The Role of Experience Points

"Hado #4: Byakurai!"

Duan Mu formed his fingers into a sword and pointed forward. Immediately, lightning gathered from all directions, rushing towards a large tree several people could embrace in the distance. The moment the lightning struck, the tree exploded with a 'bang', leaving no fragments behind.

Looking at the tree's break, as if bitten off, Duan Mu muttered to himself, "The power is probably only a fifth of a full incantation. Is the level of 'Canceled Incantation' still too low?"

[Hado #4: Byakurai] Intermediate (3213/10000)

Duan Mu frowned slightly. He had never stopped practicing Byakurai, but after three months of practice, there was no progress at all. This made Duan Mu hesitate whether to add the remaining 136 experience points to Byakurai after activating Hakuda.

Although this amount of experience was like a drop in the bucket for the intermediate Byakurai, gaining experience not only enhanced its power but also provided relevant knowledge about Byakurai, perhaps including a way to break through the current bottleneck or special usage techniques.

However, Duan Mu ultimately abandoned the idea.

The intermediate Byakurai was already enough for the current Duan Mu. Setting aside Spiritual Pressure, Duan Mu's mastery of Byakurai was already stronger than the Soul Reaper he had seen.

Instead of adding experience points to Byakurai, it was better to find a way to learn more Kido.

It's just...

The system couldn't directly let Duan Mu choose to learn Kido. Only after Duan Mu personally witnessed someone else cast Kido could he see the activation options for the related Kido in the system in his mind.

Moreover, it had to be a full incantation. If the other party abandoned the incantation, then no matter how many times Duan Mu watched, he couldn't 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 new Kido, he had many choices.

Spiritual Pressure could be said to be the most basic and most important, and at the same time, the most difficult and easiest to cultivate.

The most difficult part was that no matter how you practiced, progress was slow unless you invested a lot of experience points. The easiest part was that whether it was cultivating Kido, Shunpo, Zanjutsu, or even fighting, Spiritual Pressure could gradually increase.

Without a large amount of experience points, there was no need to treat it as the primary cultivation subject.

As for Zanjutsu...

Duan Mu felt a bit complicated. This was the skill he had practiced the most besides Byakurai, but now Duan Mu was preparing to put it aside for a while.

The reason was simple: he didn't have an Asauchi.

The so-called Asauchi was an unnamed Zanpakuto, which was the name of a Zanpakuto before its Shikai. More than six thousand members of the Thirteen Court Guard Squads were temporarily lent them while studying at the Soul Reaper Academy and were officially granted these unnamed Zanpakuto upon joining a squad.

When a Soul Reaper received their own Asauchi and spent time with it, their soul would merge with the Asauchi, giving birth to their own Zanpakuto.

Without joining the Soul Reaper Academy, obtaining an 'Asauchi' was almost impossible.

Unless, like Kenpachi Zaraki, he coincidentally picked up an Asauchi whose Zanpakuto spirit had disappeared after its master's death.

But generally speaking, when a Soul Reaper died, a squad funeral ceremony would be held. During the ceremony, the 'Asauchi', which had returned to its factory settings due to its master's death, would be buried together with its master's cenotaph.

Without an Asauchi, continuing to practice Zanjutsu would be useless in combat. He couldn't possibly fight people with a wooden sword, could he?

It wasn't absolutely impossible to awaken a Zanpakuto without an Asauchi. Ichigo Kurosaki was an example. The sword in his hand was always formed by White Ichigo. White Ichigo possessed the characteristics of an Asauchi, but it was not an Asauchi.

Duan Mu couldn't learn this either.

Therefore, after careful consideration, Duan Mu decided to temporarily put Zanjutsu aside.

Excluding Spiritual Pressure and Zanjutsu, and without learning new Kido, the only options left for Duan Mu were Hakuda and Shunpo.

As for Physique...

To be honest, Duan Mu didn't understand the meaning of this existence. He had tried adding some experience to it, and the result was only a slight increase in physical strength and greater power without using Spiritual Pressure. He hadn't gained any new knowledge.

If it was just like this, it didn't matter whether it was leveled up or not. After all, with the enhancement of Spiritual Pressure, it could achieve the same effect. For example, Kenpachi Zaraki's powerful Spiritual Pressure already gave him defensive capabilities comparable to the Espada's 'Segunda Etapa'.

As long as the Spiritual Pressure was strong enough, both strength and defense would become extremely powerful. In this case, the role of Physique seemed somewhat redundant.

Under the current circumstances of scarce experience points, it was not worth investing experience points.

As for the remaining Hakuda and Shunpo, Duan Mu decided to cultivate both simultaneously. While continuously practicing, he would equally distribute the obtained experience points to both. This was equivalent to having a master constantly guiding him during cultivation.

"That's how it will be."

Having made up his mind, Duan Mu stood up, patted the dust off his pants, gritted his teeth, and added all his remaining experience points to Hakuda.

Since he had decided to do both simultaneously, he had to keep both at a similar progress level, because more related knowledge would make cultivation smoother.

The familiar pain surged again, and countless new pieces of knowledge flooded Duan Mu's mind.

Originally, Duan Mu thought that the so-called Hakuda was just simple hand-to-hand combat.

But as various kinds of knowledge were integrated, Duan Mu was greatly enlightened. Some of this knowledge included not only stances, attack angles, how to exert force, and methods of channeling Spiritual Pressure into the body... but also human weak points, acupoints, joint details, and various other diverse knowledge.

Its complexity was even comparable to Kido.

After receiving everything, Duan Mu's expression became solemn. As he stepped forward, his fists swung back and forth in front of him.

His fists crossed, forming afterimages, and gusts of wind whistled out.

"Adah, dadadadadadada..."

Fist shadows were heavy and extremely sharp.

Hum!

The fist shadows disappeared. Duan Mu turned, made a gesture of embracing forward with both arms, and said indifferently, "You are already dead."

After a few seconds of silence, Duan Mu stopped his actions, a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth. "Hmm... I guess the old era really makes people act edgy."

Oh well, no one saw it anyway.

After his brief bout of edginess, Duan Mu refocused his attention on the system interface.

Name: Duan Mu

Race: Human

Level: Eighth Stage

Physique: Novice (16/500)

Spiritual Pressure: Low-level (743/1000)

Hakuda: Novice (136/500)

Shunpo: Novice (145/500)

Zanjutsu: Novice (486/500)

Zanpakuto: Inactive (Activation conditions unknown)

Kido:

[Hado #4: Byakurai] Intermediate (3213/10000)

Special Techniques:

[Canceled Incantation] Low-level (17/1000)

Current Experience Points: 0

↓ Expand to view Affinity interface.

Duan Mu opened the Affinity interface and took a look. Dozens of people were listed, with the vast majority having an affinity around 10-20. A few had reached 40, and only a single-digit number were above 50.

"I still need to keep working at it."