After returning to his room, Shinji locked the door securely.
His current resources consisted of 6,500 cursed soul points, the cursed object Perfect Perfume, one Jujutsu Enhancement Scroll, and the Kubikiribōchō, which had yet to be converted into a cursed tool.
First came the question of how to use those 6,500 cursed soul points. Since he had fewer than ten thousand, he couldn't do a ten-pull, but he could still draw six times.
Alternatively, he could spend five thousand to turn the Kubikiribōchō into a cursed tool and leave the draws for later.
Shinji had actually thought about it for a long time. In the end, he decided to try a single draw first. If the odds of getting something good weren't too low, he would spend everything on draws.
If the prize pool was a rip-off, he would spend five thousand cursed soul points upgrading the Kubikiribōchō instead. That way, at least he wouldn't walk away empty-handed.
He promptly brought up the system's draw screen and selected a single draw.
Golden light immediately blazed across the system screen, nearly blinding him.
Shinji couldn't help getting excited. Had his rotten luck finally turned around? Had he hit the jackpot on his very first pull?!
Soon, the light faded...
[You obtained Trickster's Temporary Curse Card ×1] [Trickster's Temporary Curse Card] Effect: Guaranteed to trip on flat ground while walking. Duration: Five minutes. PS: I don't know whether it'll look cute, but I'd suggest protecting your face.
I finally pull something, and you still make me lose this badly.
Fuck!
One thousand cursed soul points for a cursed object this trashy, and it's a single-use consumable to boot. This useless system really is cursed!
Naturally, Shinji wouldn't admit that his own luck was terrible. He promptly pinned all the blame on the system. It wasn't as though the system would jump out and argue with him.
"Ah, forget it. Who do I think I am, trying to get rich off prize draws?"
After laughing at himself, Shinji firmly abandoned the idea. He didn't throw his remaining cursed soul points into the bottomless abyss of the draw system.
Instead, he picked up the Kubikiribōchō and began converting it into a cursed tool.
Five thousand cursed soul points were instantly deducted. Then a mass of dark energy enveloped the Kubikiribōchō in Shinji's hands, presumably carrying out the transformation.
About three minutes later, the energy vanished, and the transformation was complete.
Shinji examined it carefully. Its overall appearance hadn't changed much, except that a row of seven transparent white dots had appeared on the raised section where the blade met the handle.
[Kubikiribōchō - Cursed] Self-Repair: Absorbing blood after taking damage allows rapid self-repair. Soul Imprisonment: After this weapon kills an enemy, their vengeful soul will be imprisoned within the blade, lighting one of the Seven Kill Lamps. Cloak-Breaking Strike: Can be activated when all Seven Kill Lamps are lit. Within a straight-line distance of one hundred meters, instantly arrive behind a target in sight while invisible and strike with double the destructive power!
What was this?
This was awesomeness soaring straight into the stratosphere!
After reading the new Kubikiribōchō's details, Shinji couldn't hide the delighted surprise on his face.
Aside from [Self-Repair], an ability the Kubikiribōchō already possessed, its conversion into a cursed tool had produced two new abilities.
There wasn't much to explain about [Soul Imprisonment]. It meant that enemies killed by this [Kubikiribōchō - Cursed] could never be resurrected. It was practically a natural counter to abilities like Impure World Reincarnation. He was certain it would give his enemies quite a surprise in certain special situations down the road!
But the ability he really thought was badass was [Cloak-Breaking Strike].
Once all Seven Kill Lamps were lit, consuming all the vengeful souls would let him unleash a close-range slash similar to a short-range Flying Thunder God Technique-and with double the damage!
This meant that his mobility in future battles would improve tremendously.
Awkward situations where an enemy escaped with barely any health left, or pinned him down and slowly wore him to death,
would rarely happen again. In fact, with the right timing, he could even use it to dodge an enemy's ultimate move.
In just that short span of time, he had already thought up plenty of slick tricks. All that remained was to test whether they worked.
By now, the cursed soul points he had worked so hard to save were almost back to square one. He had only five hundred left, not enough to do anything.
Only after admiring it for another half hour did Shinji put down the Kubikiribōchō and take out the [Jujutsu Enhancement Scroll].
Its name was so straightforward that Shinji had high expectations for its effects. After all, relying solely on his own gradual development of jujutsu was still a little too slow.
Getting something for nothing might have been a little shameful, but... it felt so good!
How many people could resist the temptation of getting something for nothing?!
[Jujutsu Enhancement Scroll] Instructions: Tear open. Effect: Gain extensive practical experience corresponding to the selected jujutsu, with a small chance of comprehending [Maximum Technique]. PS: [Maximum Technique]: The ultimate expression of a jujutsu cursed technique, excluding domains.
Shinji hesitated no longer. He ripped open the [Jujutsu Enhancement Scroll], and a streak of white light immediately emerged. Before he could react, it shot straight into his head.
Shinji felt dazed for a moment. When he came to his senses, he discovered that "he" was somewhere utterly unfamiliar-and had become someone else.
Had he transmigrated again?
No. Shinji soon figured out what was happening.
This so-called [Jujutsu Enhancement Scroll] actually let him experience another person's life from a first-person perspective.
But that life contained none of the miscellaneous details. There were only scenes of training in and using [Blood Manipulation], as though all the other memories had been stripped away.
Every day consisted of training, training, and more training.
How much time had passed?
That question was completely meaningless.
The timeline jumped forward in chunks. Once today's training ended, it immediately skipped to the next day's training. If there were no memories of training on the second day, it skipped straight to the third.
So in this strange world, concepts such as time and hunger neither existed nor were needed.
Shinji didn't even know who "he" was at that moment. Every person and object around him was blurred.
He could only keep receiving, against his will, all the knowledge the other person was learning and mastering.
He felt the flow of blood, body temperature, pulse... even the changes in every red blood cell.
Gradually, Shinji stopped passively absorbing everything. Instead, he began thinking actively, drawing on this exceptionally precious experience.
After an unknown amount of time, Shinji's rigid body suddenly shuddered, and life gradually returned to his vacant eyes.
The additional memories slowly faded, leaving only the precious experience of training in and developing [Blood Manipulation] day after day. It had become entirely his own.
Shinji couldn't help feeling dazed for a moment. He knew he had hit it big this time.
The most valuable reward from this mission hadn't been those mere five thousand cursed soul points, but this [Jujutsu Enhancement Scroll].
If he could do this one more time, he was completely confident that he could comprehend and construct a domain of his own!