Testing

Naobito Zenin had pushed his "Projection Sorcery" to its limit, turning into a streak of light invisible to the naked eye as he shot straight toward the Cursed Tool Vault.

The gale ceased, and he was already standing in the vault's inner chamber.

Inside, Ogi Zenin was holding the gift box tied with a red cord, his fingers just about to tie the final dead knot.

The moment he saw his elder brother appear, his face went pale and his hands froze in midair.

"Put it down." Naobito spoke coldly. His voice was not loud, yet it shook dust from the ceiling.

Though Naobito appeared calm, stormy waves churned within his heart.

He had deliberately arranged for a trusted subordinate to temporarily hang that [Piercing Ox Horn Bow] in a corner of the Cursed Tool Vault.

This move had been meant to test Lu Ping's mastery of the Ten Shadows Technique and see whether he could resonate with that inherited weapon.

He had only meant to give it a try, but he never expected the boy to actually succeed.

It seems his training outside these past few days has brought a breakthrough. He may have even tamed a new shikigami. Naobito's eyes flickered as he calculated.

In that case, it was indeed time to formally put Lu Ping's succession as the next clan head on the table.

Lu Ping had originally possessed only the strength of a Grade 2 sorcerer. In this warped family where strength ruled all, he could never have kept the pack of wolves below him in line.

Naobito had previously done everything he could to arrange a marriage alliance between him and the Kamo Clan. He had even considered having him marry into their family. Put plainly, he had wanted to leave this branch family a way out.

As long as the name of one of the Three Great Families sheltered him, even after Naobito died, Lu Ping would not be devoured alive by the Zenin Clan's internal strife.

But now, the boy had grown fangs of his own.

Since he possessed such strength and potential, it was only natural that he had no interest in a marriage alliance. There was no need to force the matter any longer.

Naobito glanced at Ogi Zenin's livid face and sneered inwardly.

This man had guarded the Cursed Tool Vault for so many years, yet he actually believed Lu Ping had obtained that bow through sheer luck.

If the cursed energy of the Ten Shadows Technique had not resonated with it, how could the cursed energy of a Grade 2 deadweight possibly awaken that slumbering Ten Shadows cursed tool?

Naobito snatched the gift box away, tore off its disguise, and revealed an ordinary Grade 1 longbow.

He casually tossed it back onto the weapon rack, then steadily placed the black [Piercing Ox Horn Bow] from the table into the box.

Next, he walked expertly to a hidden compartment along the inner wall, pulled open its drawer, and removed a long, narrow jade case.

When he opened it, three dark-blue arrows lay quietly within, their surfaces wrapped in dense arcs of electricity and faintly carrying the shrieks of birds.

This was a single-use Grade 1 cursed tool—[Ten Shadows: Nue's Feathers].

"Put these three arrows on your account." Naobito slapped the jade case onto the gift box and looked coldly at Ogi Zenin.

This was the clan head's additional stake, and also an investment in a genius.

Ogi Zenin stared fixedly at the jade case, his fists clenched so tightly that his knuckles turned white.

Though he did not know why Naobito had suddenly changed his attitude, he knew that he had completely lost the upper hand this time.

If he truly made a scene, he would be the one in the wrong. He could only take a deep breath, forcibly suppress the anger in his chest, lower his head, and step aside.

Naobito picked up the gift box one-handed, turned, and walked out of the Cursed Tool Vault.

Around the bend in the mountain path lay a clear pool.

Naobito stopped beneath the shadow of a dense pine tree and looked toward the water's edge.

Lu Ping was squatting by the bank, holding several flat stones in his hand.

Beside him, child Maki and Mai were tugging at his clothes, looking up at him with bright, sparkling eyes.

Lu Ping flicked his wrist, and a stone shot out grazing the water's surface.

Whoosh.

The stone skipped rapidly across the water in quick succession.

Splash, splash, splash... A string of dense splashes bloomed across the emerald surface—neither more nor less than twenty in total.

With a final thunk, the stone embedded itself precisely in the moss-covered rock wall on the opposite shore.

The two sisters immediately clapped and cheered, while Mai excitedly hugged Lu Ping around the knee.

Lu Ping smiled and reached out to ruffle the two little girls' hair.

Naobito watched quietly.

In the Zenin Clan's mire, the weak and those without cursed techniques were worth less than dogs.

Lu Ping had not grown up in the main family, and he had not been tainted by the arrogance and prejudice rooted deep in their bones.

Seeing him treat these two girls with such poor talent as equals gave the hope long buried in Naobito's heart another measure of life.

Naobito was old.

The ambitions of his youth had long been swallowed by this rotten stagnant pool. His only obsession now was finding a qualified helmsman for this family that was about to rot through completely.

Lu Ping had awakened the horn bow just now, and now he had demonstrated this kind of character. He had barely met Naobito's expectations.

"However, broad-mindedness alone isn't enough." Naobito's gaze sharpened, and a dangerous aura radiated from his body.

"We still need to see whether your capacity can bear this power."

Thud.

The bluestone slab beneath Naobito's feet silently cracked with fine fissures.

[Projection Sorcery] suddenly activated.

A piercing tearing sound abruptly erupted through the air.

Within a fraction of a second, Naobito's body became a blurred streak of light, carrying mountain-crushing wind pressure as he lunged straight at Lu Ping's back.

At that moment, Lu Ping had just turned around to pick up more stones.

The Three Corpses within him were still leaping madly with excitement from their earlier resonance with the horn bow.

The cursed-energy senses linked to them had been pushed to the highest peak of his life.

The air behind him suddenly grew cold.

A heavy, violent, and utterly familiar cursed energy was frantically closing in on his blind spot at a speed that defied physical law.

There was no time to form the hand sign needed to summon a shikigami.

Lu Ping's eyes hardened. The cursed energy within him surged downward, and rather than trying to turn and flee, he followed his instincts and made the quickest response possible.

The shadow beneath his feet abruptly shot upward.

Two masses of pitch-black shadow clung to the soles of his shoes like wolf claws. Using Shadow Wolf's incomplete manifestation, his body forcibly twisted halfway around on the spot.

Facing the oncoming gale, Lu Ping fiercely crossed his hands, shielding his chest and lower abdomen as he assumed the tightest defensive stance possible.

At the same time, the black shadow beneath his feet exploded outward like spilled ink, turning into a viscous black pool that spread directly toward the incoming cursed energy.

As long as the other person's feet touched the ground, they would inevitably be slowed by the shadow for an instant, buying him a chance to escape.

Lu Ping changed tactics incredibly quickly, completing it all in the blink of an eye.

However, the extreme speed of twenty-four frames per second ultimately exceeded the limits of his current body.

Lu Ping had only turned halfway around, and before his eyes could even catch the other person's figure, he felt a fierce gust strike him head-on.

A callused, aged yet powerful hand had already silently broken through the layers of air pressure and settled firmly on his shoulder.