Chapter 3 Progress

Six more months passed by, I was able to control and strengthen my mana to the that I can manipulate at as well as my reiatsu(Spiritual Pressure) without anyone’s assistance. Although that was just manipulating mana and not how to use it as it is.

My body also became stronger as I circulate my mana through my entire body and in return, I get to house more mana to circulate. This repeated several times in the past six months, but recently it stopped changing my body. It seems that I have to age more to continue this body strengthening.

To know my strength, I did several tests on my muscles and bones and the result was, to quantify, I can contend with ten big-bodied adults in a tug of war, not that I tried it, just my educated guess.

As for fusing my physical and spiritual body, I’m stuck. First of all, because of the wounded soul, I can’t do anything reckless until it is fully healed unless I want hidden dangers that can flare up in the worst possible situation. My soul is healing at a faster rate each and every day though. How did that happen? Because of this cheaty Hougyoku, not that I hate it since it’s mine.

The Hougyoku follows and grants the desire of the hearts around it and it just heard my wish of faster recovery rate. The Hougyoku is damage and can’t grant wishes as easily as it did with Aizen. Despite this, it is still the most overpowered item that I know. Just by giving it enough time, it can realize anything, probably.

My kidou(Demon Arts) training is also not going well as I want. If I want to use it without separating my body and soul, I have to use mana to channel my reiryoku through my body, as a result, my reiryoku will be laced with mana and the kidou will not activate properly. Melding both mana and reiryoku together is proving harder than I expected. With this problem, I can only use spells of number 30 and below in both Hadou(Way of Destruction) and Bakudou(Way of Binding). I don’t if that is enough for my safety as I never fought with anything abnormal yet.

My body techniques, on the other hand, are progressing as expected. I can already use Shunpo(Flash Step) in multiple succession, but due to my body’s limit, I can only travel 5-10 meters per jump and a maximum of 5 succession in every ten minutes before my legs give up. My Zanjustsu(Art of the Sword), like my Shunpo, is limited by my body and I can only display less than half of its usual effectiveness.

I need more training, but I can only do that every evening and in a place without any eyes and ears. It’s not like I’m in a hurry anyway or in any immediate danger. I want to enjoy my second life to the fullest unless my curiosity kicks in, and that will probably happen in the future knowing me.

Of course, it will not be me without my trusty gadgets. I already recreated my portable Gigai(Faux Body). I can’t really do without them, it just doesn’t feel right. I also added some new nifty features, the aura copier, and a simple A.I. From my observations, supernatural beings of this world can detect aura to pinpoint someone’s location, race, and to some extent, power. The aura copier, like its name, can copy the target’s aura for a few seconds to a few minutes. Those few seconds are enough to confuse and deceive someone in battle and change the tide for one’s favor.

The second one is a simple A.I. for simple actions like walking, running, jumping or even facial expressions. I can’t have my Gigai just stand in place while copying someone’s aura, that is just too fake.

I also already recreated my Reiatsu-concealing cloak, though I should call it now aura-concealing cloak due to it being capable of hiding someone’s aura and imitating the surrounding energy flows to conceal a ‘blank space’ created by concealing an aura. It can’t still hide sound and sight though.

Now moving unto Benihime. These few months, I kept diving inside my soul to knock on the doors of an old large Japanese mansion. Inside of this mansion is Benihime, my Zanpakuto. I kept knocking on these doors in hopes to awaken her but not a single time I succeeded. I know that she is inside since I can feel it, but it looked like she too has taken damage from reincarnation and not a small amount of damage since my connection to her is almost nonexistent. I hope I can see her soon. Despite her bad and sadistic personality, I still missed her ’cause she’s always there for me all the time for my whole life, an irreplaceable partner. She’s also probably the one who embedded the Hougyoku in me in an attempt to save my life.