The Supreme Soul, Starting with Death

"Don't worry, I know you like to study all sorts of novel things, Kisuke. Once I find a new world and discover novel things that I've never seen before, or even imagined, I'll collect some samples for you. When I come back someday, I'll give them all to you so you can study them to your heart's content!"

Something I've never seen before, something I've never even imagined!

Just as Urahara Kisuke had calmed down, his body suddenly stiffened, as if someone had gently scratched his heart, and he trembled involuntarily.

"By the way, perhaps I should also find an artist friend. That way, when we see magnificent scenes like mountains floating in the air, whales swimming underground, and crows flying out of the sun, we can ask him to draw them and bring them back for you to admire. Even though you can't witness them in person, looking at the picture book should give you some satisfaction, right?"

Kisuke Urahara's eyes widened involuntarily.

What artist could perfectly recreate a real landscape? Even the best artists in Seireitei couldn't capture the awe-inspiring presence of the Captain's Bankai, let alone the wonders of nature! Besides, what about the smell? The temperature? The sound? Without these elements, how can one possibly have a truly immersive experience just by looking at a picture!

"By the way, perhaps I could use the souls of the beings I found in the new world to create some phantoms and have them help send these things back, so I wouldn't have to go back. The starry sky is so vast, I really don't want to waste time going back to this place I'm already tired of!"

Kisuke Urahara's pupils trembled.

No... he's back? Well, that makes sense. After seeing magnificent scenery and a beautiful world, who would want to return to a remote little village?

"However, do life in the new world really have souls? For example, plants and machines don't have souls. If they become intelligent life, will they develop souls? Hmm... I guess you can't confirm it without seeing it for yourself."

Intelligent plants! Intelligent machines! I want to see them! I want to study them!

"Oh, right, if we don't come back or send a messenger, Kisuke, please don't think we've forgotten you. I promise, no matter how many new friends we make, we will never forget our old friends."

Kisuke Urahara's lips twitched a few times; he wanted to laugh but couldn't. How long could a friendship without communication last? Guarantees involving emotions always sounded equally hollow, no matter when you heard them.

"Perhaps we just died in the new world and won't be able to write to you? After all, the starry sky is so vast and there are so many new worlds. Maybe we were just unlucky and bumped into an active planet? Those absurd beings where an entire planet is a giant life form would probably crush us just by passing by."

An entire planet is a single life form? Could such a wondrous existence really exist? Wouldn't it be even more powerful than the Spirit King? What should I do? I desperately want to see such an amazing being with my own eyes!

"In that case, Kisuke, it might actually be a wise move for you to stay. It may be a bit boring here, but it's really safe. It won't change much for hundreds or thousands of years. With your talent, Kisuke, you'll definitely outlive us."

"What's the point of living like that?!"

Kisuke Urahara was stunned, and he subconsciously touched his mouth.

Was I shouting just now?

Didn't I already decide to stay? Gu Shi also said that I value responsibility more than my own happiness, so why am I still so agitated?

because……

because!

Because Gu Shi misread it!

How could he possibly know me better than I do!

I'm not that kind of person at all! He's talking nonsense!

I would never give up such a vast world just for the sake of responsibility!

"Kisuke, calm down, calm down, you..."

"Don't try to persuade me! Gu Shi, I've made up my mind! If you really consider me a friend, then ask me to come with you when you set off!"

Kisuke Urahara's breathing grew heavier with excitement, and his resolute gaze remained unwavering.

That's right, I've made up my mind! This is my own decision! No matter who tries to persuade me, I will absolutely not change my mind!

This is my own life. Can those who advise me to change or compromise really live my life for me? If they can't, then they should all shut up!

As a close friend of Kisuke Urahara, Koji would never do anything to trouble his friend, so he considerately kept quiet.

Yes, as a friend, he certainly couldn't advise Kisuke Urahara to abandon his responsibilities; that's not something a friend should do.

He offered honest and sincere advice, but Kisuke Urahara stubbornly rejected it.

He remained a righteous and considerate friend, and over the next few days, he continued to offer sound advice, which was then rejected by Kisuke Urahara.

When rejection becomes a habit, and advice is equated with error, can the advice of other friends, such as Yoruichi Shihouin, still be effective?

Chapter 168 The Old Father of Twenty Children

"Speaking of which, Kisuke, you've already enrolled in the Academy of Shinigami. You must have taken leave to come here, right? How long will you stay?"

After once again trying to persuade Kisuke Urahara to value his responsibilities, only to be firmly rejected, Gu Shi changed the subject and inquired about his schedule.

Five days have passed since Kisuke Urahara broke the Great Barrier, but he still shows no intention of returning to Soul Society. Gu Shi is a little curious: Is the Shinigami Society being so generous with the fakes now?

"..."

Kisuke Urahara silently turned his head to the side, fiddling with the transparent crystal in his hand, as if he hadn't heard what Gu Shizhen was saying at all.

