A human-shaped tyrannosaurus

Satoru Gojo, dressed in a sharp black suit and wearing a blindfold, slowly descended from the sky.

"Well, well, Jue. You're demolishing this place a little too quickly."

Gojo landed beside Yagami Jue and clicked his tongue at the forest around them, which had already been reduced to a basin.

"If you keep fighting, the principal's going to come crying to me to have you expelled."

"Satoru Gojo? You bastard, of all the times you could've shown up, you picked the moment I was about to cash in?"

The sight of Gojo nearly made Yagami Jue explode with rage.

That was a billion yen!

If he had landed that punch, Kenjaku would have been badly wounded even if he survived.

Now that this white-haired bastard had arrived, Kenjaku would definitely use the opportunity to escape.

"Heh. The strongest jujutsu sorcerer?"

Sure enough, the moment Kenjaku saw Gojo appear, his eyes flashed, and he immediately summoned an enormous flying cursed spirit.

"Let's call it a day, Yagami Jue, Satoru Gojo."

"This game has only just begun."

Whoosh!

The cursed spirit carried Kenjaku into a dark rift in space, vanishing in an instant.

"Trying to run?! Leave my billion yen behind!"

Yagami Jue was about to give chase.

But Gojo placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Don't chase him, Jue. That's 'Opening Gate.' There's no point following him. That's his home turf."

"Fuck your point! That was my down payment toward five billion!"

Furious, Yagami Jue slapped Gojo's shoulder.

Buzzz!

Violent ripples surged through Gojo's Limitless.

"Shit, that hurt."

Gojo rolled his shoulder, looking innocent. "Your grip just keeps getting stronger since you evolved."

Yagami Jue deactivated the Gate of Life, and his skin quickly returned to normal.

An overwhelming sense of emptiness and hunger hit him instantly.

"Fuck. All that effort, not a penny earned, and I burned through a ton of vitality."

He gave Gojo an irritated look.

"Hey, white-hair. We're not just letting this slide."

"I saved those two chicks back there, didn't I? The higher-ups owe me a reward, right?"

Gojo chuckled. "Of course. I've already applied for a twenty-million-yen bonus for you."

"Only twenty million? What am I, a beggar?"

Yagami Jue rolled his eyes at him.

"Whatever. Even scraps are worth something."

He turned and headed toward Junpei and the others, his retreating figure looking somewhat forlorn.

"A billion yen... just like that, a billion yen went flying away."

The Jujutsu High infirmary.

Asakura Yuki was carefully treating Nobara Kugisaki's wounds.

The first thing Kugisaki had done upon waking up was demand compensation from Yagami Jue.

"That bastard! He actually tossed me to Junpei! I'm a lady, you know!"

"My limited-edition uniform's filthy! He owes me a hundred thousand!"

Kasumi Miwa sat beside her in a daze, mumbling over and over, "So handsome... he's so handsome... and he even held me..."

Nobara Kugisaki gave her a sidelong glance. "Hey, girl from Kyoto Jujutsu High. Is your brain broken?"

"That guy's a money-grubber! A freak! A human-shaped tyrannosaurus!"

Miwa's eyes sparkled. "But he's so strong. He drove off a special grade cursed spirit with one punch..."

Meanwhile, Yagami Jue was squatting on the steps outside the infirmary, holding a stalk of foxtail grass.

Junpei Yoshino sat beside him, his face battered and swollen as he grinned foolishly.

"Teacher, how did I do back there?"

"I got knocked out, but I didn't back down, even at the very end, right?"

Yagami Jue snorted. "Didn't back down? If you had, I'd be spending every last yen of your mom's secret stash on top-ups right now."

"But since you did all right this time, your training load triples starting tomorrow."

"What?!"

Junpei's face fell instantly. "Teacher, that'll kill me!"

"No shit. How do you expect to get stronger without risking death?"

Yagami Jue stood up and gazed at the distant sunset.

"Junpei, just watch."

"This world's going to fall into chaos soon."

"If you don't want to be a spectator in the next big show, then get stronger like your life depends on it."

Yagami Jue entered the infirmary and looked around at the room full of injured people.

His gaze settled on Nobara Kugisaki, and he suddenly remembered something.

"Hey, Kugisaki."

Kugisaki turned with an irritated look. "What? Here to collect a debt?"

"No."

An exceptionally sinister smile spread across Yagami Jue's lips.

"I hear your family owns quite a few properties in Tokyo. How about selling a couple and investing in my 'Taijutsu tutoring class'?"

"Get lost!"

Nobara Kugisaki grabbed a pillow and hurled it at Yagami Jue.

Yagami Jue sidestepped it and left the room laughing.

