Gellius G Gloop: "I can't wait till Adam is able to create his own attacks and skills, it'd be much more interesting than just learning skills from jujutsu teachers.
Something like [Cursed Bellow] which would be an empowered shout, with higher levels maybe it'd be like Danny Phantom's [Ghostly Wail]
Or even techniques similar to [Bala] (Hollow Bullet) or [Cero] (Hollow Flash) from bleach.
I am looking forward to seeing where this story goes. I am a big fan of Systems in stories."
Thank you for the review!
Most of Adam's skills will be general things like the one coming up in this chapter, but I'll for sure be adding unique skills like Adam's cursed tendril more often later in the story! There's a bit more development of the system a bit later on, so I hope you enjoy that when it finally gets uploaded here. (Around 5 weeks, give or take.)
"What…was that?" Adam's eyes narrowed at the visage of his adversary returning to its feet. "That was strong." It added, stumbling forward slightly before another river of blood left its mouth. The boy opened his mouth to answer, but the panel that had always been hanging on the corner suddenly shifted into the center of his vision.
-STATUS-
Name: Adam -
Age: 15
Level: 25
Occupation: Student
Health: 63/210
Cursed Energy: 109/360
Stamina: 26/220
-Stats-
Health: 11
Strength: 10 (8)
Cursed Energy: 36 (30)
Endurance: 14 (12)
Charisma: 6
Unspent points: 95
-Skills-
Cursed energy manipulation [12/100]
Cursed tendril [19/100]
-Inventory-
'That black flash…' Adam's eyes widened at the level of his cursed energy manipulation skill. 'Was this over the course of the battle, or from that one attack? And that's not all…'
-New skill formed! Black Flash [1/100]-
By applying cursed energy within 1 microsecond of a physical strike landing, the user's cursed energy sparks black, creating a force 2.5x that of a normal attack!
It is said that only those who have experienced this phenomenon can truly understand cursed energy, and you are one of those lucky few!
Chance of activating: 0.5%
"It's rather wordy compared to the rest of the descriptions." The white haired boy murmured, ignorant to the curse in front of him staring blankly at the screen.
"What is that?" It sneered, holding up one hand to its mouth to try and stop anymore blood from leaking out. Its opponent, the one who had managed to finally deal some major damage, merely shrugged.
"An old curse of mine." With that simple retort, he waved it away. The panel shifted slightly, its now dark blue borders stretching towards the corner of his vision as he willed. "Let's continue." His hands clenched into tight fists at the same time one of his legs shuffled backwards into a standard fighting stance. Even a curse, one who had barely been alive for a month, could see it was uncomfortable for the boy, something he wasn't used to.
The curse wasn't about to allow him to gather his weapons though, as it shot forward with the force of a raging bull; just like said animal, its horns were poised to spear the boy.
Adam slipped to the side, snapping one of his hands towards the spirit's horns and latching on tightly. With a loud grunt of exertion, he tugged. Like a dried out branch, the appendage snapped off at the root and was quickly thrown away as Adam slipped backwards to dodge a backhand punch.
"Stay still!" Its composure thoroughly broken, the spirit roared in anger while swinging wildly towards its opponent. Adam raised his hands to guard, blocking a punch that threatened to shatter the bones of anyone unprepared; the force caused him to slide backwards, giving him enough time to dodge to the side and avoid the spirit's grapple attempt by dropping to the ground.
From the floor, Adam threw out his leg to try and sweep his opponent, only for the spirit to leap over the foot and try to slam one of its feet onto his chest. A quick shift in position allowed Adam to slip out of the way and slide through the spirit's legs.
Before the spirit could turn around, Adam threw out a sweeping kick towards its torso. The bridge of his foot slammed into the spirit's forearm in a shower of black sparks, forcing them both away from each other.
Chance of activating: 1%
"What are you doing?! What are these attacks!?" Adam laughed darkly at the spirit's confusion, not bothering to note how it was getting more used to human language.
"Even something like you, a being created out of cursed energy made from our own negative emotions, doesn't understand?" Adam rushed forward with a fist reared back, forcing the spirit to raise its guard. As if he'd seen the future, the white haired boy threw his punch short, using the momentum from the attack to spin around and slam his heel into the cursed spirit's thigh. A cry of pain escaped the creature's throat as its joints were thrown out of place, "this is the power of humanity!"
With a hand wrapped around its remaining antler, Adam slammed his knee into the spirit's nose. The sound of wood splintering echoed throughout the battlefield as Adam followed through with a flip, throwing the creature over his shoulder like a bag of garbage; its remaining antler snapped off from the force behind the attack, leaving its head completely ornament-less as it tumbled across the dirt.
