Gravity is a jealous mistress. She demands attention. She pulls at your ankles, drags down your shoulders, and tries to compress your spine into a fine powder.
Twenty tons.
That was the current tally.
Two weeks ago, it had been seventeen. But as my Yoriichi Tsugikuni template climbed, so did my tolerance for abuse. I had spent the last fortnight scouring the edges of the Beast Glades and the darker corners of the estate's grounds, finding the densest materials I could lay my hands on. Lead ingots from a surplus shipment, boulders of granite infused with iron ore, and even a discarded, rusted anvil I found in an old storage shed.
Into the Shadow they went.
Now, simply standing up from my bed in the morning was a feat of Herculean strength. The floorboards of my room had been secretly reinforced with earth magic runes I'd inscribed myself, just to keep me from plunging through the ceiling into the kitchen below.
I stood before the mirror, buttoning my shirt. My fingers moved with deliberate slowness. To an observer, I looked calm, perhaps a bit lethargic. In reality, I was fighting a war against physics just to lift my arm.
"Status," I exhaled, the word heavy on my tongue.
[Race: Djinn/Dragon Hybrid]
[Age: 7]
[Mana Core: Dark Orange (Suppressed to Solid Red)]
[Physical Load: 20,000 kg]
[Yoriichi Tsugikuni Template: 37%]
[Fushiguro Megumi Template: 29%]
I stared at the numbers. A faint, satisfied smile tugged at the corner of my mouth.
Thirty-seven percent. The stagnation was broken. The realization of the Transparent World and the modification of the techniques to suit the spear had shattered the glass ceiling I'd been hitting.
But the real surprise was the bottom number. Megumi.
I hadn't actively practiced the Ten Shadows in two weeks. I hadn't tried to summon the Dogs. I hadn't meditated on the abyss. I had focused entirely on the physical perfection of Yoriichi—the breathing, the muscle control, the devastating efficiency of movement.
And yet, Megumi's percentage had climbed four points.
"The vessel," I whispered to my reflection. "It's the vessel."
The Ten Shadows Technique wasn't just magic; it was a biological burden. In Jujutsu Kaisen, Megumi's physical stats were always his bottleneck. By refining my body through the Yoriichi template—by turning my flesh into steel and my blood into rocket fuel—I was inadvertently creating a better container for the Shadows. The stronger the hardware, the better the software ran.
"Optimization," I mused, rolling my shoulders. A distinct pop echoed in the room. "Two for the price of one."
I grabbed my spear from the rack. It was time for the morning beatdown.
The training yard was bathed in the pale, watery light of dawn. The air was crisp, carrying the scent of dew and the distant, acrid smell of the city waking up.
Captain Thorne was waiting for me, looking grumpy. He was nursing a cup of coffee and leaning against a weapon rack.
"You're early," Thorne grunted. "And you look heavier. You grow overnight, kid?"
"Something like that," I replied, walking to the center of the ring. Every step left a slightly deeper depression in the packed earth than it should have.
"Right. Sword or spear?"
"Spear," I said, spinning the weapon. The mithril shaft hummed. "Always the spear."
Thorne sighed and picked up a heavy training halberd. He didn't bother with the wooden weapons anymore. He knew they would just shatter. He flared his mana, a solid, respectable Yellow Core aura wrapping around his body like a second skin.
"Don't expect me to go easy just because the Royal Party is next week," Thorne warned. "If you show up with a black eye, your mother will fire me, but I'll take the risk."
"Ready when you are, Captain."
He lunged.
Two weeks ago, Thorne moved underwater. Now? He was moving through molasses.
With the Transparent World active, I didn't see a man. I saw a schematic. I saw the contraction of his calf muscles three milliseconds before he pushed off the ground. I saw the mana flaring in his shoulders to power the swing. I saw the blood pumping through his veins, highlighting his fatigue.
He swung the halberd in a horizontal chop, aiming for my ribs.
I didn't block. Blocking twenty tons of force plus Thorne's magically augmented swing was inefficient.
I stepped inside.
My movement was minimal—a shuffle of inches. The halberd blade whistled harmlessly behind my back.
Sun Breathing, Modified Second Form: Azure Vault.
The original Clear Blue Sky was a vertical 360-degree spin slash. A sword technique. With a spear, you couldn't spin the same way without losing momentum due to the length.
So I changed it.
I slammed the butt of the spear into the ground, using it as a pole-vault pivot. My body, seemingly weightless despite the cargo in my shadow, launched upward. I rotated in the air, a tight, controlled corkscrew.
