Cursed Technique

'Well this isn't too bad.' Shuichi thought while looking at the small room that he had rented to stay for the time.

The room consisted of the bare necessities. A small bed, a bathroom, a door, a window, a ceiling fan, a table and a small shelf at the side.

The wall paper was of a pale yellow color which made Shuichi think that he had ventured into a claustrophobic backrooms level. But most importantly, it was cheap as heck.

In short, it was perfect for Shuichi.

"I can work with this." He said as he began to make himself comfortable. He sorted out all of his belongings onto their respective places. The books on the shelf, his clothes into a small box that he had been provided and... he was done.

A man truly does not need too much to live.

Now, after all of that was done, what was left was to make his cursed technique.

'A cursed technique… My very own cursed technique!' Shuichi screamed in his mind.

"Okay Shuichi, let's not get too excited." Shuichi said to himself and picked up one of the books on the shelf.

It was titled 'Basics of Sorcery', but an author named 'Homura Takamekasuchi'.

Reading the title, Shuichi looked at all of the other books that he had, ranging from 'Cursed Techniques and their Usage' and 'Domain Expansion- The pinnacle of Sorcery' to 'Black Flash- Squared Power Phenomenon'.

It was time to do some reading…

***

After about 5 hours of being holed up in the same small room doing nothing but reading, Shuichi had finally finished all of the books that he had.

His predecessor had read all of these books, but unfortunately, those memories weren't strong enough to be transmitted. Hence, the new Shuichi had to do the reading all over again.

And after finishing the books, Shuichi had only one thing to say…

"This power system is both detailed and confusing as fuck."

Even the book titled as 'The basics of Sorcery' was over 300 long pages. Although there were occasional pictures in between, it was only about 2 pictures, every 60 pages.

But that wasn't even the longest book. The largest book was the 'Black Flash' one, having over 700 pages with only a single picture at page 03, that too being a body diagram.

But it was all worth it.

Reading all of these things, Shuichi now had a better understanding of jujutsu in general.

From his memories, nobody really reads such books, seeing as they always learn from their predecessors. This made him wonder why there were such books in the first place.

But then he realized that such books might just be popular in the fantasy genre to serve as building blocks for a novel or something.

'I should look into it more.' Shuichi thought to himself before opening up the status screen once again.

From what he had understood from the power system of jujutsu relies heavily on the concept of equivalent exchange. The greater the power, the greater the repercussions.

That was the law of jujutsu, a rule that every technique, every domain and even certain individuals are affected by. The greatest example would be the people with heavenly restrictions, like Toji Zenin. Or should it be Fushiguro?

Anyway, however busted Shuichi's skill might be, he did not want to test if it could bypass this rule. As the skill description suggested, he only had a limited amount of times that he could use the skill. He did not want to waste my time designing a technique that could disrupt the jujutsu world in its entirety, only to have it nerfed by the world itself.

As such, Shuichi thought of the things that would be essential for him in the long run that were also needed at the time.

Having read the various guides to jujutsu and also the giant book solely based on 'Black Flash', Shuichi mused.

For now, he would need a cursed technique that could boost his cursed technique and his cursed energy manipulation. And also, preferably his cursed energy output. He was pretty sure that boosting one's cursed energy output was literally impossible but he could at least try right?

Thinking of that, he put his brain to work to think of such a technique.

And after about 15 minutes of contemplation, he got to work.

Using the system panel, a screen different from all the others he had seen until now appeared before him.

[Please design your cursed technique]

[Name of the technique:

Description of the technique: (You can add a total of 5 points)

-

-

-

-

-]

Looking at the cursed technique creation screen, Shuichi began to list out the various things that he wanted to add. He would pick the name of the technique later based on the description.

[1. The cursed technique is active at all times and creates a metaphysical gathering of cursed energy on the right side of the user's chest, in the shape of a heart. Although it is takes the form of a heart, it is not an actual heart and hence, cannot be touched by any outside forces.]

[2. The 'heart' continuously pumps cursed energy of the user through the user's body in circulation, elevating physical strength, agility and cognitive abilities.]

[3. The cursed energy is stored in the heart in the form of highly discreet strings, that make it easier to manipulate and shape to the user's liking. Cursed energy control becomes more defined the more the user practices with it. There is no limit to how refined the cursed energy manipulation of the user can be.]

[4. The 'heart' can absorb cursed energy from the outside environment, cursed spirits, and cursed tools, and by circulating the energy in a closed loop, it permanently increase the total cursed energy reserves of the user.]

[5. With enough cursed energy and manipulation skill, the cursed energy in the form of strings can be shaped into ethereal objects that have the desired properties of the user.]

Writing all of the desired points in his mind, Shuichi smiled. This type of cursed technique would allow him to be versatile in almost all scenarios, not to mention the obvious benefits of having high cursed energy reserves and high cursed energy control.

Controlling cursed energy was the basics of jujutsu and sorcerers that have a lot of cursed energy but fall behind in manipulation can be overwhelmed by those with high level of control but not large reserves.

As such, having high reserves and high control was the most optimal thing for Shuichi. Although he was not sure if the absurd description of 'Increasing cursed energy reserves through the environment, curses and cursed tools' and 'Strengthening the body with closed loop circulation' would be restricted or not, but he was willing to try.

It could be said that although he did not want to, Shuichi still decided to experiment a little bit with how absurd he could make the technique.

