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In the days that followed, Ishikawa enjoyed a rare period of leisure… No, rather than leisure, it was more like tranquility.
Working between Rukongai and Seireitei, training at Kukaku's training ground, and treating the sick and injured at the Comprehensive Relief Station—this was essentially Ishikawa's current lifestyle.
During his free time, he would set aside time to teach Himura and others Zankensoki and other techniques, or recruit some students from the Shin'ō Academy. However, as the older batch of students who knew Ishikawa graduated, and the new batch of students were unaware of the Everything Store's services, only a few came to him for lessons.
Life was calm and uneventful, a bit boring, but Ishikawa never felt too bored during work.
The only thing that somewhat depressed Ishikawa was…
The experience points he gained were simply too few.
Confined to the outer areas of Seireitei, he had no chance to gain experience points from anyone other than members of the Second Division and Fourth Division, especially those high-ranking Seated Officers and Vice-Captains. They mostly shopped in the Nobility Street, not the Commercial Street.
This also meant that aside from the Shinigami Women's Association gatherings, where he could meet those powerful women, he rarely saw them otherwise.
Moreover…
During this period, the association's members were experiencing a reduction in attendance.
Nemu Kurotsuchi was said to be researching something with the Captain of the Twelfth Division and had not come to the association.
Furthermore, due to Ginjō Kūgo's appearance, the Fifth Division received orders that, to ensure immediate deployment to the Human World upon receiving a distress call, the Captain and Vice-Captain must remain on standby. Thus, Hinamori Momo also missed the monthly routine meeting.
Besides the two of them, Isane's younger sister, Kotetsu Kiyone, and Captain Soi Fon were also absent.
Kotetsu Kiyone's absence was simple: her Captain had collapsed again and again and again. It was said he fell ill from staying up all night writing 'pisces' rejection,' and Kotetsu Kiyone had been caring for her Captain in the Squad.
Ishikawa had been in Seireitei for nearly two years and had never seen this frail Captain of the Thirteenth Division.
Every time he heard about him, the labels were basically: catching a cold, gravely ill, deeply unconscious, high fever, incessant coughing of blood… To survive until now with such a body, in some ways, he was truly resilient.
As for Soi Fon, she was busy with something, but if there were no surprises, her absence should be similar to Hinamori Momo's.
Ever since Ishikawa's battle with Ginjō Kūgo, the Supervisory Team began working three shifts, cooperating with the Technology Development Bureau to monitor Shinigami dispatched to the Human World 24 hours a day without interruption. Recently, the Squad Members of the Supervisory Team often complained to Ishikawa, asking him to request Soi Fon to reduce their workload.
However…
In the past few months, Ishikawa had barely seen Soi Fon a few times, let alone requested a reduction in workload.
Besides, if the Supervisory Team's hard work could increase Soi Fon's favorability towards him, Ishikawa wouldn't mind acting as a lackey, personally supervising the Supervisory Team Squad Members to prevent them from slacking off.
The remaining people were not absent, but increasing their favorability was quite difficult.
Ise Nanao, the Vice-President of the Shinigami Women's Association, was, according to Matsumoto Rangiku's assessment, too rigid. As the only person in the Shinigami Women's Association who truly took her association duties seriously, she was particularly solemn at every routine meeting, discussing how to improve the status of female Shinigami.
As for the others…
Although they participated, it was mostly to relax and have fun at the association; they weren't very concerned about improving the status of female Shinigami.
After all, the Gotei 13 was a place where the strong were respected. As long as one was strong enough, both men and women could attain high positions. Talking about improving women's status… in reality, most of the time, it was just about making aesthetic changes to new products to make them more suitable for female use.
And the places that developed new products, whether the Technology Development Bureau or the merchants selling new products in Seireitei, would humbly accept the requests of the Shinigami Women's Association.
Because…
After making changes according to the Shinigami Women's Association's requests, sales of new products among female Shinigami would immediately skyrocket, making them huge profits.
From this perspective, the matters decided by the association indeed had more influence than the Central 46, which was true.
Back to the point.
They discussed official matters in meetings, and there was no way to interact privately.
After several months, Ise Nanao's favorability towards Ishikawa only increased by 8 points, reaching 9 points. These 8 points were the result of Ishikawa actively proposing suitable suggestions and helping her prepare meeting materials.
