11 Happy Birthday to Me! [Revised]

11:58 PM - Raining

"Happy birthday to me! Happy birthday to me! Happy birthday to Dango! Happy birthday to me!"

In a room that was dimly lit by a burning candle, Dango was sitting in the center. He managed to find a candle that would allow him to experience a birthday once again.

11:59 PM

The last time he celebrated his birthday was before the war started. If it weren't for the mission, he wouldn't have bothered celebrating his birthday again. Hex was hanging on his shoulders, attracted by the fiery light.

It was nearly midnight as Dango tried to sync the Birthday Song with the mission completion alert. He wanted it to be like a gift. However, he kept failing to get the timing correct. Only after singing it three more times did the expected alert appear, although it appeared just as he sang his name.

12:00 AM

=====

[Mission: Innate Cursed Technique]

Description: Innate Cursed Techniques are supernatural powers engraved into a sorcerer when they are born. They usually manifest around the age of five or six. Survive long enough to manifest your own innate technique!

Progression: 5/5 Stay alive for five years after your birth

Reward: Innate Cursed Technique Manifestation, 25 CC, Book about Cursed Energy Manipulation

=====

[Rank-Up Mission: ...]

=====

'Don't care.'

=====

[Innate Cursed Technique: Dungeon Formation]

Description: A technique that allows you to construct pocket realms out of raw negativity or your cursed energy. This technique works differently based on how you construct the realms, be careful.

=====

'Wha? Dungeon Formation? Am I in a VRMMO? Reminds me of the video game genre for webnovels. Agh!'

Out of nowhere, Dango felt intense pain. It was the first time he felt such pain as [Empty Vessel] increased his pain tolerance.

His head felt a throbbing pain as if someone was pounding it with a hammer. At the same time, he heard thousands, millions of voices all speaking to him at the same time.

There was a searing pain within his chest causing him to struggle with breathing. He thought his heart was spinning in overdrive as if it didn't care if it was attached to anything.

The rest of the body had a prickling sensation as if there were thousands of needles digging into him. For some reason, Dango didn't recognize his body as his during the pain.

It was like someone was forcefully carving the innate cursed technique into his mind, soul, and body. As he was in pain, information was being transmitted to Dango that instructed him how to construct the realms, either from his cursed energy or raw negative emotions.

After a few minutes, the pain stopped and disappeared as if it never existed in the first place. With it gone, Dango fell to the ground, taking in deep breaths as his eyes showed clarity, understanding, as well as confusion.

Seeing that Hex was staring at him with worry, Dango sat up and started to pat the spirit's head.

"I'm okay now. Sorry for making you worry."

As he was comforting Hex, he started to think about the circumstances of his technique's manifestation. He didn't believe for a second every jujutsu sorcerer would suffer when they first manifest their cursed technique. It didn't seem so in the story.

'Is this really my cursed technique?'

While deep in thought, he felt something off about his body. As he inspected his body with cursed energy, his eyes widened as he realized the body was passively absorbing something.

Looking into it further, he found out that his body was absorbing the nearby negativity just like Hex! He 'watched' how it flowed into his heart. When all the negativity entered the heart, his head started to buzz for a moment.

When the buzzing stopped, Dango felt a sliver of cursed energy left the heart and joined together with the rest of the CE.

[Cursed Energy: 4,245] >> [Cursed Energy: 4,249]

'What the? I'm converting negative emotions into cursed energy, whoa! This is the first time I've felt the process. Did this change only because of my cursed technique manifesting, or due to the pain?'

Dango was still amazed by the discovery that he continued to pet Hex aimlessly. Only when it whacked his hand away did Dango wake up from his daze.

He smiled at the centipede and kindly thanked it. Now that he wasn't in a daze, he finally remembered the third reward from the cursed technique mission.

'If I remember correctly, it was a book, right? I don't see anything related to a book on the status page. There's also no inventory page like in most system novels. Hm... Oh! There it is!'

Near Dango was an ancient-looking book. It had a leathery cover with the words 'Cursed Energy Manipulation' engraved on the front. It wasn't a large book. Dango guessed that it had less than fifty pages.

Using the dim light from the candle, Dango flipped through the book's pages. Nearly half of the pages had pictures on them while the other half was filled with words.

Dango looked at the table of contents and learned that there were five groups of pages to read about. Each section consisted of a different topic about cursed energy and how it is utilized.

The first section introduced cursed energy to the reader and how important it was.

The second was about manipulating and controlling cursed energy. It had the largest amount of pages out of the five sections.

The third detailed how to apply cursed energy to his body and other objects.

The fourth was about a jujutsu phenomenon called Black Flash.

The fifth and last section was about reversed cursed energy, the positive form of cursed energy.

Since it was too dark, Dango planned on reading the book once there was actual light. Though he kind of remembered most of the information about cursed energy, it would still do him some good if he read the book.

'Guess I should test out my cursed technique while I wait.'