of the Fujiwara clan’s castle in the Aizu domain and landed the Talaria. The Fujiwara clan’s private soldiers were initially wary when they saw the Talaria campervan, but relaxed when they saw Yorozu get off.
"We arrived so fast. No wonder it took me so long to find you. Anyway, this is the clan I’m indebted to."
"This clan is also impressive. It couldn’t have been easy accommodating your personality."
"To avoid being devoured by other clans, recruiting the strong is only natural."
Given that it was an era where might came first, it seemed unavoidable. No matter how messed up Yorozu was, if she was strong, they had to recruit her to protect the clan.
"I’m leaving now."
"It’s disappointing, but I can’t help it. I’d like to offer you a meal, but it wouldn’t compare to the food you make, so I won’t. I’ll come find you again, so see you then. By that time, we’ll be closer, right?"
Yorozu looked quite disappointed as I left and said that. But her wish wouldn’t come true. I had obtained everything I could from the Heian period, so I planned to reset now.
Uraume and I got back into the Talaria campervan and moved to a suitable place. Then I ended the leisure life.
[Ending the Jujutsu Kaisen world.]
[Settling rewards.]
[Uraume Bond Level 10]
[Yorozu Bond Level 7]
[Tengen Bond Level 5]
[Ryomen Sukuna Bond Level 4]
[...]
[...]
[You have acquired 12,290 points as rewards for progressing through Jujutsu Kaisen.]
[You can no longer progress the story. Would you like to see the ending?]
As expected, probably because I didn’t progress the story at all, the rewards were small, and since I had disposed of all the major characters, the story could no longer proceed. I thought, ’I’m going to reset anyway, so why bother watching the ending?’, but I was still curious, so I watched it.
["Hachiman and Uraume traveled across Japan in the Talaria campervan for ten years, carrying out their activities. Unable to resist Yorozu’s persistent pursuit and courtship, he eventually accepted her as an assistant, and the three began moving together.
Though Hachiman had no small amount of trouble because of Uraume and Yorozu, who had many moral issues, he ultimately succeeded in educating them so that even if they lived among ordinary people, they would not cause any particular problems.
After Yorozu joined, their activities expanded beyond Japan to the entire world. Hachiman came to be revered as a god not only in Japan but around the world, and his temples, shrines, and altars were built everywhere. Thinking ’this is enough,’ Hachiman disappeared together with Uraume and Yorozu and chose a quiet life."]
"Just as I thought—because all the main characters died, there’s no mention of the others at all."
The flow of history was probably twisted so greatly that the original characters might not even have been born. Because a thousand years is a long time—even a small ripple can become a giant torrent and greatly change the future.
I first ordered the androids not to go to Earth for the time being, as it could be dangerous while I was training. Then I headed to Earth to perform the ritual of taming and practice the Ten Sacred Treasured Spell Technique. I took that measure especially because Mahoraga would likely turn the surrounding area into chaos.
Arriving on Earth, I moved to a wide plain and tried to begin the taming rituals starting with the lower shikigami, excluding Mahoraga. But to be honest, I wasn’t very interested in the other shikigami. The problem was that they were weak. Even if I strengthened them with [Strengthening], I had no idea how strong they would become.
Moreover, shikigami had the disadvantage that once destroyed, they could not be summoned again. So it was easier to just use the shadow soldiers. Shadow soldiers could regenerate and fight infinitely as long as I didn’t cut off their mana. In the end, aside from Mahoraga, I felt the others were garbage if I was just going to summon them to fight.
’Come to think of it, is Mahoraga also garbage? In other works, characters who can erase someone like Mahoraga in one blow are everywhere.’
But there was another way to use the Ten Sacred Treasured Spell Technique, aside from simply using it as summoning.
I first tried summoning the Jade Dogs. Then something interesting happened. The size of the Jade Dogs I summoned was on a completely different level from the size of Megumi’s Jade Dogs in the original. Both of the Jade Dogs I summoned were the size of elephants. It seemed the quality of the shikigami changed depending on the amount of cursed energy the user possessed. And they seemed stronger than I expected.
"Maybe because my expectations were low, but they’re surprisingly decent."
I began taming the others in order, starting with Nue, then Great Serpent, Max Elephant, Toad, Rabbit Escape, Piercing Ox, Round Deer, and Tiger Funeral. As expected, the other shikigami also boasted sizes on a different dimension from Megumi’s. But I had no difficulty taming them. Only Mahoraga remained.
