Ren shoved the phone back into his jacket pocket and pushed off the cold stone wall, letting out a long, slow breath into the cooling evening air.
He started walking down the winding stone path toward the school's exit. He had a brief window to move before things in Kawasaki escalated completely out of control.
"System," Ren muttered under his breath, keeping his eyes on the path ahead.
The familiar, glowing blue holographic interface materialized in his field of vision, its soft light cutting through the creeping shadows of the campus.
"I just dropped five grand to get Nightfall to Grade 1," Ren whispered, his tactical mind crunching the numbers for the battles ahead. "What's the price tag to push a weapon past the ceiling? How much to upgrade a Grade 1 cursed tool to Special Grade?"
The blue panel flickered. A line of crisp, white text scrolled across his vision.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Weapon Upgrade Tier — Special Grade]
[Cost: 50,000 System Points]
Ren actually stumbled mid-step, his boot catching on a cobblestone. He caught his balance, staring at the massive number floating in front of him.
"Fifty thousand?" Ren hissed, rubbing the back of his neck. He currently had a balance of just 1,095 points. Given that a standard Grade 3 kill only yielded 5 System Points, the math was agonizing. "I'd have to depopulate the entire cursed spirit ecosystem of Tokyo to farm that."
But the System wasn't done. The holographic panel expanded, dumping a fresh block of data into his vision.
[SYSTEM ADDENDUM: Special Grade Imbuement Mechanics]
[Notice: Reaching Special Grade classification fundamentally alters the molecular and spiritual structure of a Cursed Tool. Upon ascending to Special Grade, the weapon will naturally develop and permanently house an innate Cursed Technique.]
[User Option Unlocked: Directed Imbuement]
[Description: The User may bypass the weapon's natural development and manually select a specific Cursed Technique to imbue into the weapon. The User MUST possess a fundamental, theoretical understanding of the desired technique's mechanics to select it.]
Ren froze. The evening breeze rustled the trees around him, but he barely registered the sound. His mind instantly snapped back to the sterile, fluorescent-lit morgue and the exhausted doctor with the dark circles.
Shoko had literally just given him a crash course on the mechanics of Reverse Cursed Technique. Multiplying negative energy by negative energy to create positive, curse-obliterating energy.
She had explicitly told him it was practically impossible to permanently charge a weapon with positive energy because the metal couldn't hold the volatile charge without shattering.
But the System didn't care about the established laws of Jujutsu. The System was an absolute, out of the world thing.
"Wait," Ren breathed, his pulse ticking up. "System. Because I understand the theoretical framework of Reverse Cursed Technique now... could I manually imbue Nightfall with RCT? Could I make a Special Grade sword that permanently outputs positive energy?"
The interface chimed instantly.
[AFFIRMATIVE. The User possesses sufficient knowledge of Reverse Cursed Technique to select it for Directed Imbuement.]
[WARNING: Directed Imbuement requires an additional expenditure of System Points based on the complexity of the selected technique. Imbuing 'Reverse Cursed Technique' will incur a severe premium cost.]
"Of course it does," Ren muttered, letting out a sharp, incredulous laugh. "So, what happens if I just pay the baseline fifty grand and don't pick a technique?"
[If Directed Imbuement is not utilized, the Cursed Tool will absorb ambient negative energy and naturally manifest a random Cursed Technique aligned with its existing traits (e.g., Nightfall's anti-regeneration field).]
Ren stared at the glowing blue text, the tactical puzzle pieces snapping into place.
"Fifty thousand points," Ren repeated, the number leaving a sour, metallic taste in his mouth.
He dropped his hand from his glasses, the cool evening breeze rustling the collar of his jacket. If grinding low-level curses only yielded five points a kill, reaching that threshold before the Shibuya Incident—let alone tomorrow—was a statistical nightmare.
Ren turned his back on the sprawling Jujutsu High campus and started down the mountain path at a brisk jog.
...
The gravel of the mountain path crunched steadily under Ren's boots. As he reached the bottom of the long descent, the subtle, static-like pressure of the Jujutsu High barrier washed over his skin, fading the second he stepped past the hidden torii gates.
He didn't head for the train station. Public transit was too passive, and sitting in a crowded car wouldn't put a dent in a fifty-thousand-point deficit.
"Inventory," Ren murmured into the quiet evening air.
The translucent gray grid materialized. He bypassed the first slot holding the short, familiar shape of the Wraith's Fang and reached his hand into the spatial distortion of the second slot. His fingers wrapped around a tightly bound hilt.
...
Ren left the main roads behind. He stuck to the narrow commercial alleys and abandoned lots stretching between Tokyo and Kawasaki. Public transit was faster, but the stations were too well-lit and populated. He purposely walked past overflowing dumpsters, broken streetlights, and damp concrete—the exact places where negative energy naturally gathered.
Nightfall hung loosely in his right hand. The dark scabbard blended perfectly into the evening gloom.
He didn't have to wait long. Three blocks from a run-down pachinko parlor, the air noticeably dropped a few degrees. Ren turned the corner into a dead-end alley littered with broken pallets and garbage bags.
Clinging to the brick wall was a swollen, insect-like curse the size of a minivan. A solid Grade 3. It clicked its mandibles, several bulging eyes locking onto him.
Ren didn't break his stride. He planted his left foot, his thumb snapping the guard of his katana up. The blade hissed cleanly out of the scabbard.
The curse lunged, a flurry of barbed legs swiping at his head.
Ren ducked. He pivoted on his heel, stepping smoothly inside the creature's guard, and brought Nightfall up in a brutal, two-handed diagonal slash.
The Grade 1 steel sheared completely through the creature's thick outer shell, severing it from hip to shoulder. The curse dissolved into a massive cloud of heavy purple ash.
A familiar blue screen materialized in his peripheral vision.
[Target Eliminated: Grade 3]
[Reward: +5 System Points]
[Milestone Progress: Exorcise 100 Grade 3 Curses — 3 / 100]