A loud crash caused the ground to reverberate in a destructive symphony as the cursed spirit hit the concrete border surrounding the construction site. Knowing the fight wasn't over, Adam began to walk forward.
In a crater the shape of its own body, the spirit convulsed. A tremor brought about from the depths of its own body formed by something begging to escape. Something resurfaced itself in the depths of the vengeful spirit's revenge clouded mind, a memory of before.
'A sign, something he made himself while reading a news report.'
Another convulsion, one strong enough to bounce it from the stone coffin it had been embedded in.
'Ignoring the security warnings, because he was there for something more important.'
Its hands raised into the air before limply falling back down to the ground.
'Somebody's mistake, they didn't check where they were driving.'
With a raise of its head, it caught sight of a demonic figure approaching, one with white hair and red eyes.
'A loud crunch of bone echoing from a frame none other than his own.'
Instinctively, what should have been useless limbs lifted in front of its torso. Palms clasped together with fingers interlocked, each one crisscrossing over the other except for the middle pair, which were stuck pointing to the sky.
'Stitch marks across someone's forehead, offering a gift.'
Gojo smirked, leaving his blindfold down for a few moments while he watched his newest student beat down his opponent. "Are you ready, Ijichi?" Said man had both of his hands clasped onto the ground tightly, cursed energy surrounding them in a faint mist of blue light.
"Yes sir, whenever you are." Gojo hummed in acknowledgement before waltzing over to Ijichi's car and taking a seat on the hood.
"Good, hold that position. I'm going to see if my cute little students can pull through on their own." The white haired man replied cheerfully, much to Ijichi's chagrin. He doubted the man had any idea on how much he spent on chiropractic every year for stunts like this. It wasn't like he could change positions either, since he had to keep both palms placed in order to be able to remove the veil at any moment.
In between short breaths, Ijichi managed to speak. "You said the spirit's energy increased suddenly, what happened?"
"Hmm, well if I had to take a guess, it split up Megumi and Adam, leaving its shikigami to take on Megumi while it fought Adam itself." Gojo mulled over his words for a few moments before continuing, "I guess it didn't take into account their separate abilities, because it gave both of them a playing field that was perfect for their strengths. Either way, Megumi spent quite a bit of energy taking on the shikigami before tearing off the talisman that spawned them, which had been infused with the spirit's energy."
"And the remaining energy made its way back to the main body?" Ijichi theorized out loud, earning a confirmation from his white haired superior. "You don't sound worried though, so I guess Adam is doing well?"
Gojo held up his hand in a shaky motion, the universal gesture for so-so. "The cursed spirit hasn't used much of that extra energy, but Adam managed to put it on the back ropes with a black flash." A cheeky grin spread over the man's face when he spotted Ijichi's shocked expression. "I know, right? This generation really is something special. First it was Todo Aoi, then Hakari Kinji, then Okkotsu Yuta, then Megumi, and now even Adam. These kids, they're really crazy." A few chuckles escaped his throat before his mouth suddenly clamped down.
"Sir?" Ijichi twisted his neck in order to look at his superior, and froze in fright as he saw Gojo's worried expression.
"Open that barrier, now." Ijichi didn't need a second warning, removing the tight grasp he'd held over the switch in his mind that controlled the veil. The milky substance slowly began to sink into the ground from the top down, meaning they'd have to wait for a few moments for it to be fully down.
On the other side of the construction site, Fushigoro held a tightly clasped hand around his forearm. When the harsh light of the veil suddenly began to shower him in heat, his head snapped up. "Ijichi's dropping it?" A panicked look crossed his face as he felt the radiating aura of the cursed spirit Adam had been fighting revitalize.
Its aura was so dense he couldn't even sense his classmate's within its hold. 'Th-This isn't the power of a grade 2 curse!' Beads of sweat began trickling down the back of his neck as he heard the two words that would surely haunt any low grade sorcerer. 'I don't have enough cursed energy to summon something, and I can't make it in time!' Fushigoro's feet tripped over each other as he began to sprint down the trail towards the construction site. 'Please, let me make it!' His hand reached out towards the concrete barrier that he had been thrown through not 30 minutes prior. Just when he thought he was within range, a familiar tar colored substance cut off his track.
Adam frowned as he continued his march towards his foe. It hadn't moved in nearly 30 seconds, but it clearly wasn't dead; its horrifying presence still lingered in the air, forcing any weaker sorcerers to their knees.
When the dust began to settle, Adam sped up his march into a sprint, recognizing something was clearly wrong. Unlike before, where its cursed energy had slowly been draining, this time it was increasing! Not to a small degree either, as it uttered those two words, Adam felt as if he was staring down an endless abyss of negative emotions.
"Domain expansion: Children's limbo."