But instead of summoning Mahoraga directly, I tried summoning it incompletely, like Sukuna did, in a form where I deliberately didn’t separate it from the shadow. This way, I could avoid the risk of permanently losing the shikigami if it was completely destroyed. Moreover, once I got used to this method, I could summon and use only the shikigami’s abilities. That was the other way to utilize shikigami.
For example, in the original, Sukuna applied the water-generating ability of the shikigami Max Elephant to continuously generate and compress water in his palm, creating high-pressure water like Piercing Blood and firing it, producing a technique identical to Choso’s "Piercing Blood." Because such applications were possible, Sukuna might have rated the Ten Sacred Treasured Spell Technique as a treasure.
I practiced for a while, focusing on summoning only the parts of the shikigami I needed. Thanks to my [Control] ability, it didn’t take very long.
’It’s about time to summon Mahoraga.’
When practice was over, I tried to summon Mahoraga.
"Furube yurayura..."
I had EX-rank [No Incantation], so I didn’t need to chant a spell, but for summoning Mahoraga, it somehow felt like the right thing to do. Isn’t that what romance is?
Anyway, as soon as I chanted, Mahoraga was summoned from the sky and landed on the ground. Unfortunately, Mahoraga didn’t change even when I summoned him—it seemed he was the same size regardless of who summoned him. As soon as he saw me, he swung the Sword of Exorcism and began to attack.
There was only one thing I wanted to test here: taming Mahoraga with a single technique. That was all. The technique I chose was the Curse Technique ’Palm.’
Truth be told, against Mahoraga with his super-regeneration, the cutting-focused Palm technique would struggle to finish him in one blow. But this was a form of training. I wanted to see what I could do with a single ability. As I said before, there is no absolute.
I clashed with Mahoraga on Earth for half a day. Mahoraga didn’t tire, and thanks to my enormous mana and stamina, neither did I. The surrounding area was already devastated to the point of changing the terrain. Moreover, Mahoraga’s dharma wheel had already rotated completely, finishing its adaptation to the Palm technique. So whenever I used Palm, it would either leave a shallow cut that healed immediately or simply get deflected.
This was what I wanted. To see if I could break the concept of ’absolute’ and win.
Uuuung—!
In my hand was a massive black sphere. I had created it by stacking the Palm technique countless times and adding rotation. It could be called a Rasengan using the Palm technique. I had tried all sorts of attempts to subdue Mahoraga using only the Palm technique, and finally arrived at this method.
"It’s frustrating... If this doesn’t work, there are almost no options left..."
Ignoring whether I was agonizing or not, Mahoraga charged, swinging the Sword of Exorcism. I timed it and struck Mahoraga with the black sphere I had prepared.
KABOOM—!!!
In an instant, Mahoraga collided with the black sphere and his entire body was ground down to the atomic level. In the end, I succeeded in taming Mahoraga using only the Palm technique.
"Ha... This made it clear. There’s no such thing as absolute, but breaking what’s close to it is difficult..."
And I learned something more detailed about Mahoraga: in the face of overwhelming power, adaptation and all that was useless. He had the ability to adapt to all kinds of phenomena, but due to his physical limits, everything became meaningless before overwhelming force.
So no matter how many times I punched him, he would just burst; adaptation did not occur. In other words, Mahoraga could only adapt to phenomena—damage inflicted by pure force is endured solely by his physical performance and regeneration ability.
And while fighting Mahoraga, an interesting idea came to mind. Noting that reinforcing the body with cursed energy was quite similar to martial arts in wuxia, I wondered if cursed energy could also be stored in the dantian. If that were possible, even those with little cursed energy could store it up in normal times and use it during battle, allowing them to use cursed energy more abundantly.
But I had no test subject for that hypothesis. My body was already full of mana, and androids had different bodies from humans.
"Should I test it when I re-enter Jujutsu Kaisen? If I’d thought of this earlier, I could have tried it on Uraume before leaving..."
As I murmured to myself with regret, Uraume suddenly appeared in front of me.
"Huh???!!!"
"Oh? Where is this? I seem to have been moved to an extremely hot place."
Uraume grimaced from the intense sunlight, looking around as he spoke.
"What on earth..."
I was flustered by Uraume’s sudden appearance.
"You—what is your last memory before coming here?"
"That would be delivering that woman named Yorozu to the Fujiwara clan’s castle and moving into the forest. That’s all I remember. I thought you had used some strange technique again, but judging by the situation, that’s not it, is it? Were we forcibly summoned here by someone?"
"Wait. Let me think for a moment."
I considered the reason for this situation. Then I concluded it was because of my [Taming] ability.
[(S) Taming]
Allows taming of living creatures.
Upon success, absolute loyalty can be obtained, and summoning is possible. The stronger the creature, the lower the success rate.
