Near the center of the hall, his belongings rested atop a row of stone pedestals, arranged as though they were relics on display.
Nightfall.
The Domain Shatter card, still suspended inside its faint blue frame.
Untouched.
Beyond the pedestals, the floor gave way to a broad stone basin.
Instead of water, it held a dense blue liquid that shimmered with a quiet inner light, reflecting off the surrounding pillars. It sat perfectly still.
Stored Cursed Energy?
Ren stopped at the edge and looked down for a long moment.
Then the tension finally caught up with him.
He let himself fall onto the cool stone, one arm draped over his eyes as he stared into the darkness above.
"That's a pretty good upgrade."
...
The silence of the pocket dimension settled over him.
No screaming steel. No distant explosions. Nothing.
Ren lay on his back, staring into the endless blue above. His breathing came slow, each breath scraping against his sore ribs.
After a while, he pushed himself upright. His joints cracked in the stillness.
His eyes drifted to the basin of cursed energy glowing near the center of the hall.
Sitting on the floor suddenly felt wrong.
He lifted a hand.
Construction answered before the thought had fully formed. Cursed energy peeled away from the basin, and black stone rose from the floor with a low grinding rumble. A heavy chair, all sharp edges and high stone backing, assembled itself behind him.
Ren dropped into it, letting his head rest against the cold stone.
"System." His voice was rough. "Open the Point Exchange."
The familiar blue grid unfolded before him.
[SYSTEM POINT EXCHANGE]
CURRENT BALANCE: 691,500 SP
AVAILABLE CATEGORIES:
[WEAPON UPGRADES & IMBUEMENT]
[INNATE TECHNIQUE EFFICIENCY]
[CORE TECHNIQUE EVOLUTION]
Ren stared at the number.
A few weeks ago he'd been hunting Grade 3 curses for five points apiece.
Now he had nearly seven hundred thousand.
And almost nowhere to spend it.
Nightfall had already reached its limit. It was Special Grade, soul-bound, and complete. Wraith's Fang was gone, sacrificed to survive Jogo back in Kamakura. Construction had already reached five-star efficiency.
There was nothing left to upgrade.
Almost.
His gaze settled on the lone entry highlighted in gold.
[CORE TECHNIQUE EVOLUTION: CONSTRUCTION]
Description: ?
Cost: 250,000 SP
"...A quarter million for a question mark."
The price wasn't the problem.
The mystery was.
For all he knew, it could unlock something worthy of a Special Grade sorcerer.
Or burn a fortune on an upgrade he'd never use.
The alternative was to sit on the points until he acquired another Innate Technique.
That meant relying on his body.
After watching Sukuna erase half a city, Ren wasn't interested in betting everything on muscle anymore.
He needed something that broke past those limits.
His eyes settled on the gold text.
Even after spending two hundred fifty thousand points, he'd still have more than enough left in reserve.
"Construction makes something from nothing," he murmured, his voice echoing through the empty hall. "Five stars fixed the cost. Evolution should change what it's capable of."
He pressed the prompt.
[CONFIRM PURCHASE: CORE TECHNIQUE EVOLUTION (CONSTRUCTION)]
Cost: -250,000 SP
Proceed? [Y/N]
Ren selected Y.
[CORE TECHNIQUE EVOLUTION — INITIALIZING]
[3%]
[7%]
[40%]
[99%]
[EVOLUTION COMPLETE]
CONSTRUCTION → MANIFESTATION
Description:
The user no longer requires blueprints, technical knowledge, or preexisting schematics.
Any object the user can clearly imagine may be manifested through cursed energy, provided it does not violate System restrictions.
Complexity and cursed energy cost now scale with the user's imagination and clarity of intent.
Note: As this technique originated through the user's Inheritance trait, its original owner has also received a corresponding evolution.
Ren read the description once.
Then again.
"...That's cheating."
He turned his hand over again, not reaching for anything specific this time — just a thought, something round, something that glows — and a small sphere of soft white light knit itself together above his palm, hovering there, humming faintly.
His fingers almost gave out from pure reflex. He closed his fist instead, and the light winked out.
For a second he just sat there, breathing, letting the number sink in properly. Two hundred fifty thousand points, gone in one tap, and what he'd gotten back wasn't a bigger sword or a flashier trick. It was the whole ceiling on what he could build — just gone.
"Worth it," he said quietly. "Actually worth it."
He flexed his hand, half-expecting the feeling to fade. It didn't. It just sat there under his skin, like it had always belonged.
He stood up from the black stone chair, no clock to check, just a rough sense he'd been in here longer than he should've been.
"That's probably too long." Ren let the faint blue grid fade from his vision and willed himself back.
Reality snapped into place like a rubber band releasing. The pristine, endless blue of the inventory vanished, replaced instantly by the choking stench of sulfur, burnt rubber, and pulverized concrete. The temperature spiked around him. He was back on the terrace of the office building.
He stepped up to the cracked railing and looked over the edge.
Down on the shattered asphalt, Maki and Nobara stood a few feet apart. Maki had her arms crossed tight over her chest, posture rigid, while Nobara gestured aggressively with one hand, the other planted on her hip.
Ren rolled his shoulders. A few bruised joints cracked in protest, but the short rest had taken the edge off.
He leaned against the cracked railing.
Below, Nobara was still arguing, waving her hammer around as she talked. Maki stood with her arms crossed, looking one sarcastic remark away from knocking the first-year onto her back.
Ren let the bickering fade into the background.
Instead, he searched the alleys.
His gaze swept over abandoned storefronts, collapsed buildings, and pools of shadow between the flickering streetlights.
Mahito's double should've been here by now.
In the original timeline, Nobara had wandered off alone.
Not this time.
A rusted sign creaked somewhere down the street.
Nothing moved.
Ren's eyes lingered on the mouth of a narrow alley before shifting on.
If the clone was watching, it wouldn't show itself.
Not with Maki standing beside Nobara, Playful Cloud resting in her hand, and Panda, Inumaki, and Kusakabe only a few steps away inside the lobby.
Mahito would have to change his plan.
Ren let out a slow breath.
"...Good."