Research Underway

"Then what do you intend to do?"

Yoruichi hesitated for a moment, shifting her gaze from the notes to Urahara.

"Snap!" Urahara closed the notebook and said decisively, "Need you ask? We definitely have to keep this under wraps. This is no small matter. Let's wait until Ichiro finishes his research, then we can discuss it together. This thing is absolutely capable of changing an era!"

Yoruichi smiled; she truly hadn't misjudged Urahara.

"Fine. What materials do you need? I'll have someone prepare them for you."

"Hmm, hold on, let me write them down."

And just like that, the three of them plunged into a new round of cultivation. By the time it was all complete, their strength would inevitably step into a brand-new realm.

That morning, the Captain came to deliver breakfast to Ichiro as usual. Pushing the door open, she saw that yesterday's dinner was still sitting on the floor, untouched. She couldn't help but sigh, silently setting down the breakfast before quietly backing out of the room with the cold dinner.

This situation had occurred many times over the past half-month. At first, she would lecture Ichiro, but eventually, she realized that once a person like him became obsessed, nothing anyone said would make a difference.

Before retreating, the Captain glanced at the shocking scene inside the warehouse. Only after seeing it firsthand did she understand why Ichiro wouldn't let others near, and why he had informed her of his research in advance.

If one didn't know the nature of the research beforehand, seeing this hellish scene would surely lead to a misunderstanding.

The warehouse was littered with severed limbs and arms!

There was an arm here, a leg there; one crate was piled high with fingers, another with a heap of toes.

In this room, you could find every organ of the human body, both those you knew of and those you didn't!

The walls of the warehouse were splattered with spots of blood!

There were even bits of shattered bone and fingers stuck to them!

It was a scene straight out of hell!

And sitting in the middle of the warehouse, covered in scarlet blood and frowning as he fiddled with a fair, jade-like arm, Ichiro looked just like a demon from that very hell!

"Tsk~" The demon grunted in dissatisfaction, tossing the fair arm aside before returning to calculate his data.

"Plop~ Plop-snap~"

However, before Ichiro could even begin recording, the sound of an arm sliding down reached him. He turned his head to look; it turned out the arm pile was full, and the crate couldn't hold any more, causing them to spill over.

"Tsk~ Full again? Where exactly is the error?" Looking around, Ichiro muttered a truly terrifying thing.

But it worked out well; he had been up all night and hadn't eaten, so it was the perfect time to replenish his energy. Closing his notebook, Ichiro stood up and walked toward his breakfast.

Passing a blade stuck into the ground, he brushed his right hand over it and whispered, "Devour everything! Demon Dragon!"

"Sshhh~!"

As Ichiro recited the incantation, a hazy radiance enveloped the blade. The next instant, several massive dragon heads struggled out from the sword, opening their blood-filled maws to lunge at the severed limbs scattered throughout the warehouse!

Sitting cross-legged at the entrance, Ichiro ate his breakfast heartily, accompanied by the sound of flesh being chewed behind him. At first, he had found the situation nauseating, but he had grown accustomed to it.

Huh~ It's actually quite pleasant to listen to?

Such a twisted thought spontaneously arose.

While eating, Ichiro wasn't idle; he compared the data from his Body Transmutation, looking for where the error had occurred.

As it turned out, these limbs were all crafted by Ichiro using Alchemy. Those limbs piled everywhere were all failed transmutations—though "failed" wasn't quite accurate; they possessed all the normal functions of a body, they just didn't meet Ichiro's requirements.

In truth, it was obvious these couldn't have been taken from a human body. Even if he wanted to do that, the Captain would never agree. Two corpses of death-row inmates were the absolute limit of what she could tolerate; how could she possibly let him continue like that?

So, where did the blood come from?

Exactly: it was produced by his Zanpakuto, Demon Dragon.

The Mimicry Zanpakuto, Demon Dragon, was a biological-type Zanpakuto Ichiro had forged based on the data of Minazuki provided by the Captain. It possessed three forms. The Dragon Head form, which he was using now, was specialized for feeding and strengthening; it could sprout multiple dragon heads for efficient consumption, and the blood-flesh it swallowed would strengthen the Demon Dragon to the maximum extent.

The second form was the Dragon-Human form, designed for combat. The ideal state was to master superb combat techniques, but the keyword there was "ideal"—meaning it didn't work yet.

It had the appearance, but because the Mimicry Zanpakuto itself was just an inanimate object, it was currently nothing more than a dim-witted creature that only knew how to eat. Expecting it to fight?

Forget it.

The third form was the Giant Dragon form with wings on its back, designed for transport. After all, what man doesn't want to be a dragon rider? While it couldn't compare to that legendary dragon rider, riding a real dragon was still quite cool.

Unfortunately, that too was only an ideal form. The current giant dragon couldn't fly because its structure simply didn't allow for it. Ichiro planned to consider Kido-based solutions once he solved its intelligence issues later.

However, creating this biological Zanpakuto was only a secondary goal; the main reason was that Ichiro wanted to use this opportunity to understand the mutual transformation between Zanpakuto and living organisms, which was a great help to his current research.

Having the data on Minazuki wasn't enough, and since that data had been summarized by the Captain, many of the details he wanted to understand hadn't been recorded.

Soon, Ichiro and the Demon Dragon finished their meal at about the same time. With a casual flick, Ichiro released the Shikai of the Demon Dragon, returned to his spot, and sat down to deduce the data. A moment later, he wiped away the blood on the floor to reveal the transmutation circle beneath and began a new round of transmutation.

On the other side, both of Urahara's research projects were proceeding smoothly. The current Mimicry Shikai had already been calculated to its most perfect state in terms of data; only a few final production techniques remained to be overcome before it was officially complete.

Such progress wasn't surprising. Firstly, Ichiro had already solved the most critical parts, and secondly, Urahara was a genius after all—in fact, this speed was actually a bit slow.

Even though the Mimicry Shikai was important, Urahara's research focus remained on the Tenshintai. Furthermore, because several difficult points were discussed in detail in Ichiro's Mimicry Shikai research, Urahara's progress had suddenly skyrocketed!

He expected to complete the research on the Tenshintai within half a month!

As well as the further optimization of the Mimicry Shikai!

That was just how confident he was!

Compared to the smooth sailing of Urahara, Yoruichi had it much tougher. She excelled in Hakuda and Shunpo, with Kido coming in second. Her research content happened to be completely different from theirs, so while Urahara and Ichiro had always moved forward hand-in-hand, she was left to her own devices.

When you make a breakthrough, I can take your results and use them; when I make a breakthrough, you can take mine and use them, making our progress incredibly fast.

Only Yoruichi has always been researching on her own.

Because of this, even though she sought help from her family this time, the massive gap left by her previous lack of progress meant her research into Shunko remained stagnant. Many even began to urge her to abandon the idea and focus solely on practicing Hakuda.

They suggested she find a way to have a Mimicry Zanpakuto forged at the Soul King Palace that would better suit Hakuda and her personal combat style, rather than wasting any more energy on this.

However, is Yoruichi the type of person to admit defeat?

And so, ignoring the objections of others, she plunged headlong back into her research on Shunko!