Reflections of Duan Mu

A huge wooden tub was filled with pale green medicinal liquid, and the air was thick with a complex herbal scent.

The calm surface suddenly churned. A somewhat pale face slowly emerged, pale green medicinal liquid sliding down both sides of it.

Duan Mu rose from the wooden tub, bare-chested, and looked at the scar on his chest. After a night of medicinal bathing and special Kido techniques, the knife wound that had still been fatal yesterday had already scabbed over. In some places, the scabs had even fallen away, revealing newly grown, fair skin.

Splash.

After rising from the wooden tub, Duan Mu wiped himself down but did not wash away the herbal scent that had already soaked into his skin.

It was not particularly unpleasant anyway. Moreover, based on the knowledge Duan Mu had recently acquired, the medicinal scent would greatly benefit his recovery.

As he dressed, Duan Mu focused his attention on the system interface in his mind.

Name: Duan Mu

Race: Human

Level: Fifth Stage

Physique: Beginner (263/500)

Spiritual Pressure: Intermediate (7113/10000)

Hakuda: Intermediate (1743/10000)

Shunpo: Intermediate (1767/10000)

Zanjutsu: Intermediate (0/10000)

Zanpakuto: Inactive (Activation conditions unknown)

Kido:

Hado:

Low-Level Hado 'Numbers 1–29':

Hado #4: Byakurai — Intermediate (5100/10000);

Hado #11: Tsuzuri Raiden — Intermediate (43/10000);

Hado #12: Fukuhi — Intermediate (16/10000);

Hado #26: Kōen Sai — Intermediate (36/10000);

Intermediate Hado 'Numbers 30–59':

Hado #31: Kakka Hō — Intermediate (1643/10000);

Hado #33: Sōkatsui — Intermediate (1542/10000);

Hado #54: Hōen — Beginner (864/1000)

Hado #58: Tenran — Beginner (940/1000)

High-Level Hado 'Numbers 60–89':

Hado #63: Raikōhō — Intermediate (864/10000)

Bakudo:

Low-Level Bakudo 'Numbers 1–29':

Bakudo #1: Sentō — Intermediate (15/10000);

Bakudo #8: Kyaku — Intermediate (2460/10000);

Bakudo #9: Hōrin — Intermediate (43/10000);

Bakudo #21: Sekienton — Intermediate (2/10000);

Bakudo #26: Kyokō — Intermediate (14/10000)

Intermediate Bakudo 'Numbers 30–59':

Kidō: Bakudō #30 - Shitotsu Sansen — Intermediate (350/10000);

Bakudo #39: Enzansen — Intermediate (163/10000);

Bakudo #37: Tsuriboshi — Beginner (10/1000);

High-Level Bakudo 'Numbers 60–89':

Kidō #61: Rikujōkōrō — Intermediate (943/10000)

※Inactive Kido: 58 (Please enter the activation interface to activate them.)

Special Techniques:

Canceled Incantation — Intermediate (194/10000)

Kido: Intermediate (7970/10000)

Post-chanting: Intermediate (342/10000)

Current Experience: 640

↓Expand to view the Affection Interface.

...

His spiritual pressure had, as usual, barely improved. Even after yesterday's slaughter, it had only risen by a little over sixty points.

Compared with his other attributes, Duan Mu had focused on high-level Kido over the past month, yet his greatest progress had instead come from the low-level Kido he practiced on the side. After learning high-level Kido, using that foundation to cultivate low-level Kido was practically dimensional suppression.

In just one month, every low-level Kido Duan Mu had activated had reached the intermediate level.

"Hiss~~"

Looking at the three digits after his current experience, Duan Mu felt his teeth ache.

He would have to learn Kido sooner or later, but in Duan Mu's mind, it ranked far below spiritual pressure and combat techniques in priority. Normally, given the injuries he had suffered yesterday, raising Kido to intermediate level 3,000 would have been enough.

However, before investing his experience, Duan Mu had no way of knowing how much experience he needed to put into Kido to ensure that he could recover his combat strength as quickly as possible. There had been no time to think in that moment, so he had simply poured all of it into Kido.

That meant Duan Mu's original cultivation plan had failed before it even began...

He had originally intended to use the 2,800 experience he had painstakingly earned to focus on cultivation for a month and raise his spiritual pressure to the high level—in other words, to the level of a lieutenant in the Thirteen Court Guard Squads.

"If I'd known things would turn out like this, I would have put all the experience into spiritual pressure yesterday."

