The Supernatural Research Club.
On the surface, it looked like nothing more than a niche forum where occult enthusiasts gathered to talk about paranormal phenona.
In reality, though, it was a paradise that belonged solely to Jujutsu High students, a place even the Jujutsu Headquarters couldn't get their hands on.
It couldn't be helped.
Who could bla them when the conservative old fossils at the top of the jujutsu world didn't understand the internet at all?
At first, it was just an internal Jujutsu High forum, a place where students could exchange insights on Cursed Techniques and help each other with exorcism missions. It had a serious, highly specialized atmosphere.
Jujutsu Sorcerers were rare to begin with, and the pressure of carrying out missions and exorcising Cursed Spirits was enormous. One careless mistake could cost you your head. In the beginning, the students really did treat it like a professional forum for improving their skills.
But in the end, Jujutsu High students were still teenagers right in the middle of adolescence.
Before anyone realized it, the Supernatural Research Club started getting more and more popular, and the topics gradually drifted from how to exorcise Cursed Spirits more efficiently to all kinds of gossip.
In the morning, a master from a divination family would make a post predicting everyone's luck for the day.
By late morning, soone would be desperately begging for class notes.
In the afternoon, soone would be cursing Kusakabe-sensei out as a useless piece of trash.
And once night fell, things got even crazier. The anonymous discussion boards would be packed, and the students' sexual frustration would explode in full force. They did not just rate the pretty girls in their year. So even lost their minds over Gojo-sensei and spamd the forum with all kinds of cringe posts.
Teacher scandals, old family dirt, even clues about the identities of the jujutsu higher-ups. You could find all of it on this forum, as long as you were willing to pay to dig up the hidden posts buried in those sections.
That was exactly why every Jujutsu High graduate still kept their forum account, even after graduating and becoming fully independent Jujutsu Sorcerers. Whether they were out in the middle of nowhere in Hokkaido slaughtering Cursed Spirits, the mont they got a chance to go online, the first thing they did was refresh the Supernatural Research Club to see what new gossip was blowing up at school.
After all, in the traditional, conservative jujutsu world, so sorcerers were still using ancient thods like carrier pigeons to pass around the latest information. Being able to exchange intel over the internet was an absolute massacre in terms of efficiency.
Even plenty of sorcerers who had never attended Jujutsu High were willing to spend money and call in favors just to get a forum account.
For Jujutsu Sorcerers, paying for knowledge was not so scam.
That kind of information could genuinely save your life when it mattered most.
It was late at night in Japan, right at peak traffic hours. Discussion on the Supernatural Research Club was heating up, and on the pitch-black interface, white live ssages kept popping up one after another.
[Huge insider scoop! The school's search for [Tiger of West Junior High] Yuji Itadori has officially been declared a total failure!]
[It blew up! Naoya Zenin went off on Special Grade Sorcerer Yuki Tsukumo at the Kyoto Imperial Palace, saying you could sll the stink from her crotch from a mile away!]
[Gold keeps climbing? Ten-thousand-word analysis of the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons incident and its importance to the financial crisis...]
[Urgent! A friend of mine slept with her cousin! What am I supposed to do?! Waiting online!!!]
Most of the content was just attention-grabbing trash ant to farm clicks.
There was barely any real discussion of Cursed Techniques left at all.
By now, the Supernatural Research Club had completely changed.
A lot of carefully polished technical posts from sorcerers got no attention whatsoever, and their traffic was not even as good as a single candid shot of Satoru Gojo.
But recently, that frustrating state of affairs had finally started to change.
[Naoya Zenin's First Lecture Notes (Perfect Analysis Edition), lesson content: [Chantless Cursed Technique], Cursed Energy technique: can skip the casting phase.]
That was a post uploaded to the forum by a mysterious user a few days ago.
And the mont it went up, it instantly blew up the entire forum and dragged out a crowd of silent lurking sorcerers.
After all, Naoya Zenin was already the next heir to the Zenin Clan, and also a Special Grade 1 Sorcerer on par with Satoru Gojo. With all those halos around him, he was already at full superstar status.
On top of that, Naoya Zenin had beco incredibly famous at Jujutsu High lately. He had only taught two classes so far, but both had been packed with value. Every student who attended ca away full of praise, like everything they had learned before had been fake jujutsu.
And the most mysterious thing of all was this legendary [Chantless Cursed Technique].
That class had fifty students in attendance, which already made it an explosive hit.
But fewer than ten of them had actually taken notes and recorded everything Naoya Zenin taught.
Never mind a so-called perfect analysis edition.
Out of those fifty students, there was probably not a single one who had truly mastered the [Chantless Cursed Technique].
