Satoru Gojo's gaze, filled with a mix of playfulness and helplessness, slowly swept over the students present and finally fell on the few people who theoretically should have received a more systematic modern science education—Yuji Itadori, Eriri Sawamura, Utaha Kasumigaoka, and Megumi Kato, who had come as exchange students from ordinary high schools.
First, Yuji Itadori.
The pink-haired boy stood there, his hands still unconsciously clenched into fists from the intense commentary on the battle, his face still showing the excitement and shock of "combined shikigami" and "Limitless attack and defense."
But when the words "quantum mechanics," "wave-particle duality," "probability cloud," and "non-local correlation" crashed down like a hailstorm, the sharp light on his face belonging to a warrior visible to the naked eye... solidified, then turned into clear bewilderment.
He blinked his always-enthusiastic eyes, trying to keep up with the idea, his lips moving involuntarily as if to repeat a certain word, but it eventually turned into a confused: "Huh...?"
His mind, which could instantly assess the situation in combat and react unexpectedly on the sports field, was clearly a bit overloaded in the face of this pile of abstract scientific concepts contradicting everyday experience.
Yuji Itadori, nicknamed the "Tiger of the West," was a smart but fake sports student. His talent lay in his astonishing physical strength, pure combat intuition, and the sunny warmth of his infectious energy. As for theoretical learning, especially in advanced mathematics and science... suffice it to say, his room for progress was very wide, as wide as the Pacific Ocean.
The corners of Satoru Gojo's mouth twitched inexplicably, and he looked away.
---
Next, Eriri Sawamura.
Her delicate brows were furrowed, her blue eyes full of the feeling that "this is already way beyond the line." Could she understand the barrier? Understand it completely broken down into equations and structures? Quantum? What's that? Can you eat it? The science she had learned seemed to be screaming to run away from this unscientific scene of curses.
Utaha Kasumigaoka was in a different state. Her crimson eyes were remarkably bright, with the excitement of a researcher discovering an uncharted territory. It could be said that she was worthy of being the top student at Toyonoki Academy, and she could also fall asleep in class and still get first place in school, but she understood some of the words Genji was saying.
But beneath this excitement hid deep helplessness and hunger. She could vaguely grasp the vast amount of information and logical beauty contained in Genji's discourse, capable of overturning all her cognitive models, but her knowledge base—even if it far exceeded her peers' reading volume—was also stretched thin in the face of this self-contained theory that clearly required a very high mathematical foundation to delve into.
---
Megumi Kato... she was still calm.
Calmly accepting the fact that she didn't understand any of it at all.
Her black eyes looked at Megumi Fushiguro, who was lost in thought, and at Satoru Gojo with his Six Eyes, then looked at most of the others who were bewildered, as if saying, "So everyone is the same," and continued to silently be a qualified audience member.
---
"I have to say…" Satoru Gojo drawled, his voice full of absurd humor. "Doesn't this scene feel a bit wrong?"
He pointed to himself, then to Genji.
"Why is it that I, the 'strongest of our time,' wearing modern sportswear, using a smartphone, and eating sweets, am listening to a 'thousand-year-old antique' in hunting robes explaining advanced theories of quantum mechanics and barriers…"
"And on my side," he waved his hand, sweeping it over Itadori, Eriri, and the others, "these young people, raised in the modern education system, are completely baffled, as if listening to a heavenly book?"
He concluded with a bright smile full of deep self-mockery:
"In comparison, don't you think I seem like the ancient one who just crawled out of a coffin, a thousand years out of time?! Lord Zen'in Genji, you're more like a theoretical physicist at the forefront of the era, aren't you?!"
Pfft— Nobara Kugisaki was the first to hold back a laugh, then quickly covered her mouth. Panda's fluffy shoulders shook. Toge Inumaki's collar twitched, probably suppressing a laugh. Even Megumi Fushiguro was interrupted from his thoughts, and hearing this complaint, the corners of his mouth twitched slightly, having to admit his teacher had a point... it did seem logical.
Itadori touched the back of his head and smiled broadly, a little embarrassed. "Ahaha... sorry, Gojo-sensei, I-I'll study hard! Though I have no idea where to start."
Eriri turned her head away, her ears slightly red, and muttered quietly: "Who... who would understand this kind of thing..."