Seeing his expression, Gu Shi's eyes twitched a few times. He grabbed his head and, like winding a toy, twisted it back, making him look directly into his eyes.

"Kisuke, have you already used up all your leave?"

"...Haha, as expected of Gu Shi, he really understands me! I should have gone back to report yesterday!"

Seeing that he had been exposed, Kisuke Urahara simply stopped pretending. He grabbed his messy hair and laughed, then winked at Gu Shi in a deliberately cute way. After successfully disgusting Gu Shi, he began to defend himself with some grievance.

"There's no other way. Soul Society is too restrictive. If I want to research something, I have to do it secretly, for fear of being discovered and going to jail. It's not as free as here. Besides, what Shin'o teaches is incredibly childish. Going to school is a complete waste of time."

Gu Shi didn't doubt the reasons given by Urahara Kisuke, but the problem was that on his first day, Urahara Kisuke enthusiastically told them about his recent experiences, including meeting the Captain-Commander and becoming friends with Aizen. In addition, he was originally a good friend of Yoruichi Shihouin, so the people who were paying attention to him were all very important.

The genius who has been the focus of so much attention has not returned to report for duty after the promised vacation has ended. Once the Soul Society believes that Kisuke Urahara has been in danger and gone missing, who knows what kind of outrageous lineup they will send to find him? At the very least, the special tracking force will definitely be dispatched.

At that time, the base in the real world will most likely be exposed, and Gu Shi, who tried to "become a king of the mountain" in the real world, will probably be put on the list of targets immediately. If a vice-captain or captain comes, it is not impossible for him to be killed on the spot.

Kisuke Urahara was a smart man after all, and of course he wouldn't put his friend in danger because of a moment of impulsiveness, so he quickly explained.

"Don't worry, I already asked Yoruichi to help me apply for an extended vacation this morning using the Hell Butterfly. It's okay if I get back a little late."

Oh, I already informed you. That's fine then, but...

"You're just a student, where would you get a hell butterfly?"

No matter how advanced the taming technology of Hell Butterflies is, these things are strictly speaking military supplies, which should only be used by regular Shinigami. How could Urahara Kisuke, a student, have one?

"Hell Butterflies are also phased out. I asked Yoruichi for a few Hell Butterflies that were phased out of stealth mode, modified them myself, and they're still usable for everyday communication."

Kisuke Urahara waved his hand, not intending to continue this question that might involve noble privileges, and lowered his head to continue studying the transparent crystal in his hand.

Within the crystal, dark red, misty spiritual energy twisted and churned, deeply attracting his gaze.

It was indeed the right choice to come to Gu Shi. Gu Shi always had something new and surprising to him. He never expected that the Lock of Cause and Effect, when transformed into spiritual power and released, could actually form the Lock of Blame and draw out the Gate of Hell. He had never seen any records of this before.

In the past few days, Kisuke Urahara has tried various methods to test the characteristics of this spiritual power. However, the techniques that had worked every time before failed this time and he was unable to achieve any results.

What is the arrangement structure of the spiritual particles in this spiritual power? Which side does the spiritual power attribute lean towards? What is the inertia value of the spiritual particles? What is the level of plasticity of the spiritual particles? None of these things can be detected. Apart from observing the color and macroscopic movement trajectory with the naked eye, no means can capture information about this spiritual power.

This completely unknown characteristic only made Kisuke Urahara even more excited.

Kisuke Urahara was excited by Gu Shi's work. Gu Shi was no less impressive. He was holding a thick stack of research materials, which he had already reviewed several times over the past few days, but he still couldn't help but keep flipping through them.

Unexpectedly, Kisuke Urahara had already begun researching the mutual transformation between Shinigami and Hollows so early on, and his approach was completely different from the Hogyoku system. The Hogyoku emphasizes breaking the boundary between Shinigami and Hollows with violence, forcibly allowing one side to gain the power of the other.

Kisuke Urahara's research, however, is similar to creating a Frankenstein's monster. By transplanting Hollow masks onto souls that are about to become Hollows, the Hollowification process is interrupted at the final step of "condensing the mask" because "the mask already exists," thus allowing the soul to reach a state that is "biased towards Hollows, possessing Hollow-like characteristics, but not actually Hollows."

Kisuke Urahara, due to his moral self-restraint, did not conduct experiments using human souls, but he captured many animal souls from the mortal world to conduct research.

According to the information Gu Shi has, Urahara Kisuke's laboratory has now become almost like a zoo, with birds, monkeys, cats, dogs, rabbits, wild boars, deer, wolves, bears, snakes, and all sorts of semi-ethereal animal souls.

These animal souls, having undergone a partial ethereal transformation, have experienced a significant improvement in their intelligence. Even the most foolish snakes and birds can now understand human speech.

Given this, before being forced to enroll in the Shinigami Academy, Kisuke Urahara, the zoo director, spent most of his day as a teacher, using textbooks to teach the animal souls the training methods of Shinigami, attempting to enable these souls with Hollow-like characteristics to master the power of Shinigami.

