The basement was dim and cold, the air dense with chill—a temperature well-suited for preserving corpses.
Two men stood on opposite sides of a test table, occasionally launching into animated discussions, their eyes fixed on the subject laid out before them.
A middle-aged man rested on the table, his expression peaceful, as if in deep sleep.
Beside his head sat a pale skull.
...
Sōjun Minamoto had ultimately accepted Kenjaku's invitation.
The experiment itself was intriguing enough, but even just the prospect of acquiring a new Cursed Energy source made it worth his while.
Each source represented a sorcerer.
During his three-plus years at Jujutsu High, most of which he spent stationed in the medical department, any sorcerers who were either beyond saving or already dead were sent there. Add to that the ones who had died by his own hand... even so, he'd only managed to collect just over twenty Cursed Energy sources—averaging fewer than ten a year.
The scarcity of sorcerers was a constant in the jujutsu world.
Death and rebirth barely kept the numbers in balance.
Naturally, Cursed Energy sources were hard to come by.
And if reducing consumption wasn't an option, then increasing supply was the only way forward.
Sōjun had tried to look elsewhere for alternatives.
His first thought was Cursed Spirits. Unfortunately, no matter how many he devoured, he never found any energy sources within them.
After all, Cursed Spirits were nothing more than clusters of negative energy.
That ruled out other similar beings as well.
He then turned to Shikigami, and surprisingly, those did seem to have energy sources—but after further research, he concluded they weren't viable.
It was like xenotransplantation in modern medicine—transplanting a genetically modified pig heart into a human body.
The Cursed Energy source from a Shikigami could be merged into a human, and some other special creatures fell into that category too.
But Sōjun wouldn't go that route. It was too much trouble, and it risked contaminating the Cursed Energy, requiring extra effort to purify it and remove impurities afterward.
Not worth it.
Even in medicine, pig heart transplants were a last resort.
And Sōjun wasn't that desperate—at least not yet.
In the end, it circled back to the same conclusion: only human sorcerers or humans who had been possessed by cursed objects were valuable to him as energy sources.
This current batch of cursed objects was practically a windfall—prime resources delivered straight to his hands.
But first, he had to bring them back to life to fully capitalize on them.
With that thought, Sōjun reached toward the skull with his right hand and pulled out a faint, illusory soul.
After examining the soul carefully, he glanced down at the man on the table.
Whoever he was, Kenjaku had sourced him from somewhere—clearly a non-sorcerer, in the same preserved state as the woman from earlier.
A corpse that looked peacefully asleep.
Obviously kept in this condition through some special method. No need to question its purpose—it was a vessel meant for possession.
Sōjun noticed that Kenjaku hadn't chosen the bodies or the cursed objects randomly. He matched them by compatibility, then decided which to revive.
In fact, the host body took precedence.
This approach had a major benefit: once the cursed object took over, it could unleash its full potential.
Was Kenjaku really honoring those contracts?
But then Sōjun reconsidered.
Kenjaku hadn't reacted at all to his earlier actions—not even when he devoured one of the contracted targets.
Aside from Uraume, who was likely a special case, the rest of the cursed objects on those shelves were probably just experimental materials.
Kenjaku was meticulous about the experiments themselves, but he didn't really care about the sorcerers behind the objects.
Which meant Sōjun had even less reason to care.
He pushed the soul in his hand into the host body, then pulled out the body's original soul fragments and fed them in as well.
The moment the two ghostly souls made contact, the one from the skull devoured the humanoid one without hesitation.
A moment later, the man's eyelids on the table twitched.
His body began to shift slightly—not as dramatically as Uraume's, but his facial features subtly changed.
"Success."
Kenjaku clapped his hands in admiration.
Sōjun Minamoto didn't react.
The two of them took a synchronized step back.
The man on the table sat up, eyes dazed. He instinctively glanced around, then looked down at himself. Slowly, his expression grew animated—then manic.
He could barely contain his grin.
"...I'm alive. Hahaha, I'm alive again!"
