"Praise Lord Jashin!"
Everyone shouted in unison.
No matter what High Priest Takihata might actually be thinking deep down, in front of the others the glory of Lord Jashin had to stand above everything else.
Illogical?
Good!
If someone cared about logic, why would they worship an evil god who might not even exist in the first place?
So in the eyes of these cultists, any unreasonable phenomenon instantly became the most reasonable thing in the world—as long as it involved Lord Jashin.
Don't believe it?
There were two glaring examples standing right in front of them. Even something like immortality existed now—so what else could possibly be impossible?!
It was precisely because Shinji Akagi understood the twisted thinking of these cultists that he dared to use the simple strategy of "you're all idiots" and shove everything onto the so-called will of Lord Jashin.
As long as it involved their faith—their evil god—no one would dare question whether he was telling the truth.
After all, if Shinji Akagi insisted on it, was that unseen Lord Jashin suddenly going to appear and expose his lie?
Of course, that only applied to praise and supposed "miracles."
If Shinji dared to insult Lord Jashin, then there would be no investigation or debate. These people would tear him to pieces in rage on the spot.
The outcome unfolded exactly as Shinji Akagi expected.
Even if some people felt suspicious, not a single fool stepped forward to question him.
Instead, everyone enthusiastically began praising Lord Jashin's mercy and greatness together.
When it came to pretending and playing along, the entire group had a remarkable level of tacit understanding.
Once the ceremonial praise ended, High Priest Takihata began asking about the new curse technique that Lord Jashin had supposedly granted.
Shinji Akagi answered openly. Anything he could say, he said. Anything he couldn't explain, he simply claimed he didn't know.
After all, he had only just received this power from the system, so his understanding truly was limited.
If they wanted more detailed information, they could go ask the system themselves!
Facing Shinji Akagi's calm and straightforward attitude, Takihata found himself with a headache.
It seemed this new technique could only be used by Shinji himself. For now, it couldn't be taught to others or passed on to Hidan.
As for whether Shinji's story was true or not, Takihata decided not to investigate further for the time being.
Without openly tearing things apart, he knew he wouldn't be able to extract anything valuable. Instead, it was better to adopt a gentler approach and continue influencing and indoctrinating him.
As long as Shinji Akagi remained useful—fighting for the Jashin Cult—then the minor details didn't matter.
High Priest Takihata believed he had Shinji Akagi firmly under his control.
What he didn't realize was that Shinji Akagi was nothing like the people he had manipulated before.
"Blood Manipulation? Hah! My immortality combined with Blood Possession is the strongest!"
After lying on the ground like a corpse for a long while, Hidan's skin slowly returned to normal. He stood up again, looking extremely displeased as he spoke.
"Heh."
"What are you laughing at?! As long as I get someone's blood, I could kill even the Sage of Six Paths! You bastard!"
"Mm-hmm. Good luck with that."
"AAAAARGH! I'm going to kill you! I swear I'll kill you someday!"
"Oh? Anything else?"
"..."
Shinji Akagi's extremely perfunctory attitude nearly made Hidan cough up blood in anger several times.
But then again, if Hidan truly had a way to deal with him, he wouldn't have been stuck making empty threats all this time.
As long as Shinji Akagi didn't betray the Jashin Cult, High Priest Takihata would never allow the two of them to fight to the death.
So Hidan could only rage helplessly.
"You just wait! This isn't over!"
[Ding — Bond Value +1]
After tossing out a threat that carried absolutely no intimidation whatsoever, Hidan stormed out in a fit of anger.
Seriously, they weren't elementary school kids. Who would be scared by threats like "Don't run after school!"?
Still, the increase in Bond Value was quite unexpected.
So this was the correct way to trigger it?
Shinji Akagi shrugged and didn't respond further. Instead, he quickly used the sealed bags that had been brought over to store the blood he had lost earlier.
One weakness of Blood Manipulation was that the human body only contained a limited amount of blood.
To prevent the embarrassing scenario where you died from blood loss before killing your enemy during battle, practitioners would often release some blood in advance during normal times and store it as a backup supply.
Shinji Akagi had naturally thought of this as well.
So he sealed it up instead of wasting it.
Although the large amount of blood he had lost made his face appear even paler than before, his eyes shone brighter and brighter.
Because he had suddenly realized something.
His immortality might actually allow him to exploit the advantages of Blood Manipulation even more effectively.
The next day, aside from the daily experiments and training he was required to cooperate with, Shinji Akagi received an additional task:
Develop new ways to use Blood Manipulation.
Compared to Blood Possession, which guaranteed death as long as you obtained the target's blood, Blood Manipulation was not nearly as simple or overwhelmingly powerful.
On the contrary, it was far more flexible and versatile.
The level of destruction it could produce depended entirely on how the user applied it.
That meant Shinji Akagi needed to devote much more time to developing it. He couldn't afford to be as carefree as Hidan.
Another point worth mentioning was something Shinji had recently learned.
Perhaps because the Jashin Cult's forbidden experiments were incomplete, both he and Hidan—despite still possessing chakra—had an extremely difficult time performing normal ninjutsu.
The difficulty had increased more than a hundredfold.
It was almost like Naruto back in the Ninja Academy—every attempt to perform ninjutsu would fail due to some mysterious interference.
Through discussions with the cult's researchers, Shinji Akagi learned the most likely explanation.
Their chakra pathways had mutated in some way due to the body modification experiments.
As a result, when they formed hand seals, the chakra inside their bodies flowed abnormally, which often caused ninjutsu to fail.
This was the current conclusion the cult researchers had reached after studying them during this period.
Of course, the curse technique Blood Possession was a complete exception.
Shinji Akagi couldn't even determine which came first.
Had the cult discovered Blood Possession first and then attempted human experimentation to create immortals?
Or had they developed the technique specifically to complement immortal bodies?
He even suspected the reason he couldn't learn Blood Possession was because he was actually a failed product—a half-finished experiment.
If it hadn't been for his transmigration, the original Shinji Akagi would have died just like the other unfortunate test subjects.
And if he hadn't luckily obtained Blood Manipulation from the system, he would probably have been labeled a "partial failure" before long.
Thinking about it left Shinji Akagi feeling both relieved and slightly frustrated.
Relieved that he had successfully overcome this crisis and now possessed at least a small measure of self-protection in this terrifying world.
Frustrated because it seemed that from now on, he would have no choice but to continue walking down the path of curse techniques.
Running Jujutsu Kaisen techniques in the Naruto world?
What a headache.
The thought alone made him want to complain.