The Supreme Soul, Starting with Death

"Go, Big Claw Crab! We'll stake the name of Tianpeng on this; we absolutely will not lose!"

At the other end of the arena, a roar full of passion rang out, and a small, crab-like creature fell into the arena in a panic, staring at the giant hamster opposite it.

Soon, under the command of their respective "trainers", the two Hollows were locked in a fierce battle.

Gu Shi watched this "Pokémon battle" from the sidelines, feeling utterly speechless. In the anime and games, no matter how intense the battle between Pokémon was, there would never be scenes of blood splattering or limbs being missing. Therefore, the viewing experience was far more exciting and thrilling than the cruelty of "fighting beasts".

In the real world, however, the situation is quite different when two inherently ferocious monsters fight head-on under the command of Lilynette and Tianpeng. No matter how Gu Shi looks at it, he feels that this is just a simple and cruel beast fight, and has nothing to do with the beautiful memories he has.

Ironically, in Hueco Mundo, where entertainment is scarce, beast fighting is actually a pretty good form of entertainment for Menos Grande who are born without any sense of compassion.

They wouldn't feel any guilt about killing their own kind, let alone a small Hollow who is so fragile that it dies at the slightest touch and isn't even considered one of their own. In the eyes of the Hollows like Tianpeng, capturing a small Hollow to fight is probably no different from capturing a few crickets to fight insects.

Even Gu Shi, though he felt awkward looking at it, was only because Tianpeng and the others insisted on giving those little Void creatures Pokémon names, making him feel like his childhood was out of place. But when it came to feeling sorry for those little Void creatures... he really didn't have that thought.

Beside him, Stark was also watching the battle below. Although these Hollows' battles, even if they risked their lives, couldn't compare to the effect of him casually launching a Hollow bullet, it was clear that because Lilynette was so happy, he was also in a good mood, and even started to chat with Gu Shi.

"If this Pokémon world really exists, it must be a world very suitable for Hueco Mundo to live in, right? There are battles all the time, fighting every minute and every second, evolving upwards through endless battles to become stronger. Apart from the better environment, that world can be said to be a replica of Hueco Mundo."

Gu Shi rolled his eyes, his lips twitching slightly, and quickly corrected Stark's misunderstanding.

"No, no, no, the difference is huge. In the world of Pokémon, duels are more often seen as a competition and entertainment than a fight. Moreover, all Pokémon have a special energy that protects their bodies. Although they may be defeated and knocked unconscious before their energy is depleted, they won't have their limbs flying everywhere, and they'll bleed very little."

"Really? But hearing you say that, Gu Shi, I feel like the two worlds are even more similar. Look at Lilynette and Tianpeng, they didn't intend to fight each other, they just treated it as a form of entertainment, right?"

Stark was easygoing and didn't get angry when Gu Shi refuted him. After thinking for a moment, he calmly continued to discuss with Gu Shi.

"As for the energy that protects the body, isn't that just 'steel skin'? When Hollows with the talent of steel skin fight, they basically don't bleed. The battle can only end when one side runs out of energy."

After Stark said that, Gu Shi couldn't really find any fault with it for a moment. Could it be that, unlike Xiao Xu who was forced to fight, many Pokémon in the Pokémon world also crave battle and even actively seek out trainers to become stronger?

Could a being like a Void have a fighting spirit lower than that of a Pokémon?

After thinking it over, Gu Shi could only change his approach to continue his rebuttal.

"Leaving that aside for now, there are still significant differences in other aspects, such as post-battle treatment. The medical capabilities in the Pokémon world are extremely powerful. As long as someone isn't dead, they can be saved no matter how severe the injury. It is precisely because of this medical strength that people dare to initiate duels at will and treat Pokémon battles as a form of entertainment."

Stark raised an eyebrow, his spiritual energy coalescing into a sharp blade at his fingertips. He slashed a line across his arm, revealing the bone, but as soon as Stark withdrew the blade, the wound healed completely before any blood could even flow.

Although Stark didn't speak, his meaning was clear: "Have you heard of super-fast regeneration? We Hollows don't need treatment. As long as we're well-fed, any injury can heal itself, right?"

