Talismans and Graveyards
For some reason, Thanos decided to snap 10 whole draft chapters away, which is a real bummer.
But luckily I still had a rough outline on the way I wrote those chapters so I guess I was able to salvage some..?
Anyway, I have school so the updates will be slower.
Enjoy the chapter!
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Shuichi explained all the things that his shop could offer to the woman, she listened quite attentively too.
He told her some things about supernatural demons and Youkais, which was complete bullshit, but since curses kind of exist it wasn't completely lying.
Youkai and demon by definition, is an 'evil spirit'. And since curses kind of exist because of the negative emotions of humanity, that qualifies them for that position. Demon is a broad term after all.
Anyways, Shuichi told her of the things 'they' do at 'The House of Supernatural', which ranged anywhere from an exorcism and ridding something or someone of evil spirits, to things like selling talismans for warding off negative energies.
At first, the woman only listened with interest, but when Shuichi was done, she told him that her close friend had been experiencing weird things around her house lately.
It was "Because someone had cast black magic on her", as according to the woman's words. Shuichi was dissatisfied with the term she used but since he was getting a job he said he would help them if they paid the appropriate price.
And surprisingly, she agreed to bring her friend to the shop so he could consult with her.
To finish things off, Shuichi offered her his card and with that, she was off.
'I guess I'll make some more talismans.' Shuichi thought and brought out some paper and ink from a nearby drawer.
Making cursed talismans, or 'Cursed Repelling Talismans' was an important job in Jujutsu society.
Talismans, in the simplest terms, were inscriptions infused with extremely fine cursed energy over papers.
Talismans were used in all kinds of things. From exorcising curses and repelling negativity to making cursed tools and objects.
They had such a wide variety of uses that alongside Cursed Tool Maker, Talisman Maker was one of the most sought after job in the jujutsu world. Needless to say, the amount of money they would get was off the charts.
Both cursed tools and cursed talismans were in high demand all over the world.
And one couldn't simply make them. What they required was either a cursed technique specifically designed for such a purpose, like the Mizumiya family that had the ability to directly infused curses into objects on the spot(which failed to leave any descendants to continue the clan) or having a high control over one's cursed energy.
Now having fine control over cursed energy was a given to imbue it into other things, but it could still be performed with the amount of control he had.
There was also the fact that a special kind of paper was used to make the talismans but Shuichi obviously didn't have any funds to be able to get such materials.
As such, the talismans that he had made over the past 2 days have turned out to be far below the acceptable level.
But as inferior as they were to the mainstream level talismans, they could still be used to repel negativity and curses, although only with a 40% efficiency. If you were unlucky the talisman might just not work and may even attract a stronger curse.
That was the reason that Shuichi had not begun selling these things. The ones he had on display were the absolute best talismans that he had been able to create. And were able to at least ward off curses and negative thoughts, thought still not at the level of normal talismans.
With that, Shuichi continued to draw talismans and practice his cursed energy control for the next couple of hours, until it was already the twilight hours overhead.
Seeing that it was already about to be night time, Shuichi decided to close the house of supernatural for today.
As he got out of the building, he had the idea of going to the graveyard again today. Yesterday the hunting at the graveyard had gotten him tremendous benefits, but the thing is, he wasn't feeling like it.
Yesterday, he was feeling quite annoyed at the fact that he had not gotten any customers, but today he had gotten a single customer.
And while that may not be much, he was satisfied with it. Besides, the talisman making and the control training he had done in the shop had increased his Cursed Energy Control to quite a high level.
At this point, he was sure that his control could be considered to be at the level of an experienced sorcerer.
It had reached the proficiency level of the giant number of 1130!
'At first, the proficiency was hard to increase. But now that I have the reserves equivalent to a semi-first grade, the proficiency growth is through the roof...' Shuichi mused as he calmly walked towards his apartment.
His control proficiency had increased by leaps and bounds ever since his cursed energy reserves started to improve. Now, even if he practised by meditation alone, he could still increase his control by a great amount.
That fact alone had him feeling giddy inside.
As such, he decided to not hunt curses today.
'I'll let them off for today...'
***
The very next day, Shuichi woke up feeling extremely great.
But he still did not feel like opening the shop today. He wanted to Kill some curses.
You could say that he woke up and chose violence. It was funny how much the mood can affect the actions of a person. Just the night before, he did not want to go curse hunting. But today, he felt like going on a curse hunt and increase his reserves to that of a special grade.
'There are only 3 special grades in the world at the moment...'
