Piercing Ox Horn Bow

Lu Ping gripped the black wooden token, walking along the stone path of the Zenin Clan estate.

The surroundings were quiet, and the tall pine trees cast patches of shadows.

He was pondering the words of the head of the house.

Hiding back in the Zenin Clan was indeed a fallback option, but it could only be a fallback.

In the world of jujutsu, blindly hiding in a safe zone meant giving up growth.

If he did not actively participate in the main plotline and use it to temper himself, sooner or later he would be reduced to cannon fodder in some future major battle.

He thought of the head's fate in the original work: during the Shibuya Incident, because Naobito brought no weapons, drank excessively, and relied too heavily on Satoru Gojo's absolute combat power, he fought continuously when encountering a disaster-level special grade cursed spirit and ultimately died from severe injuries.

The presence of the head of the house could protect one for a moment, but not for a lifetime.

Besides, he was only of collateral lineage; in the eyes of those main-family members, he was ultimately an outsider.

Once the head passed away, the main family would inevitably gang up to deal with him.

Elevating his strength as quickly as possible was the fundamental truth.

Since he came to this world and created variables, the original plotline might have already shifted to a certain extent.

To cope with unknown dangers, he had to take the initiative to strike rather than stubbornly defending a so-called safe zone.

Of course, if he truly encountered an unsolvable, fatal crisis, he would not mind using the family's power as an amulet.

Passing through the family's training grounds, quite a few young men and women of the main family stopped in their tracks, lowering their heads to him in greeting with expressions of undisguised submissiveness.

Lu Ping nodded slightly, his expression calm.

He began to ponder the matter of the political marriage.

Given the head's shrewdness and personality, this matter was definitely not public, but rather being advanced in secret.

Meet the person in question first, Lu Ping thought to himself.

Future actions would all be accompanied by extremely high risks.

Before his strength reached a level where he could absolutely control the situation, he had no intention of romancing.

Taking a step back, however, having a Grade 1 Sorcerer guard his side or act as a reliable ally would be a tremendous boost.

Moreover, he should soon be eligible to apply for the assessment of Semi-Grade 1 Sorcerer.

By then, Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto would need to recuse themselves as his direct mentors and could not act as recommenders.

However, that Kamo Clan senior student reading in her third year at Jujutsu High could serve precisely as his recommender during the assessment.

At the end of the stone path was a heavy building built against the mountain, its doors and windows tightly shut; this was the Zenin Clan's Cursed Tool Vault in Lu Ping's memory.

A middle-aged man sat cross-legged on a wooden stool by the door, a katana lying horizontally across his knees.

Lu Ping remembered him, Ogi Zenin—a man who had failed in the power struggle for the headship of the family.

Seeing the head's token in Lu Ping's hand, Ogi Zenin stood up.

His posture was submissive, his head lowered slightly to show absolute obedience to the head's authority.

Beneath that rigid face, however, a trace of resentment and an extreme desire for power flashed in the depths of his eyes.

He envied those with powerful innate techniques yet could only endure it forcibly, obediently fulfilling his duties.

The Three Corpses within Lu Ping's body were extremely sensitive to emotional changes, instantly capturing the subtle, twisted malice on Ogi Zenin.

Influenced by this malice, the air seemed to grow somewhat viscous.

Lu Ping's expression remained as usual as he casually handed over the wooden plaque. Ogi Zenin reached out to take it, and after confirming it was correct, turned to open the heavy iron-plated door.

Accompanying a dry scraping sound, the doors of the Cursed Tool Vault slowly opened, revealing the gloomy space inside.

The air in the vault was chilly, carrying the stale odor of aged ironware and lumber.

A faint oil lamp cast a halo over the weapon racks on both sides.

In the center of the first storage room, a handsome youth was standing before a row of blades carefully making his selection.

Lu Ping recognized at a glance that it was Naoya Zenin, who had just turned fifteen this year, even two years younger than himself, a second-year student at Jujutsu High.

Hearing the commotion, Naoya turned his head.