"Okay, I don't deny that. But what about Poké Balls? People in the Pokémon world can carry several Pokémon with them for battle because they can put Pokémon into Poké Balls, compressing them to the size of a bean and carrying them around. Hueco Mundo can't do that, can they?"

This time, Stark didn't immediately refute him. He thought about it carefully for a while before clapping his hands as if he had suddenly realized something.

"I knew this description sounded familiar. About two hundred years ago, I met a Vastod that had a talent for storing spiritual energy. It could store all the spiritual particles of its Hollows into a small ball and carry it with it. When it was time to fight, it would release the stored spiritual particles to command its subordinates in battle."

As he spoke, Stark laughed somewhat uncertainly.

"Since that Vasto Lorde has this ability, it means that this method of storing the Hollows is feasible. It's just that we haven't found a way to store them yet, right?"

Gu Shi knew that as they evolved, Hollows would gradually develop various unique abilities. By the time they reached the Vasto Lorde stage, each of them would have some unique skills. For example, Barragan had an aura of aging, Ulquiorra had a Cero, and Halibel could create and control water flow. But what Gu Shi did not expect was that in the distant past, there had been an ability to absorb spiritual energy.

While it sounds absurd to be able to store an entire Void into a small ball and then release it back to its original state, it seems nothing compared to Barragan's ability to unconditionally age all living and non-living things, which mostly involves time.

It has to be said that the saying "an elder in the family is a treasure" is really true. Gu Shi suddenly realized that even putting aside strength, Stark's hundreds of years of experience was already a valuable treasure.

"...That's right. The essence of the Hollows' abilities should all be the manipulation of spiritual energy. Since Vastodes have mastered similar abilities, theoretically, we have the opportunity to replicate these abilities."

As he said this, Gu Shi's expression suddenly became somewhat strange.

[...Now that you mention it, it seems like Hueco Mundo and the Pokémon world are really not that different?]

[Does that mean I can organize Pokémon tournaments in Hueco Mundo?]

For some reason, the idea of ​​building a zoo in Hueco Mundo has quietly resurfaced.

Chapter 116 The Reason for Refusal

The zoo can't be built anytime soon, but Gu Shi's conversation with Stark strengthened his resolve to train his spiritual power control.

The essence of all the abilities of the Great Hollows is the manipulation of spiritual energy. As long as you master the corresponding method of manipulating spiritual energy, you can simulate the opponent's abilities. This statement itself is not wrong.

However, to manipulate spiritual energy to simulate the abilities of other Hollows, one must have an extremely high level of spiritual energy micromanagement skills. If one does not practice properly, with the current level of spiritual energy control that makes even learning the Kido (Demon Path) extremely difficult, trying to simulate the abilities of others is simply wishful thinking.

Moreover, as long as one's skill in manipulating spiritual energy is high enough, even without imitating others, one can definitely create many useful abilities by developing them independently.

For example, Aizen's later ability, "Million Shield," allowed him to stack a million layers of spiritual energy shield behind himself, which he used to withstand three Bankai attacks from Ichigo Kurosaki. Yet, those million layers of spiritual energy shield looked no different from a thin layer of light.

This is clearly a special skill that Aizen developed specifically based on his extraordinary ability to manipulate spiritual power.

Therefore, you will definitely not lose out by practicing spiritual energy control; just put in the effort and practice with confidence!

Thinking this, Gu Shi held a bone in his hand and continued to carefully use his spiritual power to try to carve it into the shape of a rabbit.

This bone was taken from a small Hollow. Although it is a "bone", in the eyes of Gu Shi, who is a Hollow, its hardness is no different from that of a piece of soft tofu. It is the kind of bone that will break with the slightest force. It is perfect for practicing micro-management.

Watching the bone slowly crumble in Gu Shi's hands, Stark could understand what he was doing, but he couldn't understand Gu Shi's stubbornness at all.

“Gu Shi, since you want to improve your control over spiritual power so much, why do you refuse to become an Arrancar? Once you become an Arrancar, your control over spiritual power will naturally improve. I am the best example.”

