Chương 56: The Bead
A strange sensation suffused out into the surroundings as a predominant bluish hue appeared in the air, turning around as if it were alive, burning into embers as if it were lit on a mystical invisible flame. The air hummed with a powerful force and the wind began to howl in tandem with Shuichi's hand movements.
Sweat poured out of Shuichi's temples as his eyes remained riveted to the piece of equipment that he was working on. His hands were moving incessantly, grabbing various things that belonged to the great harae rite and separating them into their individual parts, fusing them with the singular bead that was kept on the table before him. The world around him seemed to turn almost illusory in his senses. All of his consciousness and sense of the world was focused onto the one bead.
Hundred Armament Refining was activated over and over again as the Records of Tenjin carried out a steady stream of information into the bead. The information almost materialized into a tangible form, appearing as ethereal lettering that stretched from the necklace to the bead, wrapping around it as if a mother accommodating a baby in her bosom.
Shuichi breathed out a cold breath and wiped his forehead with the hem of his right sleeve. And then, Hundred Armament Refining activated again. He did not know how long he had been holed up in here, neither did he know how much time he had been working on the bead for. As of right now, the specific direction he had for the bead was simple, yet also difficult to achieve. A moment of rest could lead to the destruction of the entire process and trigger a chain reaction of cursed energy.
Although he had been using the cursed energy from the Thousand Faced Tower to supply to the bead, it only acted as a catalyst, something that took over the burden of the process onto itself and fastened the reaction. The activation and subsequent development of the cursed tool through Hundred Armament Refining could only be supplied through his own cursed energy.
And as of right now, his cursed energy had almost hit rock bottom! He could not siphon off energy from the tower, as that would entail subjecting himself to it's effects; so recovering his cursed energy was not possible at the moment.
However, he still had a wide smile on his face and anticipation wafted off his face in waves. His eyes too, gleamed with an eerie excitement. He could feel Hard to Kill working it's charm, pushing his body to work in such an environment and somehow developing his brain to generate more energy! Now that he had found the origin of cursed energy in the body, which was the limbic system and the pineal gland, Hard to Kill had more room to work with! It was a clear representation of a technique changing it's working based off of the knowledge the user possesses!
"Damn..." He muttered quietly, again wiping the sweat on his forehead with the hem of his right sleeve.
His cursed technique might have been activated dozens of more times again, until it finally stopped.
The hue in the air, the strange feeling that suffused from the air and the power that could be felt through the bead all disappeared as if it didn't even exist! In an instant, the entire room returned to it's previous inert state!
Shuichi slumped into his chair and heaved a couple of sighs of relief. Then, he put a hand onto his shoulder and popped his neck joint, groaning softly as he did so.
That was some labour... Shuichi shook his head and looked on at the bead that emanated a blackish blue flame. Shuichi picked up a bamboo parchment from the side and an ink brush too. Then, wrote onto the parchment in one fluid motion.
[Essence of Momus]*, it read.
He held the parchment above the bead as an orange flame enveloped it, slowly destroying it whole.
After everything was done, the bead expressed a short burst of curse before subsiding completely.
Satisfied with his work, Shuichi nodded and picked up the bead.
Essence of Momus, as he had named it, was a simple wooden bead of a dark brown colour and not much texture. If anything, there was barely anything one could say about it, even if one wanted to. There was nothing that could be described to be exceptional about the bead, nor was there anything that made it stand out.
However, Shuichi knew at this moment, what he held in his hand, was akin to a sacred treasure, though it had not yet reached such a stage yet.
It was a pseudo-sacred treasure! A bead that could create, manipulate and exploit errors in all things! It was the bead of errors! It could create loopholes, disrupt the enemy, misdirect them, cause someone to act out in erratic movements, and a plethora of other applications! It was simply put, the best cursed tool he had created until now, with the Records of Tenjin coming in at a close second!
"hehe..." Shuichi chuckled, and then some more. Eventually, he broke out into a full blown laughter, feeling especially pleased with himself.
Out in the hallway, Edward who had walked out of his allotted room after a whole day and a half of hard work, holding 2 cursed tools in hand; looked over towards the door to Shuichi's room.
"He's still in there..?" He looked at the door to his room strangely, truly wondering if his fellow sorcerer had somehow dealt irreversible damage to his head in the fight against the darkness curse.
Eventually, he shook his head and walked along to his destination. "It feels like I'm the only sane sorcerer out here... Well, the only one that recognizes my own charm at least..."
