Plans

Yaga Masamichi stood alone in the tallest building of the Jujutsu High complex, overlooking the entire thing that was being conducted down below.

'Such a thing would no doubt bring the number of Jujutsu sorcerers high, but one has to consider the possibility of betrayal.' He thought with a grim face. Though his expression didn't change much as he always had the same expression on his monotonous face; making it seem like he was very stern and strict.

'Curse users don't have any sense of belonging to the Jujutsu world in the first place, they only use curses for their own benefit. Such people… Asking them to fight powerful curses with their lives on the line is a rather risky move. Worst case, their negligence may lead to the death of experienced sorcerers.'

Inhaling a deep breath, Yaga sighed. The higher ups had never been one to be collected in situations where large unrest could arise. It was a respectable quality to have in most cases; being able to act as soon as an unforeseen situation arose was sought by many, but in the current situation, it was nothing short of destructive.

The sudden change in the balance of the cursed spirits had given rise to such powerful tides that it seemed like the sorcerers of the current age would be overwhelmed.

His eyes darted to a lone corner of the room, the sharpness in his gaze threatening to pierce through the darkness itself.

'It seems just like that time…' Yaga mused, remembering the face of one of his 'dear' students.

He walked over to the dark corner and grabbed the hold of a metallic object with a cone like extension, then twisting a small key like object on the underside of it, the cone lit up with a yellowish color.

The 'lamp' provided much needed light to the otherwise dark corner of the room, and as the corner lit up, a small cupboard came into view.

Yaga put down the lamp and opened the drawer. Then rummaging around the drawer for a bit, he took out a small scroll.

Opening the scroll without haste, he looked at some peculiar pictures of curse users.

One was an old woman without any features that made her stand out, while the other was a muscular man with an eccentric moustache. There were two more pictures, one was of a cloaked figure with its face covered by an oni mask, while the other was of a middle aged man with a weird dagger tattoo on his neck.

At the centre of their pictures was the picture of a young Gojo Satoru.

'Gojo's birth shifted the balance of the world…' Yaga thought back at the past, taking the figure of the cloaked man in his mind.

'It might be possible that something like that has happened again. The chances are slim but not entirely out of possibility.' He thought, 'If that's the case, then there's nothing that we could possibly do about the increase in curses. We had been basing our efforts on the fact that there might be a curse user involved, but if not…'

Yaga did not dare think further.

"Whatever may be the cause, the situation isn't going to get any better by thinking about it." He whispered to himself and kept the scroll back in the drawer; putting the 'lamp' off, he walked out of the room.

As he walked out, a grade 3 sorcerer was standing right at the door.

"Arrange a meeting with Kyoto Principal Gakuganji. I have something important to discuss." Having said that, he simply resumed walking. The man behind him simply responded with "Yes!"

***

Ryouta walked through the open doors of his villa which was at the far end of Tokyo. As the familiar environment of his house, his home came into view, he unconsciously exhaled a large breath of air that he had been holding in all this time.

Walking over to a couch he slumped down onto it immediately.

'What a day...' He thought back to the bizarre day he had experienced. The sheer absurdity of the things that happened to him today were unreal. It made him question his sanity. But he knew everything was real. The deal that the young man had offered him was real, the injuries he had afflicted onto his men were real, the medical bills for his men were real, the money loss in the collateral damage in the fight was real and lastly, the amount of money that he had promised the young man was also real.

All in all, there were a lot of money related proofs of the entire incident happening.

Ryouta was just thankful that he had saved up a lot of illegal money for his own convenience, otherwise he would suffer such a loss that he would no doubt be disposed of by the Yakuza higherups.

'With his help... I will surely rise to the top of the underworld.' The young man, Shuichi had promised to teach him and a number of his men the art of sorcery, or as he had termed it, the art of 'Jujutsu'.

'He mentioned that there were many sorcerers but were mainly confined to Japan. Doesn't that mean that the Japanese can pretty much dominate the entire world if they so desired? Nobody else has this power after all...' He though.

"Arrgh! This is too much for my small mind to handle. I'll just roll with it for now. I can think about other things after a good sleep!" He said and planted his face right into the couch. Tired as he was, he slept right there without even bothering to move to the bedroom.

***

On the other hand, Shuichi at this point was leisurely walking around a graveyard killing curses.

'I'm seeing a lot of grade 4 and grade 3s...' He thought 'I haven't seen any grade 2 curses...'

Shuichi was starting to see some sort of a problem. Prior to his visit in the graveyard, he was gone to a hospital to scout curses along with a couple of schools. The typical areas where curses could be found in abundance were usually overflowing with a constant stream of cursed energy and cursed spirits. Yet to his surprise, he wasn't able to find any.

"It's not like I've been overhunting... Even if I was, the curses should replenish within a week's time." He whispered to himself as he controlled the microscopic strings to skewer the curses all around the graveyard.

The night was dimly illuminated by a half moon and in the graveyard which had dim lighting, the moon served to be the primary source of light. The entire place was littered with eerie purple fluid in various places, along with a lot of cuts and scratches at various parts of the ground and even the tombstones.

