Curse Returns: Eight Extraordinary Skills? I lack nothing.

But she didn't show any disappointment. She had expected this before coming, and she could slowly add the items after school started.

Suddenly there was a knocking sound in the hallway, but it wasn't on her door; it was on the door next door.

Wild Rose opened the door and peeked out.

Hu Zhang, wearing slippers, stood at the entrance of Shunping, holding a bag in his hand and banging on it enthusiastically.

Dr. Huzhang turned around and looked at Wild Rose, still holding the bag in his hand. "I've prepared some local specialties from my hometown for you."

Wild Rose glanced at the bag in his hand, then at him.

What local specialties?

"Dried beef tongue".

Wild Rose hesitated for two seconds, then finally extended her hand. "Thank you..."

Chapter 124 Fight with Me

After settling Huzhang, Shunping, and Ye Qiangwei in, Youren walked along the gravel path of the vocational high school towards the administration building.

The mountain air was crisp and cool, carrying the dry scent of grass and trees that had been baking in the sun all day.

He had walked this road many times. From the evening when Gojo Satoru first brought him into the high school, to later returning here as the fourth seat of the Sword-Wielding Academy to handle various affairs, his state of mind was different each time he walked it.

As he was thinking, a white figure descended from the sky in the distance.

Gojo Satoru landed steadily in front of him, the hem of his black high school uniform still fluttering in the night wind, with a black-haired boy on his shoulder.

The boy had his hands in his pockets, his face expressionless, like a bag of rice casually draped over his shoulder.

"Yuto!" Gojo Satoru's voice rang out loudly in the empty night. "Look who I brought back!"

Yuuto didn't reply, he just looked at the boy being carried.

Fushiguro Megumi's expression wasn't good, but she didn't struggle, seemingly already used to Gojo Satoru's method of handling people like luggage.

"You're on a mission, and you can also conveniently bring someone back along?" Yu Ren asked.

Gojo Satoru put Fushiguro Megumi off his shoulder, patted him on the shoulder, and said in a relaxed tone as if he had just bought a bottle of water: "It's on the way, and the kid has finished his business at the Jujutsu Agency. Rather than letting him take the bus back by himself, I'll give him a ride."

After regaining his footing, Fushiguro Megumi nodded slightly to Yuuto: "Mr. Kasuga."

The three walked along the path, with Gojo Satoru leading the way, his hands in his pockets, his steps leisurely, occasionally kicking a small pebble by the roadside and watching it roll into the grass.

Yuuto and Fushiguro Megumi followed side by side behind, neither of them speaking, but their silence was not unpleasant; both of them had this habit.

Just after turning past a bamboo grove, the crisp sound of wooden knives clashing came from ahead.

Yu Ren looked up.

On the open ground of the training field, two figures were locked in combat.

The moonlight illuminated the smooth, trampled muddy ground, with several broken wooden stakes scattered around, remnants of previous training sessions.

Several streetlights stood at the edge of the training field, but they were not turned on tonight. Only the moonlight and the faint light coming from the windows of the distant administration building barely illuminated the area.

Maki, with her hair tied in a high ponytail, held a cursed sword longer than her own height. Each swing of the sword was accompanied by a sharp whistling sound, and her footsteps moved extremely fast, creating a dense rhythm on the gravel ground.

Her opponent was a panda, whose round body suddenly displayed amazing agility, and every move was steady and powerful.

Although the panda was clumsy, every movement it made was precisely timed to coincide with the gaps in Maki's attacks.

Gojo Satoru stopped and tilted his head to look for a while: "Maki has gotten stronger again. She's just toying with the panda. She's not even using her full strength."

Before Yuuto used his dual-wielding technique to eliminate the remaining cursed power within her body, Maki's strength remained stuck at the threshold of a level two curse master.

Every battle felt like dancing on a knife's edge.

You can't win, but you won't die either, but you'll always be just one breath short.

That lingering trace of cursed power was like a nail stuck in a gear, preventing her body from fully unleashing the true potential of Heaven and Curse.

She couldn't see the cursed spirits, and the spells were ineffective against her, but she also couldn't possess the absolute power to crush everything like a true tyrant.

That negligible amount of magical power seemed like a joke that fate was playing on her.

It was so little that she couldn't use any spells, yet so much that she couldn't become a true tyrant.

Like a thorn stuck in her throat, she couldn't swallow it or spit it out, making her neither an ordinary person nor a true being ordained by the heavens or a cursed one.

But it's different now.

The nail was pulled out.

Yu Ren used his two powerful hands to peel away the last trace of cursed power from her body, like removing an extra screw from a precision instrument.

Maki's body seemed to have a switch flipped, and all the suppressed power was released in an instant. The feeling was not that it gradually grew stronger, but that of a wild beast suddenly released from its cage, finally able to breathe deeply.

From that day on, Maki's strength skyrocketed.

A level one curse spirit cannot last more than ten rounds against her, and even the best level one curse masters cannot go far in her hands.

