Mid-March arrived.
This month's mission quota had already been exceeded, and the two mandatory missions were also completed.
Starting next month, for him, there would be no such thing as forced assignments.
…
After the cursed womb incident, Minamoto Soujun slowed his pace again.
He still had many shortcomings.
The flesh armor needed to be completed and optimized. At present, he had only finished one arm. His plan was to first complete a full-body armor, leaving no weak point in his flesh, then use battles to identify flaws, constantly refining and upgrading.
The compound eye structure also required adjustment. Some issues had emerged—
At the time, he had been able to sense the cursed womb's presence but couldn't pierce through its movements. In the end, it was Mishima Shiko who acted as bait to expose its weakness.
Practice was the only standard for testing truth. After multiple uses, Soujun had found a better arrangement, and now urgently needed to restructure.
He manipulated his eyes. The eyeballs squeezed out and dropped into his palm, leaving his sockets hollow like twin black holes, terrifying to behold.
Examining the eye in his palm, he realized that although it looked like a single eyeball, it actually contained dozens of smaller ones embedded within. Around the iris, one large pupil was surrounded by many tiny ones, each contracting and expanding independently, each with its own vision.
This structure allowed for compound-eye function, but it could not amplify it further—it was already lagging behind his growing strength.
With a thought, Soujun dissolved the eyeball back into its most basic blood-flesh cells, which vanished into his palm.
Cursed energy surged in his sockets, nearly liquefying. Within it, a miniature eyeball took shape, completely white, with a circular iris ring on one side and a hardened crystal-like membrane covering it, radiating a soft glow.
Then nearly a hundred more appeared, arranged together in a special structure.
He repeated the process again, and soon both sockets resembled starry skies—eyeballs flickered in the cursed mist, refracting pinpoints of light like twinkling stars.
Altogether, though, there were only a little over a hundred. Even if they were small, crowded together inside his sockets, they would be deeply unsettling for anyone with trypophobia.
Soujun's near-term goal was to construct one thousand in each eye.
Once the numbers were high enough… no one would get trypophobia from looking at the starry sky, right? Right?
From the start, Soujun hadn't copied the fly's compound eye directly. Exposed eyeballs would look bizarre and didn't suit his aesthetics.
This approach had pros and cons.
His field of vision was only 180 degrees, unlike a fly's near-360. But his dynamic vision and microscopic sight far surpassed that of an insect.
Now, his ocular power had greatly increased.
If he faced another cursed womb, he could see through its disguise and track its movements with a single glance.
As for the inhuman abnormality of his eyes?
As long as he narrowed them, no one would notice. In front of ordinary people, he only needed to be careful to hide it.
Updating and refining his abilities one by one.
Soujun left his quarters—he intended to study Jujutsu High's barriers.
Since learning barrier techniques through the New Cursed Seal, Soujun had been improving his own system, mainly using it as an amplifier for perception.
But the cursed womb mission had exposed several shortcomings.
…
Tengen should be the master of barrier arts.
Jujutsu High was filled with temples and shrines, most of which were mere illusions, shifting daily through Tengen's barriers.
Each structure carried different functions.
Until now, Soujun had rarely encountered such vast complex barriers, formed by multiple layers combining and reinforcing one another into stability.
Even his residence was covered by a warning barrier, the most common type within the school. Its main function was verification of identity, with minor defensive capacity.
As long as the information on his ID matched him, he could freely come and go without triggering alarms. Otherwise, within minutes, someone would arrive to capture and question.
The principle wasn't complicated. Soujun had deciphered it within a few days of arriving.
But he layered on another barrier of his own—for warning also meant surveillance.
Who likes their daily life constantly exposed, even if no one is watching the feed?
Soujun retraced the paths through Jujutsu High, not heading anywhere specific, just observing as he went.
Eventually, he arrived at the Forbidden Vault.
The barriers here were of far higher grade, openly featuring functions such as alert, protection, concealment, and distortion.
Circling it a few times, he occasionally reached out to touch. He could clearly feel cursed energy sweeping over him, followed by a faint repelling force.
He stepped back. Star-like points flickered faster in his sockets, each eyeball reflecting the subtle shifts of the vault. Different from reality, a haze of black cursed energy surrounded it, and now its density, dispersal, and flow were all visible.
At the place where cursed energy was thickest, a door flickered in and out of sight. Soujun stared, trying to see it more clearly—when he suddenly felt another gaze falling upon him.
He narrowed his eyes.
That gaze came from within the barrier itself…
Was it Tengen?
Soujun averted his eyes.
There were many forbidden vaults in Jujutsu High. The ones publicly known were unimportant; the truly vital ones, few even knew about.
What Mishima Shiko once referred to as the "deep vault" wasn't actually that deep.
In Soujun's memory, the most important vault in Jujutsu High was under Tengen's barrier, protected by over a thousand doors. Only one led to the true entrance, and its position changed every day to prevent prediction.
A composite barrier capable of such dynamic shifts—its mastery was extraordinary.
Soujun didn't force a confrontation. He left the vault and continued deeper into the school.
According to the New Cursed Seal, there was an elevator deeper within. Taking it led to the lowest levels.
At the deepest point lay the passage to Tengen's residence, and also the foundation of Japan's primary barrier system—the path to the Star Tomb Palace.
Only through the correct path could one reach the main hall of the Star Tomb Palace.
At its very center stood a divine tree rooted deep into the earth, piercing the mountain where Jujutsu High was built. This was the final barrier itself.
Tengen resided within the Star Tomb Palace.
Soujun found the place. Two jujutsu sorcerers guarded the entrance. As he walked closer, they glanced at him but did not stop him—permission enough to enter.
And indeed, there was an elevator.
Soujun rode it down into the depths.
Before his eyes rose a divine tree so tall its crown was invisible. Around it, a spiraling path encircled the trunk, leading deeper down.
Crowded temples and shrines lined the inner circle like a massive web.
From a barrier master's perspective, this arrangement followed strict rules.
Side paths branched outward, staircases leading up or down to different shrines.
Soujun walked the main path, descending tier after tier, circling around the divine tree until he came before a great door.
He pushed lightly—it did not open.
Here lay a special barrier, different from the school's standard ones. Only with Tengen's permission could he enter.
Clearly, he was not among those permitted.
Soujun leaned on the railing, gazing at the towering divine tree.
It, too, was part of the barrier.
As long as Tengen remained, the barrier was unshakable. This area was the safest of all. Even if the entire school were destroyed, nothing here would be harmed.
That was Tengen's confidence, and also why Soujun had been allowed to come this far.
His eyes reflected the flows of cursed energy—some strands connecting, others opposing, some hidden in the shrines, others welling up from staircases—yet around the divine tree, all remained pure and unchanged.
From within, the layout seemed vast and chaotic yet contained hidden order.
From outside, looking across the complex, the order itself revealed chaos.
For some time afterward, Soujun often wandered Jujutsu High. Sometimes he revisited the divine tree path, though he never entered the main hall; other times he ventured beyond the school to observe the barrier from farther away.
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