However, unlike Erlang, whose soul was inherently powerful, whose talent was among the best of his kind, and whose level of intellect after becoming ethereal approached that of an adult, the souls of these animals, even if they gained intellect, were still quite immature. The smartest bear was only at the level of an ordinary seven or eight-year-old, and it would cry, fight, and make a fuss at the drop of a hat, and its learning progress was never very good.

If Kisuke Urahara were cruel enough, it would be one thing; a few lashes and the killing of a few as a warning would surely have made the animals behave. But Urahara was essentially a gentle and kind person, and with his romantic sentiments as a researcher, he developed a fatherly attitude towards these little animals who had gained intelligence because of him. The harshest punishment he had ever given them was nothing more than a slap on the hand.

You're talking to a bear about spanking? Is your paddle harder than its paw?

In short, Urahara Kisuke, now a first-grader, is already the "father" of more than twenty children. He is exhausted every day from being tormented by these naughty kids, to the point that Yoruichi even suspected that he might have picked up some bad habits. She conducted a surprise inspection of his residence and only felt relieved after finding no strange books or papers.

Chapter 169 The Second Warlock and the Intent of Earth

Gu Shi couldn't understand the idea that "I created him, so I am his father/mother." Even though Urahara Kisuke vividly described how cute those little animals were, he didn't think he would treat a snake or a bird as his child. However, he had no intention of interfering with Urahara Kisuke's personal preferences.

What Gu Shi was truly interested in was Urahara Kisuke's technology itself.

Before this, Gu Shi often considered a question: Is breaking the surface the end point of the virtual class? Is it impossible to continue optimization at this stage?

Kisuke Urahara's research gave him a lot of inspiration.

For both regular souls and Grim Reapers, the sign of Hollowfication is the appearance of a Hollow mask. Therefore, transplanting a Hollow mask when the mask is about to take shape can interrupt the Hollowfication process, allowing the soul to obtain a state between a Hollow and a regular soul.

So, what is the sign of an Arrancar? Is it a broken mask? Or obtaining a Zanpakuto?

Gu Shi believes that while the breaking of the mask is important in this process, the real symbol should be the Zanpakuto, which is a new and unprecedented feature that appears during the process of breaking the mask.

Furthermore, in the original storyline, before the Arrancar technology was fully matured, Aizen also created some unfinished Arrancar. Those unfinished masks were not broken, and they did not even have a standard human form, but without exception, these unfinished products all obtained Zanpakuto.

So, what would happen if, during the process of becoming an Arrancar, a small hole was made in the bone cocoon, and at the moment just before the Zanpakuto was formed, a Shinigami's Zanpakuto, or an Asauchi that had not yet formed its soul, was placed inside?

Will the Arrancar's Zanpakuto still take shape? Or will this Zanpakuto become bound to the Arrancar and become a part of it?

Arrancars already possess the characteristics of Shinigami. If they were to obtain a Shinigami's Zanpakuto, would their life form further shift towards that of a Shinigami?

What if it contained a Quincy's arrow? Or a Fullbringer's possession? Or even, the chains of a Hellish wretch?

Various ideas collided in Gu Shi's mind, some of which were so crazy that they even frightened him.

For example, during the Arrancar process, the Hollow's body dissolves and is reshaped within the cocoon. If all four limbs of a Hollow are cut off and the Arrancar process is then performed on it, and after it dissolves, the already dissolved limbs of another Hollow are placed inside, will they fuse together due to the Arrancar process?

The soul carries consciousness. After the souls merge, the resulting Arrancar, to whom does their consciousness belong?

What if the Grim Reaper's limbs were put in?

What if the number of body parts to be replaced increases further?

If all the Hollows dissolved from the cocoon are extracted and a new soul is inserted, will the Arrancar process continue? If an already mature Arrancar is inserted, will a second Arrancar occur? Can this process be layered?

What if what's put in is completely unconscious, purely liquefied spiritual energy? Will Arrancar still be born? Will a new consciousness be generated out of thin air? Or will a walking corpse emerge?

Or, what if you hollow out the bone cocoon and put a Zanpakuto inside? Would the Zanpakuto's spirit then gain a free-moving body?

Urahara Kisuke's research direction gave Gu Shi a lot of inspiration. Gu Shi seemed calm and rational, and even had the leisure to pay attention to the unreasonable length of Urahara Kisuke's leave. In reality, he couldn't wait to send Urahara Kisuke away and then verify his conjecture.

The existence and technology of the Arrancar are enough to bring about annihilation, and they cannot be exposed to Kisuke Urahara yet.

Unfortunately, Gu Shi wanted Urahara Kisuke to leave quickly, but Urahara Kisuke wanted to stay as long as possible and thoroughly enjoyed being with him.

"Speaking of which, Gu Shi, do you really think that as long as you create a Spirit Land, you can create a space similar to the Soul Society?"