Shuichi was making his way to the nearest graveyard while chomping down on a burger that he had got from the local WacDonals. Yes, the McDonalds of Shuichi's old world were called WacDonalds here. Apparently, they were not that big of a company as of yet and was just starting to branch out into other countries. And of course Tokyo being the center point of Japan held a branch.
Back to the point, special grades were special existences. They broke all the limitations of common sense that an average sorcerer had on the world.
The grading system in the jujutsu world is such that a graded sorcerer can effortlessly defeat a curse of the same grade and contend with the grade above them.
As such, a sorcerer at that level had the ability to effortlessly defeat a curse of the same grade.
That was the reason special grades were the absolute pinnacle of the jujutsu world.
Everything about them, from their cursed techniques and control to the way they hold themselves is far superior to any other sorcerer. Obviously, all this information was something that Shuichi had obtained from the memories of his predecessor and the various books he had read. He did not know how much truth was in them.
But the point was, a special grade's cursed energy reserves are enough to dwarf that of even a special grade 1 sorcerer, which lied between first grade and special grade.
And obviously, getting such borderline absurd amount of cursed energy was no easy feat.
But Shuichi was confident enough to get to that level if he could find some decently powerful grade 2 cursed spirits and a couple of grade 1s. The only problem being the fact that he had to eliminate them quickly to take the full benefits.
The way his cursed technique works, is that it takes away the remaining cursed energy of the target after he kills it. Meaning that if a curse had used up too much cursed energy during the fight by healing and stuff like that, Shuichi would not benefit much from it. That was also the reason that the cursed spirit he fought on the first day of transmigration did not raise his cursed energy reserves to the likes of a grade 2.
But now that he was strong, Shuichi was going to actively hunt for stronger curses. And that was the reason he was heading to another graveyard.
This time, he did not decide to go to that one graveyard where he could not find any higher grade spirits.
Shuichi had his doubts that the area may have been recently cleared out by some sorcerers so going there was as risky as it was useless. Curses took their time to form, the higher the grade of the spirit the greater the time required for it to form/grow.
Obviously there were some exceptions to this. Most special grade appear in a burst of cursed energy due to excessive accumulations of negative emotions in a given area over time. That can only happen if the emotions associated with the said thing are powerful in themselves and the cursed energy density around the area is above average.
There can also be some other factors involved, like if the creation of the curse is aided by a powerful cursed tool. In such cases, creating a highly powerful special grade was not too far-fetched of a scenario.
But things like those were far too rare. So rare that the probability of it happening was 1 in 1,000,000.
As such, Shuichi doubted that he would find any type of powerful curse in that graveyard again.
The possibility was next to nil.
'I should try to develop a sort of curse sensor. Perhaps that might help me locate more powerful curses to hunt.' Shuichi mused as he approached the graveyard, already feeling quite a lot of curses inside.
'Although I can detect cursed energy at a close proximity, if the number of curses is too high there's no way for me to find out if either a powerful curse that's in the area or just a ton of grade 4s.'
That being said, before he was transmigrated into this body, his predecessor was incapable of even that. Shuichi theorized that his ability to sense cursed energy increased in proportionality to his cursed energy control. Either that, or the small pieces of enlightenment that he receives occasionally worked to enhance his senses. There could also be one of his cursed techniques at work. With both of them elevating his senses to the next level, they might also be altering his cursed energy sense.
As he stood in front of the graveyard, he decided to test out the basic barrier of sorcerers for the first time. The 'Curtain'.
He brought up his hand in front of his face and holding out the index and middle finger out vertically in front of his face, he began chanting.
"Emerge from darkness, blacker than darkness." He chanted as a black gelatinous like ethereal substance appeared in the sky. "Purify that which is impure." He finished.
And with the chant, the black substance in the sky began to spread out through the sky, making something akin to a dome like structure around the entire graveyard.
This was a 'Curtain', a must have barrier technique for a jujutsu sorcerer. One of the key points of the jujutsu organization was to always be away from the eyes of the common folk. It wasn't an iron rule that absolutely had to be followed, but not following it generally resulted in a lot of headaches for the higher ups which they did not like.
As such, these curtains allowed for the sorcerers to function away from the normal eyes, making it seem like everything in the curtain is normal as well as blocking any unauthorised entry(though that is highly variable in most cases). Curtains can also function in a specific way according to the wishes of the user, though one ususally needs to have a high level of mastery over barrier arts to do that, doing it using cursed energy control is also possible.
The curtain slowly spread out in all directions, completely covering the sky in a translucent black cloth.
"Well then" Shuichi said as he began to stretch out his arms and legs.
"Let's grind some experience!"
...
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To be continued-
Drop some stones~