The sound of trickling water wound around his ears.
Just as before.
Suō Tsukasa, sitting cross-legged in the hot spring hut, opened his eyes.Gleam
After successfully achieving Shikai, his consciousness began to withdraw from the world of his inner soul and return to reality.
Of course, if not for the fact that the weight and texture in his palm were now completely different, he might have believed his encounter with the dragon was merely a vivid dream.
The standard-issue Asauchi was currently held in his hand in an entirely new form.
Tsukasa stood up and raised the Zanpakutō that now fully belonged to him.
With a joyful smile, mixed with a hint of lingering regret, he whispered.
"I didn't even get a chance to say goodbye."
The blade cut through the air, carrying a faint, ethereal hum, like a response crossing the boundaries of worlds.
A moment later, Tsukasa held the Zanpakutō upright before him, his clear voice echoing in the empty hut.
"Illuminate the Ten Thousand Realms, Hikari'!"
A soft, warm light surged from the blade, like the morning dawn tinting heaven and earth at daybreak, instantly filling the entire room.
The originally dim wooden hut was illuminated so clearly that even the finest details were visible; dust danced in the light, and it felt as if the entire space had gained breath and life.
Illuminate the Ten Thousand Realms was the awakening of the Zanpakutō; Gleaming was the key to further invoking its core ability.
Subtle spiritual sparks Interwove in the air. As the light reflected, it began to distort the reality of the scene.
Without making any movement, Tsukasa's figure holding the sword shifted positions within the room several times.
Using light to cause the enemy to miscalculate.
This was precisely the fundamental ability of Hikari': by manipulating the trajectory of light, it constructed perfect visual traps in the enemy's eyes.
No complex calculations were needed; where his thoughts went, the light wove a perfect visual cage for him.
It was unexpected, yet it made perfect sense.
After achieving Shikai, knowledge regarding the preliminary application of the Zanpakutō's abilities flooded Tsukasa's consciousness.
Though it wasn't the direct enhancement type Tsukasa had initially imagined, he was equally pleasantly surprised.
It wasn't that Hikari' only possessed the ability to create visual illusions.
After all, the light element was a special ability with an extremely high ceiling. It required long-term cultivation to unearth the full potential of the Zanpakutō, and what he lacked least were creative ideas for techniques.
Suddenly, Tsukasa thought of something and lowered his head in contemplation.
The Hikari' in his hand reverted to the form of a standard Asauchi, and the light in the room dimmed.
Tsukasa sheathed the Asauchi and picked up the wooden sword, Oboroya, from the side.
"Illuminate the Ten Thousand Realms, Hikari'!"
The next moment, an incredible sight occurred.
Light covered the pitch-black wooden sword Oboroya like water, actually reshaping it into the form of Hikari' in his palm!
Seeing this, Tsukasa fell silent.
No wonder there were so many strangely shaped Shikais; the Asauchi was merely the physical vessel for the Zanpakutō's manifestation.
As long as there was no issue with the souls of the Shinigami and the Zanpakutō, one could simply change the medium.
At the same time, Tsukasa pulled open the front of his robe.
When he looked down just now, he noticed that the circular pattern on his chest had changed for the first time.
"A sun...?"
The size of the outline remained unchanged, but it was no longer a simple circle. It had transformed into a minimalist totem resembling a solar disc.
"This is truly something to look forward to."
Tsukasa lightly brushed the pattern on his chest, a light swirling deep in his eyes.
If the first training session at Teradaya and the hypothesis about the "circle" had only been a hazy intuition, tonight's awakening of Hikari' truly confirmed the secret hidden deep within his body.
The essence of his soul might very well share the same source as sunlight.
That circular mark that appeared abruptly after his soul-transmigration was born from the fundamental ability of his Zanpakutō.
Were there others?
If so, what would they be like?
So far, what Tsukasa had clearly experienced was the sensation of rapid physical recovery under sunlight.
As for wound healing, he had yet to test it; after all, since his transmigration, he had not suffered a single wound.