The graveyard also had a strange and uncanny feel once one gazed at it. If one were to squint and observe, they would be able to notice the hundreds or possibly more string like objects that were scattered all around the graveyard. The strings looped over trees and hung over the graves, utilizing the terrain and various props to spread out.

This was something that Shuichi was created to make hunting more efficient, a large web like structure of extremely concentrated nets of cursed energy that completely shredded the opponent, giving no time to resist.

'The only weakness is the cursed energy usage. Covering such a large area takes a toll on my reserves. It can be a good attack when dealing with a single strong opponent or taking on a large number of weaker enemies.' Shuichi mused with a smile.

Even if there were no stronger curses, he was satisfied. Why?

Well, because the sheer number of weaker curses was so high in magnitude that it was enough to have a significant impact on his cursed energy. Enough to propel his cursed energy reserves to a completely different level.

'My cursed energy reserves are now on par with the higher end of the first grade.' Shuichi clenched his fist in silence.

He had been hunting for about 3 hours at the least, as such a really high leap in cursed energy could be seen.

If anything, Shuichi was happy with the way things had turned out. Who would let go of a free strength increase without any danger involved whatsoever? Honestly speaking, he had always felt a bit uneasy risking his life all the time while fighting curses. His previous self that lived in a non supernatural world was too used to not having to fight grotesque monstrosities.

As such, a smaller part of him was satisfied.

Stretching out his arms, Shuichi felt his upper body relax.

"Status" He whispered softly as the familiar window appeared before him.

{[Status]} [Skill Tree] [Inventory]

[Name: Zenin Shuichi

Level: 17

Class: Sorcerer

Cursed Technique: Cursed Heart; Hard to Kill

Innate Skills: Cursed Technique Creation; Corrupted Mind

Skill points: 120]

It had been some time since Shuichi had went out to a hunt like this. But even so, he felt like the speed of level up was a bit too slow. Even if it was just with grade 3 and lower cursed spirits, he felt like he should have leveled up a lot more considering the previous time it took for a level up and the level of cursed spirit he had to kill, not to mention the amount of spirits he had killed today.

'One theory might be that the leveling system works on a exponential increase, giving rise to exponentially higher needs to experience for every level up needed.' Shuichi thought with his hands in his pockets. His face was relatively nonchalant as he thought to of the reason behind his slow level up speed. As he contemplated, he began walking to the gate of the graveyard.

'Another thing can be that the amount of experience I need changes according to my level, meaning that I'll need more and more stronger enemies to level up in the future... Then what about the time when I get too strong?' Shuichi gazed up at the moon as he contemplated, lampooning about his bad luck.

'Or it could be just that I'm completely overthinking it and it's just that the spirits are simply too weak to provide any suitable experience... yeah, I'll just go with that.' Though Shuichi with finalization, still not sure about which option was the correct one.

'Oh well' as he walked towards the exit, he opened up the system once again, this time opening the inventory.

With a simple mental command, a grid like boxed screen appeared before his eyes, upon which several boxes were filled with icons of various items.

Directing his gaze upon the collection of various icons of peculiar looking papers, Shuichi pulled one of them out of the sub space.

In that instant, a small piece of paper parchment appeared before him, having a musty yellowish color to it. On one side of the paper, some Japanese kanji words with black ink were engraved.

Walking to one of the nearby trees, Shuichi placed the parchment, which was a talisman that he had made.

As he placed it on the tree, the words that were engraved onto it were seen in completion. The set of Kanji words on the talisman roughly translated to:

[Negativity]

It was special type of talisman that he had created, made to attract all kinds of negativity and curses spirits to wherever it was placed, making that place as some sort of a beacon for cursed energy. It was something he had thought of to quickly gather cursed spirits and farm them for experience and cursed energy.

'With the lesser cursed energy density in the surroundings these days, I don't doubt an aggregation of cursed energy will attract a stronger spirit... Or it might also attract a jujutsu sorcerer...' Shuichi shrugged. What to say, his action of continuously siphoning off the cursed energy in the environment also had its downsides. The cursed energy in the environment couldn't recover fast enough, leading to an overall depression in the cursed energy in the area.

'Hmm... Perhaps that's the reason I hadn't found any curses in the area recently.'

Leaving the cursed talisman in the area, he left towards his apartment.

In his mind, he noted two very important points that he would be doing.

First, ask for a bigger house from Ryouta.

Second, go to another city to hunt curses. He was hoping that his siphoning ability wasn't so powerful as to affect all of Japan. Though if it did he would already have the reserves of a special grade, probably even beyond that so he was seriously doubtful of that.

'Maybe I should go to Saitama...'

***

A/N: A deal's a deal. Pay and you shall receive, there's the chapter for you. Although the chapter was going to be at 200 stones, it's still not too far off so I decided to just upload it. Next bonus chapter is at 400.

Random quote of the day:

"No Maidens?" Insert Megamind face*