Each of her attacks was more ruthless and faster than the last. Her swordsmanship became increasingly fierce, and her footwork became increasingly light. The pent-up frustration that had been suppressed for more than a decade finally found an outlet, like a flood bursting its banks, unstoppable.

Gojo Satoru once said that Maki was the person he had ever met who was closest to Fushiguro Shigeji.

It's not that their abilities are similar, but that their dedication to battle is exactly the same.

Neither of them cared about the rules of the sorcery world, nor did they both both deign to curry favor with those who looked down on them; they only believed in the sword in their own hands.

That almost obsessive dedication was the only thing that sustained them as they climbed from the bottom to the top.

But Yuuto knew that Maki and Jinji were different.

Shen Er lived in utter nothingness, without magic or spells, his very existence sustained by horse racing and the charity of women.

He has no feelings for this world; he's alive only because he's not quite dead yet.

Maki, however, has a fire burning inside her.

That fire destroyed all her expectations of the Zen temple family.

That corrupt family, steeped in the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate children, and measuring all value by magical power, never offered her any warmth.

But she didn't burn away the fire; she tempered it into a blade.

What she wanted wasn't destruction, but proof. Proof that she didn't need that family's approval to stand where they could never reach her.

Fushiguro Megumi stood aside, silently watching the battle unfold, without uttering a sound.

He knew Maki and knew about her past, but the short-haired woman wielding a knife under the moonlight was completely different from the one he remembered.

The oppressive atmosphere dissipated, replaced by a pure, unadulterated tension. Each of her cuts was clean, as if they were part of her own body.

The battle on the field came to an abrupt end.

The panda took a few steps back, raised its paws, and gestured that it had given up. "That's enough, that's enough. If this keeps going, my bones will fall apart."

The panda was panting heavily, its round chest heaving violently, and sweat beaded on its furry face.

His claws were a little numb, and the pads of his claws were sore from the shock.

Maki sheathed her sword, her breathing slightly disordered, but her eyes were clearer than ever before.

A few strands of her high ponytail were damp with sweat and stuck to her forehead, while her goggles were askew. She reached up and straightened them, then wiped the sweat from her chin with her sleeve.

Maki's gaze passed over the panda's shoulder and landed on the three people at the end of the path.

She saw Satoru Gojo, then Megumi Fushiguro, and then Yuuto.

Her expression changed in that instant.

Maki sheathed her long sword and walked toward Yuuto.

The moonlight shone on her, casting a long, slender shadow on the ground.

She took off her glasses, revealing a pair of emotionless black eyes.

Those eyes had gazed at the ceiling countless times in the dark nights of the Zen temple, asking themselves "Why me?" countless times, but now those eyes no longer held that confusion.

Her hair had grown quite a bit and was tied into a low ponytail at the back of her head. A few stray hairs fell from her forehead, damp with sweat and clinging to her skin.

She wore no makeup, and her skin, tanned from long-term high-intensity training, was a wheat color. Her cheekbones and jawline were sharp as if carved with a knife.

Zenin Maki wore a black, tight-fitting combat suit that accentuated her slender and muscular figure.

He has a small frame, but his muscles are well-defined, and the veins on his arms are visible, which are the marks left by holding a knife for a long time.

Maki walked up to Yuuto and bowed deeply.

It wasn't a polite, slight bow; it was a full, deep bend, with her head bowed until it was level with her knees. Her high ponytail cascaded down her shoulders, almost touching the ground.

She had wanted to do this for a long time, ever since the day she awakened, from the moment she first felt the complete power within her body, no longer suppressed by anything.

She had been waiting for the right opportunity to express her gratitude to Yuuto.

However, every time they met, the timing or the occasion was wrong, and she didn't want to do something that seemed a bit sentimental in front of too many people.

Yuuto's voice wasn't loud, but it was clear: "Get up."

After Maki got up, Yuuto looked at her and asked, "How's your body adapting lately?"

He mentally compared Maki to the fully awakened form in the original work.

Maki now possesses an exceptionally strong physique, making her more than capable of dealing with level one cursed spirits and ordinary level one sorcerers.

But there is still a long way to go before they become true rulers and tyrants.

The difference is not quantitative, but qualitative.

She is like a newly sharpened knife; it is sharp, but it has not yet undergone true tempering.

“My lord.” Maki’s voice was low and hoarse. “Since the day I awakened, my strength has been soaring, but recently it seems to have hit a plateau.”

She paused for a moment, as if considering her words.

“I can feel the power still growing, but the way it’s growing is wrong.”

“Previous growth was about breaking through the ceiling; current growth is just filling the existing gaps.”

Maki frowned slightly, then continued, "It's like running. At first you're sprinting, then you find that you're running faster and faster, but the progress is getting smaller and smaller. In the end, you'll feel like you've actually been standing still."

"But your legs are still moving, your heart is still beating, you are accelerating, but the speedometer has stopped. It's a very strange feeling."

Yu Ren nodded slightly; he already had a guess.