The last point was also a bit excessive. The ability to make ethereal constructs out of his cursed energy was a broken power. It was like the Gamer's ability to make sword and other stuff out of mana.

Except in Shuichi's case, he's not just making weapons. The technique allows him to make literally anything as long as he has cursed energy. Of course, they're merely energy gathered into a shape, but that didn't make the technique any less dangerous. Being able to create armor, swords, daggers, shields, ropes, and who knows what during a fight would be extremely beneficial, and Shuichi was sure of that.

In the end, looking at the description of the cursed technique, he decided to name it [Cursed Heart].

And with that, he clicked the 'Finalize' button at the bottom of the screen.

[Finalize the design would reduce the amount of times the skill can be used by 1]

[Do you wish to continue?]

[Yes/No]

Without hesitation, Shuichi pressed 'Yes'.

As Shuichi confirmed the action, he saw the number displayed at the back of the skill go from (0/3) to (1/3).

The screen before him changed, now showing various words and letters that disappeared too quick for him to read.

The screens kept flashing and Shuichi was able to make out a few sentences.

Sentences like:

[Analyzing Description... Complete] and [Scanning for power fixes]. He also saw a particular sentence that concerned him greatly, [Analyzing specific points deemed too unbalanced]

Luckily, a counter prompt that alerted him of such things did not arise.

And instead, in front of him appeared a loading screen.

[0%... 23%... 47%... 51%... 79%... 88%... 95%... 100%]

[Cursed Technique Creation had ended!]

[You have acquired Cursed Technique: Cursed Heart!]

Seeing the notification in front of him, Shuichi was beyond elated.

Not only did he get his very own cursed technique, but the system didn't put even a single restriction on any one of the points that he had added. It was simply glorious!

Just a second after the creation of his cursed technique, Shuichi felt a change. A fundamental evolution to his very being and felt a deep sense of heat and cold converge at the right side of his chest.

The cold yet hot sensation began to take on a solid form, and he was able to sense all of it. All of his cursed energy was being taken to this point and given form into a compact structure, an assembly of energies.

As the 'heart' kept on forming, Shuichi felt his mind clear up.

Zooom*

All of the things around him began to feel way clearer than before, his focus and senses had gone off the charts! At the same time, he began to feel a warm sensation all over his body.

"Holy Shit!" Shuichi yelled out in amazement. He felt like he had infinite strength, like he could do literally anything. A false sense of Omnipotence.

'My entire body feels like its brimming with vitality!' Although his cursed energy had stayed the same, just the passive effect of cursed energy circulation had pushed his body into a perpetual state of strengthening. It would be like he was being strengthened by cursed energy at all times, except he wasn't. It was just pure cursed energy refining his body to be stronger, his focus to be more compact, and his senses to be clearer.

And to make it even more ridiculous, he could add cursed energy strengthening on top of that! Making his physical strength even more ridiculous.

Feeling the power in his body, Shuichi knew that he could barely be as strong as a normal sorcerer using cursed energy to strengthen himself. And that was just his pure strength.

He could not help but put the likes of Zenin Toji in his mind, and if he could eventually surpass even that guy in terms of physique.

Thinking about it, it might really be possible. But just because something was possible, doesn't mean its probable.

The strengthening would eventually slow down when he became strong enough, and while there was the possibility of the refining power increasing as his cursed energy reserves expanded, he did not want to base his judgement upon a mere possibility.

At the moment, he wanted to cover the hard facts that he knew were both possible and probable.

Shuichi could not help but express his regret about not specifying a limit to the body strengthening. If he had simply put the words 'No limit to how much strength the user can amass' things would have been much easier.

But then again, it was not like he was in any immediate danger. Just with the amount of cursed energy he was going to have in the future, Shuichi was fairly certain that he would be able to overwhelm most opponents.

Most as in almost all. Unless he meets someone especially overpowered, like the man himself, Toji, or the wonder child of the Gojo clan, Gojo Satoru, he was sure that he would be able to handle himself. His cursed technique was made especially to be versatile after all.

Obviously he did not think he could win against everyone, considering that he did not have much experience fighting sorcerers and cursed spirits, but he would still have to power to protect himself.

Feeling the ambient cursed energy around him, Shuichi felt his "Cursed Heart" greedily beginning to suck all of it inside.

The Japanese people's minds were especially hardwired to perceive change to cursed energy in general. As such, when they experienced negative emotions, the amount of cursed energy they released would be far more than when a foreigner would experience negative emotions. Also the reason that most jujutsu sorcerers were of a Japanese origin.

Even then, the amount of ambient cursed energy wasn't much. If he had to guess, the amount of cursed energy in an entire city would be less than the amount produced by a thousand normal people. By comparison to sorcerers, all that energy would be the equivalent of a grade 3 sorcerer, which was not a lot considering the amount of people that live in the city. But that was because all the negative energy gets taken in by already existing cursed spirits to become stronger, or gives birth to new cursed spirits.

Obviously he was not including special places like schools, hospitals, graveyards, etc. As in those places, cursed energy is accumulated from a lot of negative emotions. He was only considering the general energy density in the immediate environment and using that to calculate the total amount of cursed energy that might be in the city, if that makes sense.

Shuichi might not have been the brightest in the sorcerer world, but he sure had a clever and intelligent mind. Quick mathematics and comparison in cursed energy was not all that hard for him.