So the news was more than enough to shock the entire forum.
Just the notes from the first class alone were already the kind of thing money could barely buy, and this was supposedly the perfect analysis edition.
That ant the mysterious poster had already completely cracked the secret of the [Chantless Cursed Technique]. The mont those notes were released, it would be the sa as this technique being fully open-sourced.
1 million yen.
I'll pay 2 million yen.
5 million yen. I'm with the student council. If any of you bastards try to fight for it, you're dead.
10 million yen. Hilarious. So what if you're student council? Where did this broke loser co from? You don't even have money and you still ca to the Supernatural Research Club to act tough?
20 million yen. We're all veterans here, so let's stop dancing around it. High-level Cursed Energy techniques like this usually cost a fortune, and you only get taught them after kneeling down and begging to beco soone's disciple. Under normal circumstances, the price starts at at least nine figures.
30 million yen. The person above is right. If Naoya Zenin weren't a rich, arrogant heir of one of the Three Great Families, the kind of person who would openly teach sothing this efficient in class without holding anything back, we never would have had the chance to see these notes in our lives.
Not every teacher at Jujutsu High was a saint.
A Jujutsu Sorcerer had to remain mysterious and keep a low profile.
Cursed Techniques depended on mystery.
If a technique beca understood and mastered by everyone, then its power would only keep weakening until, in the end, it beca nothing special at all.
No matter how capable a sorcerer was, they would never selflessly hand over all of their Cursed Technique expertise.
Sorcerers were always wary of those who ca after them, and jealous of younger talents who might surpass them.
Even though Jujutsu High had been doing everything it could to suppress that unhealthy academic culture, people were hard to predict. Not every teacher was like Naoya Zenin, willing to teach everything openly.
That was why the forum dragged Kusakabe without fail every single day.
As the saying went, teach the apprentice too well and the master starves.
A shaless teacher like Kusakabe was the perfect reflection of a jujutsu world ruled by conservatives.
That was exactly why Naoya Zenin had exploded in popularity among the students.
He was way too absurd.
The practical value of one of his classes was equal to ten classes from any other teacher.
Was this guy even still a teacher?
This was basically a second coming of a righteous father.
So whenever any news about Naoya Zenin appeared on the forum, the place would be packed in no ti, and everyone would start fighting over it.
As the discussion in the thread grew more and more heated, new ssages refreshed like mad, and the auction price had already climbed to a staggering sum.
100 million yen!!!
This was just a notebook. It was not even a Cursed Tool.
It had cost less than 100 yen to make, yet just because it contained a few scraps of Naoya Zenin's words, its value had shot up tenfold, a hundredfold, a thousandfold, ten-thousandfold, a millionfold.
Then all of a sudden, a ssage in striking crimson popped up and, without any regard for anyone else, jumped straight to the top.
A crimson ssage like that usually ant one of two things.
The first possibility was that it ca from an old hand. Since most of the Supernatural Research Club's mbers were students, anyone who could cause this much commotion was usually one of the most outstanding graduates.
The second possibility was that it ca from a mod with privileges, and the Supernatural Research Club staff had shalessly jumped in to snatch the item for themselves.
Clearly, this was the first kind.
One promise.
That crimson ssage declared it with arrogant confidence.
A sorcerer's promise, from the Gambler, Kinji Hakari.
One promise, worth as much as 100 million yen.
What kind of person had the nerve to say sothing so overbearing?
But he absolutely did.
The Gambler, Kinji Hakari, a sorcerer students called the ultimate gambling addict, was a particularly terrifying anomaly even in the history of Jujutsu High.
Rumor had it he was Gojo-sensei's top disciple, and that the strongest sorcerer of the modern era had personally said he would one day stand shoulder to shoulder with him.
But Kinji Hakari was also such a problem student that he had been expelled from Jujutsu High before even graduating.
That lunatic sneered at ancient jujutsu. His innate technique was modern jujutsu through and through, and because its effects were far too complicated, he had always been hated by the conservative faction that preferred things simple and straightforward, suffering all kinds of suppression at Jujutsu High.
Unlike Satoru Gojo, he did not co from so prestigious clan. With nothing to lose, he had no reason to hold back in the face of public ridicule, so he beat the Kyoto conservatives half to death on the spot and got himself expelled from Jujutsu High.
Of course, that was not even the scariest thing about Kinji Hakari.
The scariest part was...
This lunatic was also into n!!!
He was always tangled up with those femboy types, and that creepy, decadent vibe was even more despised by the traditional jujutsu world, so his reputation with the general public was awful.
