When Minamoto Soujun awakened his innate technique, he naturally understood its ability:
Perfect control of himself.
This control encompassed body, soul, and cursed energy.
A very simple technique.
But simplicity also meant high expandability and vast potential for growth.
Of course, the real key depended on the user.
Soujun once tried controlling his intestinal peristalsis to speed up digestion. After eating a large meal, his body puffed up like it was inflated, leaving him with a surplus of energy.
What followed was extreme discomfort: itching, no appetite, lack of spirit.
It took several days of recovery to return to normal. The whole process was like jet lag, and that was only because he had not gone very deep with his control.
Cells, tissues, organs, systems, the body as a whole—layer upon layer, precise and complex. Accelerating digestion indeed improved nutrient absorption, but for real improvement, just that step was far from enough.
He realized that developing his technique required accumulating knowledge, starting with at least a basic understanding of human anatomy.
That was the foundation.
Bones, muscles, skin. Kidneys, heart, liver, spleen, lungs.
Nourish the marrow to promote growth. Purify the blood to keep circulation strong. Strengthen fascia to keep joints supple. Enhance muscle for greater power. Refine the skin and hair to guard the body.
Tug one thread and the whole body moves. Soujun decided not to interfere too much with his natural development. The results could be unpredictable. Stability first.
Still, he had fun with harmless things like making his hair grow and shrink, binding it into makeshift restraints, or hardening his fingernails into sharp claws that scratched grooves into a wooden table.
Next, he focused on the soul.
Where is the soul? What does it look like?
These were once unsolved mysteries. Now he could see his own soul, and part of the riddle unraveled.
A soul body identical in height and form to his own, existing in some special space yet tightly fused with his body, influencing one another.
Compared to the body's visible complexity, the soul was more mysterious but also purer, leaning toward unity.
Strengthening it, even little by little, brought great benefits:
Stronger spirit, firmer will, sharper thoughts, keener memory.
This accelerated his learning speed.
And with his technique, he could faintly glimpse the souls of others.
To see a soul meant that every strike could touch the soul itself.
If his vision grew clearer, he could harm souls directly at will.
Then he turned his attention to cursed energy.
Controlling the cursed energy within him was as easy as reading the lines on his palm. Using it was effortless.
The only problem was the amount. It was too little, gone after just a few uses.
There was no shortcut. Cursed energy reserves depended on talent, and only with full bodily development would it naturally grow to its limit.
But in terms of fine control and manipulation, he had plenty of room to shine.
He could now condense cursed energy into different shapes and fire them off to deal damage.
Or he could wrap cursed energy around his fist, smash the floor to pieces, and yet leave his opponent unharmed.
Clearly, cursed energy could temporarily enhance physical ability and defense.
As for advanced uses like the Black Flash or Reverse Cursed Technique… he had already brushed the threshold when he awakened. He only lacked an opportunity to truly master them.
Black Flash was described in detail in his memory: if the timing gap between a physical strike and cursed energy impact was less than 0.000001 seconds, space would distort, cursed energy would glow black, and the strike's power would be magnified 2.5 times.
Soujun could even erase that margin of error, yet still could not unleash it.
Some small condition was missing. He would have to experiment, eliminate possibilities one by one, or personally witness a Black Flash to bridge the gap.
As for Reverse Cursed Technique, he knew even less. Only that by inverting cursed energy, it produced positive energy, enabling healing. This was harder than Black Flash.
Understanding grows from ignorance. Right now, he understood almost nothing. As a novice sorcerer, all he could do was hone his body, circulate cursed energy, and temper his soul.
His innate technique did not give him any flashy ability. His strength came entirely from his own effort. He was shifting from a tinkerer's mindset to that of a scholar.
Yesterday was Soujun's tenth birthday. His appearance now looked like that of a fourteen or fifteen-year-old.
He was catching up.
He sensed some balancing mechanism in this world.
Mr. and Mrs. Minamoto even came back specially for his birthday. It moved him so much he nearly cried.
Woo woo woo.
Truly worth celebrating.
The next morning, they were gone again.
Soujun felt no waves in his heart. He even ate two extra eggs for breakfast.
All this time, his life was full: studying theory, training martial arts, accumulating experience with his technique.
Teachers, coaches, the fly-head spirit—he cycled between them constantly.
His tutors had long established a complete education system. All he had to do was follow along.
Typically, a person's peak knowledge came in high school.
As for college students? Soujun kept his comments to himself.
After all, when he had graduated college and worked in society for years, the only thing he could still remember clearly was the multiplication table.
But the fundamentals remained.
Relearning elementary and middle school took him two years. He had nearly completed nine years of compulsory education ahead of schedule. Of course he would not stop there. The higher the knowledge, the better. You may not always use it, but you must have it. That was a principle rooted in his bones.
His study of human anatomy also began at the basics and gradually deepened.
He was already on his ninth coach, switching every 0.44 years on average.
The first coach had racked his brains to make Soujun his disciple, but failing that, shifted into a mentor's role, teaching him everything until nothing was left to teach. Then he introduced him to the second coach, then the third, and so on, until now with the ninth. At this rate, Soujun would soon be with the tenth.
There was no end to martial training.
Karate, boxing, Muay Thai, Krav Maga, Sambo, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu…
The world's fighting arts were countless. Soujun was eager to learn them all. Martial skill on the outside, anatomy on the inside, clashing together and sparking constantly.
Six parts knowledge, three parts technique, one part self-optimization. What kind of fruit would this bear? Soujun looked forward to it.
The pursuit of perfection is humanity's nature and instinct.
As for the fly-head spirit, it was the very first one he had caught. He had not exorcised it completely. Instead, he raised it with a mix of stick and carrot, keeping it by his side as an experiment subject.
The wretched thing always tried to escape, so Soujun tied it up with a strand of his own hair, leaving only the wings exposed, and flew it like a kite above his head.
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