Chapter 4

I looked at Yuki, unsure of what to call myself in this new life. I wanted something simple but also something decent that rolled off the tongue well. As Yuki and I ate dinner, I considered names from various anime characters in my past life, eventually deciding on one. Once I had it decided, I turned to Yuki and voiced my thoughts.

"How about Arima?" I asked.

Yuki paused for a moment as she tilted her head, considering the name, "It sounds good to me," she said with a grin, "Nice to meet you, Arima."

I grinned as I heard the name spoken aloud and liked the way it sounded. With the issue of my name decided, we went back to dinner. It wasn't long until we finished the food, and we both went to do our own things. Yuki took out her journal and skimmed through the pages, occasionally editing passages she didn't like. Her face scrunched up as she rewrote them in the book. Seeing that she was engrossed in her journal, I excused myself and headed back to my room for a bit more practice.

Once I was inside and shut the door behind me, I hopped up on the bed and sat in the middle of it with my legs crossed. During dinner, when I delved into my memories of media I had consumed in my previous life led to an idea for how to improve my cursed energy control. Just like in those cultivation novels, I thought that trying to circulate my cursed energy would help with my control. Unlike cultivation, this wouldn't allow me to increase my cursed energy reserves but was more of a pure training exercise. I began slowly but slowly started to speed up as I got a better hand on things.

It started out easy but got incredibly difficult as I tried to pick up the speed. The cursed energy roughly flowed in a circle around my body. With every rotation of energy, I tried to speed up ever so slightly. This quickly left me sweating bullets and gasping for air as I strained myself to keep the rotation going smoothly. Eventually, my breath caught, and I lost control, causing the energy to go back to its neutral state. I stood shakily, wiping the sweat beaded on my brow with a towel before sitting back down. Since I hadn't actually consumed any cursed energy, I was still good to go, but I was mentally fatigued.

After I sufficiently recovered, I took out my new metal studded leather armbands and put them on. Once it was on, I began to cycle my cursed energy once more, making sure that my cursed energy was infusing the weapon at the same time. I felt that the sooner I could turn my weapon into a true cursed tool, the better, but I still had a long way to go since it would still have to become a semi-cursed tool first. I continued my exercises for a few hours until I felt something wet on my face. I brushed my hand across my face and looked at the blood streak on the back of my hand.

I looked over to a mirror in the room and saw a crimson stream running from my nose. That was when I decided to call it a day for exercises that required a lot of mental energy. I quickly got out of bed and made my way to the bathroom, where I proceeded to take a nice bath. While I was in the bath, I watched the cursed energy dancing on my palms as I gathered the energy in my palm, willing it to turn into a small bead of metal. Since my technique was a standard creation technique on top of a cursed tool and cursed technique creation technique, I wanted to start learning how to create more standard materials.

Luckily, when creating mundane objects, it is more about imagining a change and willing it to happen instead of intense focus so I don't damage my already strained mind. I braced myself for the loss of cursed energy since mundane creation techniques require a lot of cursed energy, but I wasn't expecting nearly a third of my reserves to vanish. I was still reeling from the sudden loss when I heard the sound of something dropping into the water. I quickly looked down and saw a small shiny object resting at the bottom of the tub. I reached down and removed it from the water, holding it up to the light. In my palm was a small bead of metal.

I grinned triumphantly, but a feeling of fatigue washed over me, so I got out of the tub and quickly made my way back to bed, promptly collapsing into it. I was asleep before I even pulled the blankets up to cover me. However, as I slept, the door opened slightly, and Garuda flew in on its eight pairs of wings. If I had been awake, then I would have known it was here on Yuki's behalf. The shikigami paused and eyed me before flying closer and using its strange beak-like mouth to pull the blankets up over me before flying away.

The next morning I awoke with a yawn and rolled into a seated position on my bed to begin my exercises. I made sure to wrap my weapon around my arm before I began. I went until I couldn't any longer, then got up and went off the the bathroom to wash up. After that, I ate a quick breakfast and readied myself for training. As I emerged into the courtyard, I saw Yuki standing there with Garuda floating around her head like a fleshy deformed halo. As soon as she saw me, she spoke.

"I was thinking," She said as she eyed me, "We also have to decide on your official age."

I nodded in understanding before looking down at my small body. My best guess was that I was around four or five years old, with five being more likely. Her asking for an official age would also mean that I would need a birthday, so I quickly just decided on something easy while still being in the same birth month as my previous life.

"Let's say I'm five, and my birthday is January first." I didn't know the exact year, so I just left that for Yuki to fill in.

She nodded and jotted a quick note on a piece of paper before she turned back to me and suddenly kicked a stone that blasted toward me. I barely had time to reinforce my hand with cursed energy before the stone impacted with enough force to break bones. I managed to catch the throw, but a few of my fingers shattered as I hadn't been able to apply my cursed energy fast enough.

"Remember to be ready for an attack when entering a potentially dangerous situation!" Yuki said as she grabbed the broken fingers and squeezed them for a few seconds before using RCT to heal them.

I nearly vomited at the pain from my shattered finger being ground together, but I gritted my teeth since I knew that this was all part of the process of building up my pain tolerance. Everything I was suffering through now would pay dividends in the future. Yuki nodded approvingly before trying to elbow me in the side of the head, but I was ready this time. My cursed energy flared out and encompassed my fist as tried to retaliate, but she easily danced away from my blow.

"I've made a decision about your future," Yuki said casually as I tried to land blows on her by unwrapping my weapon and using it as a whip at range, "We'll continue training like this for a few years so that you can get used to what it is like without a cursed technique, which will force you to work on pure mastery of cursed energy without having a cursed technique to cheat with. Then, I'll go gather enough curse users for you to create a few techniques and make a new body for yourself."

She ended by closing the distance between us and kicking forward suddenly, catching me right in the chest. I felt my ribs cave in as I blasted through the air backward. As everything started to go dark, I focused on trying to use RCT on my own, but it was like trying to navigate an unknown building completely blindfolded. I failed almost immediately, watching with increasing blurring vision as Yuki approached and placed her hand on my chest, filling it with cool energy. I took a deep breath and coughed before getting back on my feet.

"How does that plan sound to you?" Yuki asked as she looked down at me.

"Sounds good to me!" I said, preparing myself for the next few years of intense training, but I knew that in the end, it would all be worth it.

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5-year time skip to the next chapter