(Success rate is determined in proportion to the ability’s rank and the ability user’s strength.)
It was that part: ’summoning is possible.’ Even though I had ended the leisure life in that world, I never imagined that a creature I had successfully tamed in that world could also be summoned. Probably the ability itself was linked to the leisure life. And from what Uraume said, the moment she was summoned was the exact moment I ended the leisure life.
"Hachiman, is there nowhere to rest? The temperature is so high it’s hard to even breathe..."
Uraume had a point. The temperature on Earth right now would be unbearable for an ordinary human. So I first took out the Talaria campervan and turned the air conditioning to max.
"Phew... Now I can finally catch my breath. In all my life, I’ve never seen a place like this. The heat is intense, the ground is parched and cracked, and all the plants are dead and withered. I imagine the end of the world would look like this."
This one had surprisingly good intuition. The world Uraume was seeing really had ended.
I considered taking him to Altairia (the Starkiller Base) but decided against it. It would become too complicated to explain. So I created a tall, sturdy cliff in front of the Talaria campervan to block the sunlight.
"Let’s live here for a while."
"Hmm... I see. We need to find out why we came here first. At least it’s fortunate that there are plenty of anime."
Uraume misunderstood my words, but explaining was a hassle, so I let it be. And it seemed her mind was already full of thoughts about watching anime here too.
"Come here for a moment."
"Huh? Yes."
Now that Uraume had been summoned, I decided to try creating a dantian inside her body as I had thought.
"Sit here in the posture of a sitting Buddha."
Since this one didn’t know the cross-legged posture from martial arts, I roughly explained it like that and corrected his posture a little. But when it came down to it, I wondered if there was any need to use cursed energy at all. I thought it might be better to create the dantian with positive energy instead. Because it was said that accumulating bad energy in the dantian could affect a person. Moreover, the moment negative energy converts to positive, the amount decreases, which meant the amount that could be stored in the dantian would increase—a double benefit.
So I placed my hand on Uraume’s back and, using the most basic qigong in wuxia, the ’Samjae Gong’ method, I sent positive energy through the small heavenly cycle to create a dantian. I chose Samjae Gong because although it is difficult to accumulate internal energy with it, its stability is superior to any other internal qigong method. It wasn’t about drawing energy from nature like the breathing and energy circulation methods of martial arts—it was a method of storing one’s own cursed energy in the dantian, so stability was more important.
"Th-this is... positive energy is suddenly accumulating in my lower abdomen."
"Do you remember the path I moved the positive energy along?"
"Yes, roughly..."
"’Roughly’ won’t do. I’ll show you again, so remember properly. It won’t be that difficult."
I circulated positive energy through Uraume’s small heavenly cycle once more, showing the path. Because it was a basic energy circulation method, the path was simple, but if done wrong, it could lead to deviation.
"Now you understand? Remember it well. If you circulate along the wrong path, it can become extremely dangerous. Also, once a day, generate as much positive energy as I put in and store it the same way. Once you’re used to it, you can do more."
"But what advantage is there in storing positive energy?"
"You can draw on it when you’re low on cursed energy. You just convert the positive energy back into cursed energy and use it. Or you can use it directly as positive energy."
"Ah, so you’re making a cursed energy storage inside the body."
"Right."
As expected, Uraume had quick understanding, having learned under Sukuna—that was good.
"Remarkable. I never even imagined such a method existed. I thought the amount of cursed energy was something you were born with, but with this method, even someone with little cursed energy could store it up diligently in normal times and use it without shortage when a battle occurs. However, since you need to be able to create positive energy, only somewhat skilled sorcerers could do it."
Uraume analyzed the method I had taught him with an expression as if experiencing a new world.
"Don’t tell anyone else. And keep at it steadily, storing it up. So you can use it in emergencies."
"Understood."
Over several days, I observed her physical condition as Uraume lived. There were no particular abnormalities; rather, a new advantage had appeared. That was physical reinforcement through positive energy. Previously, she reinforced his body with negative energy, but now, by using positive energy in the martial arts manner, her physical abilities had improved beyond their previous level.
Uraume also sparred with me, unable to hide her surprise at her changed physical performance.
"It’s amazing. I feel like I can do anything. And the speed at which I control the movement of cursed energy has increased too."
"That’s a relief."
The experiment was quite successful. I thought this could also be used in the original Jujutsu Kaisen timeline.
"Does this technique have a name?"
"No, it doesn’t. I created it for the first time and taught it to you."
"I see. Then may I name it?"
"Go ahead."
"Then, since the storage place is called the dantian, I think ’Dantian Storage Technique’ would be good."
