As soon as I shook off the sorcerer who called himself a senior, a group of uniformed police officers blocked my path.
"Wait, kid! Can you give us your name and contact info? What exactly did you experience in there?"
There was no way those questions were getting through to my ears; I was already beyond exhausted. I decided to make full use of my ultimate weapon: my 12-year-old appearance. I let my eyes droop and started trembling like a terrified child, crying out loud.
"I-I don't know anything! I just got lost... Wahhh! I'm scared, I want my parents!"
Taking advantage of the moment the police hesitated in flustered confusion, I slipped through their perimeter like a squirrel and bolted into the Kyoto crowds. I heard them calling after me from behind, but I didn't give a damn.
"Huff, puff..."
The moment I locked the door to my decrepit tatami room, I collapsed onto the floor.
My physical wounds were almost entirely healed, but the mental exhaustion was on another level.
I had pushed my brain to its limit navigating the loops inside that terrifying Innate Domain, and on top of that, I had manifested Mahoraga's Dharma Wheel. My brain was screaming in protest.
"Gotta sleep..."
Though the noon sun was streaming through the cracks in the window, I lost consciousness as if I had been knocked out.
When I finally opened my eyes again, it was around 8 PM, and the silence of evening had settled in.
"Ugh... My head feels like it's going to split open."
I groaned as I forced myself up. My stomach was rummaging with a hunger so intense it felt like I was possessed by a starving ghost. I fumbled through the plastic bag I'd bought that morning and pulled out a cold meat croquette and a salad bread.
"...This really tastes like shit."
I gnawed through the soggy, grease-soaked breading. The vegetables inside were starting to give off a sour, spoiled tang, but I forced it all down into my stomach and chased it with a long gulp of water.
"Phew!"
Calories were essential to maintain and heal a sorcerer's body. This was purely survival-based consumption.
Having somewhat satiated my hunger, I sat cross-legged. In the dark room, I began to slowly replay the morning's events. I focused on the fundamentals of a Domain that had been forcibly etched into my mind the moment I crossed that yellow police line.
'It was mentioned in the original manga. If Sukuna's Domain Expansion—the kind that doesn't close its barrier—is a divine feat of painting on thin air without a canvas, then a conventional Domain Expansion is more like a masterpiece painted within one.'
The sensation I gained through Mahoraga's Adaptation aligned perfectly with that. A Domain, ultimately, was the act of overlaying the sorcerer's inner mental world—the Innate Domain—onto physical reality.
'When the Dharma Wheel turned once, I clearly caught a glimpse of the principles behind how Cursed Energy constructs a barrier and partitions space.'
Recalling that sensation, I concentrated my consciousness, trying to pull my inner world outward.
However.
Gathering Cursed Energy at my fingertips to try and draw something in the air, I soon let out a hollow laugh and withdrew my hand.
"It's still impossible. No, it doesn't even qualify as a start."
The reason was clear.
The knowledge I gained today was, metaphorically speaking, nothing more than opening my eyes to 'appreciating art.' Just because you understand the brushstroke techniques and paint mixing principles used in a masterpiece doesn't mean a beginner can grab a brush and perfectly recreate the Mona Lisa immediately. Most might not be able to draw it even if they spent their whole lives trying.
'Critiquing a painting' and 'directly drawing on a canvas' are issues on entirely different levels. Domain Expansion, the pinnacle of jujutsu, is the act of vividly manifesting one's internal Mona Lisa onto the massive canvas known as reality. It was an illusion to think I could reach that height with a single adaptation.
"...In that case."
I closed my eyes and slowly moved my arms through the empty air.
If I couldn't paint a masterpiece like Domain Expansion right now, I had to find another survival route. I needed at least a minimum defensive measure so I wouldn't be helpless when trapped in the Domain of a Cursed Spirit or another sorcerer in this insane world.
"If I can't paint a masterpiece... I'll just have to scribble a crude sketch on the canvas."
I began to strip away elements of a finished painting from the canvas in my mind, one by one.
Erase the brilliant colors of the work (Omit the 'Lethal' factor assigned to the Domain).
Erase the depth and composition (Omit the 'Sure-hit' factor).
Erase the shading (Omit imbuing the Cursed Technique within the Domain).
Erase the background supporting the painting (Omit the partition of space between the inside and outside of the barrier).
Finally, erase every remaining detail (Omit the boost to Cursed Technique performance).
As I stripped away all the clutter, nothing but a gaunt, crude sketch remained on my canvas.
That was the skeleton of a sort of Simple Domain.
A technique that skips all the complex processes of manifesting one's inner world and simply casts a tiny barrier of Cursed Energy around oneself.
Of course, what was currently drawn beneath my feet was nothing more than an empty zone with a radius of about one meter centered on me. It had no lethal effect, no sure-hit factor, and it didn't even have the function of neutralizing an opponent's Domain. It was just a circular line so pathetic it was embarrassing to even call it a Domain.
"....Good."
But through this life-or-death survival struggle today, I realized exactly what I lacked—and what I had to fight for to grasp in the future.
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