Chapter 26: The Trial

News that an outsider was participating in the “trial” quickly spread throughout the shrine.

By the time Nobuhito walked alone to the veranda and sat before the purification basin in silent concentration, quite a few curious shrine descendants had already gathered nearby.

Aside from Kyoko, whose face was full of worry, most of the others wore expressions of doubt and anticipation for a spectacle.

The dark-skinned boy, Sato Go, sneered.

“An outsider actually wants to learn sorcery? What a joke. Without the shrine’s bloodline inheritance or years of training since childhood, what does he think sorcery is? A toy bought from a roadside shop?”

“Exactly,” another tall, skinny boy chimed in. “And Lady Rumiko actually agreed to give him a chance… I think she’s only doing it for Kyoko’s sake, just so he’ll realize how impossible it is and give up. Mastering the Heart-Purifying Mantra before sunset? Back then, didn’t all of us spend several days just barely getting started? How could an outsider possibly do it?”

“Look, he’s seriously trying.” Sato Go folded his arms and laughed coldly.

“The Heart-Purifying Mantra may be simple, but pronunciation and rhythm are everything. Even the slightest mistake makes it useless,” Akiyama Aya said indifferently, though hidden in her eyes was obvious anticipation of seeing him fail. “How much could he even remember after hearing it once?”

“Kyoko really shouldn’t have brought this kind of trouble in here…” someone muttered softly.

“Shh. Let’s just see what kind of joke he makes of himself. We won’t have to wait long.”

“If he fails, maybe he’ll finally be too embarrassed to keep hanging around Kyoko.”

Those unfriendly whispers circled around him like background noise.

Yet Nobuhito seemed enclosed inside a transparent barrier, completely isolating himself from them.

Inside his mind, the obscure incantation echoed repeatedly, breaking apart and recombining.

Time silently and relentlessly flowed onward with the sinking sun descending toward the mountain ridge.

Inside the shrine’s tea room, the thin smoke from burning incense rose straight upward before slowly dispersing in the soft beams of light filtering through the paper doors.

Kyoko sat formally beside Grandma Rumiko, but her eyes kept drifting toward the figure outside on the veranda.

Nobuhito sat cross-legged before the purification basin, spine perfectly straight, lips moving soundlessly as he repeatedly chewed over the difficult incantation.

The sunset’s glow coated him in an increasingly faint golden outline while shadows gradually stretched longer.

“Grandma,” Kyoko finally whispered with concern, unable to hold back any longer, “can he… really do this?”

Grandma Rumiko did not answer immediately.

She slowly lifted her teacup, took a sip, and only then turned her gaze toward the boy outside.

“What do you think?” she asked calmly.

“I… I don’t know.” Kyoko honestly shook her head, unconsciously twisting the sleeve of her shrine maiden robes. “Even though the Heart-Purifying Mantra is the most basic spell, the pronunciation, rhythm, and that tiny stirring of ‘qi’… even for us, it takes several days before we can really grasp the feeling. But he only has less than two hours…”

“Kyoko,” Rumiko said, setting down her teacup, “you once told me that this child, Nobuhito, can see the ‘impurities’ ordinary people cannot perceive, correct?”

“Yes, Grandma.”

“Spiritual sensitivity—especially gifts such as yin-yang eyes—places great importance on bloodline origins,” Rumiko said slowly. “If both his parents were completely ordinary people without spiritual perception, the chance of producing a child like him would be infinitesimally small.”

Her gaze deepened slightly.

“Therefore, I suspect that at least one of his parents… likely has an unusual background. Perhaps the descendant of some hidden demon-exorcist lineage. Or perhaps someone who awakened accidentally without realizing it themselves. Through twists of fate, they became buried within mundane worldly life, leaving the inheritance unpassed down.”

She paused before looking toward Nobuhito again.

“As for whether he can pass today’s trial, that depends not only on whether the ‘seed’ buried deep within his bloodline still exists, but also on his temperament, comprehension… and whether he possesses the resilience to break through after being cornered by fate itself.”

Kyoko nodded as though half understanding, then fell silent.

Her eyes remained firmly fixed on Nobuhito, filled with concern and expectation.

She could see the fine beads of sweat appearing at his temples.

She could even faintly sense the weak and unstable fluctuations surrounding him as he silently recited the mantra.

The fluctuations were still crude, like a candle flame flickering in the wind.

Time passed second by second amid anxious waiting.

Outside on the veranda, the shrine descendants’ earlier surprise and discussion gradually transformed into open impatience and ridicule.

The sun sank lower and lower, the orange-red sky slowly swallowed by gray-blue dusk.

“He still hasn’t given up? I’ll admit he’s persistent. Too bad it’s pointless,” Sato Go said with folded arms.

“Spiritual cultivation isn’t that simple. Does he really think chanting a spell is enough?” Aya sneered. Having always been regarded as one of the most talented among her peers, she particularly despised outsiders attempting to touch the shrine’s secret arts. “Without bloodline resonance or years of bathing in divine aura since childhood, at best he’s only stirring up some random mental fluctuations.”

“Kyoko’s wasting time staying here with him…” someone else agreed.

“The sun’s about to set. Let’s see how much longer he can keep pretending!”

The comments gradually stopped being concealed and even took on deliberate sharpness, as though they wanted to pierce Nobuhito’s concentration with verbal thorns and shatter his seemingly futile persistence.

Kyoko frowned deeply as she listened and finally let out a heavy snort of warning toward them.

Only then did the voices quiet somewhat, though the mockery and anticipation in their eyes did not diminish at all.

The sun finally reached the edge of the mountain ridge.

The final sliver of golden light slowly withdrew from the courtyard like reluctant fingertips.

Shadow completely swallowed the purification basin and submerged most of Nobuhito’s figure into darkness.

Several shrine descendants already wore expressions of “just as expected,” while some even turned to leave.

And then—

At the precise instant the final trace of daylight was about to disappear completely and darkness was about to engulf the courtyard—

A clear, steady voice carrying a strange rhythmic resonance suddenly rang out!

The voice was not loud, yet it seemed to strike directly against the hearts of all who heard it.

It was unmistakably the opening syllables of the Heart-Purifying Mantra they all knew so well.

Yet coming from Nobuhito, it lacked the solemn ritualistic feeling they were accustomed to hearing.

Instead, there was something raw but extraordinarily focused about it—as though he were using every ounce of his concentration to carve each individual sound into existence.

The incantation continued flowing.

At first there were slight stumbles, but soon it became smooth.

Even more astonishingly, as the mantra progressed, an extremely faint yet undeniably real ripple seemed to spread through the air centered around Nobuhito.

It was not wind.

Rather, it was a softer fluctuation belonging to something more fundamental—the movement of “qi.”

The ripple brushed across the bodies of the spectators.

It carried no forceful impact, yet strangely washed away the restlessness, mockery, and impatience in their hearts like clear water cleansing dust, gradually settling their emotions and filling them with rare tranquility and calm.

This was precisely the sign of successfully cultivating the Heart-Purifying Mantra—

Not only entering meditative focus oneself, but allowing the rhythm of the spell to influence the emotions of those nearby!

He had succeeded.

At the very last moment before the sun completely disappeared.