Under the cover of night, Kenjaku walked onto a crude wooden bridge, crossed a foul-smelling river, and finally entered a dark village.
Only a few houses in this village had their lights on.
Such remote villages had no Brahmins, so the public facilities were extremely poor.
However, this actually made things easier for Kenjaku.
Because Kenjaku could use Cursed Spirits and Cursed Objects for transportation.
Here, if ordinary people saw him riding a Cursed Spirit, not only would no one from Jujutsu Headquarters come to arrest him,
the ordinary Indian villagers who saw him flying out of thin air would instead consider him a reincarnated deity.
Then, inexplicably, he would gain a group of followers he could use for experiments.
Looking from outside the barrier, all one would see was an ordinary, backward rural village.
But once someone entered the barrier, everything in their view would undergo a tremendous change.
Many dark corners of the village were covered in large amounts of slime.
The trees, under the influence of an unknown cause, had become twisted, casting eerie and chilling shadows.
Only some domesticated animals remained in the village, not a single wild animal could be seen.
This was because the wild animals had fled the village after sensing the unsettling atmosphere.
The barrier Kenjaku set up only served to preserve and absorb Cursed Energy.
It did not restrict the entry or exit of living beings.
However, if humans entered or left, the barrier would record it and issue an alert.
On one hand, this ensured that a sufficient number of people remained within the barrier. On the other hand, it prevented outsiders from interfering with his experiments.
Along the way, Kenjaku saw many people lying on the ground, sleeping directly where they fell.
This included several women and elderly ladies.
Under normal circumstances, these women and elderly ladies would have already been dragged away.
After all, besides animals like lizards, sheep, and chickens, some people here also showed little mercy toward the elderly.
India itself had reported incidents of seventy-five-year-old people being assaulted while sleeping in outdoor sheds.
However, this time, no one came to act.
Because most of the villagers were in a deep and silent sleep.
The few who were not asleep were doing strange things.
A middle-aged man in his thirties was wildly flailing his body toward the center of the village nearby, performing an eerie dance.
Another person held a stone and continuously drew one eye after another on the surrounding walls, trees, and ground.
"Hmm?"
Inside a lit room in the center of the village,
a boy with a crazed expression, completely absorbed in carving, caught Kenjaku's attention.
Kenjaku walked behind the boy without any concealment, yet the boy showed no sign of turning around.
At this moment, all of his attention was focused on the wooden carving in front of him.
The shape of this wooden carving was extremely bizarre. Despite being newly carved,
it exuded an indescribable sense of ancientness.
The head of the wooden carving was a rotten octopus-like head, with a large mass of tentacle-like whiskers on its face.
The body somewhat resembled a human torso, but it was covered in octopus tentacles, and numerous eyes appeared across the body and the tentacles.
"So that's it. This child has the talent to become a Jujutsu Sorcerer, but unfortunately, it is useless now."
The boy carving the wooden sculpture possessed the potential to become a Jujutsu Sorcerer.
It simply had never been discovered before.
Now, under the influence of the Imaginary Vengeful Spirit, his talent had been unearthed.
However, due to the same influence, this boy had already reached the brink of madness.
He no longer had the value to become Kenjaku's pawn or collection.
"Judging from the villagers' condition, the Cursed Spirit here should be nearing completion. I am really looking forward to it."
Kenjaku smiled and left the room, walking into a dark and damp basement.
This basement had been dug by Kenjaku after arriving in the village.
For ordinary people, digging such a large basement would be extremely difficult. For a Jujutsu Sorcerer with the proper methods, it was simple.
After entering the basement, Kenjaku snapped his fingers.
Several clusters of eerie green flames appeared.
These flames were weak Cursed Spirits that he had casually captured on the way and beaten into submission.
They were also a byproduct of the numerous barriers Kenjaku had set up in this place.
The eerie green firelight illuminated the dark and damp basement.
Countless twisted symbols, somewhat resembling hieroglyphs yet more like chaotic scribbles, covered the walls and floor of the basement.
As he walked forward, his feet stepped through green slime and numerous strangely shaped "people."
Although these people still retained a human outline, their bodies had already changed.
Their skin had become slippery, their fingers had transformed into octopus-like tentacles, and their limbs twisted as if they had lost their bones.
They crawled toward the firelight while emitting strange cries for help.
"Has the infection already appeared?"
If nothing unexpected occurred, these people would eventually be transformed into mad monsters by the Imaginary Vengeful Spirit inside.
Kenjaku looked around and discovered that although the villagers in the basement had mutated into different forms,
their transformations were generally moving in the same direction.
In other words, they would eventually turn into the same type of monster.
After confirming the condition of these villagers, Kenjaku no longer paid attention to their cries for help.
He walked directly to the deepest part of the basement.
There, a figure more than ten meters tall was curled up on an altar.
The figure overall resembled an octopus.
However, beneath the octopus head was a human-like upper body, while the lower body consisted of numerous tentacles.
Many closed eyes could be seen on the tentacles and across the body.
"So this is what it ultimately grew into."
Kenjaku carefully observed the Cursed Spirit in front of him.
When he first considered what kind of Imaginary Cursed Spirit to create,
his first thought had been the local myths and legends.
This would give people a clearer direction when imagining it, making the formation of the Cursed Spirit easier.
However, because the experimental conditions this time were very good, Kenjaku simply conducted experiments from several different angles.
These included local ghosts, foreign monsters, and other concepts.
What was being created here was a Cthulhu-style Cursed Spirit that had recently caught his interest.
However, it was clear that the people in this village did not understand Cthulhu.
Judging from the appearance of the Cursed Spirit that had already grown into a Special Grade Imaginary Vengeful Spirit,
these villagers seemed to have mainly understood the concept of Cthulhu as tentacles and eyes.
The result was something that even Kenjaku found to be uniquely shaped.
"Regardless, the experiment here can be considered a success."
Kenjaku walked onto the altar, and the massive Cursed Spirit was sealed into a fifteen-centimeter-tall octopus-shaped Cursed Object.
After wrapping a talisman around the Cursed Object, Kenjaku placed it into his pocket.
"Judging from its Cursed Energy, it can be considered a Special Grade Cursed Spirit. I will keep it for now."
Kenjaku, a thrifty collector, made his decision.
Kenjaku waved his hand, and the eerie green flames suddenly expanded, incinerating all the mutated villagers in the basement.
They then transformed back into docile Cursed Spirits and followed behind Kenjaku.
"Next time, should I directly send dreams and implant the image of the Cursed Spirit directly into these people's minds...?"
(To be continued.)
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◇ One bonus chapter will be released for every 200 Power Stones.
◇ You can read the ahead chapter on Pat if you're interested: p-atreon.c-om/Blownleaves (Just remove the hyphen to access normally.)