Before he could react, a black veil and the sounds of rushing water covered his senses. In an instant, what was once a barren field of dirt and stones had changed into a long stream filled with reeds. Lush, green grass covered either side of the water, only separated by a thin barrier of polished stones.
The visages of houses in the distance were blurry and unfocused, like they didn't truly exist or were put there as an afterthought; just based on the architecture, it was obvious to anyone that they were of Japanese descent. Just barely recognizable but unable to be fully described, they sat in a reserved section of the uncanny valley belonging to psychological horror. Of course, the spirit in front of him was more along the lines of body horror, but Adam didn't sweat the specifics as he settled into his fighting stance a final time.
'Domains, the pinnacle of jujutsu sorcery. I don't know what the rules of this one are, if there are any; what even is this spirit's cursed technique?' Adam's eyes trailed the river once again, searching for any sign of the spirit that was once right in front of him. 'It disappeared as soon as the barrier was cast, and I can't sense its body because of all the energy in here!' Something he hadn't noticed before were the stone piles. Tall towers, up to about hip height, were made of smoothed over stones taking from the river bank; and with a sudden gust of wind, one of them was blown over.
In the next moment, two things occurred. First, the cursed spirit reappeared, holding its domain hand sign tightly in front of it while kneeling over; Second, a large red ogre burst out from the reeds holding a spiked mace over its head. Its deep crimson skin stretched over its 7 meter tall frame like a leather textured bedsheet, crumpling up on either side of its cheekbones due to the sneer it held. Two dagger length horns protruded from either side of its head, acting as what one could only assume as a warning to others. Its torn up leather tunic barely did it any favors in a fashion aspect, giving off the air of a barbarian who'd fought through a dozen battles before arriving at its latest; before Adam could recognize any other features, it swung its weapon down with a thunderous roar.
The boy's legs easily carried him out of the way, allowing the weapon to slam into the bottom of the stream with a loud thwack. The sound alone was terrifying, promising death for any of those hit by the source of it, but the physical tremors spelt something even worse for the young student; behind him, just 10 meters out, two more towers fell down.
"Shit!" Fushigoro yelled, his body hitting the ground in the form of an exhausted heap. Loud, deep breaths began to fill the vacuum in his lungs that had formed as a result of his unplanned anaerobic exercise. After lying on the ground for several moments, he felt a heavy pat on his back. Cracking his eyes open for barely a moment, he recognized his teacher's form standing over him. "Are you alright, Megumi?" His face was hardened, but that didn't stop worry from trickling into his voice.
Gojo's student groaned loudly while pushing himself onto his feet. "A-Adam." He said in between breaths, "he's trapped in there." With his limited knowledge of domains, he didn't have a good solution for helping the boy escape; instead he looked to his mentor, someone who was an expert on the subject.
"I think we underestimated this one." The white haired man shook his head with a frown. "They've inverted the rules of their domain. Weak on the inside, strong on the outside." As if to explain, he walked up to the edge of the barrier and placed his hand against it, exerting enough pressure for nearby shrubs to fly away. Gojo continued to apply force for several more moments before ceasing, allowing the winds he kicked up to return to their natural path.
"But you could still break it though, right?" Fushigoro asked hesitantly, Gojo shrugged, taking a few steps back.
"Definitely, but it will take me a bit of time. I can't risk expanding my own domain in case I catch Adam with it." The man's hand raised to his face, two fingers hooking under the blindfold he'd removed once prior in the day.
Fushigoro sighed, glaring at the pitch black screen in front of him. "He can hold out."
"Against a first grade spirit's domain? Maybe. We don't know what sort of domain it has though, so it could be a lethal sure hit style." Gojo theorized, dragging his blindfold further down until it was hanging around his neck. "Stand back, I'm going to prepare to bust a hole in this thing. You go to the car." Fushigoro obliges, slowly shuffling around the edge of the veil while his teacher prepares to destroy it.
'You better not die, we still have a shikigami to subjugate.' Even if those plans were thoroughly impossible, Fushigoro couldn't think of anything better to say.
Adam leapt into the air to avoid another mace strike; with a quick swipe, he grasped onto a separate oni's mace mid swing and vaulted over it. When the third one came in for its own attack, Adam raised a fist and met the weapon with his own attack. Sparks of black showered the entire area in particles of discarded light as Adam's fist smashed through the oni's weapon.
Chance of activating: 2%
Unfortunately, the recoil from the impact sent the oni tumbling into another tower of rocks, meaning he'd have another threat to deal with. Adam rolled to a stop on the riverbank, but was forced back into the air in order to dodge a mace strike from his new foe. 'There's four so far, and I can see two more towers right now. That means 6 enemies if I knock down the rest, which would definitely not be ideal.' He was already at the end of his rope simply dodging and counter attacking against the numerous foes he'd summoned thus far, so two more added to the mix would definitely be the quickest way to meet an early grave.
