Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Violent collisions echoed across the training ground.
Round Deer, standing more than three meters tall, charged recklessly around the field.
Its thick limbs made the ground tremble slightly with every step, while the enormous antlers on its head swept from side to side with enough brute force to overturn a car.
Luke threw a punch, layers of cursed energy wrapping around his fist.
But the instant it touched the antlers, the positive energy released by Round Deer neutralized most of its power.
His fist struck the hard antler with a dull thud, dealing almost no actual damage.
Luke narrowed his eyes and instantly changed from a fist to an open hand.
He grabbed one of Round Deer’s enormous antlers and forcibly held its head in place.
“Divine Dogs, go!”
At his command, the black and white hounds that had been waiting nearby growled simultaneously.
They rushed in from both sides, their massive claws tearing into Round Deer’s exposed abdomen.
Rip!
Several vicious bloody wounds immediately opened across its enormous body.
“Graaah!”
Round Deer let out a pained cry.
But in the next instant, a faint white glow appeared over the wounds, completely healing them in the blink of an eye.
Round Deer abruptly raised its head and broke free from Luke’s grip.
Its hind leg kicked Divine Dog: Black away, then its antlers swept across and sent Divine Dog: White flying as well.
Luke’s gaze darkened as his hands formed another sign.
“Shikigami: Great Serpent!”
The shadow on the ground twisted and churned, outlining the shape of a massive snake.
The ground suddenly bulged.
A huge, patterned serpent as thick as a tree trunk burst out from beneath the surface.
Its truck-sized head clamped down around Round Deer’s body, and its thick coils exerted tremendous force, hurling the deer high into the air.
Luke’s expression remained cold as his hand sign changed again.
“Shikigami: Nue!”
The shadow of a huge-winged bird formed between his hands.
Nue, the only flying shikigami of the Ten Shadows Technique, shot out from the darkness with a clear cry.
It carried Luke steadily upward.
The moment he reached directly above Round Deer, his hand sign changed again.
“Shikigami: Max Elephant!”
The shadow of an elephant’s head formed in his palm.
Pitch-black cursed energy instantly condensed into the immensely heavy body of a giant elephant, crashing down toward the airborne Round Deer with overwhelming force.
Boom!
The deafening impact shook the entire training ground.
Dust and shattered stone erupted upward, completely obscuring the area.
Luke looked down from the air.
Thanks to the abilities shared by the Hyuga Luke and Dragon Raja Luke, both his sight and hearing were far beyond those of an ordinary person.
Even through the thick dust and deafening noise, he could still clearly lock onto Round Deer’s presence.
“Tch. This thing is ridiculously hard to put down.”
Luke clicked his tongue.
Even after that smooth combination of attacks, Round Deer still hadn’t lost its ability to fight.
Instead, it was rapidly repairing the damage across its entire body with its extremely efficient Reverse Cursed Technique.
Luke gave it no time to recover.
His hand sign changed once more.
“Shikigami: Piercing Ox!”
A deep bellow thundered through the darkness.
The dust filling the air was violently torn apart by a massive charging bull.
With every step Piercing Ox took, its kinetic force increased.
It rushed forward like a heavy armored vehicle accelerating at full speed, smashing directly into Round Deer with overwhelming momentum.
Bang!
Round Deer flew through the air in a distorted arc before crashing heavily into the ground.
Its body carved a trench dozens of meters long, its huge frame visibly deformed by the impact.
Just looking at the damage was enough to make one’s scalp tingle.
Yet Round Deer still wasn’t dead.
For a being capable of using Reverse Cursed Technique, as long as the brain and the core of its cursed energy weren’t destroyed, even severe injuries could be repaired.
Round Deer’s body was already healing at a visible speed.
Before the shikigami could struggle back to its feet, Luke descended from above.
A fist wrapped in violent cursed energy slammed directly into Round Deer’s forehead.
Bang!
Round Deer was driven into the ground.
The remaining force swept outward as cracks spread across the earth like a spiderweb.
