"Mn… This is troublesome."
It was unknown when the Nyoi Staff in his hands got restored to its pristine state.
"Ugh, that's it. I'll start with the rules in this place."
"This place?"
"Mn. Strictly speaking, it is a replica of where I died."
Kashimo pointed around him. There were destroyed high-rise buildings, exploded cars, shattered roads, and the likes.
He began telling Aleph the rules inside this training space.
"I don't know how I got here. Only, it explained that this place was not real. Look."
He pulled out one of the rebars in the ground and snapped it in half. The next moment, the snapped rebar was whole again.
"You can restore everything in this place, whether it is weapons or the piles of rubbles. The only thing you can't do is to directly restore bodily injuries. Some medicine might work. That, or other techniques." He explained. "As for me, I tried dying once. It simply brought me back alive."
There are several rules inside the training space. When Aleph encounters a certain-death scenario, he would get kicked out from space. It was completely different from Kashimo's case, who was serving as the mentor inside this space.
When Aleph dies, the cooldown will then apply.
They also have a time limit of four hours. It would also result in ejection once the time limit was surpassed.
As to how he knew about these…
"They came out of my mind. It's out of nowhere, nothing short of a god's feat."
For the first time, Aleph felt a sense of awe coming from Kashimo.
"We're finally done with this."
Kashimo stretched his right arm to a building pierced with a hole.
"Explain what you got from your senses over there."
"That place…"
The remnants of the cursed energy seemed stuck throughout the entire city. It resulted in it being far more ominous than most things Aleph encountered.
"There are two people who fought there? Their strength… it's stronger than anything I encountered."
"Tsk, tsk. That's the place where Gojo Satoru and Sukuna fought. Shinjuku doesn't look like that anymore, does it?"
"...There might be a misconception." Aleph replied. "In my world, we don't have a Shinjuku."
"...Ah?"
It was the second time Kashimo got caught off guard.
"What I believe is that… we lived in different worlds."
"..."
Kashimo fell silent and stroked his chin with his hand.
'A different world… yet that kid has Nanami Kento's cursed technique…'
"Tell me, kid. What do you know about the Jujutsu Community?"
"...None."
Kashimo sighed at this. It was his first time teaching someone else. Although his experiences could serve a huge help, the way of teaching (i.e., tackling lessons) still had to be worked on.
"Ugh… Let's get going."
An impromptu history class came into being.
*****
Sorcery, or Jujutsu, came into being as a result of humans manipulating the negative emotions within oneself. These emotions manifest as a form of energy known as cursed energy.
The peak of sorcery (jujutsushi) came during the so-called golden era (Heian Period). Numerous techniques, cursed techniques, and strong sorcerers popped up one after another.
Hajime Kashimo unfortunately did not live in that era.
The notable thing he mentioned, however, was that one of the strongest during the Heian Era fought at this exact landscape.
"I can't believe how you reached Grade One without any knowledge. Your cursed energy control, though, is commendable."
Typically, it took long practice to make cursed energy flow along the entire body's veins. These details may seem small to others, but such an instinctive thing to do was completely unheard from someone who didn't even know the common sense of sorcery.
"I trained it well. It came off like that." Aleph replied. "So, what should I do first?"
"Mn… You don't have a problem with other sorcerers. Let's go with the binding vows first."
For the next few hours, Kashimo taught Aleph. Although they were unsure regarding how binding vows work in a different world, Aleph was able to pull it off. What came next were the tricks behind each binding vows as well as how to properly create one that wouldn't backfire on you.
By the time Aleph got ejected, his joints snapped several times. He fell asleep on top of his bed.
"Time is synched…"
He looked at the clock and saw that exactly four hours had passed. Fortunately, he decided to test it out during the night.
"Binding vows…"
From Kashimo, Aleph discovered its true strength.
"Someone with a similar cursed technique as me…"
He also heard about the wielder of ratio technique, Nanami Kento. His ratio technique also divided it by seven-to-three.
It could be concluded that their techniques are completely identical.
With a deep breath, Aleph decided to try creating a binding vow.
'For the next minute, I can't use my cursed technique.' He thought. 'In turn, my cursed energy enhancement becomes stronger.'
In an instant, Aleph's cursed energy enhancement increased by several notches. The loss of being able to utilize his cursed technique amounted to such a crazy increase.
A minute later, he was able to use his cursed technique again, though he lost the multiplier to his cursed energy enhancement.
"This needs more thinking."
For the rest of the entire night, Aleph listed hundreds of ideas while [Great Sage] pointed out which one was viable. Strangely enough, it felt as if it had "learned" something new for the first time.
Most of its knowledge base was taken from its original world, with the rest being in this world. However, it was proven to be limited, such as when it could only list a probability when it comes to the strengths of each MANTISes.
Aleph was inclined to think it was due to its voice which resembled a gray-haired girl in his mind.
'Prometheus…'
In the latter part of the Previous Era, MOTH did numerous measures. One of them was sending Prometheus—an AI—into the origin of Herrschers. A part of the artificial intelligence was sent in order to make sure the Herrschers and their order of appearance wouldn't change in the next era.
Prometheus was one of the institutes' major projects—one that Mei has been working on for some time.
Aleph's thoughts continued to fly until he reached Einstein's office.
Surprisingly, he found out that she was falling asleep on her chair.
"Mn..?"
She went wide awake the moment she saw Aleph.
"It looks like I wasn't the only one who didn't sleep."
"The project's progress reached a critical stage. The energy problem was already solved. All that's left was the code… rather, the soul inside the vessel."
"I'd like to put something forward." Aleph sat on the chair across her desk ."On the off chance it succeeds, and that they're really living, we need to set the ethics for them. I'm afraid they'll be used by the higher ups for something harmful."
"Ethics… I'll make sure to put it forward. Yawn…"
Seeing her sleepy state, Aleph realized she wasn't like Mobius. The latter had her body strengthened with honkai genes. Although they are only of chariot-class, they're enough to support her unhealthy work habits.
"I'll take over for today. You can use this time to rest, director."
"...I'll come back within the next three hours."
Today, Aleph's position was temporarily elevated for the next three hours.