Source Exchange

Deep within the Zenin Clan grounds, the Cursed Spirit Detention Facility lay beneath a heavy barrier all year round. Layer upon layer of sealing Cursed Techniques were engraved into its stone walls, gleaming with a cold, dark sheen of cursed energy.

The air was thick with the chilling miasma left by years of imprisoning cursed spirits. Even after the spirits were exorcised, that lingering oppression still clung tightly to the enclosed training area.

Shallow marks from the recent battle remained on the floor. The exorcised Grade 2 Cursed Spirit had long since turned into wisps of black smoke and dispersed completely among the sealing patterns, leaving not even a scrap behind.

Zhiyan slowly withdrew his hand. The pale cursed energy lingering around his fingertips receded like the tide, flowing steadily back into his body.

After day upon day of almost brutally intense training, dealing with an ordinary Grade 2 Cursed Spirit had become effortless for him.

He stood tall and straight, his breathing even and unhurried. His brow was clean and dry, even his hair remained neat, and there was not a trace of dishevelment or exhaustion about him. Only his usual quiet composure remained.

He cast a calm glance over the now-empty cursed spirit cage. Once he confirmed that the spirit had been fully exorcised and the seals remained intact, he prepared to turn and leave the oppressive restricted area.

Not far away, beside a stone pillar covered in curse patterns, Toji Zenin had been watching for some time, leaning against the stone with his arms folded.

His casual clothes looked entirely out of place in the Zenin Clan's solemn, heavily guarded restricted grounds. His posture was loose and lazy, as though he had merely stopped for a rest while passing through.

Only after confirming that the battle was completely over did a faint flicker of interest cross Toji's eyes. He spoke at an unhurried pace.

"You didn't have to go to all that trouble with that cursed spirit." Toji's low, languid voice carried a touch of careless amusement, sounding especially clear in the silent detention facility. "Kid, I've been meaning to ask. Can't you use a shikigami's abilities directly without summoning it?"

Zhiyan turned and calmly raised his eyes to Toji. His voice was steady and cool, without a hint of post-battle weakness, and every word was clear and frank. "I can."

After a pause, he continued in the same even tone, honestly explaining the limitation he had always faced. "But a shikigami's own abilities don't connect smoothly with my cursed energy system. Converting the cursed energy is sluggish and difficult. If I force it, it consumes too much of my own cursed energy. It isn't worth it."

As far as he had always understood-or, for that matter, as far as any wielder of the Ten Shadows Technique understood-this was an unchangeable fact, an innate weakness of his Cursed Technique. Even though he had considered forcing his way past it, the books left by the clan offered no possible direction. He had therefore chosen a safer, more energy-efficient approach to combat, relying on honing his own skills to carry out exorcisms.

After hearing him out, Toji gave a low snort. There was no mockery in it, only a dismissive indifference toward the rigid beliefs of conventional sorcerers.

He slowly straightened away from the stone pillar and took a few lazy steps toward Zhiyan. Gravel crunched softly beneath his feet.

He stopped a short distance from Zhiyan, narrowing his eyes slightly. His tone was as casual as if they were discussing what to eat that day.

"Can't you use your head and find a way around it?" Toji lifted his gaze carelessly, his tone light. "Build a bridge between your cursed energy and the shikigami's, for instance. Smooth out the conversion pathway."

"That's already the method I use when I try to draw on a shikigami's abilities."

At those words, Toji paused briefly, then clicked his tongue and idly rubbed his lower lip with a fingertip. His expression showed a dismissive understanding, as though that explained it but amounted to little.

Then he offered an idea far bolder and more unconventional than a cursed energy bridge.

"Tch, so you're already doing that." Toji gave a soft snort, speaking as casually as if it were some trivial matter. "If a bridge only barely transfers the energy and treats the symptoms instead of the cause, if conversion is still sluggish and the cost is still huge-why not take it a step further and merge the cursed energy cores directly?"

He paused, watching Zhiyan's expression change abruptly, but his tone remained light. "Merge the shikigami's cursed energy core completely with your own. Make its power part of you. Would you still have those damn problems with conversion and excessive consumption then?"

The instant those words fell, Zhiyan's previously placid eyes lit up.

It was the light of long-dormant thoughts suddenly igniting, of a blocked path abruptly opening. A problem he had pondered endlessly without an answer had been laid bare in a single remark, leaving him stunned and suddenly enlightened.

The calm detachment in his eyes shattered at that moment, replaced by undisguised shock, delight, and a brightness that bordered on complete revelation.

Those perpetually steady, distant eyes were like a deep pool into which a spark had fallen, suddenly surging with radiant light.

He froze where he stood, his lips slightly parted, but the impact was so great that he could not make a sound.

