Growth

Shuichi had healed after he woke up the next day. And upon waking up, he again examined his body, hoping for a significant change to have occured.

But sadly, it hadn't.

Reality is often disappointing...

'I should be careful about the types of cursed techniques I design in the future...' Shuichi thought and got off the bed. Taking off all of the bandages from his body, mainly his arm and head, he went to the bathroom to freshen up.

After about half an hour, he was done with all of his morning activities. All that was left was to eat some food, which could honestly wait as he was going to increase his strength again today.

One might express their doubts. It hadn't even been 2 days since he had been sent into this world, yet he was already strong enough to beat a semi second grade curse, not to mention he had gotten even stronger after making another cursed technique.

But the constant want to get stronger only seemed to grow within him.

Perhaps the memories of the past Shuichi were affecting him more than what the corrupted mind could block away.

His predecessor had witnessed the worst of the jujutsu world. While nearly not as bad as it could get, it was certainly a pretty bad place to be in. The constant pressure from everyone around you, when the only thing that decides your worth is the power of your cursed technique, that thought, that feeling of helplessness was deeply imprinted in the mind of Shuichi.

And when he faced the cursed spirit the day before, he might have been for a split second but... he froze up. The thoughts and the muscle memory of the previous body holder affecting his actions even now.

And when he got home to think back at the fight, he realised it.

'I don't want to feel like that again...' It was not a pleasant feeling. Like a constant darkness on your shoulders that you can't seem to get rid of. A nauseating feeling in your gut, that gives you the desire to vomit everything out but you just can't seem to do it, making it all the more worse.

Shuichi looked at his hand, the calloused fingers and plam, signifying the struggles he had gone through, the training he had done to get to the measly amount of strength he had.

He worked so hard to attain so little...

'Don't worry...' This palm closed into a fist. 'With this newfound strength and power, I will rise to the top of the jujutsu world!'

And so, he got to work again.

Opening up the system, he opened up the status and noticed that he still had those unused 40 skill points from killing the cursed spirit.

Thinking back to the absurd burst of power that he had gotten from distributing the skill points to Cursed Energy Reinforcement, he opened up the skill tree.

In the normal tree, there were [Cooking(57)], [Cleaning(21)], [Training(139)] and finally [CQC(301)].

CQC which was at 201 just a day before had now turned into 301.

A whopping difference of 100 proficiency. Though he still did not understand how much of a difference that made, he was nonetheless happy about it.

He theorized that the proficiency limit might be at 1000, but he couldn't be sure. After all, like all other things, Shuichi also sucked at hand to hand combat. His only saving grace when living at the Zenin mansion was that he had the clan's blood in his veins.

He would not be too shocked if the proficiency limit was all the way to something like 10,000, or if they wasn't even a limit at all.

But he doubted the latter was true. The power system of the world itself would not allow that. Being able to infinitely increase your combat abilities to the point that you could defeat even the toughest opponents hardly seemed to be something the world would allow.

Shuichi doubted that if biological organisms themselves even had such potential to begin with. All flesh has their limits. That is why they must be molded to suit their needs. And humans themselves had evolved from the generations to suit their needs.

But even the point to which the flesh could be molded had a limit. It must have right?

If not, was all of the science that he learned in his previous world just bullshit? Well it was a new world after all, so the rules of physics that are applied may also be different.

Shaking out of his internal monologue, Shuichi focused back on the screen.

He seemed to have a habit of monologuing.

Anyway, in the ability tree, there were still only two options.

Cursed energy Control and Cursed Energy Reinforcement, which were at a whopping 132 and 153. Cursed energy control had gained 107 proficiency simply due to his cursed technique, and cursed energy reinforcement which was at 53 was enhanced to 153 with his points.

For the moment, Shuichi contemplated what to do with the points. He could save up to get some more techniques but he felt like that would only hinder his growth. What he wanted to do was to have complete mastery over each and every one of his techniques. If he went ham and created new techniques everyday, that wouldn't exactly be wise. Besides, corrupted mind could only support him so much.

He was already beginning to feel a limit approaching to the amount of techniques he could have. He felt that he could have 2 more techniques before he reached his limits. And so, if he wanted to upgrade the cursed technique creation skill, he would also need to upgrade the corrupted mind skill, which would cost a whopping 200 skill points.

That was 4000 points of Proficiency!

In response, it would be better to use those skill points as proficiency and increase his growing power. He also wanted to know the limit to which the system would let him increase his power.

With that thought, he directly put 10 skill points into CQC, bringing the skill up to 501.

And immediately he felt a qualitative change in his body. Like a switch that wasn't even there in the first place had been turned on. His cognitive abilities cleared up and his muscles tightened. He could feel better control of his body and his psychomotor skills and neuro-muscular coordination shot through the roof.

