[Settlement complete. Character killed: wild Grade 2 Cursed Spirit (unnamed). World influence: extremely low.] [Reward count: 1] [Obtained: standard Grade 2 Jujutsu Sorcerer physique and total cursed energy reserves. Simulated character's cursed energy extracted to achieve an all-around enhancement.] [Obtained: additional trait, 'Shatter'.] ['Shatter': after every 15 instances of effective damage you deal, your next attack has a chance to critically strike, ignoring the opponent's armor and producing a penetrating effect before resetting.] ["Thus, your control and release of power become ever more effortless, and you feel a deeper resonance."]
Today, Xia Xia returned to the realm of earthly immortals.
Grade 2. He had finally reached Grade 2, a rank that could actually appear in the story, valid proof that Jujutsu Society could consider him a "person."
That was more or less good enough.
Surely you didn't think a Grade 2 Jujutsu Sorcerer could kill a special grade just by performing well? He was still just an ant in the main storyline.
That extra trait was interesting, though. "After every 15 instances of effective damage you deal, your next attack has a chance to critically strike, ignoring the opponent's armor." Viewed that way, it was basically fifteen basic attacks stacking up to one hit of true damage. Oh, that noble white damage.
Provided he could actually hit his opponent, and the first fifteen attacks could deal effective damage. Otherwise, it was still a blank slate.
Look on the bright side. At least it would help a lot against opponents of the same rank or in one-sided beatdowns. He wouldn't have to grind away until they both died just to shave off a sliver of health.
"Just wait until I get my armor breaker (Black Flash)."
Xia Xia didn't dwell on his interim gains. Right now, his blood was running a little hot... he was rolling around on the floor.
Tears and snot streamed down his face, like some little shit who had stubbed his toe.
Being burned alive was still a little too painful. He hadn't felt it while fighting the Snake-Fish Cursed Spirit, but now that he had returned to the space, phantom pain swarmed over him despite his uninjured body.
His skin melted, his flesh cooked, his eyeballs charred. Every inch of his body suffered the agony of needles and flaying. He felt as though the phantom pain alone had nearly killed him. Fortunately, the space had a safety protocol enabled by default. Brutal as the pain was, it was gradually fading.
Give us an acceptance speech, Xia Xia:
"Feels great."
The man kipped up into a sitting position and, perfectly calm, had the screen start the next reality simulation.
With the strength of a Grade 2 Jujutsu Sorcerer plus the 'Shatter' trait, Xia Xia stomped straight past old man Izumino and the Snake-Fish Cursed Spirit with a single War Stomp!
Barely dirtied the hem of his shirt, bro.
Xia Xia felt as fresh as Sett straight out of the fountain. He stacked basic attacks with autos, and when he had no skills, he made them himself: Facebreaker! Haymaker! Facebreaker! Showstopper!
The enemy's attacks barely tickled, while his own blows landed heavy and hard. His sixteenth elbow strike triggered a true-damage explosion.
When Xia Xia walked out of the Shopping Mall, light as a breeze and carrying a bag of instant self-heating rice, a long-absent sense of boredom rose in his heart again.
"I don't care who it is. Could someone at least show up? I've been walking this long, and I'm still not at the center of the barrier?"
There wasn't even a landmark. He was bumbling around like a headless fly. How long would it take to run into an enemy at this rate? This wasn't how a battle royale was supposed to work. You people should be scrambling to rush in front of me and attack like those two lunatics earlier, not scurrying around and hiding like rats...
Xia Xia got fed up and simply followed his instincts forward.
He had no idea how long he walked. It felt like a century, and the weariness in his heart only grew.
Just as Xia Xia was about to lose patience, he stopped, raised his head, and looked toward the sky not far away.
Then he saw the most beautiful sight of his life.
It was a bolt of lightning descending from the heavens, blazing like the sun.
Its thunder roared through the entire barrier, deafening, proclaiming its wielder's absolute arrogance with overwhelming force. The man stood there, declaring war on everyone within his sight.
It was truly beautiful.
Unrivaled beneath the heavens, with a foe descending from above.
Xia Xia wanted to advance, to behold that pure, crystalline fighting spirit as quickly as possible. Yet when he tried to take a step, he discovered he could no longer move.
The reason he had walked so long without finding another jujutsu sorcerer was that Hajime Kashimo had slaughtered everyone in this area for points, leaving this stretch of the barrier almost entirely empty!
That lightning was lethal to weaker jujutsu sorcerers. Even catching it in the corner of their eyes could leave them blasted to death by the fallout.
Xia Xia's body had already been carbonized by a lightning strike as he gazed at the lightning. All that remained of him now was an empty shell.
A special grade was a being capable of destroying a nation single-handedly.
And the fallout unleashed when special grades fought seriously was more than capable of vaporizing the small fry at the edge of the battlefield.
Why? I was so close. Just a little closer, and I could have seen him. Just one more step forward, just...
"Hajime Kashimo!"
A soundless call emerged from Xia Xia's hollow mouth.
Unfortunately, up in the high heavens, that voice was only slightly louder than the wind. Hajime Kashimo, preparing to break through the barrier and head for the next battlefield, did not choose to stop for such a nobody.