Vice-President's Secretary.
This was Ishikawa's current position in the Shinigami Women's Association.
Matsumoto Rangiku's favorability increased by 10 points, reaching 26 points.
Kotetsu Isane increased by 1 point, reaching 52 points, directly contributing 5120 experience points to Ishikawa.
During this time, Ishikawa often observed Huimeili's reaction when she saw him. Although the feeling of interacting with her was subtly different from before, she wasn't overly affectionate. Instead, Ishikawa subtly felt that she was unwilling to be alone with him, even avoiding him.
If 69 points of love value were just like this, then in Ishikawa's opinion, breaking through 60 points shouldn't be a problem.
So Ishikawa planned to try with Isane first, striving to raise her favorability towards him to 60 points. Once Isane's favorability towards him reached 60 points, each point of favorability, which was 5120 experience points, would be multiplied by ten, allowing Ishikawa to gain a high of fifty thousand experience points.
However, to be safe, Ishikawa intended to only raise it to 60 points, then stop increasing it, or find a way to become like Uzuki and Kukaku's family.
However…
The idea was beautiful, but implementing it was extremely difficult.
Because once favorability reached 50 points, each point increase became incredibly difficult; without significant fluctuations, it was hard to continue raising it.
Yachiru's favorability was similar; it was no longer possible to increase it simply by feeding her. Her favorability towards Ishikawa had been stuck at 39.
To increase it, Ishikawa probably needed to fight Zaraki Kenpachi again.
However…
Ishikawa avoided Zaraki Kenpachi as much as possible. As soon as he sensed his Reiatsu, he would immediately conceal his own and leave, doing his best not to meet him.
Finally, Rukia was the one whose favorability increased the most, rising from the original 11 points to 35 points in a few months. As for the method of increasing her favorability, it was incredibly simple… just tell her about Renji's recent situation every time she came to the association.
Current Experience Points: 68000.54 points.
Lying on a lounge chair outside the Everything Store on the second floor, Ishikawa looked at the favorability interface with boredom.
Excluding the original thirty-five thousand, those few members of the Shinigami Women's Association provided him with over twenty thousand experience points; while those outside of them combined only provided Ishikawa with about ten thousand experience points.
However, this was not surprising…
The highest combat power among female Shinigami, except for those who were absent, were all within the Shinigami Women's Association.
And those ordinary Squad Members could only win by sheer numbers.
But Ishikawa was truly spread thin. He did write a book he named 'Ishikawa Kido Insights' and sent it to the Shin'ō Academy and the libraries of various Squads, but many who saw the book didn't gain favorability, and those who did only gained one or two points.
"Would it be better if I put my photo on the first page of the book?"
Ishikawa muttered, then his mouth twitched slightly, and he gave up the idea. He had an inexplicable sense of dread about the word 'photo'.
Because even after more than half a year, he could still occasionally receive 0.01 experience points from the Human World…
And every time he saw these experience points, Ishikawa wished he could go to the Human World and kill Ginjō Kūgo.
Five million!!
His five million set of clothes was directly destroyed in the battle in the Human World, and Urahara Kisuke, that cunning merchant, still had the nerve to say the clothes were durable.
Of course, it was just a thought.
Without the Golden Seal Association's mediation, it was basically impossible for Ishikawa to go to the Human World.
Unagiya Oshiki walked out of the Everything Store and smiled at Ishikawa: "Ishikawa-sama, you really are a workaholic in name and in fact."
"Huh?"
"You've practically written 'bored' all over your face now."
"Bored?"
Ishikawa moved, making the lounge chair behind him sway: "Perhaps."
Although he was unwilling to admit it, his body honestly made Ishikawa understand.
Compared to this peaceful life, he preferred stimulating battles, especially those where the enemy was far stronger than himself, and he could die if he wasn't careful.
Even though Ishikawa clearly understood in his mind that he should avoid battles and avoid attracting attention.
But as soon as he was idle, he would savor the feeling he experienced in every battle.
Daimaru, Toguro, Genji… Zaraki Kenpachi, Ginjō Kūgo.
Those battles that ended in an instant were usually forgotten after a few recollections, but those enemies who brought him a sense of life-and-death crisis, no matter how long passed, Ishikawa could clearly recall the feeling of fighting them, even Daimaru was no exception.
