Breakthrough

On the other side, Duan Mu, who was walking home, had no idea what Kūkaku was thinking. At this moment, he was blankly 'looking' at the system interface in his mind.

"Healing Kido?"

Name: Duan Mu

Race: Human

Level: Eighth Stage

Physique: Novice (54/500)

Spiritual Pressure: Low-level (776/1000)

Hakuda: Novice (432/500)

Shunpo: Novice (428/500)

Zanjutsu: Novice (490/500)

Zanpakuto: Not activated (Activation conditions unknown)

Kido:

[Hado]: [Hado #4: Byakurai] Intermediate (3216/10000)

Special Skills:

[Canceled Incantation] Low-level (29/1000)

[Healing Kido]: Not activated (0/50)

Current Experience Points: 954

↓ Expand to view favorability interface.

Duan Mu recalled his previous experiences, a flash of realization in his eyes. Those four Executioners had indeed healed the middle-aged Soul Reaper right before his eyes. The 'Healing Kido' on the system panel should have appeared then.

Duan Mu didn't know much about Healing Kido, only that it was a type of healing Kido. It didn't have a strict numbering system like Hadō or Bakudō, and it didn't require incantations.

Most practitioners were members of the Fourth Division. Few members of other divisions knew Healing Kido, because apart from the occasional Soul Reaper who wanted to join the Fourth Division, almost no one would learn this healing Kido, which was useless in combat.

However, this Kido was very useful for Duan Mu. After all, unlike the Soul Reapers of the Thirteen Court Guard Squads, even if he couldn't use it himself, he could be sent to the Fourth Division for treatment.

But Duan Mu...

He was injured and could only wait for natural recovery. After learning Healing Kido, he could train more freely.

After a moment of thought, Duan Mu directly added 50 experience points to Healing Kido, activating it.

Ignoring the pain, after so many times, the pain of infusing knowledge almost had no effect on him.

Duan Mu refocused his attention on the system panel.

It had been nearly five months since he decided to give up Zanjutsu and switch to practicing Shunpo and Hakuda.

During these five months, he had been diligently running his Yorozuya in Rukongai. Through various requests, he had gotten to know many female friends, but most of them only provided him with 5-10 experience points.

Although his monthly earnings might not even match what he earned in a single day today, five months had accumulated some experience.

As for how he used his experience points, he was as frugal as ever, only using them to overcome bottlenecks.

But what happened today gave him a strange sense of crisis.

He had always believed that as long as he lived a quiet life and didn't stir up trouble, there wouldn't be any danger.

But now it seemed it was better to have some self-preservation ability.

After pondering for a moment, Duan Mu upgraded both Hakuda and Shunpo to Low-level. As soon as they broke through, a large amount of knowledge flooded into Duan Mu's brain, and his body tingled, causing him to stumble.

"Hiss, I should do them one by one next time!"

Compared to the Novice level, the Low-level Shunpo and Hakuda had more than double the amount of knowledge. Duan Mu stood for nearly half a minute before he could fully integrate the knowledge that appeared in his mind.

"There are still 764 experience points... Hmm?"

While checking his remaining experience points, Duan Mu was slightly stunned because he noticed that after breaking through Hakuda and Shunpo to Low-level, his level had changed from the original 'Eighth Stage' to 'Seventh Stage'.

He had broken through?

Duan Mu had speculated about the stage levels long ago, combining it with his memories. At that time, he thought that 'Eighth Stage' should be equivalent to the level of 5th and 6th-year students at the Soul Reaper Academy.

'Seventh Stage' would be equivalent to the higher-ranking members of the Thirteen Court Guard Squads.

But this conjecture was overturned after he observed many Soul Reapers, because Duan Mu's Spiritual Pressure strength had long surpassed that of 5th and 6th-year students at the Soul Reaper Academy, and was even stronger than many Soul Reaper members, yet his stage level had not changed at all.

"Is the level not evaluated by Spiritual Pressure strength, but by combat effectiveness displayed in battles?"

Duan Mu touched his chin, his eyes filled with thought.

Indeed, with only 'Byakurai' as his Kido, even though his Spiritual Pressure was already stronger than many members, he couldn't directly contend with Soul Reaper members who possessed a 'Zanpakuto'.

Because the power of Byakurai, which abandoned incantations, would be greatly weakened.

And if he didn't abandon incantations, he didn't know Bakudō, so the enemy might attack him before he could even finish chanting...

To win, he could only rely on sneak attacks from the shadows, not direct confrontation.

But once his Shunpo and Hakuda broke through, the situation would be different. He could completely manage to create distance and chant in time. Even if he couldn't create distance, he could deal with it using Hakuda, truly possessing the strength to contend with the stronger members of the team.

In the final analysis...

It was still the Zanpakuto's assistance that was too powerful, enough to compensate for the gap in Spiritual Pressure and technique.

"Zanpakuto..."

Duan Mu let out a wry smile. Without enrolling in the Soul Reaper Academy, he really couldn't find a way to obtain an Asauchi. He couldn't just go find a Soul Reaper and kill them, could he?

Shaking his head, Duan Mu didn't dwell on it. There would always be opportunities in the future anyway.

The urgent matter was to strengthen himself as much as possible, lest he encounter danger later and lack even the basic ability to resist.

With this thought, Duan Mu invested another 224 experience points into Spiritual Pressure, directly raising it to intermediate level. He gritted his teeth and added 500 from the remaining experience points to Kido (Healing). Compared to other abilities, Kido (Healing) would be of greater help in his subsequent training.

Learning Kido (Healing) would not only allow him to recover from injuries sustained during training, enabling him to train more recklessly, but the medical knowledge within it could also provide insights into Hakuda and Zanjutsu.

Most importantly...

The knowledge granted by the system was extremely comprehensive, many times more so than what was taught at the Soul Reaper Academy. Kido (Healing) even included knowledge of various medicinal herbs, which would also play an auxiliary role in his future training.

Name: Duan Mu

Race: Human

Level: Seventh Stage

Physique: Beginner (54/500)

Spiritual Pressure: Intermediate (0/10000)

Hakuda: Novice (0/1000)

Shunpo: Novice (0/1000)

Zanjutsu: Beginner (490/500)

Zanpakuto: Not Activated (Activation conditions unknown)

Kido:

[Hado]: [Hado #4: Byakurai] Intermediate (3216/10000)

Special Techniques:

[Canceled Incantation] Novice (29/1000)

[Kido (Healing)]: Novice (0/1000)

Current Experience Points: 40

↓ Expand to view favorability interface.

The experience points accumulated over five months were spent in the blink of an eye, which made Duan Mu's heart ache.

Fortunately, he had befriended Shiba Kūkaku, providing another shortcut to gain a large amount of experience points.

However, Duan Mu was unaware...

After sensing his abnormality, Shiba Kūkaku's name had already disappeared from the favorability interface...

Besides, Duan Mu generally wouldn't bother expanding the favorability interface because there were too many people in it, and most of them only had single-digit favorability towards him.