Sora stood a little closer to view Sōken Ishida's panel.
Although still in the crowd, he was now in the second row, a more forward position.
When Sōken's gaze swept over the Reigai puppet, it paused slightly.
"Everyone, please disperse and get some rest. Let me rest as well," Sōken said gently. "If you need anything, feel free to tell me or the doctors."
"Lord Ishida, please rest well and don't overwork yourself!"
The crowd could see his fatigue and reasonably dispersed.
"Chris, I'll leave these people to you. This is the last batch. Thank you for your hard work during this time!"
Sōken said to the doctor, Chris, beside him.
He still needed to settle the Quincy he had just brought back from the human world.
"Not at all. Compared to what you've done, my work is insignificant," Doctor Chris shook his head. "Go and rest first. You can leave things here to me!"
"Has anyone from Silbern come over during this time?"
Sōken asked nonchalantly.
Bringing the Quincy back from the human world was, in fact, his personal act.
He still had contacts with some Quincy there. After learning about the war, he had immediately requested aid from the Grandmaster, Haschwalth.
Unfortunately, Haschwalth had refused to provide any.
"Silbern didn't send anyone directly, but the guards from the outer city did come. The two batches of returning Quincy have been arranged with housing and work."
Chris was an old friend of Sōken's and knew what he was worried about. "Silbern should have accepted them. The guards who came just now also said that these returning people will also participate in the Sternritter recruitment."
"The Sternritter are recruiting new members?"
Sōken was slightly taken aback. He had been in the human world recently and was unaware of this news.
"Yes... for the people you brought back, it's also a rare opportunity. It's been a long time since the Sternritter have recruited, right?"
Chris seemed to be reminiscing about the past. He and Sōken had once participated in a recruitment ceremony together.
The selection was extremely strict. Of the participants that year, only Sōken had become a member.
"Hmm... you should get back to your work."
Sōken made no comment on the recruitment.
The difficulty of joining the Sternritter was very high. Few of the soldiers from the outer city could pass the trial.
After bidding farewell to Chris, Sōken did not leave the camp immediately, but walked towards someone.
Sora, who was eavesdropping on the conversations of other Quincy, suddenly noticed Sōken walking towards him.
And he soon realized that the person Sōken was looking for was none other than his Reigai puppet.
"Have I been discovered?!"
Sora frowned, but seeing that Sōken didn't seem hostile, he decided to wait and see.
"Hello," Sōken said kindly and asked softly, "This may be a bit forward, but you look very much like an old acquaintance of mine. May I ask if you are from the Kurosaki clan?"
Sōken had come over because he thought this Quincy looked exactly like someone he used to know.
In the perilous environment of the battlefield, he hadn't had time to pay attention to the appearance of those he saved and had just assumed he had overlooked it before.
"I am Kurosaki Usaki, from the Naruki region."
Sora nodded, stating the information he had already registered with the doctor.
At the same time, his mind was racing.
"Does he know Tsukisaki Kurosaki?"
His Quincy power was taken from her, and its materialized form looked the same as her.
However, Tsukisaki had died twenty or thirty years ago. Even if Sōken knew her, it would have been from back then.
"Kurosaki Usaki..." Sōken thought for a moment but had no impression of the name. "Do you know Tsukisaki Kurosaki?"
"The one from Karakura Town, right? Of course, I know her... by generation, Tsukisaki would be my older sister... but my family moved away from there in my grandfather's generation."
Sora said vaguely.
In the past, there was a Quincy settlement near Karakura Town. The Kurosaki clan was a large one there, so it was highly probable that Tsukisaki had collateral sisters.
"So you're a branch of the Karakura clan. The Kurosaki and Ishida clans there were on good terms. I used to go back there occasionally to pay respects to my ancestors."
Sōken had no reason to doubt him. "But the Quincy settlement in Karakura Town was destroyed by the Shinigami twenty or thirty years ago. The clans there also suffered, with only a few scattered members remaining."
"Yes... I have also lost contact with the Kurosaki clan from that area."
Sora was telling the truth, although he had never had any contact with them in the first place.
"I have met some Kurosaki clan members who escaped from that settlement..." Sōken said. "They are Miss Tsukisaki's younger brother and sister. Speaking of which, you would also be their older sister."
"Kazutaka Kurosaki? Misaki Kurosaki?"
Sora thought of the two children he had promised Tsukisaki he would spare. He had glanced at their panels when he passed by.
Fortunately, after his spiritual body had grown stronger, his memory had become very good, and he could even recall small details he would have previously forgotten.
"Yes, that's them."
Hearing the names, Sōken was even more convinced of "Kurosaki Usaki's" words.
Kazutaka and Misaki were currently living in seclusion in a remote mountain village in the human world. Very few people knew their names.
However, he had not been very suspicious of "Kurosaki Usaki" from the beginning. After all, her appearance was good proof.
"Do you have any other family members?"
Sōken continued to ask. He was thinking that if "Kurosaki Usaki" had other family in the war-torn areas, he would go to the human world again to bring them back.
"No, I'm the only one left."
"I'm sorry... for bringing up painful memories."
"It's alright. It was a long time ago."
"You were born in the human world, so your status is a bit different from the others... most of the others are Quincy who came from here, or their descendants."
Sōken thought for a moment and said, "Let me take you to get your identity verified. Otherwise, there might be some trouble."
As an outsider with no background, it would not be easy for "Kurosaki Usaki" to prove her identity.
Sōken intended to personally vouch for her, as she was the relative of an old friend.
"Then I'll have to trouble you, Lord Ishida."
Sora was overjoyed. He hadn't expected the most difficult part of infiltrating the Quincy to be solved so easily.
"No need to be so formal. Miss Tsukisaki and I were old friends. You can just call me Sōken."
