From every battle, I learned something new.
And when the fight ended—when the bodies of those Curse Users fell lifeless—I always performed the same ritual.
My purple flames slowly appeared in the palm of my hand, a calm fire that devoured everything in its path. The flames then consumed the bodies and the remnants of energy that still lingered within them. It was not merely burning them away, but filtering something far deeper.
Within that process, the traces of their Innate Technique were captured.
The energy that had once been part of their innate technique became trapped within my purple flames, preserved like a pattern that refused to fade. The fire acted as a temporary vessel, maintaining the structure of the technique so that it would not disperse.
After that, the next step was quite simple.
All I needed to do was create a new Cursed Tool, prepare a stable energy structure, and then implant the stored Innate Technique into that tool.
Voila. A Cursed Tool containing the original Innate Technique of a Curse User was now in my hands.
This hunt actually had several very clear objectives.
The first objective was to give Shizuka and Rika a real understanding of how Jujutsu Sorcerers and Curse Users truly fought. They needed to realize that a battle was never as simple as a contest of raw strength.
A fight was a combination of intelligence, observation, stamina, and mental endurance. Even the smallest mistake could easily lead to death.
By witnessing it directly, they could understand how someone might seize even the smallest opportunity to turn the situation around.
The second objective was for myself.
Even though I often trained with Shizuka, Rika, and Mei Mei, training was still just training. During practice, the body still had room for hesitation. In training, a wrong decision could still be corrected.
But in a true life-and-death battle, the pressure I felt was completely different.
My breathing became heavier. Time seemed to slow down. Every second was filled with choices that could never be taken back. One wrong step, and everything could come to an end.
Experiences like that sharpened my combat instincts.
The third objective, of course, was to obtain their Innate Techniques.
If someone were to ask what the difference was between the ordinary Cursed Tools I created and the Cursed Tools that contained the Innate Technique of a Curse User, the answer was actually quite simple.
The difference lay in the rules.
The Cursed Tools I created always had rules and limitations that I established from the beginning. I designed their functions, duration of use, energy consumption, and even their activation conditions with great care.
Those limitations were not weaknesses.
On the contrary, they served as stabilization mechanisms, ensuring that the Cursed Tool would operate consistently and would not rebel against its user.
In contrast, a Cursed Tool containing an Innate Technique followed the original rules of that technique.
If an Innate Technique allowed its owner to fire water bullets as long as they possessed enough Cursed Energy, then a Cursed Tool containing that technique could do the same.
There was no additional time limit imposed by me. There was no artificial cooldown restricting its use.
As long as the energy was available, the technique could be used.
This was the fundamental difference. Ordinary Cursed Tools obeyed my rules. The Cursed Tools obtained from the hunt obeyed the laws of the original Innate Technique.
It was true that most of the Innate Techniques belonging to the Curse Users I hunted were rather ordinary. Many of them were weak, inefficient, or not particularly practical for combat.
Yet I still hunted them.
Because my goal was not merely to collect powerful techniques.
I hunted to improve my own experience, to sharpen my battle instincts little by little, and to deepen Shizuka and Rika's understanding of this harsh world.
Every battle was a lesson.
And every Innate Technique that I managed to preserve always opened new possibilities that I had never considered before.
After so long allowing Shizuka and Rika to remain behind me as mere observers, watching every battle I fought against various Curse Users, I finally decided to change that approach.
Up until then, they had indeed learned a great deal simply by observing. From a safe position behind me, they watched how each battle unfolded—how attack patterns were constructed, how the flow of Cursed Energy shifted when emotions surged, and how the pressure of the battlefield could force someone to make decisions within a fraction of a second.
But as time passed, I began to realize a simple yet undeniable truth: there is an enormous gap between watching a battle… and truly becoming part of one.
Observation only gives them an image of combat. Experiencing it firsthand forces them to understand the real thing.
The training at our temporary base had already provided them with a fairly solid foundation. Over the past few months, both of them had shown steady progress.
Shizuka had learned to maintain the stability of her Cursed Energy flow even when her body was beginning to tire. Meanwhile, Rika had become increasingly skilled at controlling the rhythm of her breathing, ensuring that her body did not lose control while cursed energy flowed through her muscles.
They had also grown accustomed to activating Cursed Tools without panic. Their movements were cleaner now, more efficient than they had been several months ago.
However, all of that was still just training.
Real experience carries a different sensation—sharper, colder, and far more cruel.
On a real battlefield, time seems to slow down and speed up at the same moment. Every second feels heavy, as if the air itself is pressing against the lungs. The mind becomes filled with the possibility of mistakes, and the body is forced to react before logic has the chance to catch up.
Even the smallest mistake can become a wound that cannot be repaired.
That was the real reason I began bringing them into actual battles.
During the months leading up to the turn of the year 2000, I consistently brought Shizuka and Rika along to face Curse Users I had selected very carefully. I did not choose opponents randomly. Every target had been studied beforehand.
As usual, I purchased the necessary information through Mei Mei.
I made sure of one thing: the opponents they faced had to be strong enough to force them to grow, but not strong enough to kill them with a single decisive blow.
Growth should never mean suicide.
Of course, I did not allow them to enter battles without preparation. Before each mission began, I equipped Shizuka and Rika with various Cursed Tools that I had specifically chosen to cover their weaknesses.
There were close-range weapons enhanced with cursed energy to increase their offensive power. There were also automatic defensive tools capable of responding to sudden attacks. In addition, I provided several support devices designed to help them deal with an opponent's Innate Technique.
At that time, neither of them had shown any sign of possessing an Innate Technique of their own.
I did not know whether the ability simply had not awakened yet… or if it had never existed in the first place.
That was my initial assumption.
In the end, however, that assumption proved to be wrong.
Late April of the year 2000 became the day that changed my perspective.
That day, the air felt heavier than usual. The overcast sky hung low, making the sunlight appear pale and bleak.
Their target was a Curse User whose reputation wasn't particularly striking. His name rarely appeared in major reports, but from the information I gathered, the man was known to be cunning and patient.
And it turned out those reports were not exaggerated.
From the very beginning of the fight, the man did not move like the opponents before him.
He didn't attack recklessly.
Instead, he moved cautiously, like a hunter observing its prey. He provoked Shizuka and Rika's emotions, forcing them to move faster than they should. Slowly, he began to break their formation, creating distance between the two of them.
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