Stark was a man of his word; having promised to help the person who provided the blue crystal formula become a Vastod, he had no intention of breaking his promise.

After all, this wasn't a difficult task for him. As long as he didn't suppress his spiritual pressure and took a trip to the Great Hollow Forest, he could kill a whole bunch of Adjuchas, and if he was lucky, he could even get one or two Vastodes.

Once these corpses are consumed, the Kylian's evolution into Vastod will be a matter of moments. The only limiting factor will likely be Gu Shi's stomach capacity and digestion speed.

However, neither Gu Shi, who left behind the formula, nor Tian Peng, who developed the formula, seemed to intend to become Vastod quickly in this way.

Gu Shi's reasoning was:

"For Hollows composed entirely of spiritual energy, spiritual energy is both their physical body and their spirit. Continuously consuming large quantities of spiritual entities far stronger than themselves, without sufficient time to digest them, can easily cause their spirit to deviate, ultimately turning them into madmen completely different from their past selves."

This conclusion was reached by Gu Shi during his previous discussion with Urahara Kisuke.

They were discussing whether clones could inherit the memories of the original, when Gu Shi mentioned a rumor he had heard in his previous life—

After undergoing an organ transplant, some people may experience a sense of déjà vu with things they have never encountered but which the organ donor is familiar with, and may even inherit the personality of the organ donor to some extent.

Kisuke Urahara thus accepted the view that "in addition to the soul, the body also stores some memories," and further raised the question: if the soul were to undergo "organ transplantation," would this phenomenon of memory and spiritual inheritance become even more pronounced?

As a man of action, Kisuke Urahara has a strong hands-on ability. On the very night he raised the question, he conducted an experiment. He first captured a Hollow and repeatedly tortured and intimidated it, causing the Hollow to develop a strong sense of fear towards him.

Next, he cut off all four limbs of the Hollow and forcibly reattached them to another Hollow using the Reincarnation Technique. The Hollow whose legs were replaced remained unconscious throughout the entire process from capture to the replacement and never saw Kisuke Urahara's face.

Once the leg swap was complete, the Hollow was awakened and immediately showed extreme fear towards Kisuke Urahara, whom it had never seen before. However, it did not show much reaction to Asido, who was also a Shinigami, only showing slight apprehension.

Kisuke Urahara concluded that, although multiple repeated experiments had not yet been conducted, the results of this experiment were sufficient to prove that "organ transplantation" at the soul level could indeed lead to a spiritual inheritance relationship. While the Hollow was devouring the spiritual particles of other souls, it was also absorbing the spirit of other souls.

Later, based on this conclusion, Kisuke Urahara speculated that Hollow Hollows, as "gaps in the soul," were created for this purpose. They not only cause the Hollows to lose certain emotions, but also allow external emotions that they devour to flow out through this gap in order to ensure the purity of the Hollows themselves.

Gu Shi largely agreed with Kisuke Urahara's unfounded conjecture, because upon hearing it, he immediately thought of the process of Hollow evolving into a Killian.

Logically, the later stages of evolution towards a higher life form should be the most dangerous. However, in the Hollow evolutionary chain, the very beginning is the most dangerous. Most Hollows, after evolving into Killian, struggle to retain self-awareness. This counterintuitive phenomenon can be reasonably explained by applying Kisuke Urahara's hypothesis—

Hundreds of Hollows devoured each other in a short period of time, and hundreds of spirits gathered in one body. If the strength of these spirits were not much different, they would definitely wear each other down and influence each other, and none of them could take the lead.

This would cause all Hollow spirits to be identified by the body as "external spirits" that have been devoured, and thus all of them would flow out of the Hollowhole, leaving only a Hollow body without any consciousness, becoming the idiotic Killian that fills the Hollow Forest.

Only when there is one absolutely powerful spirit among hundreds of Hollows that can still exist stably even after all the other individuals' spirits have flowed out of the Hollows and disappeared, can a Kyrian with self-awareness be born.

When Gu Shi rejected Stark, he didn't try to be mysterious or hide anything; he just said all his guesses, and Stark understood.

