"Although I realized it a bit late, Meigetsu is that kind of Zanpakutō." Meigetsu's cold voice once again echoed in his mind.
"I can not only damage the enemy's body but also their soul. That is my power."
Her timely explanation suddenly enlightened Arata, and his earlier thoughts and speculations were confirmed at that moment.
From the first time he took up his Zanpakutō and used it, to the previous battle with the materialized sword spirit, and now, when he had truly released his Zanpakutō, Arata felt a trembling in his own soul.
However, there were slight differences depending on the level of released spiritual pressure.
No wonder it was so, it turns out this was a Zanpakutō that could attack souls?
Arata realized something. He tried to swing his Zanpakutō, channeling his spiritual pressure in a completely different way than before. The crescent-shaped blade energy, wrapped in purple flame, slashed toward a huge boulder in the distance.
Boom!
It was somewhat different from the Dark Flame Slash performed during the internship. The purple flame didn't explode upon contact with the rock. Instead, it crawled over the surface of the stone like a living creature, engraving net-like purple lines onto its surface.
Arata slightly twisted his fingertips, and the lines on the rock suddenly converged the entire boulder silently turned into powder, and the hovering dust was swallowed by the remaining purple flame before it could fall to the ground.
"Do you see? This is the true power of Dark Flame Slash." Meigetsu's voice was full of pride.
"When you were killing Hollows before, you didn't even use a tenth of this move's power."
Arata stared at the purple flames flowing over the blade, then suddenly turned his wrist and plunged his Zanpakutō into the ground. Spiritual pressure flowed into the earth along the blade, and suddenly a grating sound came from underground.
A few seconds later, the ground within a ten-meter radius, with the tip of the sword as the center, collapsed into a funnel shape, and the exposed rock cross-section was smooth and flat like a mirror.
"I see…" Arata lifted Meigetsu from the ground and gently ran his fingers along the blade. "It's not just simple burning flame, but direct disintegration of the structure of spiritual particles?"
Just a simple experiment allowed Arata to initially witness the terror of this Zanpakutō.
Too bad there were no living beings here, otherwise Arata would have liked to study more deeply what Meigetsu said about soul damage.
But on second thought, he couldn't help but mock himself.
Aren't you a living test subject? Just a few days ago, Meigetsu slashed you badly.
That sensation of direct impact on the brain and soul, cold and piercing like a frigid spring in a deep pond, along with unbearable pain, had always been deeply etched in his memory.
Pain sharp like acupuncture therapy, a hundred needles stabbing into the brain every second.
Arata judged that this was still too mild. Although Meigetsu had said she would show no mercy, he was still her Master. There was no way she would really destroy his soul with one slash.
Nothing more to say, just train more.
He firmly believed that one day he would be able to reach the same level as Meigetsu.
And that day would not be far off.
---
There is no time limit for training, and no deadline for enlightenment.
Ever since he discovered the secret of Dark Meigetsu, Arata's daily life, aside from eating and sleeping, consisted of training.
In addition to developing his Zanpakutō, he did not neglect the four skills of Zanjutsu, Hakuda, Hohō, and Kidō; each had improved significantly, and his spiritual pressure had also increased greatly.
He would only go for a walk when he had no inspiration or when he pushed his body to its limits.
During that period, he encountered Rangiku several times at the izakaya in Rukongai and was surprised to find that the izakaya had undergone major changes.
Not only had the name of the izakaya changed from "Seiran" to "Kikuchaya," but most of the sake that originally stood on the drink shelf had been replaced with milk bottles and tea storage buckets.
The drinks on the menu were also replaced with various new teas with fruit and milk caps, such as peach oolong, spring tea with milk cap, and the like, drinks unseen in the Soul Society.
The best-selling product was the signature drink, Shishi fruit tea.
Even Arata was stunned when he saw it. Where did Rangiku learn so many things?
What are you doing? Is this still the Soul Society?
If he hadn't looked at the signboard outside, Arata would have really thought he had returned to some modern tea shop from his previous life.
Rangiku was pleased that Arata came after a long time, and cheerfully made him a cup of Shishi fruit tea. After leaving the work to the rest of the staff, she sat in a corner and chatted with Arata.
"How is it? The tea-making skills I learned from you are pretty good, right?" Rangiku was holding a tea called "Grape Beauty" herself, happily sipping fruit pieces through a straw in a plastic cup.
"Learned from me? I don't remember teaching Miss Rangiku how to make these magical teas." Arata's hand holding the straw suddenly paused, and the ice cubes in the cup gently clinked.
He carefully recalled their previous encounters, but couldn't remember when he had taught her these modern fruit and milk tea recipes.
Rangiku slyly winked, trailing a wet finger along the wall of the cup. "Didn't I bring you a box of dried persimmons when I visited you last time?"
"Although I was focused only on drinking that day, when I saw you drinking tea and eating dried persimmons, it suddenly struck me: 'what if tea and persimmons were paired together.'"
Only then did Arata remember the scene from that day. Rangiku didn't allow him to drink alcohol, so he tried dried persimmon cake with tea.
He didn't expect that his action would accidentally become inspiration for Rangiku to create fruit tea.
"So… what happened after that?" asked Arata. After training at home for so long, he was now curious about everything in the outside world.
"After that, I went back to the 10th Division and mentioned the idea to the captain. Coincidence, he was already getting tired of the traditional boiled tea routine." Rangiku pointed to the captain. "You know, the Shiba family is a powerful noble clan in the Soul Society. These nobles just love to invent."
"The captain got the idea to mash my dried persimmons and add them into tea. I just tasted it, and it turned out to be really good, so it gradually became what you see today."
After hearing that, Arata finally understood.
That guy, Shiba Isshin, at that time was still quite a carefree young man, and since childhood had been very resistant to noble manners and traditional constraints.
Willing to do something half 'improper' and risky with Rangiku, for which old Yamamoto would probably scold him if he found out, was completely in line with his rebellious nature.
After all, he was a man who willingly gave up his Shinigami powers to save a Shinigami enemy, a Quincy girl.
"ding!"
[Matsumoto Rangiku's fate has slightly shifted due to your actions, and she has received 168 destiny points.]
[Shiba Isshin's fate has slightly shifted due to your actions, and he has received 232 destiny points.]
Oh, surprise?
Arata sipped his "Shishi" from the cup and tasted the sweetness and softness of the fruit.
Combined with the sudden influx of destiny points, he was in a very good mood.
Although he had no formal contact with Shiba Isshin, and had only acted indirectly through Rangiku, he still triggered a system evaluation.
That was something Arata did not expect.
Had the system become smarter after the upgrade?
However, aside from the progress in tea skills, Rangiku also mentioned something about this year's final assessment.
"I heard from the captain that the support team for the expedition corps is pretty much already formed, but the actual number of people is much larger than originally planned, and it seems they even included people from the Kidō Corps."