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"The Reishi storm has disappeared. Did Ishikawa succeed?"
Oyama looked at the Everything Store, which was gradually calming down in the distance, and asked Ishida Soken beside him.
"...He should have succeeded, right?"
Ishida Soken said with some uncertainty. After all, he was not a Shinigami, so he didn't fully understand Ishikawa's method of healing himself.
And most importantly...
As the Reishi storm disappeared, Ishikawa's spiritual presence also vanished, as if Ishikawa and the Reishi within it had dissipated together above the Everything Store.
He had been vaguely sensing Ishikawa's Reiatsu gradually strengthening, becoming more and more terrifying, but when that Reiatsu reached its peak, it suddenly disappeared.
Not to mention Reiatsu, even Ishikawa's spiritual network had vanished.
It should be known that in terms of sensing spiritual networks, Ishida Soken, as a Quincy, was far superior to most Shinigami.
There were only two possibilities for the spiritual network to disappear...
One was that Ishikawa failed, and his spiritual body completely collapsed, in which case there would naturally be no spiritual network to speak of.
However, Ishida Soken leaned more towards the second possibility, or rather, he hoped it was the second possibility.
That was...
After healing, Ishikawa's Reiatsu surged, even to the point where he could not perceive his Reiatsu.
Buzz—
And just then, an inexplicable sense of oppression suddenly enveloped everyone present.
It made everyone involuntarily stop what they were doing and look up towards the Everything Store.
On the deserted street, a figure walked slowly.
The familiar dark work clothes, the familiar appearance—this brought a hint of joy to everyone's faces, and they immediately cast aside the terrifying oppressive feeling that had gripped them.
Ishikawa's walking speed didn't seem fast, but almost as soon as everyone saw him, Ishikawa had already appeared among the crowd.
"Let everyone disperse."
Ishikawa stopped beside Oyama and turned to look at the deserted outskirts of West 38th District. He could feel the presence of many living beings there.
That's right, living beings, not the spiritual bodies commonly found in Soul Society.
"The farther they scatter, the better!"
Karakura Town was here, so Aizen would definitely come here as well. Soon, this place would become a battlefield.
His subordinates, these villains, would be of no help whatsoever against Aizen. So, instead of letting them stay here as cannon fodder, it was better to have them disperse into other areas.
"Did you succeed?"
Ishida Soken looked at Ishikawa in front of him, his eyes full of confusion.
He couldn't feel any Reiatsu on Ishikawa at all; at this moment, Ishikawa looked just like an ordinary human.
"Mm."
Ishikawa didn't keep him in suspense and nodded directly.
With the assistance of the Shinigami Research and Development Institute, the latter half of the spiritual body reconstruction could be said to have gone extremely smoothly.
The Reishi gathered by the Shinigami Research and Development Institute was incredibly abundant, allowing Ishikawa to successfully maintain his Bankai until the very end.
But it couldn't be considered a complete success, because...
...
Name: Ishikawa
Race: Human
Level: Stage Two
Physique: Top (800842 / 1000000)
Reiatsu: Top (800842 / 1000000)
Hakuda: Top (4600 / 1000000)
Shunpo: Top (24600 / 1000000)
Zanjutsu: Top (168780 / 1000000)
Zanpakuto: Top (248640 / 1000000)
Current Experience: 0
...
Although the spiritual power replenishment was sufficient, the spiritual body reserves were far from enough. Fortunately, Ishikawa had previously reserved nearly 100,000 experience points. When the remaining spiritual bodies were insufficient to sustain him until the end of the process, Ishikawa gritted his teeth and directly added all experience points to...
Zanpakuto!
To put it simply, his process of reconstructing his spiritual body was essentially using his Zanpakuto to analyze spiritual bodies, and then gradually reassembling his own spiritual body.
And reconstruction naturally required a 'foundation' for reconstruction. So, before each corpse collapsed, Ishikawa would control Kokumei to extract a small amount of 'foundation' from those spiritual bodies that collapsed due to being unable to withstand the analysis.
However, the spiritual body that Ishikawa recovered was not composed of these foundations. Instead, countless 'foundations' that constitute the existence of a spiritual body served as a binder, gradually reassembling the completely collapsed spiritual body within his physique. This process was actually very similar to Aizen's process of creating the Hōgyoku.
Normally, those ordinary spiritual bodies simply couldn't achieve this effect.
The reason Ishikawa was able to achieve this was precisely because he used his Zanpakuto to analyze the almost imperceptible, practically non-existent root within each spiritual body.