---
Genji looked at Satoru Gojo's exaggeratedly complaining expression, then at the young students who were genuinely incompatible with modern advanced theory, and couldn't help but smile and shake his head.
"Times change, knowledge flows, and labels don't matter," he said softly, without a trace of disdain for the students' "lack of understanding." "What matters is the desire to 'understand' and to 'think.'"
He looked at Itadori and Eriri, his eyes calm and inclusive. "Don't worry about it. Combat intuition, creative inspiration, and a kind heart are also precious talents—important parts of being a sorcerer, or more precisely, a 'person.' Theory is a tool for explaining and expanding the world, not a measure of value."
---
Within the innate domain of Yuji Itadori's body, it was another scene.
The crimson sea of blood was calm and windless. On the throne piled with bones, the four-armed, two-faced King of Curses slowly straightened up. All external conditions were clearly transmitted here through the vessel Itadori's senses.
Hearing the ideas that "mathematics and physics are the foundations of logic," "quantization theory," and "decentralized barriers," the manic smile on Sukuna's faces gradually receded. The cruel, playful edge disappeared from his four crimson eyes, replaced by an extremely rare, almost pure contemplation and analysis.
Silence lasted several seconds.
And then—
Clap, clap, clap...
A clear, slow, strangely rhythmic sound of applause abruptly rang out in this deathly silent innate domain.
Sukuna raised one hand, his taloned fingers gently slapping against each other. The applause wasn't loud, but it was full of impact, as if each beat struck against the walls of a thousand years. The upper mouth on his face smiled, and the lower mouth on his face wore an almost admiring grin, both mouths sounding simultaneously, the overlapping echoes vibrating through the domain:
"Just as I expected... of you, Zen'in Genji."
His voice was no longer full of mockery or killing intent, but a deep emotion transcending friendship and enmity, based solely on "understanding" and "recognition."
"Keep up with the times? Be constrained by the times?" Sukuna sneered, his four eyes seeming to pierce through the barrier of the innate domain, seeing the changes in the jujutsu world over a thousand years, seeing those sorcerers resting on their laurels, and those so-called "strong ones" endlessly fighting for any scrap of power and resources.
"Look at the sorcerers of the last thousand years," Sukuna's voice was filled with undisguised contempt and pity. "What are they like? Like moths circling a rotting tree, like tadpoles fighting over splashes in a pond drawn by their ancestors."
"Guarding a few inherited techniques, thinking they've mastered the truth. Holding a few incomplete classics, thinking they're insurmountable scriptures. Increase cursed energy a bit, sharpen a few skills, develop a few derivative applications... Then they become complacent, thinking they're at the forefront of the times."
He paused, his gaze seeming to refocus on the indigo figure outside the domain.
"They merely conform to the framework set by their era, stumbling forward according to the quantity of cursed spirits, the advantages and disadvantages of bloodline inheritance, and the constraints of existing rules. Even the strongest among them just play their pieces more skillfully on this old chessboard."
"But you, Zen'in Genji…" Sukuna's applause stopped. He propped his chin on his hands, his posture uncharacteristically focused. "You have never been a chess player."
"You are the one who breaks the old chessboard, redefines the rules, and even tries to convince us that the very 'chess pieces' and the 'chessboard' itself can be constructed from another, more fundamental 'material' and 'principle'… 'possibilities'."
"Only you, Zen'in Genji…"
Sukuna's eyes blazed. The majesty of the King of Curses and the highest admiration for his only rival intertwined at this moment.
"You yourself are the 'cause' that drives the turn of the times. The era you live in is defined by you. The era after your departure is filled with your shadow. And the era you have returned to…"
He looked at the faint quantum glow outside the innate domain, belonging to "Divine Beast Xiang," and his fighting spirit and anticipation boiled again, like the sea of blood roaring.
"Because of those crazy and fascinating 'hypotheses' you are sowing right now, they will bring unprecedented upheaval and… enjoyment."
"Hurry up…" Sukuna whispered, the sea of blood beneath the skeletal throne surging. "Hurry up and gather all the fingers, let me stand before you again in my complete form. Let me see how much light you can illuminate with this new 'principle' that has been brewing for a thousand years and transcends the times…"
"Then it's up to me—to shatter it completely, or… to lift it to an even higher place together!"