But people who knew, knew.
The crazier the sorcerer, the stronger they usually were.
No one else dared speak anymore.
Because in the world of sorcerers, ordinary money could never compare to a sorcerer's vow.
That promise could even be used to demand that Kinji Hakari hand over his entire fortune, which already crushed 100 million yen.
Though, co to think of it, that gambling addict probably did not have any money on him at all. He might even have been in debt.
Looking at it that way, a promise might really have been the only thing he could use as collateral.
But just when everyone on the Supernatural Research Club thought the notebook was about to be won by that insane gambler, the mysterious person who had posted the thread suddenly spoke.
[Sorry, I'm not planning to sell this notebook anymore.]
Then the thread was deleted.
The students watching were dumbfounded.
Kinji Hakari was even more dumbfounded.
The hell? Are you screwing with us?!
Momo Nishimiya clicked her mouse and deleted the thread herself.
She had posted it several days ago.
At the ti, she had just been thoroughly humiliated by Naoya Zenin in class. Refusing to accept it, she went ho and devoted herself to studying [Binding Vow], determined to slap that hateful man in the face.
In the end, she really had managed to figure out the essence of [Binding Vow], and could now use [Chantless Cursed Technique] in a passable way.
In truth, using [Chantless Cursed Technique] was very simple.
Naoya Zenin had already hinted at it many tis, whether intentionally or not.
The key was to shift the cost of the [Binding Vow] into the future.
The thod Momo Nishimiya ca up with was this.
Use [extending the ti required to activate the next technique so you can release the current one ahead of ti].
This was the most basic kind of [Binding Vow].
It was an equal exchange, borrowed and repaid.
But what if, when Momo Nishimiya released the second technique, she placed another [Binding Vow] on it as well?
In other words, [extend the ti required to activate the third technique so you can release the second one ahead of ti].
As long as she used this endless [loan] thod, robbing Peter to pay Paul to achieve [Chantless Cursed Technique].
Then in the end, she arrived at a law of jujutsu.
That was, [extend the ti required for the (N 1)th activation so you can release the Nth technique ahead of ti].
The one who paid the price of the [Binding Vow] would always be her future self.
Maybe if it kept piling up like that, the day would eventually co when she could no longer pay the ti needed to activate a technique, and would never be able to release one early again.
But at worst, that outco was just bankruptcy.
This was a [Binding Vow] with no real danger at all.
The price of a [Binding Vow] was always tied to the power you gained.
Momo Nishimiya had only gained a tiny amount of power. Sothing that insignificant would never create much of a price.
She did not know what kind of [Binding Vow] Naoya Zenin used to release [Chantless Cursed Technique], but Momo Nishimiya felt there was no way he could have done it more perfectly than she had.
Because this little witch had forced this [Binding Vow] into becoming bad debt.
Debt she did not need to repay at all.
So back when she had been flushed with pride, Momo Nishimiya had decided to bring the notebook from that first class onto the forum and show off in public, all to slap Naoya Zenin in the face.
But she had never imagined that notebook would be pushed to such an outrageous price.
Momo Nishimiya was not like Kasumi Miwa. She was not strapped for cash.
On top of that, she had already received 10 million yen from her Patron.
So when she went online and saw the price skyrocketing to such a terrifying extent, the little witch quietly deleted the thread.
It was not that Momo Nishimiya did not want money.
That single notebook was already worth more than Patron-sama's sponsorship.
But she could not shake the feeling that if she made money by selling Naoya Zenin's notebook, then she would be betraying Patron-sama's expectations.
After all, Patron-sama was not like Naoya Zenin.
Patron-sama truly appreciated her.
As for Naoya Zenin, there was no need to say more. He was the enemy who had flat-out humiliated her in class, and only occasionally said sothing that sounded remotely human.
Between the two, Momo Nishimiya would obviously choose Patron-sama.
And to put it even more simply.
Naoya Zenin was Mai's enemy. Her enemy.
If she made a fortune selling her enemy's knowledge, would that not be the sa as taking a thief for a father?
So Momo Nishimiya deleted the thread without the slightest bit of regret.
That's right. Not one bit!!!
Patron-sama, don't worry! I'll definitely beco a better Jujutsu Sorcerer than Naoya Zenin.
Momo Nishimiya looked up at the night sky outside the window, as if she could feel the trusting gaze of her patron resting on her.
The girl silently clenched her fist, then her eyes turned incomparably resolute.
I'll make Naoya Zenin regret it! I'll avenge Mai! I'll make that aristocratic rich boy apologize to every girl he's ever oppressed! I'll make him kneel in front of and lick my toes!!!
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