That guest lol: "Holiday chapters!? WOHO! Yes please!
Honestly, after that description of the "shine curse" at the end I feel really excited and worried for Adam tomorrow, next chapter. Guess we'll wait a bit and see~~
(Btw how you always answer the comments at the beginning of every chapter is absolutely awesome and appreciated 3)"
I'm glad to see you're invested; I hope the mission lives up to the hype! I'm not sure if you're in America or not, but if you are, it won't even be the next day before you get the next chapter!
Answering comments is no big deal; and it's not like I answer all of them. Ones on older chapters aren't answered in the chapters unless it's something funny or important; but even then, I usually just reply to the important ones with a private message.
melone71009: "Thank you truly"
No problem! Keep thanking me like that though, and my ego might carry me into a ceiling fan!
MacaroonLover: Gamer skill idea: Lagging.
(Think like bro making an afterimage to trick opponents or making attacks lag...)"
That could be fun! I'll keep the idea in mind if/when Iforce Adam to create a movement based skill (slight spoiler you won't understand until like chapter 19).
"You still haven't put in those stat points, have you?" Adam looked towards his teacher with a curious stare. "You probably should, this will be your toughest fight yet after all."
"Wait, wait, wait, I was against him even coming to watch you exorcize the curse, but now you're telling me he's going to fight it?!" Ijichi exclaimed, his grip over the steering wheel within his hands tightening to the point where his knuckles glowed white.
"You thought I'd be watching?" Adam asked in surprise.
"Of course! It'd be an amazing learning experience for any sorcerer who was getting in over their heads!" Ijichi replied loudly, the ever-present worry in his voice only becoming more obvious with every word spoken.
"You think I'm getting in over my head?" Adam replied with a slight frown.
"Alright, alright, let's calm down." Gojo held up his hands pleadingly, waiting several moments for the other occupants to calm down before continuing. "Adam, you should put in those stat points now. I recommend speccing in some more health and cursed energy, but endurance could also do you some good; anything besides charisma." Gojo's head tilted towards the driver. "Ji, I'm the superior here. I think he's ready, so I've offered to take him on this mission. End of story."
Ijichi grumbled silently in his seat before making a slightly rougher than usual turn to get onto the dirt track that led up to their destination. "I'm thankful you're worried, Ijichi, but I'll be fine." Adam supplemented in an attempt to calm the man down; it ended up having the opposite effect as his grip tightened even further. With a quiet sigh, Adam enabled the visual mode on his cursed technique.
Name: Adam -
Age: 15
Level: 29/40
Occupation: Player (+10 Charisma)
Health: 450/450
Cursed Energy: 400/400
Stamina: 450/450
-Stats-
Health: 35/200
Strength: 24/200
Cursed Energy: 40/200
Endurance: 35/200
Charisma: 16/200 (6)
Unspent points: 42
-Skills-
[5/20 slots filled]
Cursed energy manipulation [14/100]
Cursed tendril [23/100]
Black flash [7/100]
Cursed Stitching [7/100]
Cursed tendril; Firework [1/100]
-Inventory-
[0/5 slots filled]
'Still sucks that I can't use the inventory.' Adam groaned mentally, sending a look at his golf bag next to him. The inventory was another one of those things that Adam could only access upon reaching 'Prestige 1', the only other function falling under that category being the expansion to the stat page in the top right corner. In the same vein sat the other few functions he was supposedly missing out on, if Gojo's theory was to be believed.
One was locked behind 'Prestige 2' on the top left of his stat page, while the bottom right and left corners were locked behind 'Prestige 3' and 'Prestige 4' respectively. If his teacher was to be believed once again, each one would be better than the last. There was also the possibility that each extension he'd receive would also have extensions of their own, though that couldn't be proven until he actually accessed one of them.
With a huff, Adam began to insert his points as he wanted. He planned to put 20 into health, which would bring it to 55, but was stopped once it reached 50 by a new popup.
[Health stat has reached level 50!]
[New skills can now be unlocked!]
Adam frowned before raising his hand and tapping on Gojo's shoulder, bringing the man out of his conversation with Ijichi. "Is something wrong, Adam?" With a flick of his wrist, his cursed technique flipped around to face Gojo, allowing him to read the new text.
"Do you have any idea what this means?" Adam gestured to the screen and Gojo nodded in response.
"I think this means you could've gained way more skills before if you had met the stat requirements to unlock them; but then that also means skills actually have stat requirements." The man put a hand to his chin in thought, something Adam replicated. "Is there a way you can check them? You've already clicked on their names for details, so what happens if you press again?"