The cursed energy bridge was a makeshift solution he had worked out from his predecessors' findings. Perhaps influenced in part by the Zenin Clan's "fine family traditions," he had never considered taking the step of "merging cursed energy cores."

It was an idea entirely outside the Zenin Clan's inherited theory of the Ten Shadows Technique, so bold it verged on madness. Yet it struck precisely at the most critical weakness behind his technique's bottleneck.

Zhiyan did not answer. He simply stood there in silence, the light in his eyes refusing to fade. His heart beat a little faster in his chest as unprecedented ideas surged wildly through his mind. That earth-shattering suggestion consumed him completely, leaving him unable to offer even half a word in response, filled with nothing but astonishment and sudden understanding.

Silence settled over the detention facility once more. Only the faint hum of the sealing patterns echoed through the air, while the light that had suddenly kindled in the boy's eyes shone especially brightly in that oppressive place.

Toji stood a few steps away, watching Zhiyan remain frozen on the spot like a wooden figure immobilized by jujutsu. His eyes were dazedly bright, and he could not get a single word out.

"Hey, kid." Toji raised his chin slightly, tossing his lazy voice toward him. "What are you spacing out for? One sentence scared you stupid?"

That quiet call abruptly pulled Zhiyan back to his senses. His long lashes fluttered rapidly a few times. The newly kindled light in his eyes had yet to fully subside and remained startlingly bright.

He unconsciously tightened the fingers hanging at his sides, his fingertips paling slightly. His mind, which had been stunned blank by that wild yet intensely tempting idea, only then slowly began to work again.

It took him a while to recover his voice, and even then it carried a lingering tremor, entirely unlike his usual steady calm. "...I wasn't spacing out."

Despite his denial, his slightly widened eyes and still somewhat dazed expression plainly betrayed him.

"Stubborn, aren't you?" Toji arched an eyebrow, his tone teasing. "But this is the first time you've been this stunned, isn't it, kid?"

Seeing that he remained silent, his eyes only growing brighter and his thoughts clearly drifting far away, Toji clicked his tongue, looking rather bored.

He had little patience for complicated cursed energy theory to begin with. He had only brought it up on a whim while watching the fight, never really expecting the kid to try it or offer any immediate response.

"Forget it. I can't be bothered watching you stand here in a daze." Toji waved a hand and turned toward the detention facility's exit, his retreating figure loose and casual. His voice drifted back lightly. "If you're really interested, figure it out yourself. Don't stand there like a block of wood."

By the time his words fell, he had already taken several steps away.

Zhiyan remained where he was, neither following nor speaking.

He simply watched Toji's retreating back in silence. His once-placid eyes now surged with unprecedented resolve and light. The wind brushed over the curse patterns on the stone walls with a faint sound, but he heard none of it. His mind held only those words-

Merge the cursed energy cores.

That single sentence had broken open an entirely new world for him.

The fingers at his sides curled slightly as his mind began uncontrollably racing through the possibilities of merging cursed energy cores.

What he had inherited was the Zenin Clan's Ten Shadows Technique. Using his own cursed energy as a catalyst to command shikigami, summon them, and fight alongside them was a system of power engraved into his bloodline.

Yet for so long, he had remained trapped within the fixed framework of "summon, use, dismiss." Even when he barely managed to draw directly on a shikigami's power through a cursed energy bridge, he still could not escape the Ten Shadows Technique's original rules of cursed energy circulation. The sluggish conversion and enormous consumption had never truly been resolved.

But what if... I completely merged a shikigami's cursed energy core with the source of my own cursed energy?

Not "commanding" in the traditional sense of the Ten Shadows Technique, but assimilation.

Not a sorcerer directing a shikigami, but making the shikigami's cursed energy core part of my own cursed energy circulation.

Once he succeeded, the Ten Shadows Technique's upper limit would be broken. The barriers to cursed energy conversion would disappear, the energy cost would be eliminated, and he might even be able to freely use every shikigami ability without summoning them, truly becoming one with his shikigami.

Once that thought took root, it grew at an astonishing pace.

The more he considered it, the more sound the logic seemed, and the more viable the path appeared. His heart quickened with subtle but forceful beats, and even his breathing gained a barely perceptible urgency.

Every barrier imposed by the Ten Shadows Technique's established rules, every unsolvable problem, now seemed as though it might be shattered.

There was no hesitation, not a moment's delay.

Zhiyan abruptly came back to himself. He suppressed the excitement surging within him and swiftly reined in every outward trace of emotion, returning to his quiet, restrained demeanor.

Without lingering another second, he turned and walked briskly toward his courtyard.

His steps were not quite hurried, but they carried an unprecedented determination and urgency.

He needed to return to his cultivation room immediately, mobilize his cursed energy, and follow the pathways of the Ten Shadows Technique to work through, test, and verify this wild yet utterly enticing idea, bit by bit.