'But that one still hasn't moved.' Adam's eyes traced the figure of his original enemy, the deer headed humanoid that had opened the barrier. 'A restriction for the barrier? Or maybe it's recuperating a bit so it can launch a full assault once the last two towers fall.' Sensing another attack, Adam twisted in the air in order to meet the mace of another oni with a kick. Without a black flash amping up his power, he barely knocked the weapon out of the way of his body. 'These things are relatively brainless though, only ever swinging and growling like feral animals.'
Adam hastily put his hands up in a cross guard in order to block the next attack, but the force behind it alone sent him rocketing into one of the remaining stone towers. Realizing his course, he threw his hands towards the oni's mace and attached dozens of cursed tendrils to it.
Utilizing the elasticity behind his attack, Adam flew straight back towards the oni with the speed of a bullet. With his foot stuck straight out, he slammed his heel into the face of the beast; it recoiled backwards in pain, but any injuries it should've had were repaired instantly. 'There's that too, they're immortal for as long as this barrier is up.' Instinctively, he leapt backwards into the air, just in time for another oni to slam its mace into its breatherens face.
Adam sighed loudly while flipping through the air, holding out both of his hands as his senses honed in on his cursed energy. Dozens of threads began to unfurl from his skin, each one barely licking the surface of his body before they shot out to the surrounding area around the progenitor of the domain. 'I was too scared of the shikigami before, I just need to stay focused on that.' With a loud yell, Adam tugged his arms backwards, launching him towards the cursed spirit.
Realizing its predicament, the curse's head shot up, eyes focused on the approaching boy's form. In an instant, its hands broke away from the sign they had formed, causing all of the shikigami within the domain to dissipate. "So that's how it works! You almost had me believing you were strong!" Adam taunted, his boots slamming into the ground with a giant splash, barely missing the curse that had leapt to the side before the attack landed. "Without your hand sign up, you can't summon those demons! This is basically a glorified stage change!" Droplets of water flew into the air as Adam rushed forward, throwing a punch towards the spirit. It barely raised its arms to guard, throwing the arm away and going for a returning attack towards the boy's stomach.
The curse growled in fury as Adam slipped to the side and grabbed onto the offending arm, using the spirit's momentum against it. "I barely have any training in hand to hand combat, but it's certainly more useful than your lack of it!" Adam kicked out one of his legs, hoping to trip his enemy up, but the spirit threw a punch with its other arm which forced Adam to back off.
From the cracks within its skull, toxic green blood began to trickle down the surface of its body. With a guttural scream, it ran forward and shoved a fist towards Adam's face, only to have it redirected as Adam twirled around and slammed his knee into the creature's liver. The pint's worth of blood it choked up was washed away by the stream it had created, its sputtering only serving as another opportunity for Adam to prepare another attack.
A screech of terror escaped its throat as Adam's eyes glowed brighter than ever before. "Clench your teeth, asshole!" Unknowingly slipping into English, Adam threw his fist forward, his entire body weight shifting behind it as his cursed energy surged. "Black flash!"
Chance of activating: 4%
Knuckles hit bone as Adam's fist connected with the goat skull that made up the curse's head. Shards of flaky bone exploded from the curse's head, showering the area in a fog of powdered calcium; in the same instant, the sound of shattering glass echoed across the battlefield.
The curse's body was flung over a dozen meters, constantly rolling and folding over itself like a tumbleweed in an old western movie. Behind Adam, Gojo stood with his hands outstretched, having blown through the barrier at the same time his student's attack had landed. The remaining parts of the barrier were blasted away as the curse's body smashed through and continued rolling across the dirt.
From the clouds being created by the curse's tumble, flakes of ashy residuals scattered through the air. There was no satisfying impact against the far walls of the site, the curse's body had long since unraveled into millions of those black specks before it even got close to the edge; one singular thing remained, a maroon cylinder shaped object with the texture of leather.
Adam squinted at the object, trying to ascertain its origins from afar, only for Gojo to push him away. "Go say hi to Megumi, he was worried." His words were warm, despite the calculating look on his face. Adam quickly nodded, beginning to jog away before his instructor called out one last time. "Good work, Adam."
The boy's smile was almost blinding as he shot his teacher a thumbs up before resuming his jog. Gojo stayed behind, not bothering to quicken his pace as he approached the remaining object the curse had left behind. 'You have no idea how lucky you are, Adam. If this guy had tapped into the potential of this object properly, you would've been dead the second it appeared.' With a melancholic expression, Gojo pocketed the cursed object away for safe keeping. 'One of Sukuna's fingers, lucky find.' Despite mentioning the king of curses, mental or otherwise, Gojo plastered a wide grin on his face as he began to walk back towards Ijichis car.
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