He silently tallied things up in his head.

And that wraps up the first day of the Kyoto Sister-School Goodwill Event.

The individual matches are tomorrow.

That idiot Aoi Todo should still be waiting for me.

Tch. Hopefully I can squeeze something useful out of him.

The system panel lit up:

[Host: Yagami Jue]

[Account balance: 150 million yen (including mission bonus)]

[Physical condition: Moderately fatigued]

[Current mission: Make every contestant cry in the upcoming individual matches and seize the Heaven-Reversing Cloud fragment!]

"Five billion..."

Yagami Jue clenched his fists, feeling the strength gradually returning to his body.

"Whether it's the King of Curses or those rotten higher-ups..."

"Anyone who gets in the way of me making money has to die!"

Yagami Jue walked into the dark forest and began another round of self-torturous training.

After all...

Getting stronger was the only truth.

And money was the stairway to that truth.

Early morning.

Tokyo Jujutsu High, the training grounds.

Bang!

A violent blast of air erupted, snapping several crooked trees along the edge of the field clean in half.

Yagami Jue stood bare-chested, his muscles looking as though they had been cast from molten steel, radiating an almost suffocating masculine intensity.

All he had done was throw the most basic straight punch.

The special-alloy target in front of him, designed to test the defenses of grade 1 cursed spirits, now resembled a crushed soda can embedded deep in the cliff behind it.

"Still not good enough."

Yagami Jue frowned at his slightly reddened fist.

"My control's still a little off. I meant to use only five percent of my strength in that punch, but I overshot by three percent."

If that hit a normal person, it'd scatter even their fucking ashes.

Yagami Jue grumbled inwardly.

Since his body's second evolution, his strength had broken past the hundred-and-twenty-thousand mark.

It made everything around him feel as flimsy as paper.

"Teacher... you call that poor control?"

Junpei Yoshino crouched nearby with a thick stack of statistical reports in his hands, the corner of his mouth twitching uncontrollably.

"That alloy target cost three million yen. You scrapped it in one second."

"I feel like if you keep training, you'll tear up the very ground Jujutsu High stands on."

The look in Junpei's eyes was no longer admiration. It was outright blind worship.

"Three million? Tch. Another loss."

Yagami Jue pursed his lips in distress.

He casually took the chilled towel Asakura Yuki offered him and wiped the sweat from his face.

Yuki wore a pink athletic tank top that day, exposing a strip of her pale, slender waist, her ponytail swishing back and forth.

Although she had grown considerably stronger after more than a month of hellish training, she still looked like a frightened fawn in front of Yagami Jue.

"Yagami... um..."

Yuki lowered her head and twisted the hem of her top between her fingers, her voice barely audible.

"Dr. Ieiri said that if you break any more equipment on the training grounds, she'll deduct it from your bonus."

The girl raised her head, her large, watery eyes carrying a pitiful hint of distress.

"I don't want you to lose money... how about we train in the woods behind the mountain tomorrow?"

"Train in the woods? Are you trying to turn me into a lumberjack?"

Yagami Jue patted her head irritably.

"Fine. Since you're giving me that look, no more heavy strikes today."

"Come here. I'll teach you some footwork."

"If those little punks from Kyoto make you cry at the Goodwill Event, don't tell anyone I trained you."

Yuki's pretty face flushed slightly, and a glimmer of joy flashed in her eyes as she hurriedly steadied her stance.

Just then, the system's cold electronic voice sounded in Yagami Jue's mind.

[Ding! The host's current motivation to make money is insufficient. The system is issuing long-term guidance.]

[Objective: Seize every participant's cursed tools during the sister-school individual matches and force Kyoto Jujutsu High to pay a "participation protection fee."]

[Estimated earnings: Over 1 billion yen.]

[Additional reminder: Opening the Fourth Gate: Gate of Pain requires 5 billion in coins. Host, do not slack off. Be a proper Tyrant!]

"Five billion..."

Yagami Jue's mouth twitched, and he slapped the stone pillar beside him.

Boom!

The pillar shattered into rubble.

"I fucking knew it! You definitely ran a bank in your past life!"

"Five billion yen. Even if I sold every old geezer at Kyoto Jujutsu High, I probably still couldn't scrape that much together!"

"Yagami, what's wrong?"

Startled by his sudden outburst, Yuki shrank back, looking both adorable and pitiful.

"Nothing. I'm thinking about how to get rich."

Yagami Jue reined in his killing intent and glanced over the system's balance panel.

[Host: Yagami Jue]

[Account balance: 150 million yen]

[Strength: 125610]

[Speed: 126552]

[Constitution: 110538]

That little bit of money wasn't even enough to cover a fraction of the cost.