Training + Stealing
Under the night sky, two figures were battling it out. After exchanging a few moves, a long and black spike jutted out of one of the figure's shadow. Penetrating through its stomach before branching out, it stopped in its tracks before slowly dying.
The other figure was a long and lanky shadow with razor thin claws. This was naturally Inei.
It had been a month since he had seen the fight between Jogo and Gojou. After seeing the power those who stood at the top had, he started to put 200% of his effort into training.
He had become strong enough to best first-grade cursed spirits in his daytime form and demolish them when in his nighttime form. He would say he could defeat special-grade spirits, but he hadn't seen one yet, so he didn't know.
From the ones he had seen in the manga, he could defeat Mahito as long as he didn't let him activate his domain. Although, he did have to use his shadow balls to hurt him.
Speaking of his shadow balls, he had learned that he could compress multiple balls into one. Then, he could forcefully decompress them, shooting them at higher speeds than he could normally.
Other than that, he had completed multiple assignments. It seemed that the higher-ups were still trying to figure out how strong he was.
'I suppose it makes sense. Grade-1 sorcerers can be considered as the elite forces. They wouldn't let a cursed spirit with that strength unchained.'
Inei's manipulation cursed energy had improved quite a bit by observing how others channeled theirs, but he still had a while to go before he could use Domain Expansion.
"I should acquire some more cursed techniques somehow."
So far, the only cursed techniques he knew and could perform were his mind techniques, his shadow balls, his claw enhancements, and his healing technique. There was also another innate technique which he had discovered recently but had not tried yet.
He did understand the theory behind some of the techniques, like the reverse cursed technique, but he either hadn't tried them yet or they were too complicated.
From what he knew of cursed techniques, he had to channel his energy in a certain way while imbuing a quality into it to work. Some techniques can't be learned, while others can.
Since he wasn't an official student in Tokyo high, the higher ups probably won't give him any valuable techniques, but that didn't mean he couldn't just steal them from the clans.
'Hehe. I'll just take a little peek at them, and won't show them off. What they don't know, won't hurt them...'
...
...
...
The Zenin clan robbery had gone pretty well. Some of the clans had libraries with some techniques. After all, not everyone had the Ten Shadow Technique. They had to have some techniques the others could use. Of course, the library wasn't just out in the open, unguarded.
It was behind a series of barriers, seals, and hidden paths. He had gotten past by hiding one of his shadow balls within the shadow of a clansman who was tasked with guarding it. Actually, even if he couldn't find a clansmen to sneak in with, it would be easy to sneak one of his balls in. After all, his balls don't emit cursed energy signatures. Unless one used their eye to find them, it would be as if they didn't exist.
He didn't take anything out, in fear of the clan being aware of the robbery, but he did memorize all the books that he found useful before leaving.
One of the biggest rewards he had gotten was a volume of barrier techniques. Included was the method to utilize Curtain. Back in his previous world, it was theorized that these sort of techniques could be extremely formidable when adding enough clauses. Thus, Inei was planning to see how much he could milk this technique.
Back in his dorm, Inei started to chant, "Emerge from the darkness, blacker than darkness. Purify that which is impure".
A black liquid started to line the edges of his dorm room before moving along the sides and sealing them off. Inei set the restriction for this curtain to be extremely weak to attacks from the inside, but strong to those from the outside.
Then, he repeated the technique and formed another curtain on the inside. For this one, he set it to be weak from the outside but strong from the inside.
Inei channeled cursed energy into a shadow ball, forming a hammer. Inei grabbed the hammer before using his full force to hit the curtain. It merely rippled before settling down.
"Although this will take a lot of cursed energy, it'll if I use my nighttime form and it will merely be slightly tiring if I use my daytime form. Hmm, I wonder if I could use this to attack people..."
After messing around with the technique, he realized that it was, at the core, a barrier technique. Thus, it couldn't be used to attack others.
Apart from that, there were several weapon manuals and shadow related cursed techniques. There was a reason he had chosen the Zenin clan to rob. For one, it is their proficiency with cursed techniques. Secondly, it is their shikigami summoning techniques. Although he wasn't quite sure which clan had the best ones, but the Zenin clan definitely had a few.
Actually, he wanted to see if he could use his memory manipulation to give the shikigami proper egos. He also wanted to test out the last of his three innate techniques. He didn't want there to be any complications with this process, so he chose to use tamed cursed spirits instead of the wild ones.
"Alright, lets try this out"
Quickly drawing on a talisman, he chanted while circulating his cursed energy. After a moment, an eyeball came out of his shadow. Small, blood-red tendrils twirled around behind it. Its eyes were pure black, but had a horizontal white line cross the middle of it.
Inei reached out his hand and patted the top of the eye. The white line opened and several jagged teeth could be seen as a long tongue snaked out of it. The eye started panting out of its mouth, as if it was a dog.
"Eh? You are cuter than I expected"
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Welcome everyone to the QUESTION OF THE DAY!
Today's QUESTION OF THE DAY is...
Would you rather put Peanut butter and Jelly on a sandwich or Nutella?