Sōken shook his head gently.
A moment later, Sōken brought Sora's Reigai puppet to the administrative palace in the outer city.
"Lord Ishida!"
The guards bowed respectfully.
Sōken's status as a Sternritter was very useful. He could bring a stranger along without any obstruction.
The administrative soldiers did not dare to be negligent and quickly processed "Kurosaki Usaki's" identity registration.
"The information has been recorded."
The soldier handed over two documents. "These are the available residences."
"Kurosaki Usaki" was assigned a residence in the outer city.
Thanks to Sōken, Sora could choose any location he wanted. If it had been anyone else, there would have been no choice, and they would have had to wait for an assignment.
Sora took the documents. He needed to find a location closest to Silbern to facilitate future actions.
"I have other matters to attend to, so I must leave. If you need anything, you can contact me with this," Sōken tossed Sora a badge. It was a spiritual tool similar to a Denreishinki.
Sora accepted it. There were many people around, so he had not discussed other matters with Sōken.
He could use the badge to contact him privately later and try to get information about Yhwach.
"And this... a Silbern pass," the soldier handed Sora a metal card. "The Sternritter recruitment ceremony will be held in a few days. When you enter Silbern, you can pass through the barrier by showing this card. It is only valid for that day. Do not try to trespass, as that is a serious crime."
Silbern's security level was higher than the outer city's. It had a separate barrier, and even the soldiers from the outer city could not pass through without authorization.
"Understood."
Sora was now considering whether to participate in the so-called Sternritter recruitment ceremony.
"The 'Kurosaki Usaki' identity has already met Sōken Ishida and has a status in the Wandenreich... there are pros and cons. It's more convenient for me to gather information, but if I disappear without reason, I will be noticed."
Sora decided to take the opportunity to sneak into Silbern during the recruitment ceremony. He wanted to maintain this Quincy identity for as long as possible.
...
Sora arrived at the assigned residence. Looking up, he could see the walls of Silbern.
This place was only a hundred meters away from the castle wall, the closest building to it.
Between the building and the wall was an empty, open space.
"The aptitude of the Quincy soldiers here is not much higher than those in the human world... but in this high-reishi environment, the strength they can exert is probably far greater." Sora had been checking the panels of the Quincy he encountered along the way.
"Get out of the way, don't block the road!"
A voice came from behind.
He turned his head but saw no one.
The person was blocked by a stone slab.
"Need a hand?"
Sora knew these were the soldiers who had come to build the house.
The residence assigned to him had not yet been built.
"Huh?" a voice came from behind the stone slab, sounding somewhat incredulous.
In the Wandenreich, the entire populace was a military force, and everyone had their own post. Building houses was the job of the engineering corps.
"Do you even know how to build a house?" a head with pinkish-purple hair poked out from behind the slab.
"Probably... not..." Sora answered honestly.
"Then what are you talking about!" the pink-haired engineering soldier pushed the person in front of her aside and carried the several-meter-high stone slab to its destination.
"So young and already working?"
The pink-haired soldier looked to be only fourteen or fifteen years old.
However, the Quincy of the Wandenreich were also spiritual bodies and could not be judged by human age.
"Looking down on me?" the soldier pouted. "I might be stronger than you!"
Sora casually checked her panel:
[Meninas McAllon]
Talent: S
Reishi Manipulation: Lv 40
Affinity Level: Stranger
This engineering soldier was actually an S-rank talent!
He had an impression of this Meninas. She was one of the future female Sternritter.
"A still-developing Meninas... can she be turned?"
After recognizing her, a new idea immediately came to Sora.
"Perhaps I should try... to see if I can take a Quincy as a disciple..."
Sora's strength had reached a bottleneck. The subsequent improvement of his spiritual pressure and Reishi Manipulation had become very slow.
After his spiritual pressure reached level 95, it would take 500,000 general experience points to level up again. There was a huge experience gap to continue improving.
But the new generation of talent on the Shinigami side had basically all become his disciples. The next boom of geniuses in the Soul Society would not be for several decades or even a hundred years.
Therefore, it was difficult for Sora to obtain a large amount of general experience from the Shinigami side in a short time.
"Let's give it a try and see if I can guide her."
Sora made up his mind. Anyway, this Reigai puppet needed to stay in the Wandenreich to gather information. He might as well see if he could turn Meninas McAllon.
The possibility was not zero. The future that Yhwach had promised the Quincy did not have a place for her.
Yhwach was also very cruel to his own people.
The vast majority of the Sternritter were just Yhwach's spare energy sources.
Those who were deemed non-essential would become targets of his "Auswählen," having their power drained, and might even die as a result.
"And... there might be more than just Meninas among the developing members of the Sternritter... I'll have to take a good look around the city."
Sora planned to thoroughly search the residential area to see if there were any other future Sternritter members.
"Since I'm idle anyway, let me give you a hand. I may not know how to build a house, but I can still move things."
Sora stepped forward and said.
"Is this house for you?"
Meninas seemed to have realized.
"Yes, the house you're building now is where I'll be living."
Sora nodded.
"You're a nice person," Meninas smiled slightly. "Then I'll help you build it a little nicer!"
The Quincy were very efficient. With the help of their reishi abilities, the two of them built a two-story house in one day.
"Is this the 'nicer' style?" Sora was puzzled by Meninas's aesthetic sense. "Isn't this shape a bit strange? A bit like... a millstone?"
"A cake!" Meninas waved her hands repeatedly, correcting him. "It's obviously a cake!"
The house had been built by Meninas into a two-story structure with one large and one small floor, and it was circular, looking like two white millstones stacked on top of each other.
"They don't allow us to paint the buildings here, otherwise it would look even more like it..."
Meninas pouted, seeming to regret that she could not perfectly replicate the appearance of a cake.
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