Seeing that the newcomer was Lu Ping, the arrogance on his face instantly vanished. Instead, he took the initiative to step forward and respectfully bow in greeting.

"Big Brother Lu Ping," Naoya said, his tone quite deferential.

In Naoya's perception, the family's hierarchy of status was absolute.

Lu Ping had awakened the legendary Ten Shadows technique and was deeply valued by the head, naturally belonging to the upper-echelon powerhouse he had to respect.

Lu Ping walked up to a row of daggers, glanced over them, and reached out to point at one: "Choose this one. The center of gravity is forward, and the blade is light and thin, just right for the high-speed movement of Projection Sorcery."

Naoya was startled, reached out to pull out that dagger, and waved it twice in the air. His eyes instantly lit up.

"Many thanks, Big Brother Lu Ping." Naoya put away the dagger, his tone sincere.

He pointed to a smaller wooden door in the rear: "Grade 1 Cursed Tools are all stored in the innermost inner vault. The key is already inserted in the door."

Lu Ping's Three Corpses could clearly sense Naoya's emotional fluctuations at close range; there was no hypocrisy, no concealed malice, only pure submission and respect for the strong.

This caused a strange sensation to rise in Lu Ping's heart.

Perhaps the nature of Naoya Zenin during this period was not all that terrible; it was that deformed, twisted family education of the Zenin family that completely turned him into a madman in the future.

Lu Ping offered his thanks, turned to push open the wooden door, and walked into the storage room for Grade 1 Cursed Tools.

The space here was smaller than the outside, with pitch-black wooden boxes neatly arranged all around.

The moment Lu Ping stepped into the room, the Three Corpses within his body suddenly became abnormally active.

Simultaneously, the cursed energy of the Ten Shadows Technique produced a low resonance within his chest cavity, as if it had encountered its own kind.

His gaze instantly bypassed those halberds and spears, landing precisely on the wall at the deepest part of the warehouse.

A pitch-black large bow hung there.

Beneath it, a line of small characters recorded its name: [Piercing Ox Horn Bow].

Its outer shape was a heavy longbow, completely black as ink, without a bowstring.

The two ends of the limb were crafted from two stout, black giant horns, their surfaces covered with natural, rough grain.

Lu Ping walked forward and unhooked it with a single hand. The crossbow-bow was heavy and cold upon contact, yet it possessed a familiar tactile sensation as if connected by blood.

He channeled his own cursed energy into it, and the shadow beneath his feet instantly surged like a tide into the bow body, mixing with the cursed energy to condense a pitch-black, translucent arrow along the arrow track.

Gently clicking the grip without truly firing, a muffled neigh faintly traveled through the air, resembling an angry giant ox roaring, and the resulting sonic wave impact caused the surrounding air to ripple in circles.

Lu Ping's eyes lit up; as if innate, he instantly understood the usage of this cursed tool.

The Piercing Ox Horn Bow was very likely specially crafted using the horns of Piercing Ox, a shikigami among the Ten Shadows, serving as a dedicated cursed tool for a Ten Shadows Sorcerer!

In the hands of an inheritor of the Ten Shadows Technique like him, this bow could even unleash power surpassing that of a Grade 1 Cursed Tool!

This was a ranged weapon custom-built for a Ten Shadows Sorcerer.

The concentrated shadow arrow it fired would automatically track targets whose shadows had previously been stepped on by the sorcerer.

As for its true strategic value, it lay in its second ability—the Ten Shadows Sorcerer could hide themselves within the shadow space condensed into the arrow.

The size of the space inside this shadow had nothing to do with the size of the arrow itself, depending entirely on the sorcerer's own cursed energy upper limit.

This was not only a powerful ranged output means, but also a multifunctional component that could be used to suppress enemy ranged firepower and execute high-speed displacement.

Lu Ping gripped the pitch-black longbow tightly.

Dense shadows wrapped around the streamlined longbow, stirring up ripples of pitch-black cursed energy fluctuations.

Lu Ping could now clearly feel that even if he faced that Grade 1 Curse User from yesterday once again, he would have the strength to fight.