"Alright, let me finish putting in my stat points and then I'll check." Adam flipped the panel around once again, putting the final 5 into his health before inserting another 10 into his cursed energy, which resulted in a similar popup to before. The final 12 were placed into strength, bringing it up to 36, 14 away from its skill requirement. Once he was satisfied with his new investments, Adam did as he was told and double clicked on one of his skills.
-Cursed tendril [23/100]-
[1 CE, Cursed Energy Manipulation skill.]
Adam's first skill created by cursed energy. It's a simple thread of cursed energy that can be used as a rope or grappling tool.
There are no potential evolutions for this skill.
"You were right, Blindfold." Adam reported swiftly. "My cursed tendril skill required me to have 1 point in cursed energy and the cursed energy manipulation skill. That skill only required a point in cursed energy though, and no other skills." The boy explained, earning an appreciative nod from his mentor.
"Right, that makes sense." Gojo was about to speak again before Ijichi suddenly stopped the vehicle. "Are we there?" Gojo asked, receiving a nod in return before Ijichi unlocked his door and began to walk towards the temple to set up the veil. "He's in a bad mood."
"Oh, I couldn't tell." Adam replied sarcastically before opening his door and leaving the vehicle. Gojo huffed in mock annoyance at the boy's sass before clapping his hands to teleport out of the vehicle and catch up to the two.
The dirt road they'd been traveling on suddenly stopped after a certain point, instantly transitioning into well worn stone bricks with moss permeating every edge they shared. "You weren't kidding when you said this place was abandoned." Ijichi hummed in agreement to Adam's statement, quietly chanting the required words before placing his hands on the ground. "Come on, Ijichi, I'll be fine." The boy assured, earning a glare from the auxiliary manager kneeled next to him.
"I think that's what he means." Gojo said, causing the other two in his party to turn towards him. "You need to be careful, stay on guard at all times. I'll be there to help, sure, but this is also your mission." He stepped up to his student's side and patted him on the head.
Adam huffed quietly before escaping the man's grasp. "I know that." With those final words, Ijichi lowered the veil he'd set up and began to make his way back to his car, uttering a plethora of silent prayers for the student he'd grown slightly fond of.
On the inside of the barrier, both Gojo and Adam had begun to move towards the temple grounds. The two large wooden doors that once barred outsiders from entering had long since been splintered and destroyed by the curses taking residence within the area. Beyond the worn stone pathways leading between different areas of the temple were elaborate patterns of white round stones, surprisingly well kept considering that extended period they hadn't been maintained for.
"I sense two, one smaller one and one larger." Adam reported diligently.
"Right, I'll head to the larger one while you go towards the other." Gojo responded calmly.
"There is…a thread going between the two of them, do you think it could be a part of its cursed technique?" Gojo nodded at his student's question before beginning to walk towards the larger presence in the area. Adam walked in the opposite direction, heading towards one of the back corners of the temple grounds.
'Adam needs to work on being more honest.' Gojo thought tiredly. Emotional stuff was never his strong point; he preferred to stick to things like training and education, skills he could actually learn and master. 'If he'd stop bottling things up, he'd have a far easier time getting along with others.' He remembered Kusakabe's words regarding the boy, and the way he called him 'weird' and 'bat-shit crazy'; it wasn't malicious, of course, but it was clear to anyone he'd rather spend his time training a brick wall than the boy.
Gojo's feet shuffled from solid stone to uneven rock in the blink of an eye, a detail that only clicked in the back of his mind as he continued to walk closer to his objective. 'His arrogance is definitely adding to that image, but I can't tell if it's a front or not to hide his fear. Did I succeed in making him more cautious for this mission? Or did he ignore me and is currently walking around like he owns the place? I can't tell.' Gojo's eyes drifted up towards the spirit standing in front of him, something in the back of his mind clicking the moment covered eyes met freakishly beady ones. 'Another one of Sukuna's fingers.'
If he counted the one in front of him as something under their possession, that would mean 7 of Ryomen Sukuna's fingers were now within the higher up's grasp. With a quiet sigh, Gojo raised one of his hands and prepared to summon a strengthened form of his limitless technique to soften it up a bit before letting Adam fight.
The spirit seemed to notice his intentions as it suddenly shifted out of the way and began to fly through the air towards the other end of the temple. Gojo blinked owlishly under his mask, before focusing his senses on the spirit's current path; it was traveling perfectly along the thread Adam had noticed before they split, and therefore was flying towards the boy at that very moment.