He felt... free? Is that a right word.

"I feel so light..." Shuichi whispered as he began to flex his arm around, his body feeling better than ever.

'Sure enough, a qualitative change occurred when enough proficiency was reached.' He thought to himself, 'I do wonder when the next one will increase... Is it a qualitative change every 500 points? Or is there something more to it.' Holding his chin in contemplation, he thought for a moment before he stopped.

'I'll know when it happens anyway, no need to care about it.'

And with that, he moved over to the abilities section.

Spending points in cursed energy control was not efficient. The control had already risen to such a degree after only a day, not to mention that the technique [Cursed Heart] would allow for his control to increase without limits. At least that was what was said in the description... Besides, it's not like he would be able increase his control after he reached 100% cursed efficiency. He simply could not perceive what comes beyond that.

As such, he moved over to cursed energy reinforcement. Now this was a bit of a special case. He knew the key to having better power of reinforcement was to have better control. But the vast sense of power he felt, that rush when he increased the reinforcement by 100 points was still fresh in his mind.

The feeling of a sudden rush of power was so great that it even overwhelmed his deductive reasoning. He wanted to increase the reinforcement further.

'Besides, I want to see if I get the same qualitative change in every skill. That's right, no other reason...'

And with a few clicks, he used up 20 skill points, all in reinforcement, bringing the number from 153 to 553.

And immediately, the same rush and surge of power hit hit like a raging tsunami, throwing off the equilibrium of cursed energy flow that he had made inside of his body.

His cursed energy inside his body turned and curled upon itself, as if the strings were mixing together by taking in parts of themselves.

And slowly but surely, the change began to get more streamlined and the cursed energy flow became normal again.

[Due to a massive increase in Cursed Energy Reinforcement, Cursed Energy Control has been automatically increased by 50!]

"WHOW!" Shuichi yelled as he felt the changes in the body. It was more than just being able to reinforce his body better. The very nature of his reinforcement seemed to change. Previously, the reinforcement he could perform was like that of an amateur. Even though he had been trained for life, the lack of talent made it difficult for him to even attain the basics of a sorcerer. The way he did reinforcement was forced and uneven, like a brute.

But now, he seemed to reach a new understanding of cursed energy.

[You have gained some pieces of enlightenment about the nature of cursed energy!]

[Cursed energy control has been increased by 100!]

Whir!*

The enlightenment did seem to have some benefits.

The cursed energy from his [Cursed Heart] flooded through his body like nothing he had ever experienced. And the feeling was not unpleasant at all, on the contrary, it was extremely comforting. Pleasurable, even, making Shuichi let out a small moan of satisfaction.

"holy hell... This is fucking amazing..." He said to himself.

With this improvement, Shuichi felt like he was truly stepping in on the path to become a strong sorcerer.

'I've grown stronger now...'

The semi second grade he had killed was not that strong. It might seem strong, considering that he had such troubles with it, but it really wasn't.

But now, if he was faced with the same spirit again, he felt like he could take it on without problems.

Closing the screen, he saved the rest of the points for later. 10 skill points were a lot, a whole 200 proficiency points.

If he was in a tricky situation like just the day before, he would be able to use those points to his advantage.

With the points now out to good use, he felt better than ever.

And so, he decided to go out and eat to his heart's content!

"Having a strong body is bound to have some downsides... I'm already starting to feel way hungrier than ever." Shuichi said as he walked out of his little house. He stomach was raging with hunger, and although it might just be because he had sustained wounds and got healed up due to his technqiue, one had to consider that the technique nourished his body with cursed energy to heal it. It didn't use the body's energy to heal, but directly the cursed energy. And so, the body didn't suffer any type of losses.

Hence, the hunger that he was feeling was only and only due to his own body, which was a bit strange, since sorcerers are natural energy batteries. They have a constant stream of energy within them that they can use to sustain themselves for far longer than normal people. Even his predecessor, who was not that strong to begin with, could keep going without problems for about 3 days.

And now that his cursed energy reserves dwarf that of his predecessor, it was strange that he was feeling hungry now.

In all truth, it made sense. But Shuichi's knowledge of his own cursed technique was still very limited due to having lack luster control in comparison to the power that his technique could display.

His cursed technique was using the cursed energy to nourish his body. And although he could sustain himself, important body building compounds still needed to be taken in to have optimum growth. It was not just a matter of having a better physique, the cursed energy could only sustain his partially built body. His body needed actual food to develop.

But there was just one problem with all of that, that made Shuichi worry as to why he was not able to sustain himself for longer.

Because if this went on for long...

"My money would eventually run out." He had not taken a lot of money from the Zenin clan, only that which his predecessor had saved over the years, which was still a sizable sum.

But even that would run out if he ate to his heart's content for a couple of weeks.

'It seems I need to make some money...'