Because what he wanted to experience was not the opponent's strength, but the comfortable, stimulating, crazy feeling… and the sense of impending death he felt in his body, mind, and soul when facing an opponent far stronger than himself.
Leaving aside those battles that ended in an instant, in true life-and-death struggles, Ishikawa could be said to have lost more than he won, and even when he won, it was mostly a narrow victory.
That feeling…
He was truly obsessed with it!!
However, his current strength was in a rather awkward position, neither high nor low.
When facing opponents of the same level or slightly stronger than himself, he would win instantly, completely unable to experience a hearty feeling; and for those powerful Captains, even if he added all his experience points to Reiatsu, he would only be a beginner Captain-level, with a considerable gap compared to them.
Most importantly…
Ishikawa, with his extremely strong self-control, would never attack a Captain just to satisfy himself.
Attacking Zaraki Kenpachi was just an accident. After that, Ishikawa became timid when drinking, always careful not to get drunk.
"Hiss, it's really cold."
As a cold wind blew by, Unagiya Oshiki shivered: "Ishikawa-sama, you wear the same style of clothes all year round, don't you feel cold or hot?"
"I can feel it, but it's not strong."
Ishikawa replied casually, muttering: "In a blink of an eye, winter is coming again. Why is there so little work every winter?"
Rukongai in the west was fine, but commissions within Seireitei had also decreased recently.
Ishikawa had thought about opening the Everything Store in the southern and northern Rukongai, but at Ishikawa's speed, even going to the nearest area would take at least three to five days for a round trip… From the Byakudo Gate in the west to the Black Ridge Gate in the south, it would take nearly seven to eight days.
As for just opening branches and having other people stay in the south and north to do the work…
That would be putting the cart before the horse, because compared to making money, he cared more about the favorability of female customers; and doing so wouldn't make him busy, he would still be in this boring state.
"Uh…"
Unagiya Oshiki's mouth twitched slightly. He looked at the black high-top boots Ishikawa was wearing and somewhat wanted to persuade Ishikawa to at least wear straw sandals in spring and summer, but the words got stuck in his throat…
Ding, ding, ding—
Just then, a piercing bell rang from inside the house.
Hearing the bell, Ishikawa immediately stood up: "Quick, see who's calling!"
Unagiya Oshiki looked at Ishikawa with a strange gaze, turned and went inside to pick up the Denreishinki on the table. When he saw the number on it, he was slightly surprised.
"Is it from the Seireitei branch?" Ishikawa asked.
"No."
Unagiya Oshiki shook his head and said, "It's from the Golden Seal Association." With that, he picked up the phone.
Golden Seal Association?
Ishikawa was slightly taken aback, as he hadn't received a commission from the Golden Seal Association for some time.
Due to Hachiun Hane and the other two almost dying in the Human World last time, those fearless noble young masters didn't feel anything, but their family elders were extremely concerned, keeping a tight watch on their restless juniors, giving them no chance to run around.
And ordinary noble affairs could be resolved by the Golden Seal Association itself, without needing to commission the Everything Store.
This debt must also be attributed to Ginjō Kūgo!
Hopefully, it's a big business. If he stays idle like this, he's really going to rust.
Recently, under Yachiru's constant persuasion, Ishikawa even considered calling Zaraki Kenpachi for a fight to increase Yachiru's favorability, but he ultimately suppressed the idea.
Fighting that guy, he was very likely to get stronger during the battle and then accidentally kill himself…
If he was going to be killed anyway, he would rather fight Captain Unohana. If he was lucky enough to survive, he could even increase his favorability.
However…
When Captain Unohana got excited, she was far more terrifying than Zaraki Kenpachi. The reason why the later numbered areas firmly believed that the Gotei 13 was an assassin organization was largely due to Unohana Retsu alone. Fighting her… the mortality rate was infinitely close to one hundred percent.
"What?!"
Unagiya Oshiki's expression changed, having heard something: "Sorry, for this commission, I need to consult with Ishikawa-sama first."
"What commission?"
Seeing Unagiya Oshiki's reaction, Ishikawa's eyes lit up.
"It's a commission that requires you to…"
Unagiya Oshiki saw Ishikawa's reaction, and a hint of hesitation flashed in his eyes, but he finally decided to tell the truth.
"Go to Hueco Mundo."
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