Had it been a challenger's call, he would have listened no matter what. But what lay on the ground was clearly nothing more than a roasted corpse-best not to bother with the dead.
It didn't matter. Forget it. Don't bother with Xia Xia.
The successfully incarnated [Thunder God] intended only to head to the center and challenge the King of Curses. Before that, he had to find a way through the barrier, hunt down some jujutsu sorcerers, and change the rules of the Culling Game... Sukuna. His obsession was to have a thrilling fight to the death with that thousand-year-old monster.
The lightning faded from Xia Xia's regret-filled eyes.
He hated his own weakness. Nothing else.
Hajime Kashimo. This was his first time seeing a character from the main storyline. So powerful, so brilliant...
"Let me put it bluntly. Hajime Kashimo's dominance in powerscaling debates is unrivaled. It surpasses even his achievements in jujutsu."
"?"
[Xia Xia was killed. His struggling finally ceased. The killer was Hajime Kashimo.] [Dropped 591 platinum, 60 gold, 15 silver, and 3 copper.] [No carryover rewards.] [Revival countdown...] [Current spawn point saved. As no other spawn points exist, the player's next revival will still occur here. Timeline fixed.] [Important character encountered: Hajime Kashimo.] [Cause-and-Effect Reversal simulation attempts: 1]
In the pure white space, a certain Grade 2 Jujutsu Sorcerer was still savoring the shock the [Thunder God] from four hundred years ago had given him.
Back when he took part in powerscaling debates, he had loved ironically hyping up this "God Kashimo," who seemed absurdly overpowered but actually couldn't even use Domain Expansion, whose cursed technique was a once-in-a-lifetime suicide attack, and who ultimately activated his ultimate only to be smoothly diced into mango cubes by Sukuna and deliver a bizarre acceptance speech.
Yet now, having experienced it firsthand after transmigrating, he finally understood. A special grade was a special grade. For everyone below that rank, it was a nearly insurmountable gulf-unlike extras such as Izumino and the Snake-Fish Cursed Spirit, Hajime Kashimo was truly strong.
"I'm never stirring up slander about Fraudshimo again."
"What the hell? I thought I had a little strength, but it turns out Grade 2 really is just Grade 2. I don't even qualify to take part in the story."
"This is..."
"Absolutely amazing!"
He stuck a finger into his mouth and bit down hard. Pain, blood-they all added more color to the chaos in his head. Sloth, sloth, sloth, sloth! His brain was trembling!
He had been struggling to find his next goal, agonizing over what kind of combat techniques to develop. The instant he saw Hajime Kashimo, everything clicked.
"That is how a true man should be!"
"I can take his place!"
Hajime Kashimo's innate cursed technique was called "Mythical Beast Amber." At the horrific cost of his flesh collapsing and dispersing into lightning after battle, it used cursed energy to strengthen his body to its limits, dramatically increasing his physical strength, reaction speed, and cursed energy output. It could even forcibly reshape his body to some extent to inflict greater damage on his enemies...
Good. Burning out together was exactly what he wanted!
As Xia Xia saw it, this mutually destructive burst of power was precisely what he currently lacked. Through the rewards for fulfilling conditions, he had a chance of obtaining this ability directly after killing Hajime Kashimo.
(What was wrong with this guy? Did he not feel fear? Why did he start another round of biting like a feral dog every time someone powerful killed him instantly?)
"Despairing at death, fearing the strong, having your inner convictions crumble and finally choosing to flee-all of those are normal responses for a living organism. But that's how the weak think!"
In a sense, being killed by the fallout of Hajime Kashimo's battle, a humiliation ordinary people would struggle to accept, was as refreshing and exhilarating to Xia Xia as meeting his idol. Hahahaha!
Because he had encountered Hajime Kashimo, he had unlocked the second type of simulation-Cause-and-Effect Reversal.
Reality simulation was more like a return-by-death ability derived from his "Softcore Character" trait. Aside from the somewhat interesting conditional rewards, Xia Xia considered it a blank panel.
Cause-and-Effect Reversal was the sort of simulator people normally imagined, the true expression of his cursed technique's growth potential.
It inserted a virtual version of himself into a stretch of history, then directly extracted the results after he experienced growth. Unlike reality simulation, it couldn't rewind infinitely. A Cause-and-Effect Reversal simulation gave him only one life, but that one attempt contained an entire lifetime's worth of substance.
It was sure to bring boundless joy and surprises.
The only restriction was that the life scenario in Cause-and-Effect Reversal was closely tied to the person he had encountered. With someone like Hajime Kashimo, entering the simulation would most likely toss him four hundred years into the past to fight Hajime Kashimo during his original lifetime.
"Start!"
[Loading Cause-and-Effect Reversal...] [Timeline and core character anchored.] [Background: over four hundred years ago, 'Thunder God Hajime Kashimo' rose to fame. People trembled in the lightning and knelt before his heavenly might. Yet Hajime Kashimo was a pure warrior, with no intention of building himself a throne in the mortal world. He was always merciful to challengers-he would earnestly kill every brave soul who dared raise a sword against him.] [Yet this strength could not make everyone retreat.] [There would always be creatures upon the earth who dared face the majesty of thunder.]
Before you continue