“Graaah!”
Round Deer roared in anger and alarm.
But Luke and his shikigami had already seized the initiative.
Besides Divine Dog: Black and White, Great Serpent, Nue, Max Elephant, and Piercing Ox, which he had already summoned, Luke also possessed Toad, which specialized in restraint and suppression, as well as Rabbit Escape, which could multiply endlessly to confuse and hinder opponents.
Luke joined forces with the shikigami emerging from his shadows and surrounded Round Deer.
After half an hour of intense fighting, they finally overwhelmed the absurdly durable shikigami with Reverse Cursed Technique and successfully tamed it.
“Hah… Finally. My eighth shikigami.”
Luke let out a long breath.
If he hadn’t gained the abilities shared by his counterparts from other worlds, his previous cursed-energy reserves genuinely wouldn’t have been enough to outlast Round Deer.
Its ridiculous regeneration would have worn him down first.
Luke looked at the mass of shadow Round Deer had transformed into after being defeated in the taming ritual.
He drew the shadow toward himself and officially added his eighth shikigami to the Ten Shadows Technique.
When Luke summoned Round Deer again, it was already completely under his control.
The previously violent shikigami now obediently used Reverse Cursed Technique to heal the minor abrasions on Luke’s body.
Feeling the warm positive energy released by Round Deer, Luke began planning his next step.
“Now that I have Round Deer’s Reverse Cursed Technique as a reference, the next step is learning Reverse Cursed Technique myself. Then I can use the positive energy it creates to try developing a new cursed technique…”
His path to becoming stronger was very clear.
Simply put, the cursed energy possessed by Luke and every other sorcerer was negative energy.
A sorcerer could pour that negative energy into their innate cursed technique to activate it and produce different effects.
Luke’s Ten Shadows Technique, when powered by negative energy, allowed him to manipulate shadows and summon shadow shikigami.
Reverse Cursed Technique converted negative energy into positive energy.
It was an extremely difficult cursed-energy technique.
At present, only three people at Jujutsu High could actively use it.
Going one step further, feeding positive energy into a cursed technique would produce an entirely different second effect.
Then, by combining the original technique with its new reversed form, a third technique could be created.
This was also the path taken by Satoru Gojo, the strongest modern sorcerer, when he awakened.
At present, he was the only one who had accomplished it.
Once Luke mastered all of these methods, he would have complete confidence in taming Mahoraga.
The path ahead was already laid out before him.
“I need to study this carefully. With Round Deer as a reference, I should be able to learn how it produces and controls positive energy.”
Luke stroked Round Deer beneath the jaw.
As its master, he carefully sensed the method the shikigami used to generate positive energy.
He continued until dusk before returning to the Zenin clan’s ancestral estate.
The moment he arrived home, Luke spotted a lively, attractive high school girl with short hair.
“Good evening, Luke!”
Her name was Mai Zenin.
She was a second-year student at another jujutsu school.
Mai waved at Luke and walked over, lightly nudging him with her elbow.
Her tone was extremely familiar.
“Seeing that you’re still in one piece, Maki and I can finally stop worrying.”
She was referring to the serious injuries Luke had suffered during an exorcism mission three days earlier.
Luke coughed lightly and emphasized,
“Ahem. That won’t happen again.”
With his current strength, he had fully returned to the level of a Grade 1 Sorcerer.
In fact, he should now rank among the stronger Grade 1 Sorcerers.
Mai clearly didn’t believe him.
She narrowed her eyes suspiciously.
“You should stop doing things that make everyone worry about you. Otherwise, you’re being seriously irresponsible.”
Mai folded her arms, openly expressing her dissatisfaction.
Unlike the sharp tongue she directed at practically everyone in the original timeline, Mai acted much more like a tsundere younger sister around Luke.
That was probably because, within the rigid and deeply patriarchal Zenin clan, Luke had been the only person their age who never discriminated against Mai and Maki and had happily played with both sisters since childhood.
It really helps the fic grow!