As I came down, I didn't slash. I brought the spear shaft down like a hammer of god.
BOOM.
The shaft stopped an inch from Thorne's helmet. The wind pressure from the strike blew the coffee cup off the fence post ten yards away. Dust exploded in a ring around us.
Thorne froze. His eyes were wide, staring cross-eyed at the dark metal hovering over his forehead.
"Dead," I whispered.
I landed softly, pulling the spear back.
Thorne slowly lowered his halberd. He swallowed hard. "That... was a vertical drop. You used the spear to vault?"
"Reach and leverage," I explained, my breathing perfectly even. "The Second Form clears the sky. I just went up to meet it."
"You're a freak," Thorne said, but there was no malice in it. Only a terrified respect. "I'm done. I'm not getting paid enough to get concussed by a seven-year-old before breakfast. Go bother the Director."
Cynthia Goodsky did not meet me in the usual pavilion.
Instead, her messenger led me deep into the Sterling estate's underground mana-testing chamber. It was a reinforced bunker, lined with mana-suppression stone, designed for high-tier spell testing.
Cynthia stood in the center of the room. The usual grandmotherly warmth was gone. In its place was the cold, sharp presence of a Silver Core mage. The air around her vibrated with a low, menacing hum.
"Director?" I asked, stopping at the entrance.
"Close the door, Adam," she commanded softly.
I did. The heavy iron door clanged shut, sealing us in silence.
"Your father tells me you are bored," Goodsky said, turning to face me. Her eyes were sharp, intelligent, and dangerous. "He says Thorne can no longer touch you. He says you train with weights that would crush a carriage. He says you are ready for the Royal Party."
"I'm ready to behave," I corrected carefully.
"I don't care about your manners," Goodsky snapped, her mana flaring. The wind in the sealed room began to pick up, whipping her robes around her. "I care about your limit. You hide, Adam. You hide your core stage. You hide your true strength. You play the role of a prodigy, but you hold back the monster."
She raised a hand. A cyclone of wind formed in her palm, shrieking like a banshee.
"Today, you do not hide. If you hold back, I will break a bone. Do you understand?"
I tightened my grip on my spear. The Transparent World flickered on.
I looked at her.
Her core was a blinding sun of silver. Her mana channels were intricate, beautiful webs of wind and sound. She was miles above me in raw magical power. If this was a contest of mana, I lost. Instantly.
But it wasn't a contest of mana. It was a fight.
"Understood," I said.
I didn't drop the 20 tons. Not yet. I needed the ballast to stay grounded against her wind.
"Begin!"
Cynthia didn't cast a spell. She became the spell. She vanished, riding a current of air, reappearing instantly to my left. A blade of compressed air, sharp enough to cut diamond, slashed at my neck.
I ducked. The wind blade carved a gouge in the stone wall behind me.
Fast.
I thrust my spear, aiming for her center of mass.
Sun Breathing, Modified Third Form: Solar Vortex.
The original Raging Sun was two horizontal slashes to defend against frontal attacks.
I spun the spear in a figure-eight pattern in front of me. The movement was so fast the spear shaft disappeared, replaced by a blurring shield of kinetic energy and heat.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
Three wind bullets slammed into the Solar Vortex and deflected into the floor.
"Good reflex," Cynthia praised, her voice echoing from everywhere at once. "But can you handle the noise?"
She clapped her hands.
Sound Magic: Banshee's Wail.
It wasn't a physical attack. It was a wall of sonic pressure. A shockwave of pure sound slammed into me.
My eardrums screamed. My vision blurred. The vibration threatened to liquefy my organs.
Think. Adapt.
I couldn't block sound with a spear. I had to reinforce the receiver.
I reached deep into my gut. I bypassed the mana core. I grabbed the cold, oily sludge of Cursed Energy.
Body Reinforcement: Internal.
I didn't coat my skin—she would see the black energy. Instead, I flooded the Cursed Energy into my inner ears, my joints, and the fluid around my brain. I hardened my own biology from the inside out.
The pain dulled instantly. The screaming noise became a dull roar.
I looked up, eyes glowing violet.
Cynthia paused, hovering in the air. She frowned. She had expected me to drop to my knees clutching my ears. She couldn't see the Cursed Energy, but her instincts—honed by decades of espionage—screamed that something was wrong.
"You... resisted?" she whispered.
"I have a thick skull," I gritted out.