'I suppose I can let him fight it at full strength for a moment before swooping in.' Gojo thought with a small smile. His raised hand met the palm of his other hand as he folded space between his current position and his desired location, that being the top of the main shrine building.
Adam glared at the fox statue in front him, his eyes meeting black stony ones for several moments in a pointless tug of war before the boy huffed and began to turn away. 'There was no second spirit, just a statue charged with energy.' His hand shifted backwards, grabbing onto the handle of his spear before the tool suddenly flicked into his other hand as he spun around to face the statue he'd previously walked away from. One of his feet slid forward, kicking several rounded rocks out of the way as he raised his weapon behind his ear in a throwing position. 'But just to be safe.' In the next instant the spear left his hand as he chucked it towards the statue with perfect form.
The tip of the blade met one of the fox's eyes before the rest of its body exploded in a shower of gray dust. Much to the boy's amazement, a dark shadow appeared within the cloud like it had been summoned to protect the caricature of God's chosen messenger.
It had 4 arms, 2 sprouting from the sides of its torso while another pair hung lazily over its shoulders from their origin at the blade. Black tattoos curled around its skin like restraining bands, contrasting greatly with the pale white skin that was stretched over its figure. Its mouth was almost comically large, with thick purple lips covering up the planklike stained teeth rooted within its clearly defined jaw.
A pair of black spines were connected to either side of the spirit's mouth, each one connecting to the back of its head like a grotesque muzzle. 8 eyes were littered across its face, appearing as if they were haphazardly slapped on as a second thought. Each one of those beady black balls focused intently on the sorcerer in front of them; not a single thought laid behind their form, only instincts screaming at it to feast upon the ones that had entered its domain. Adam's eyes narrowed dangerously as he sensed the buildup of cursed energy beginning to occur; he couldn't have even hoped to react physically as the technique reached its breaking point and activated.
Its 'chord', the one that was once connected to the statue, shot out and connected to the boy's body, the strength of his reinforcement allowing the curse to move almost instantaneously as it reared one of its pale fists back and socked him right across the face. The sorcerer growled in pain as he tumbled across the ground, only stopping once he successfully rolled to his feet once again.
Adam's hand shot out to his right, a thick tendril of cursed energy wrapping around the hilt of his spear in order to pull it towards him before he was suddenly punched again from behind. He tumbled across the ground once again, thankful for the cursed energy he'd used to reinforce his body. Adam felt his spear touch his palm before he quickly stabbed it into the ground to stop him from sliding backwards and to break the curse's line of sight. 'Is it just that fast? Or is it a cursed technique? Does it rely on sight?' His mind ran a million miles a minute as he supercharged his muscles once again in order to prepare for an attack.
Faster than before, the curse appeared behind him with a pair of fists raised. Adam yelled in surprise before he was punched in the back of the head and the spine simultaneously, the force behind the attack once again sending him rolling across the stone garden painfully. His defenses raised again, allowing the spirit to appear behind him with a foot raised.
Adam's eyes widened as he saw the pale white foot flying towards his face. His body reacted on instinct as it rolled out of the way of the way and back onto his feet. He raised his spear, cursed energy pouring through his muscles as the cursed spirit appeared behind him once again with a wide smile on its face.
That smile immediately dropped as it found a spear head sticking through the right side of its torso, the extra prong on its right side finding its way straight into its stomach. A hiss of pain escaped its throat as it followed through with its attempted attack and tried to punch off Adam's head. The boy ducked forward to avoid the attack, rolling forward before suddenly pivoting around and kicking out one of his feet, causing the spear to be pushed even further into the spirit's stomach with a sickening squelch.
Adam sprung onto his feet with a smirk, sliding one of his feet back to get into a fighting stance he'd been practicing. He'd found it more and more common as of late that he'd be left weaponless mid fight, and had begun to train more in hand to hand combat along with Fushigoro; he wasn't great yet, but it would be enough to fight an inexperienced person or a freshly born curse.
Unfortunately, the boy was fighting neither of these things. Despite his spear's cursed technique activating, the spirit didn't budge in the slightest. Two of its hands reached down, wrapping tightly around the handle before roughly tugging it out of its body; a pair of jagged, blade shaped marks were left behind as the spirit threw the weapon far out of Adam's reach.
A bead of sweat trickled down the boy's face as he saw the first injuries he'd finally inflicted upon his enemy resealed themselves barely moments after being created. "You're kidding me…" Adam whispered, a breathless laugh escaping his throat, "that's just unfair."
