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The sky gradually darkened.
Aozaki Reiji left the Squad One Barracks.
With Yamamoto's permission, he didn't have to return to the Fourth Division for observation, giving him some rare free time.
However, he still returned to the Fourth Division to inform Unohana Retsu and Yoruichi, and then left Seireitei.
Thieves and thugs mingled in District 62 of Rukongai at night; the streets were calm, and the starlight illuminated the dark world.
Aozaki Reiji stood in the small house deep in the dense forest, silently observing, the rustling sound of wind blowing through the leaves reminded him of a few years ago.
About four or five years ago, also in a forest, but a different one far away.
Under the beautiful moonlight, a man wearing glasses stood in the shadow of a tree, watching him with a gentle smile on his face.
Aozaki Reiji stretched out his hand towards the ground, the Reiatsu shining like fireflies in the night.
Ripples appeared on the ground, the wooden cabinet trembled slightly, the floorboards changed and combined like building blocks, and the ground seemed to be torn open.
Aozaki Reiji stepped inside, walked down a long staircase, and arrived at a dimly lit small room.
The room was filled with various precision equipment.
This place was originally very rudimentary, but only after Aozaki Reiji plundered Kurotsuchi Mayuri's experimental equipment did it begin to resemble a laboratory.
He pressed the mechanism on the wall.
The wall cracked, and dozens of wooden wall panels overlapped outwards, revealing the hidden collections within.
The interior of the wall was lit by a dim blue light, and bottles and jars came into view.
"Maggot's Nest is a good place!"
Looking at his work, Aozaki Reiji couldn't help but exclaim.
The transparent jars were filled with black crystals, from which wisps of purple smoke rose, numbering nearly a hundred upon closer inspection.
These were the experimental materials Aozaki Reiji had collected.
The crystals were containers for Souls, storing the Souls of Shinigami or those with Shinigami potential.
More than half of them came from the Maggot's Nest.
The Souls produced there were of good quality, and the occasional disappearance of one or two wouldn't arouse suspicion.
After all, in that prison, there was no shortage of inmates who committed suicide due to mental breakdowns.
Aozaki Reiji walked to the middle of the wall and took out the most important experimental material—
Kenpachi Kiganjo's Soul!
His Soul crystal contained the largest Reio's fragments among all the experimental materials.
Adding its inherent Soul strength, its value could be equivalent to dozens, or even hundreds of Soul crystals!
Aozaki Reiji stood before the experimental bench, operating the machine, and the platform holding the Souls extended out.
He held Kenpachi Kiganjo's Soul in one hand and a long-sealed Soul in the other.
Aozaki Reiji had seen Aizen's Soul fusion operation, where unrelated Souls were placed into a common crystal through special filtering instruments.
The crystal itself had the function of storing and adsorbing Souls.
He had tried to directly contain Souls in the same crystal, but the result was always the crystal shattering and the Souls dissipating.
The failure of the Soul fusion experiment made him realize that he was completely an amateur in the field of science.
So he didn't rush into experiments, but instead learned research techniques from three other geniuses he knew, while summarizing the various errors from his previous attempts.
Hikifune Kirio and the other two readily accepted Aozaki Reiji's request to learn scientific research knowledge.
He was a consultant for the Technology Development Bureau, so it was understandable that he wanted to learn scientific research knowledge.
Due to the unethical development process of the Hōgyoku, Aizen was entirely self-taught, and much of the information was collected, organized, and learned by him personally.
Aizen seemed to have no intention of hiding too much; apart from the core information of the Hōgyoku itself, Aozaki Reiji was free to peruse other scientific research materials.
Perhaps he had absolute confidence in his own wisdom...
He himself hadn't achieved useful research results, so he didn't believe Aozaki Reiji could catch up to him under the same conditions, let alone surpass him.
Therefore, Aozaki Reiji seemed to be following Aizen's old path.
Fortunately, Aozaki Reiji not only had genius friends and a genius prisoner.
He also had Hikifune Kirio, who was temporarily unrivaled in the field of Soul research.
Reiji concealed the true situation of the Hōgyoku research, but by subtly asking some technical questions, he could still gain something.
Aozaki Reiji usually left an unreliable impression on them.
Besides marveling at how this whimsical fellow could come up with some good ideas, the three of them had no suspicion about his true intentions.
Just by briefly flipping through Aizen's research notes in his laboratory and asking Hikifune Kirio and the other two for clarification, Aozaki Reiji benefited greatly.
Soon, as his learning deepened, he figured out the conditions for Soul fusion.
Aozaki Reiji summarized the knowledge he had learned while planning his next experimental steps.
With the equipment in his current laboratory, he could barely attempt Soul fusion experiments.
After a moment of thought, he put down Kenpachi Kiganjo's Soul.
To be safe, he took out another Soul crystal containing Reio's fragments.
Captain's Souls were rare, so he decided to start experiments with less precious Souls.
In Aozaki Reiji's plan, the main part of the Hōgyoku was still Reio's fragments, which was the key to Soul fusion.
However, these Souls had to be filtered through several instruments to remove external Reishi, allowing the Souls to return to their most fundamental state.
Kurotsuchi Mayuri left many such instruments in Reiji's laboratory.
Before his imprisonment, his main research subjects were Quincy, and Quincy were living people.
To research them in the Soul Society, it was necessary to turn them into dead people without a Reishi conversion device.
Not to mention Soul filtering devices, there were even devices for capturing Quincy Souls.
After a Quincy died, their Soul would return to the Quincy progenitor, Yhwach, and this genius could snatch people from Yhwach's hands!
In the entire plan, there were only two real difficulties.
One was how to filter impurities from the Souls to make them pure, and the second was that the experiment required Reio's fragments.
Both difficulties have now been resolved.
Crushing the crystal without Reio's fragments, purple energy emerged from Aozaki Reiji's hand, stabilizing the rapidly dissipating Soul and placing it into the filtering instrument.
Filtering Souls was a delicate task; as he was not yet proficient, Aozaki Reiji worked for a full two hours to complete it.
After observing the final two Soul-containing vessels with a high-precision Fluoroscope, Aozaki Reiji found that both Souls had more or less damage, but the extent of the damage was negligible.
Next, after Aozaki Reiji injected the two Souls into the Soul crystal, he quietly awaited the result.
Soon, the crystal emitted a faint sky-blue luster.
Aozaki Reiji's expression was calm as he observed the crystal's condition through the instrument.
As the luster gradually disappeared, the surface of the crystal began to become uneven, and its volume also slightly increased.
Simply put, its shape was transforming from a smooth gemstone into a lump of coal.
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