In the room, Shuichi was oblivious to the fact that he had established himself as a cracked in the head sorcerer in front of his foreigner friend. Instead, he was feeling incredibly giddy.
Getting off the chair, he shook his head and stretched his joints. He wasn't too worried about the after effects of sitting too long, after all, Hard to Kill would fix everything in his body. For a moment, he thought about how cultivators in various Chinese fiction would sit for centuries on end in the same posture.
They should most certainly get hemorrhoids... He thought in amusement. Whatever...
He looked towards the error bead in his hand and decided to test it out for the time being.
With a smile, he walked out of the room.
~~~
Edward walked out of the warehouse with a smile. He had completed his quota of cursed tools to supply to the Flame School, and now, he could finally focus on getting some tools for himself.
He chuckled as he traced along the path of the compound, the destroyed buildings around him. His eyes turned a bit regretful at bit being able to stop the excess destruction, however, it had already been done.
Tap tap~
He kicked a stone in his path as he pranced along, taking the stone alongside him.
However, just as he was about to deliver another small push, he stepped onto the stone and his balance crumbled.
"Eh?" He muttered just a moment before him face struck the ground.
Bam!
"What the hell?!" He yelled in annoyance as he supported his body with his left arm, his right arm holding onto his nose.
Getting up from the ground, he shook his head again.
Then, he looked at the rock in annoyance.
Tch! He clicked his tongue and slammed his foot right into the stone, throwing it ahead. However, by mistake, he applied a little too much energy into it.
Whoosh! Crash!
He watched as the stone embedded itself into the still intact, yet cracked wall, making a large depression in it's side.
"Well shit." He muttered.
Then...
Crash! Boom!
Shaaa!
The entire wall crumbled down into stone and dust...
"Now that's just unfair." He shook his head in annoyance.
At the far end of the street at which Edward stood, there was a shadowy figure quietly watching him.
It was none other than Shuichi!
Shuichi looked on, quietly analyzing the effects of the error bead.
Even at the minimal setting, it can cause various errors, mistakes in judgement and disruption in the structural integrity of objects... I wonder how it would be if I used it on a wider scale? With that thought, Shuichi could not help but scratch his chin in contemplation. The error bead could even cause a loophole to appear in someone's senses, causing them to miss him entirely, like how Edward had not managed to perceive Shuichi even though he made no attempts to conceal his cursed energy.
Seeing that, it was truly anyone's guess what a full scale effect of the bead could be capable of.
Thinking for a bit, he decided to attempt it.
As he held the bead and sent a pulse of cursed energy through it, something happened in the distance.
A man slipped in his bath, falling headfirst into hot water. A child fell off a tree and scraped his elbow. A man working on the repairs accidentally smashed a wooden pillar with a hammer, leading to the entire structure collapsing. A shrine maiden carrying scriptures and sacred materials to the pagoda tripped over the stairs and broke her nose.
Boom!
A large explosion echoed in the background as the Thousand Faced Tower effigy released a short burst of energy, something that uprooted all the tiles and the road around it, leading to even more damage.
Shuichi sweatdropped seeing the effigy acting up due to his momentary curiosity.
"...I ought to not try that again..." With that, Shuichi decided to crush his curious nature for the rest of his trip.
~~~
Three days later, all the shenanigans of the Great Harae ended and the tool making ceremony came to an inevitable end.
The three sorcerers which had been called from outside Hokkaido as well as the personal cursed tool makers of the Flame School were given souvenirs in the form of a batch of flame and purification talismans along with a special thanks from the Enlightened Heart of Lightning, Takamekasuchi Homura.
Besides that, the foreign sorcerers were able to use the Thousand Faces Tower's energy reserves to better their own craft and create cursed tools to carry off with them.
Of course, there was a limit to how many cursed tools one could carry off based on the amount of cursed tools provided to the Flame School, but that was no issue to Shuichi who had his inventory.
In total, Shuichi now possessed 9 special grade tools, including the Error Bead, Sudarshanchakra and Records of Tenjin.
And 3 of those were to be given to the Jujutsu Council, as they were the ones that Shuichi had 'officially' created at the Flame School.
Even so, Shuichi was not too worried as he had benefitted a lot from the bit of time he had spent at the Great Harae.
With a smile, Shuichi stepped out of the airport and stretched his body with a satisfied humm.
Then, he exhaled. "Back to the usual work I guess." He shook his head.
~~~
A/N: Noice. Also, if you couldn't tell, or have not read Lord of Mysteries, the error bead is based off of Amon, the angel of deceit.
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