The spirit disappeared from his vision, appearing immediately behind the boy before an elbow was shoved into its chest. "Or it would be, if you weren't so predictable." Adam corrected, twisting his body to line up for a devastating roundhouse kick. Before the hit could land, the spirit disappeared, causing Adam to instead use his attacking leg as a pivot point as soon as it hit the ground.
His boot loudly scrunched on the ground as Adam twisted his body once more in the blink of an eye, transforming his failed roundhouse kick into a perfect side one. Before his leg could reach the spirit's torso however, two pale hands wrapped around his leg and dragged it to the side.
Adam's eyes widened as he was pulled straight into a pair of full power punches courtesy of the spirit's second pair of arms; one dug straight into his cheekbone, while the other slammed squarely in his ribs. The boy let out a grunt of pain, followed by a loud yell as a third punch landed on his face as he hit the ground.
'This isn't looking good…but he can handle it.' Gojo pushed the uneasy thoughts out of his mind, choosing to instead have faith that his student would pull through. He watched as more and more punches rained down across the boy's body, with the spirit's own hands looking as if they'd received injuries from the amount of blood covering them. 'He can handle it.' Gojo assured himself, ignoring the hypocrisy of his actions.
He'd told his student to be careful, and that he'd be there if anything seemed off, but there he was, watching as his newest student was beaten into a bloody pulp by a special grade cursed spirit. He was so focused on the outcome of the fight that he barely noticed the events happening at that exact moment. 'I'll wait just a bit longer…just a bit…'
'The moment my concentration slips…' Adam's thoughts couldn't coalesce into a full form before they were punched out of him by the curse standing over his body. His jaw had broken from the second punch on his face, and his nose was cracked by the third; each fist felt like a hammer against his body as they slammed against his skin. But it was for that exact reason that he noticed something; they were getting slower.
'Its cursed technique must be…' The punches began to slow down even further, but the pain only grew. Adam dropped his reinforcements completely, sacrificing all of his defense in order to test his theory. When another punch came down, Adam raised his hand in the way and caught it, growling in pain as the back of his hand knocked into his pulverized ribs.
'The more cursed energy that lies within something, the faster it can move!' Adam's legs tucked in, before suddenly shooting towards the spirit's neck. Despite the grapple attempt, it only continued to throw blood soaked fists into its target's body. Adam used his unoccupied hand to push himself off of the ground, bringing him even closer to his target. 'If it has no space to move, then I can win!' Adam's desperate thoughts pushed him forward as he locked the back of his legs behind the spirit's neck and pulled himself up. Utilizing all of the strength in his body, he flicked his head forward, slamming the top of it into the spirit's face.
"Adam!" Distantly, Adam heard his teacher shouting for his name. He tried to reel his head back for another headbutt, but his body refused to answer him.
'Shit…I used all of my energy for that last one.' A wet cough escaped the boy's throat as the spirit began to smile in glee. Crimson life fluid drenched the creature's pores, painting its pale white skin a light red color as Adam's blood trickled down its skin. He coughed several more times, each one causing more blood to spill out of his throat. '...can't feel anything below my neck…' Unlike the searing pain that had overcome his body moments before, now everything just felt cold; still, his legs remained locked behind the spirit's head and his core continued to flex itself. 'Just one more, that'll surely be enough.' Adam's head tilted downwards in a vain attempt to attack, his eyes barely recognizing the sight in front of him; when they did, they widened to an almost impossible degree in horror.
Blood drenched skin covered in thick black rings around the joints, barely visible from their position within his torso. The spirit chuckled darkly as it pulled its fist out of the boy's stomach, pulling out a thin, meaty cord along with it. Despite the grievous injury afflicted upon him, the boy still seemed determined not to let it leave his range.
Adam opened his mouth again, but instead of blood coming out, a thread spun to life. 'Just one more…and then I can finish this…' He thought tiredly, forcing the cursed energy within his body to swirl and mold together into his desired form. Navy colored energy twisted and turned upon itself, only a thin point jutting out of one end signifying it was an attack of any kind.
The curse almost seemed to laugh as its eyes squinted slightly. It let the attack land, allowing the thread to pierce through its face without a care in the world. The lack of power behind the technique stopped it from piercing straight through, also allowing the curse to easily heal over the injury before using its strength to slam the boy into the ground.
A quiet crack echoed across the battlefield as Adam's head made impact with the floor. The curse let out a hollow, warped chuckle as it tore the boy's legs away from its neck and turned towards its next foe, a very, very, angry Gojo Satoru.
Meanwhile,
"You have died."
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