The unfamiliar room, different furnishings, strange lighting, and clothes he'd never seen before...
All of it made one thing clear—he had been revived in a later era.
His once-aged body was young again. Power had returned to his limbs.
He clenched his fists twice in the air.
This feeling was incredible.
"Kenjaku?"
He turned toward Kenjaku, the corners of his mouth curling into an inhuman grin—fitting, since he was no longer human.
"As a token of my gratitude..."
"...please die for me. I'll remember your name."
Here we go again.
Sōjun Minamoto sighed inwardly.
No wonder that was considered the golden age of jujutsu. The modern era might be showing signs of revival, but it still couldn't compare to that time.
Those ancient sorcerers far surpassed today's in both number and strength—and their mental states were just as overwhelming.
Sōjun had already revived several of them, but barely any made it out of the basement alive.
One?
Maybe two?
It wasn't because the experiments failed—it was because their "refined" states of mind made civil conversation nearly impossible.
These people were just way too... ahead of their time.
He looked at the man before him. Another powerhouse?
Sōjun glanced at Kenjaku.
His right hand remained translucent in its soul form, while his left arm was tense with muscle, sheathed in a pale layer of bone-like armor carved with sharp precision.
All in preparation for this exact scenario.
This wasn't the first time it had happened. Several of the revived ancient sorcerers had shown immediate hostility toward Kenjaku.
Whatever Kenjaku had done to earn such hatred, it must've been serious.
More importantly, after hurling threats at Kenjaku, they all turned and charged straight at Sōjun instead.
Probably because he was standing closer to the door.
These sorcerers weren't fools.
They knew they weren't at full strength just after being revived and couldn't take Kenjaku head-on. So they tried to throw him off with words, eliminate the one guarding the exit, and escape first.
The man's intent was written plainly on his face.
Sōjun didn't budge. He raised his left arm just as the man lunged at him—almost like he ran right into the trap—and caught him by the face, lifting him effortlessly.
Crimson bloomed. The man stiffened.
Black light flashed from Sōjun's palm. His first move was a Sōjun-style vortex that melted the man's head clean off.
Black threads poured from the corpse, dragging a translucent orb of light back to Sōjun. The threads coiled around his forearm as the orb merged into his body.
The entire process was smooth and seamless.
Sure, the current generation was weaker than the ancient one—but that only applied to average sorcerers. At the top level, things were still evenly matched.
The balance mechanism had always been in place—pressing down from a thousand years ago to now, maybe even longer... and no sorcerer had ever truly risen above it.
Besides, the man's strength was decent, but nowhere near elite. Not even close to Uraume's level.
For Sōjun, handling him was no effort at all.
The black threads on his arm faded into his skin. Another technique, another Cursed Energy source—secured.
He nodded, satisfied.
"Another one who hates you," Sōjun said, glancing at Kenjaku as he packed away the skull-shaped cursed object. "How exactly did you form a Binding Vow with someone like that?"
He was genuinely curious. A Binding Vow required both parties to be aware and in agreement for it to work.
But from how these revived sorcerers acted, it didn't seem like the conditions were ever met. If anything, they wanted Kenjaku dead the moment they woke up.
"When people are at death's door, give them a sliver of hope," Kenjaku replied calmly. "They'll cling to it willingly—desperately, even."
"But killing you wouldn't help them. It wouldn't cancel the vow."
"It can," Kenjaku said with a smile, despite how troublesome it sounded. "Because I included a condition."
"Whether they want to kill me or repay me doesn't matter. As long as they're ready to gather when I need them and be of use, that's enough."
Sōjun gave a small shrug and began cleaning up the lab table.
He was just curious—it wasn't something that concerned him much.
Glancing around at the remaining cursed objects, he changed the subject.
"We've done enough trials to perfect the method. There's still a good number of cursed objects left. We could try reviving them all at once."
"All at once?" Kenjaku looked at him oddly.
"What? You weren't planning to do them one by one, were you?"
...
(40 Chapters Ahead)
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