I bent my knees.
Total Concentration Breathing: Constant.
Oxygen flooded every cell. My three hearts hammered in a triplet rhythm that sounded like a war drum in my ears.
I launched.
I ignored the wind cutting my skin. I ignored the pressure. I moved faster than a Red Core mage had any right to move. I was a missile of pure kinetic force.
Cynthia's eyes widened. She raised a wall of wind.
I slammed into it. The spear tip dug into the wind barrier, sparks of mana flying.
"Haaa!" I roared, pouring every ounce of physical strength—all the power developed from carrying 20 tons—into the thrust.
The wind wall buckled.
For a split second, I saw fear in her eyes. I was going to break through.
Then, experience kicked in.
Cynthia didn't try to out-muscle me. She simply removed the air from the room.
Vacuum Sphere.
My lungs seized. The fire in my blood sputtered. The pressure drop popped the capillaries in my nose.
I collapsed, gasping for air that wasn't there.
The spell ended instantly. Air rushed back into the room with a thunderclap. I lay on the floor, heaving, blood trickling from my nose.
Cynthia landed gracefully nearby. She wasn't even out of breath, but her hands were trembling slightly.
"You broke my wind barrier," she said quietly. "With a Red Core."
I wiped the blood from my face and sat up. "I... got lucky."
"Luck has nothing to do with it," she said, staring at me with a mixture of pride and profound unease. "You reinforced your body with something. It wasn't mana. I couldn't sense the flow."
Cynthia studied me for a long, uncomfortable minute. Finally, she nodded.
"Perhaps," she murmured. "You are dangerous, Adam. Next week, at the Royal Party... do not fight like that. If you do, the King will not let you leave."
"I'll stick to basic fireballs," I promised.
She turned to leave. "Good. And Adam? Clean up that blood. It stains."
Three days later. The day before the departure for the Royal Party.
My father, Lord Marcus, had one final surprise.
"A test," he announced at dinner. "A real-world combat scenario. No holding back. No safety barriers."
He led me to an abandoned quarry on the edge of the Sterling property. Standing there, leaning against a massive boulder, was a man who looked like he ate gravel for breakfast.
He was huge. At least six-foot-five, clad in scarred plate armor, carrying a tower shield and a war hammer that looked like it weighed as much as I did.
"This is Garrick," Father introduced. "B-Class Adventurer. Veteran of the Beast Glades. He's an Earth and Fire dual-elemental augmenter."
Garrick grinned, revealing a missing tooth. "So this is the prodigy? Looks like a stiff breeze would knock him over."
"Garrick has agreed to a spar," Father said. "Win, and I stop bothering you about safety. Lose, and you take double guard detail to the capital."
"Deal," I said immediately.
"Go get changed," Father said. "Meet back here in ten minutes."
I walked away, heading toward the small supply shed near the quarry entrance.
I slipped inside and locked the door.
I stood in the darkness, breathing in the scent of dust and dry earth.
"Twenty tons," I whispered.
I looked at my shadow. It flickered, sensing my intent.
"Release."
I forced all which was within my shadow out
Thesensation was indescribable.
It wasn't just relief. It was flight.
My body, conditioned to fight against 20,000 kilograms of constant pressure, suddenly had nothing to push against. I floated. I took a step and nearly slammed into the ceiling. My muscles felt like coiled springs made of titanium, wound so tight that the slightest twitch threatened to launch me into the stratosphere.
I looked at my hands. They were trembling. Not from weakness, but from the sheer, unadulterated power surging through the biology of a Dragon-Djinn hybrid that had just taken off its training wheels.
[System Alert: Physical Limiters Removed. Speed/Strength increased by 400%.]
"Oh," I grinned, a feral expression that felt entirely too much like the Demon Slayer template taking over. "This is going to be fun."
I grabbed my spear. It felt like a toothpick.
I walked back out to the quarry.
Garrick was waiting, banging his hammer against his shield. Clang. Clang.
"Back already?" Garrick laughed. "Didn't run away?"
"Just stretching," I said. My voice sounded different to my own ears. Lighter.
"Alright, kid," Garrick lowered his visor. His mana flared—a dense, muddy orange. Solid Earth attribute. "Don't cry when this hurts."
Father stood on a ridge overlooking the quarry. "Begin!"
Garrick charged.
He was fast for a tank. He used earth magic to propel his steps, sliding over the ground like a land-shark. He raised the hammer, intending to smash me into the dirt.