Currently, the night outside the cave was deep. There was no sunlight, only moonlight.
Tsukasa suppressed the urge to cut himself to verify it and switched back to the Asauchi to perform Shikai again.
The light in the room shifted once more.
He took Hikari' outside.
Tsukasa concentrated his spiritual pressure (Reiatsu) at the tip of the blade and swung a crescent of orange-yellow energy toward a protruding stone pillar in the distance.
The crescent tore through the air. It didn't slice through the pillar as expected, but it left a deep gouge.
"Hmm... it's stronger, but only limitedly so..."
Gazing at the mark on the stone pillar, Tsukasa pondered privately.
He wasn't using Getsuga Tenshō; that move belonged exclusively to the bloodline of Shiba Isshin and Kurosaki Ichigo as a unique Zanpakutō ability.
The principle of the strike he just used was very similar to Getsuga Tenshō, but its name was "Ken-atsu" (Sword Pressure)—akin to sword qi in wuxia novels—where the spiritual pressure on the Zanpakutō is flung out to attack.
Many Shinigami in the Seireitei knew this, but it required a massive amount of Reiatsu to exert significant power.
When Tsukasa had tried this previously with the Asauchi, the sword pressure could only leave a faint scratch on the pillar.
Now, performing it with the aid of Hikari', although the power had increased, it had not yet reached the level of a qualitative change.
Looking at Hikari' in his hand, a look of contemplation appeared in Tsukasa's eyes.
"Besides reflection, what else does light have?"
"Right, focusing!"
Using the characteristics of light as a starting point, he quickly thought of a technique. He never lacked for whimsical ideas.
Diverging his thoughts, he sketched out the general outline of the ability in his mind.
Having determined the direction, Tsukasa began his attempt.
He raised his sword again to aim at the stone pillar, immersing his entire focus into the manipulation of his Reiatsu.
A moment later, the Reiatsu converged at the tip of the blade into a brilliant white focal point of restrained energy.
"Pierce through, Hikari'!"
This time, the release of Reiatsu was accompanied by a clear command in the form of an incantation.
As the words fell, a beam of yellow light erupted from the tip of the blade. The condensed pillar of light instantly perforated the distant stone pillar.
Unlike the slashing mark left by the previous sword pressure, this time the stone pillar was left with a round hole that had been melted into glass by the instantaneous high temperature.
Furthermore, the emitted light beam did not lose its momentum, piercing through three consecutive rock pillars behind it before finally dissipating.
"Haha, I did it!"
Tsukasa stared at the destruction caused by the light beam and laughed heartily, his face beaming with joy.
Hikari' not only possessed the basic characteristic of light reflection but also contained the ability to convert Reiatsu into light-thermal energy.
Compared to simply swinging out sword pressure, this method of highly compressing and releasing Reiatsu was clearly more suitable for someone like him with excellent Reiatsu control.
The power of this concentrated beam far exceeded the slashing of sword pressure; the energy was more focused, the penetration was extremely strong, and the speed at which the light cannon fired left the previous flying sword pressure in the dust.
"It's a pity my math and physics grades were a bit poor; I studied the liberal arts instead of the sciences back then."
Recalling his meager physics scores, Tsukasa couldn't help but feel a hint of shame and regret.
If you didn't know math, you didn't know math; wasn't physics the same?
Math was a pure abstract puzzle, while physics was like an abstract puzzle wearing the clothes of reality.
Regretting the lack of knowledge only when it's time to use it—that roughly described his current mood.
If he could understand the properties of light more deeply, perhaps his development of Hikari' could go even further.
Without a systematic theoretical guide, relying only on scattered common sense and intuition, Tsukasa understood that his current ability development had hit a bottleneck.
He reined in his diverging thoughts; since the breadth of his ability was difficult to expand for the moment, he would first dig deeper into its depth.
He subsequently shifted the focus of his training to this newly realized light beam.
In actual combat, the speed at which energy could be condensed determined the practicality of this move.
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