In other words...
In this process, the Zanpakuto acted as an extractor, though its extraction efficiency was extremely low.
When he realized that the reserved spiritual bodies would not last until the end, Ishikawa had no choice but to go all in, adding all his experience points to his Zanpakuto, hoping that by increasing his Zanpakuto's proficiency, the extraction efficiency of this extractor would increase.
Ishikawa wasn't sure if increasing Zanpakuto proficiency would improve extraction efficiency.
But at that time, he could only take a gamble.
Fortunately, he won the gamble in the end!
This made Ishikawa incredibly grateful that he hadn't been too greedy and used all his experience points on his physique, thereby allowing his Reiatsu to reach 900,000 proficiency in one go.
He was now absolutely certain that once Reiatsu reached 900,000 proficiency, it would undergo another qualitative change.
If he had actually done that back then, even setting aside not having experience points to improve Zanpakuto proficiency, his spiritual body would definitely not have been able to sustain him until the end. Even if the conversion efficiency was improved, a conservative estimate... would require doubling the number of reserved spiritual bodies to succeed.
But was that possible?
The number of spiritual bodies Ishikawa consumed had already reached two-thirds of the total number of villains in the lower-numbered districts of Rukongai!
It could be said...
The villains accumulated over hundreds or thousands of years in Rukongai had undergone another major cleansing, although this time they were not cleansed by the Gotei 13, but by internal forces.
So even if Ishikawa eliminated the remaining one-third of the villains, he would still need to eliminate the Gotei 13's total of over 6,000 people to gather the necessary spiritual bodies.
Whether he could do this or not is beside the point; even if he could, Ishikawa wouldn't do it.
Because doing so would inevitably break the balance between the Three Realms.
The Gotei 13's duty is actually only one: not to guide souls, nor to eliminate Hollows, but to maintain the stability of the Three Realms!
Soul Society sends souls to the Human World as living beings, and then guides all deceased souls back to Soul Society. This is not for the sake of so-called justice or the duty of protecting souls, but simply to control the total number of souls and thus maintain the balance between the Three Realms.
In addition, to maintain balance, the Gotei 13 can be said to have used every means possible.
When the Human World was weak, they carried out a major cleansing of the villains in Rukongai, and both Commander Yamamoto and Unohana served as Executor (executors);
When Soul Society was weak, they formed expeditionary forces to slaughter in the Forest of Menos in Hueco Mundo, and even now there are still expeditionary forces present in Hueco Mundo;
When Hueco Mundo was weak, they would postpone or stop the guidance of deceased souls from the Human World, allowing those 'Pluses' to fall into Hollows, and even letting Hollows devour souls in the Human World.
Ishikawa had no objection to this point, after all, he didn't want the world to be destroyed...
But if he were to disrupt the stability of the Three Realms, Commander Yamamoto might very well set aside Aizen and lead his Squad to eliminate him first.
Even those five above might come down from up there.
Although if Captain-level individuals were used as consumables, this number could probably be reduced to single digits, even if the number of sacrifices was smaller, the problem of balance would not be solved.
Unless he learned from Aizen and Urahara Kisuke...
Spending hundreds of years collecting fragments of the Soul King's body from Soul Society, the Human World, and Hueco Mundo—only then could he obtain enough consumables without disrupting the balance.
But he simply didn't have that much time.
Getting back to the main topic.
Ishikawa gazed in the direction of Karakura Town, his brow furrowing slightly. He was somewhat hesitant about whether to go to the Human World immediately now and join Commander Yamamoto and the others in subjugating Aizen Sōsuke.
If possible, it would be best to resolve or seal him before his transformation progresses further.
However...
He wasn't confident.
Ishikawa was now confident that he could easily defeat all Captains except Commander Yamamoto and Captain Unohana, but truthfully, Ishikawa still wasn't very confident about defeating Aizen.
The safest method would be to wait for the 'Cheat King' to activate his cheat.
Provided the 'Cheat King' could make it in time.
Being in Soul Society, Ishikawa was completely unaware of the progress in the Human World and Hueco Mundo. The immediate priority was to quickly ascertain the situation in Hueco Mundo and the Human World, and then decide whether to go to the Human World for support or to prepare in Soul Society for Aizen's arrival.
He also wondered how things were in Hueco Mundo?
Although Ishikawa could vaguely sense Picaro and Circucci's current locations, it was difficult to establish contact with them. He could only vaguely feel that they were currently engaged in battle with someone.
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