Even if it was only the most preliminary exploration, even if he could only touch the outermost barriers at first, he had to begin immediately.

Toji's casually delivered sentence had completely rewritten his understanding of the Ten Shadows Technique.

A cold wind swept through the Zenin Clan's winding corridors, lifting a few fallen leaves, yet it could not disperse the bright, burning light newly kindled in the boy's eyes.

He crossed the courtyard with steady steps and pushed open the wooden door to his own quarters. The hinges turned with a faint sound that rang especially clearly in the quiet afternoon.

The moment he entered his own space, Zhiyan reached back and closed the door, shutting out every gaze and sound from outside.

He walked to the center of the cultivation room and slowly closed his eyes. His fingertips rested lightly over the cursed energy core in his abdomen, while Toji's casual words echoed repeatedly through his mind.

Merge the cursed energy cores.

Merge the shikigami's core into my own.

In the next moment, he steadily mobilized the cursed energy throughout his body, slowly extending it along the contractual pathways connecting him to his shikigami. For the first time, with the wild aim of breaking tradition, he formally began an experiment that challenged the accepted principles of the Zenin Clan's Cursed Technique.

Zhiyan sat cross-legged in the very center of the cultivation room, enveloped in a stable halo of cursed energy. His fingertips hovered before him, and the Ten Shadows Technique's shikigami contract patterns glowed faintly beneath his skin, like dormant bloodlines awakening one by one. This time, he first reached for the Divine Dogs, the most docile of his contracted shikigami and the most compatible with him.

He held his breath and focused, slowly probing with his cursed energy into the deepest pathways connecting him to the Divine Dogs. He easily touched the cursed energy core belonging to the shikigami.

Following Toji's proposed approach, he tried to bring his own cursed energy core fully against the Divine Dogs' core and merge them.

But the instant the two sources were about to touch, a violent, almost tearing repulsion erupted. The Divine Dogs' cursed energy core trembled in pain, and the contract patterns instantly became dazzling and searing hot, as though they would burn through his energy channels. Zhiyan's heart sank. Almost instinctively, he immediately forced the cursed energy connection to break, and a fine layer of cold sweat sprang up on his brow.

His eyes snapped open, a trace of gravity flashing through them.

No.

Completely merging the cursed energy cores won't work.

If he forced them together, the Divine Dogs' existence would be erased outright. He would completely devour and absorb their cursed energy source, ultimately causing the shikigami to dissipate and the contract to become void, leaving an irreparable gap in the Ten Shadows Technique's power.

That was not the result he wanted. He wanted symbiosis and mutual connection between himself and his shikigami, not to destroy them.

Zhiyan slowly exhaled a stale breath and lightly pressed his fingertips to the space between his brows. Rather than becoming discouraged, he sank into deeper thought.

The Divine Dogs' presence still echoed steadily within his shadow, reminding him of the symbiotic connection that already existed between them. Since complete fusion would cause the shikigami to perish, what if he took another approach?

Not devouring. Not overwriting. Exchanging.

What if I separated an extremely tiny portion of my own cursed energy source and exchanged it for a matching fragment of the Divine Dogs' core, each leaving an indelible imprint within the other's source?

That way, the Divine Dogs should not disappear, nor should he suffer harm. Yet he could plant a pair of permanently interconnected cursed energy anchors between them. Where before he had barely managed to build a bridge, now he would be opening a door directly.

Perhaps the sluggish cursed energy conversion and excessive consumption could then be resolved at their root.

As that thought emerged, a resolute light once again shone in Zhiyan's eyes.

Compared with the madness of complete fusion, exchanging portions of their sources was safer and better suited to the symbiotic nature of the Ten Shadows Technique and its shikigami. It also avoided the risk of the Divine Dogs perishing altogether.

Without a moment's delay, he quickly adjusted his breathing and closed his eyes again.

This time, he mobilized his cursed energy more cautiously and gently, carefully separating a small portion of exceptionally pure cursed energy source from his own core. At the same time, guided by the Ten Shadows Technique's contract, he softly soothed Divine Dogs: Black's consciousness, gently touched the shikigami's core, and encouraged the shikigami to separate a corresponding strand of source energy.

Divine Dogs: Black cooperated docilely, without the slightest resistance.

Two slender yet weighty streams of power, one blue and one black, slowly approached each other within his cursed energy circulation.

There was none of the earlier destructive repulsion, only a faint tremor like resonance, as though pathways long separated had finally reconnected.

Zhiyan gathered all his focus, concentrating completely on controlling the flow of every thread of cursed energy. The Ten Shadows Technique's curse patterns at his fingertips alternated between light and dark, and even the air in the cultivation room distorted slightly as the two sources touched.

He was taking a gamble.

He was betting that this unconventional exchange could truly break the shackles of the Ten Shadows Technique that had bound him for so long.