"Hado #4: Byakurai!"
Duan Mu formed a sword with two fingers and pointed forward. Lightning immediately gathered from all directions and shot toward the huge tree in the distance. Almost the instant the lightning struck, the tree exploded with a bang, leaving not even a fragment behind.
Looking at the break in the tree, which seemed to have been bitten off, Duan Mu muttered, "Its power is probably only one-fifth of a fully chanted spell. As expected, Canceled Incantation is still too low a level?"
Hado #4: Byakurai—Intermediate (3213/10000)
Duan Mu frowned slightly. He had never stopped practicing Byakurai, but three months of practice had brought no progress at all. This left him hesitating over whether he should put the remaining 136 experience points into Byakurai after activating Hakuda.
Although that amount of experience was barely a drop in the bucket for Byakurai, which had already reached the intermediate level, increasing experience did more than simply strengthen its power. It also granted related knowledge. Perhaps it would contain a way to break through his current bottleneck or some special usage technique.
In the end, however, Duan Mu abandoned the idea.
Intermediate Byakurai was already sufficient for Duan Mu at present. Setting aside spiritual pressure, his mastery of Byakurai was already greater than that of the Soul Reaper he had seen.
Rather than putting his experience points into Byakurai, he might as well find a way to learn several more Kido spells.
However...
The system could not directly let Duan Mu choose to learn Kido. Only after he personally saw someone cast a Kido spell could he see the option to activate that spell in the system within his mind.
Moreover, the spell had to be fully chanted. If the other person used Canceled Incantation, then no matter how many times Duan Mu watched, he could not activate that Kido.
Duan Mu sat on the ground, his mind immersed in the system interface.
Physique, spiritual pressure, Hakuda, Shunpo, Zanjutsu.
Even without learning a new Kido, he still had plenty of choices.
Spiritual pressure could be said to be both the most basic and most important attribute. At the same time, it was both the hardest and easiest to cultivate.
It was the hardest because no matter how he trained, progress was slow unless he invested a large amount of experience points. It was the easiest because whether he practiced Kido, Shunpo, Zanjutsu, or even fought, his spiritual pressure would gradually increase.
Without a large amount of experience points, there was no need to treat it as his primary cultivation target.
As for Zanjutsu...
Duan Mu felt somewhat conflicted. Apart from Byakurai, this was the skill he had practiced the most. But now, he planned to set it aside temporarily.
The reason was simple: he did not have an Asauchi.
An Asauchi was an unnamed Zanpakuto—the name of a Zanpakuto before its Shikai. More than six thousand members of the Thirteen Court Guard Squads temporarily borrowed one while studying at the Soul Reaper Academy, and were formally granted one upon joining their squad.
After a Soul Reaper received an Asauchi and spent every day with it, their soul would merge into the Asauchi, giving birth to their own Zanpakuto.
Without joining the Soul Reaper Academy, obtaining an Asauchi was practically impossible.
Unless one happened to pick up an Asauchi like Kenpachi Zaraki did—one whose owner had died and whose Zanpakuto spirit had disappeared.
Generally speaking, however, after a Soul Reaper died, a squad funeral would be held. During the ceremony, the Asauchi, which had returned to its factory settings after its owner's death, would be buried together with the owner's cenotaph.
Without an Asauchi, continuing to practice Zanjutsu would not help him in battle. It was not as though he could carry a wooden sword and fight people with it.
Awakening a Zanpakuto without an Asauchi was not absolutely impossible. Ichigo Kurosaki was one example. The blade in his hands had always been formed by White Ichigo. White Ichigo possessed the characteristics of an Asauchi, but was not an Asauchi.
This was something Duan Mu could not learn either.
After carefully considering the matter, Duan Mu decided to set Zanjutsu aside for now.
Setting aside spiritual pressure and Zanjutsu, and without learning a new Kido, Duan Mu was left with only Hakuda and Shunpo to choose from.
As for Physique...
To be honest, Duan Mu did not quite understand the purpose of this attribute. He had once tried putting some experience into it, but the result was merely a slight increase in physical strength and greater strength without using spiritual pressure. He had gained no new knowledge.
If that was all it did, then increasing it or not made little difference. Spiritual pressure could achieve the same effect anyway. Kenpachi Zaraki was a good example—his powerful spiritual pressure already gave him defensive capabilities comparable to a Menos' Steel Skin.
As long as his spiritual pressure was strong enough, both his strength and defense would become extremely powerful. In that case, Physique seemed rather useless.
With experience points in short supply, it was not worth investing in at all.
As for the remaining Hakuda and Shunpo, Duan Mu planned to cultivate both at the same time. He would keep practicing while evenly distributing the experience points he gained between the two. This was equivalent to having a master constantly guide him as he trained.
"Then it's settled."
Having made up his mind, Duan Mu rose and patted the dust from his backside. Then he gritted his teeth and put all his remaining experience points into Hakuda.
Since he had decided to train both at the same time, he had to keep their progress more or less equal. More related knowledge would make cultivation go more smoothly.
The familiar pain surged up once again, and countless new pieces of knowledge instantly flooded Duan Mu's mind.
Duan Mu had always thought that Hakuda was simply basic punching and kicking.
But as all kinds of knowledge fused into him, he could not help being dazzled. The knowledge included not only punching and kicking stances, attack angles, methods of exerting force, and ways to use spiritual pressure to strengthen the body, but also human weaknesses, acupoints, detailed explanations of joints, and countless other varied subjects.
Its complexity was even comparable to Kido.
Once he had finished absorbing everything, Duan Mu's expression turned solemn. As he stepped forward, he swung both fists rapidly in front of him.
His crossed fists turned into afterimages, and waves of forceful wind howled outward.
"Ah-da, da-da-da-da-da-da-da..."
Layer upon layer of fist shadows filled the air, sharp and fierce.
Buzz!
The fist shadows vanished. Duan Mu turned around and held his arms forward in a false embrace, saying coolly, "You're already dead."
After several seconds of silence, Duan Mu withdrew his hands, the corner of his mouth twitching slightly. "Yeah... As expected, the old era makes it easy for people to become chuuni."
Never mind. No one had seen him anyway.
After his brief bout of chuuni behavior, Duan Mu refocused his attention on the system interface.
Name: Duan Mu Race: Human Level: Eighth Stage Physique: Beginner (16/500) Spiritual Pressure: Low (743/1000) Hakuda: Beginner (136/500) Shunpo: Beginner (145/500) Zanjutsu: Beginner (486/500) Zanpakuto: Not Activated (Activation Conditions Unknown) Kido: Hado #4: Byakurai—Intermediate (3213/10000) Special Techniques: Canceled Incantation—Low (17/1000) Current Experience Points: 0 ↓ Expand to view the Affection Interface.
Duan Mu opened the Affection Interface and glanced at it. There were dozens of densely packed names. Most of their affection levels were around 10 to 20, a few had reached 40, and only a handful were above 50.
"I still need to keep working hard."
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