I watched him.
In the Transparent World, he was comically slow. I could see the mana gathering in his arm. I could see the trajectory of the hammer. I could see the dust motes floating in the air around him.
I waited.
The hammer came down.
Blink.
I didn't run. I simply... stepped. Without the weight, my acceleration was instant. I vanished from Garrick's field of view.
BOOM.
The hammer smashed the ground where I had been standing a millisecond ago, sending a spiderweb of cracks through the stone.
"What?" Garrick grunted, looking at the empty space.
"Behind you," I whispered.
I was standing on top of his tower shield.
Garrick roared and bucked the shield, trying to throw me off. I back-flipped off, landing ten feet away in a crouch.
"Stop playing!" Garrick yelled. He slammed his hand on the ground. Spike Field!
Sharp pillars of rock erupted from the ground, chasing me.
I ran toward them.
I danced through the forest of spikes. I vaulted over one, slid under another, and kicked off a third. I was a blur of motion, a ghost in the dust.
"Is that all?" I taunted.
Garrick turned red. "You little rat! Magma Tremor!"
He channeled a massive amount of mana. The ground beneath the entire quarry began to shake. Cracks opened up, glowing with molten heat. He was turning the battlefield into a kill zone.
"Nowhere to run!" he bellowed.
I stopped moving. I stood on a small island of stable rock, surrounded by expanding fissures of magma.
"I don't need to run," I said.
I gripped the spear with both hands. I widened my stance. I took a breath, and for the first time, I felt the three hearts in my chest synchronize perfectly with the flow of mana.
Sun Breathing, Modified First Form: Mirror Dance.
But I didn't just use the technique. I pushed it.
I channeled mana into the spear until the mithril groaned. I heated the blade until it glowed white-hot.
Garrick raised his shield, sensing the buildup. "Block this!"
I disappeared.
I didn't run. I exploded forward. The ground beneath my feet pulverized into dust from the sheer force of the launch.
I appeared in front of Garrick.
He hid behind his tower shield—a slab of enchanted steel three inches thick.
I thrust the spear.
The Mirror Dance utilized the whip-like motion of the shaft to accelerate the tip to supersonic speeds.
CRACK-BOOM.
The sound was like a cannon shot.
The spear tip hit the center of the shield.
Time seemed to freeze.
Then, the shield exploded.
It didn't just dent. It shattered. Shrapnel of steel and enchantment runes flew outward. Garrick was lifted off his feet by the impact. He flew backward, tumbling end over end, and slammed into the quarry wall twenty feet away.
He slid down the wall, his armor dented, his hammer dropped. He groaned, eyes rolling back in his head.
Silence descended on the quarry. The magma cracks cooled and faded.
I stood there, steam rising from my shoulders. The spear was smoking.
I looked up at the ridge. My father was staring down, his mouth slightly open. He looked pale.
"I win," I said.
I didn't feel triumphant. I felt… hungry. The Dragon blood was singing. It wanted to finish the prey.
I clamped down on the instinct. Calm down. He's not an enemy.
I walked over to Garrick. He was conscious, barely. He looked up at me with blurry eyes.
"What... in the hells... are you?" he wheezed.
"I'm seven," I said, offering him a hand.
He looked at my hand, then at the shattered remains of his shield. He didn't take the hand. He just laughed, a pained, wheezing sound.as a darken and sorrowful look appered on his face
Later that night, before going back in the safety of my room i went bsck to the room which i left all the matrials in .
I stood in the center of the rug.
"Restore," I whispered.
The weight came back.
WHAM.
My knees buckled. I hit the floor on all fours, gasping. The 20 tons slammed onto my soul like a dropped anvil. My bones creaked. The lightness, the freedom, the godlike speed—it was all gone, replaced by the crushing reality of the training.
I lay there for a long time, sweating into the rug.
The pain was good. The pain meant I was getting stronger.
"Status."
[Yoriichi Tsugikuni Template: 38%]
[Fushiguro Megumi Template: 30%]
"Thirty percent," I groaned, rolling onto my back. "Five more percent. Just five more."
I held up my hand. Shadows danced between my fingers, forming the vague shape of a snout.
"Be patient," I whispered to the dormant dogs. "We're going to the capital. There will be plenty of bad people there."
One week.
One week until I met the Royals. Until I met the future leaders of this doomed continent. Until I walked into the viper's nest of Xyrus nobility.
I closed my hand, crushing the shadow.
"Let's see if they can survive the pressure."