Chapter 079: Half a Month
In the middle of all the excitement, Matsushita Yusuke took a closer look at the new panel.
Having a second character slot was all well and good, but it needed some attention.
[Hollow Power Level: 0]
[Sonido: 0] [Cero: 0] [Hierro: 0]
Four zeros staring back at him.
How exactly was he supposed to raise these?
Reiatsu, the four combat disciplines, the Zanpakuto panel: all of those could be developed through quests. But for anything on the Hollow side, he couldn't immediately think of a method. He wasn't about to go grinding in Hueco Mundo.
The answer appeared before he had to think about it for long.
[Note: Hollow Power attributes can be obtained through normal quests as random bonus rewards. Alternatively, the Hollow self can be deployed into Hueco Mundo and left to operate independently.]
Idle mode.
That was an actual feature.
Send the character in, let it run, check back later. This was considerably more civilized than starting a secondary account from scratch and running the full main quest line again.
The gaming industry had genuinely gotten better at respecting players' time.
Though alongside the satisfaction, there was a mild headache forming.
Having a second stat pool meant the quest reward distribution was now diluted further. Rare or specific attribute gains were going to require more targeted quests to land consistently.
There was also another problem.
Throwing the Hollow self into Hueco Mundo at level zero was probably asking for it to get immediately destroyed. That place had no rules. The strong ate the weak and that was the entire social structure. Some development was needed before idle deployment was viable.
Which meant allocating a portion of effort toward building the alt up before it could run on its own.
And one more thing.
He currently had no way to get anything into Hueco Mundo.
That was a multi-layered logistical problem, and just sketching through the surface of it revealed several uncomfortable complications.
Fine. Not today's problem.
The result was still good.
Hollow Power functioned as a parallel to reiatsu. Sonido was the Hollow equivalent of shunpo. Cero mapped onto Kido in terms of category. Hierro was more unusual: a physical defense layer that Shinigami simply didn't have a native equivalent for. Even the most combat-hardened Shinigami generally expected to bleed when cut.
The only type who naturally operated differently was someone like Zaraki, who treated taking hits as a warm-up.
Hierro was a minor benefit in the grand scheme, but it was still a benefit. Leave it in the background and it would accumulate on its own.
Satisfied with the mental accounting, Matsushita Yusuke kicked back on his bed and called up the Hollow self to have a look.
Result: entirely as predicted.
A completely white version of himself, carrying the same Zanpakuto.
Shared resources across accounts, apparently.
He tried switching it to its true form.
The silhouette shifted. What appeared was a pale humanoid figure, still recognizably person-shaped, but with no facial features. Where the face should have been was a blank surface with a cross-shaped marking pressed deep into it. Hollow mask where a face would be. Mysterious in an abstract way.
He looked it over from a few angles.
Not quite as impressive as he had imagined it would be.
He let it go quickly. The Hollow Power level was at zero. Without the main account's stats supplementing it, this thing was currently below the level needed to hold its own against a Gillian. Development was necessary before any serious deployment.
He dismissed it.
Still, the appeal was real. Shared resources meant the Hollow self could work as a disguise. Needed to do something inside Soul Society without getting identified? Put on the alternate skin and go.
The headlines that would generate were genuinely funny to imagine.
A Hollow breaching Seireitei for the first time in years. The Gotei 13 scrambling to respond. Absolute chaos.
Obviously not something he was actually going to do.
But as a theoretical option it was very entertaining.
He stowed the Hollow self, lay back, and let the full picture settle.
Tonight had been genuinely productive. The Hogyoku fragment's effect ran deeper than he had expected, and its long-term implications were significant.
The original Aizen had gotten the whole thing and immediately felt entitled to go up against Yamamoto. With just a fragment, Matsushita Yusuke had received a second growth system and a parallel stat panel.
Scale that up to a complete Hogyoku and the Hollow side might unlock fully from the start.
No wonder the man had gotten ideas.
On that thought, Matsushita Yusuke drifted off to sleep.
It was one of the better nights of rest he had gotten recently. When he woke in the morning, the feeling in his head was genuinely clean and settled.
Deep breath. Quick wash. Off to class.
A lot had changed, but the routine had to continue. Aizen's private lessons were in the evening. The daytime still needed filling.
Since the classes were delivering next to nothing useful at this point, Matsushita Yusuke spent the available time going over the information and priorities in front of him.
First: the immediate problem.
He wrote a line on paper.
Aizen had said half a month was manageable for stalling Squad 11. That half month needed to be used correctly.
What did he actually need to achieve in that time?
After a moment of thought, he set a staged target.
At minimum, two Zanpakuto categories needed to reach Shikai threshold.
That was the most direct path to a real increase in combat capability. And it was the most realistic goal given the current numbers.
Secondary priority: Kido.
He wrote the word down and drew a circle around it.
Balanced development across all four disciplines was the healthiest approach in theory. But the gains from joining the faction had pushed Kido into a category that couldn't be ignored. At its current level, Kido alone put him on roughly equal footing with an ordinary vice-captain.
Maximizing the half month meant playing to that strength.
The pen tip clicked against the paper in a steady rhythm.
He told himself quietly: time to move fast.