Jusenkyo

"Jusenkyo? The sacred training ground of all martial artists?"

Yota searched his memory and recalled an ancient manga from who knew how many years ago.

Ranma 1/2… Of course, that was the name Yota learned later. When he first read it, it seemed to have been called Seven Laughing Fists. Back then, Yota had foolishly searched everywhere, yet still failed to find seven major characters in the entire manga who had fallen into Jusenkyo.

The protagonist was named Saotome Ranma, but at first, Yota had only known him as Miyagi Ranma. Clearly, what he had read back then must have been bootleg translations and pirated copies.

The power level in this world was fairly ordinary. Even the strongest martial arts techniques were at most comparable to an average jonin or Navy Captain. However, there were truly quite a few strange and unusual things in it.

Of course… what interested Yota most was naturally Jusenkyo itself, the beginning and end of it all.

The springs of Jusenkyo were said to possess incomparably powerful curses. According to that narrator, nearly every spring had drowned some kind of animal, including women, little pigs, cats, giant pandas, and even ducks.

There were also some especially bizarre ones… such as a monkey riding a cow, clutching a crane and an eel, all drowning in the same spring…

Of course, by the time one reached the ending, it became clear that all of that was nonsense. Rather than curses, the waters of Jusenkyo possessed a kind of copying ability. Once a spring first appeared, whatever fell into it would be copied, and anyone who subsequently fell in would transform into the form of the first animal to have entered that spring.

Then they would revert to their original form when exposed to hot water, and turn back into animals when exposed to cold water… All in all, it sounded hilarious, but was actually rather horrifying when one thought about it.

"Sir, have you come to Jusenkyo to train?"

An old man dressed in green from head to toe, wearing a green cap with a red star on it and carrying a thermos, sauntered over to Yota. Yota froze for a moment.

What kind of image did Rumiko Takahashi even have of Chinese people…? Yota muttered inwardly. This outfit really gave off the feeling of an elderly laborer from the seventies or eighties.

"That’s right. I came to take a look around Jusenkyo." Yota nodded slightly, then watched as the old man held out his hand. "Admission fee. Five yuan, please."

Yota was briefly speechless. He had some gold and the like on him, but where was he supposed to get renminbi?

As for simply paying in gold… that might be even more troublesome in this era. Besides, what he was about to do would probably send this old man’s blood pressure soaring. There was no way the man would agree.

So…

"Genjutsu, Rinnegan!"

"This is the legendary Spring of Drowned Man! Legend says a poor man once drowned here. From then on, anyone who falls in turns into a man!"

"Not bad, not bad. Dark Hole!"

"This is the legendary Spring of Drowned Girl! Legend says a poor woman once drowned here…"

"Dark Hole!"

"This is the legendary Spring of Drowned Duck! Legend says a poor duck once…"

Yota rolled his eyes. "A duck can drown here too? That excuse is way too lame, isn’t it?"

"What’s so strange about that? Up ahead, there are also the Frog Drowned Spring, Crocodile Drowned Spring, and Turtle Drowned Spring!" said the old man, who had been deceived by Yota’s genjutsu, with a cheerful grin.

"Forget it, whatever." Yota stopped wasting words with the old man who was lying through his teeth. He directly absorbed this Spring of Drowned Duck into the Dark Space and marked it as well.

Continuing onward, Yota quickly made a full circuit around Jusenkyo. The originally picturesque Jusenkyo, which looked like a vacation resort, had become a landscape of uneven muddy pits due to Yota’s destructive actions.

After collecting all the waters of Jusenkyo, Yota recalled that the source of these springs seemed to flow from two strange animal statues.

However, there was also a race guarding those springs. It was better to leave the source intact. Yota did not intend to go over there; he did not want to cut off the roots of these miraculous springs entirely.

He injected a stream of Yang Release Chakra into the old gatekeeper, treating some of his ailments of old age and extending his lifespan at the same time. That counted as payment for his trouble. Then Yota soared into the sky and vanished from the area.

The old man holding the thermos was dazed for a while before seeming to regain consciousness. "Oh, I feel so refreshed… Eh? Eh?! Where’s the spring water?!"

"Who the hell did this? They didn’t leave me even a single drop!"

"So this is where the main story takes place? It took me a long time to find it."

The Tendo Dojo before him should have been where the main plot unfolded. Speaking of which, he had only managed to find it thanks to Ranma’s father—after all, giant pandas did not exist in Japan. Yota had asked around for a long time before finally finding the place under the guidance of that fake "National Treasure."

"I’m off!"

Just then, with a whoosh, a braided teenage boy shot out through the gate and leaped onto the top of the wall, apparently on his way to school.

"Universal Pull!"

Yota casually stretched out a hand and pulled the boy into his grasp. At that moment, a crisp female voice rang out: "Who are you? Let go of Ranma!"

"Saotome Ranma, that’s you, right?"

Yota ignored the girl who had run out from the dojo and asked the boy in his hand.

"Uh, yeah, that’s me… Damn it, did Pops scam someone again, and now they’ve come looking for him?!" Ranma tried several times to break free from Yota’s grip, but he was held firmly. In the end, he could not help shouting.

Yota laughed. "Then this will be easy!" With that, he took out a ball of water and poured it over Ranma’s head.

"Eeeek?" Feeling the chill on his head, Ranma cried out. He struggled twice, then touched his own chest.

"I didn’t turn into a woman?! What’s going on?"

Yota checked the system. Not bad—the plot distortion this caused was substantial enough. After all, aside from the relationship between Ranma and Akane, the main thread of Ranma 1/2 was Ranma trying to regain his male body.

Moreover, those two threads were intertwined. Without either one, the entire main plot would more or less collapse.

Want to get married—become a real man—go to China—couldn’t go because of the engagement—couldn’t get married without being a real man.

The entire main plot basically revolved in an endless loop around that. By directly turning Ranma back into a real man, more than half the plotline had been cut away.

On top of that, Yota had emptied all of Jusenkyo. It could be said that he had even eliminated the final boss. Naturally, the impact on the entire Ranma storyline was enormous.