At the thought, Duan Mu regretted it terribly. Once the battle began, he had never imagined it would become so dangerous. He had even been calculating how to use his experience without wasting it.

After all, whether in spiritual pressure or combat techniques, Duan Mu was far stronger than Jiu Su and the others.

Those low-ranking seated officers and criminals were a perfect example. Duan Mu had needed to expend almost no effort to deal with them. At the time, his mental state could be summed up as the advantage is mine...

The result was that he had been defeated by a weaker opponent and nearly hacked to death.

And the reason things had turned out that way...

Was entirely because, apart from spiritual pressure and combat techniques, Duan Mu had overlooked the most important factor in battle.

Instinct!!

In terms of raw strength, Jiu Su was indeed weaker than Duan Mu. But the combat instincts he had accumulated through centuries of life-and-death battles were something Duan Mu could never match. After all, Duan Mu's battle experience was not even remotely comparable to that of those low-ranking seated-officer-level criminals.

So-called combat instinct included not only rapid reactions to danger and a keen sense for openings, but also fighting spirit and combat intelligence. In battle, these things could often produce unexpected results.

Even though he had anticipated beforehand that Jiu Su would exploit his opening to attack, Duan Mu had still believed that Jiu Su would not arrive so quickly and that he would have plenty of time to prepare. As a result, Jiu Su had caught him completely off guard.

One mistake led to another, and in the end, he had fallen into the predicament of yesterday.

That kind of combat instinct could not be cultivated in a short time, let alone by Duan Mu, who had experienced fewer battles than could be counted on one hand.

The person Duan Mu remembered as having the strongest combat instincts was the captain of the 11th Division, Kenpachi Zaraki!

Jiu Su naturally had no right to be mentioned in the same breath as Kenpachi Zaraki. Yet the battle between Jiu Su and Duan Mu did resemble the battle between Kenpachi Zaraki and the former captain of the 11th Division in certain respects. In both cases, one side knew nothing of technique and was unskilled in Zanjutsu, relying on instinct to achieve victory.

Duan Mu had survived his battle with Jiu Su, but from a combat perspective...

He had lost.

Duan Mu would not deny it.

After every battle, regardless of victory or defeat, Duan Mu reflected on the mistakes he had made. He never chose to selectively forget his failures.

Setting aside the openings he had exposed during the battle, he had already made the one mistake he least should have made from the very beginning.

He had underestimated his opponent!

If he had given Jiu Su and the others enough importance from the start, Duan Mu could have put all his experience into spiritual pressure and used overwhelming strength to make up for his lack of combat experience.

Actually...

At the moment he decided to take the attack head-on, Duan Mu had considered putting all his experience into spiritual pressure and using lieutenant-level spiritual-pressure defense to withstand Jiu Su's slash. That way, even if he were injured, it might have been only a light injury.

With low-level Kido, he might even have been able to continue fighting without treatment.

But Duan Mu ultimately abandoned the idea.

After all, it had only been a possibility. Setting aside whether spiritual-pressure defense would work as he imagined, in that split-second crisis, even if Duan Mu had invested his experience in time, he would not have had enough time to become familiar with or mobilize his increased spiritual pressure to form a defense.

In other words, in his haste, the amount of spiritual pressure he could mobilize would not have changed much.

Thus, Duan Mu had chosen to buy time and use Kido, which could take effect afterward.

Although he greatly regretted his choice, given the circumstances at the time, it truly had been the best solution Duan Mu could think of. Even if he had another chance, he would make the same choice.

After reflecting from beginning to end on all the mistakes he had made, Duan Mu's bearing subtly changed.

Every battle was a precious lesson to him.

The techniques of those criminals were not worth mentioning, but they possessed things that could not be learned elsewhere—things Duan Mu was worth studying carefully.

"As expected... I still need to work hard at making friends."

Duan Mu muttered, pulled on a new work uniform shirt, and left the bedroom.

"Hm?"

After walking a few steps from the bedroom, surprise suddenly appeared on Duan Mu's face. "It's actually this quiet?"

Ever since the tavern had opened, Duan Mu had been greeted by an extremely noisy scene every time he went downstairs.

However, when he reached the first floor and saw the back of the person sitting at the bar drinking, he understood why the tavern was so quiet.

I suddenly feel like I should change the cover. Today alone, I saw three books with exactly the same cover image... Also, please send some free recommendation tickets my way, dear readers.