He wanted to help Gu Shi become a Vastode to repay a debt of gratitude. If his good intentions would have a negative impact on Gu Shi, he certainly wouldn't continue.

After expressing his understanding, Stark offered to create a few more blue crystals to help Gu Shi and his team complete their Arrancar transformation.

After all, becoming an Arrancar is a good way to improve one's strength, and in terms of combat flexibility, Arrancars are even more advantageous than simply evolving.

Strangely, Gu Shi did not accept the proposal, and this time, he did not give a reason.

Chapter 117 The Shikon Jewel or the Philosopher's Stone?

Gu Shi's reason for refusing to immediately break through to the other side was actually very simple: he was just worried. He had actually had this thought when he watched "Bleach" in his previous life.

Aizen's planning in Hueco Mundo lasted for over a hundred years, and he clearly started researching the Hogyoku very early on. So, excluding those incomplete Arrancar experiments, the earliest batch of mature Arrancars, if we take a minimum estimate, should have been created several decades ago by the time the story began.

But why haven't any of those original broken faces evolved over the past few decades?

Judging from the memories of the 30th Espada, Barragan's Adjuchas, who was only a half-Arrancar and hadn't even achieved full Arrancar status, was able to easily overpower her Vasto Lorde. This shows how much Arrancar status enhances the strength of a Menos Grande.

Logically speaking, those Arrancars who had a huge first-mover advantage should have been able to devour whomever they wanted, even in the entire Hueco Mundo, if they wanted to. They could easily hunt down even Vasto Lordes and the like. Accumulating the spiritual energy needed for evolution should not have been difficult for them.

The truth is that none of the Hollows who became Arrancars were able to continue evolving. Many of the earliest Espada were eliminated and their numbers dropped to the hundredth rank. The few who remained in the Espada were strong to begin with, rather than having made new breakthroughs and evolved to a higher level after becoming Espadas.

Even the Ninth Seat, the only one who squeezed into the Espada as a Killian due to special abilities, remained at the Killian level until his death.

Therefore, Gu Shi had no choice but to make this guess—

Destroying one's face will result in the loss of the ability to evolve!

The Arrancars may still be able to accumulate spiritual power and increase their strength, but their path to life form evolution is completely severed the moment they become Arrancars.

Gu Shi didn't know if his guess was right or wrong; perhaps he was just overthinking things. But he wasn't willing to gamble on this possibility with himself or his friends.

Anyway, it should be another one or two hundred years before Aizen masters his divine skills and comes to Hueco Mundo to cause trouble. Instead of rushing to evolve, it's better to steadily complete the evolution path of the Great Hollows, steadily evolve to the level of Vasto Lorde, or even Stark, and then consider the Arrancar.

However, Gu Shi dared not tell Stark this reason. After all, as Stark's half-body, Lilynette should theoretically be at the same Vastod life level as Stark, but her actual power was only at the level of a Kyrian.

If Stark were told that Lilynette's path was broken and she could no longer evolve, even if Stark didn't hold a grudge, if he lost control of his emotions even slightly and leaked even a tiny bit of spiritual pressure, all of them who were around Stark would be doomed.

Therefore, for the sake of his own life, Gu Shi decided to become the Riddler this time and not tell Stark the reason why he refused the Arrancar.

"Well, Stark, just consider me overly proud and planning to rely on my own strength to become an Arrancar, without wanting to use the hands of others."

He gave a perfunctory reply. Distracted, Gu Shi's spiritual pressure became slightly chaotic. Instantly, the bone, which could barely be identified as a rabbit, turned into a pile of powder, falling onto the white sand dunes below and mixing with the pale gravel, becoming indistinguishable from one another.

Gu Shi squeezed his empty hand, clicked his tongue in annoyance, and stood up to find another Hollow to get bones. Stark glanced at Lilynette, who was still enthusiastically battling in a Pokémon fight, hesitated for a moment, and then got up and followed Gu Shi.

"Gu Shi, no matter what, you have to make a few requests of me so that I have a chance to repay you, otherwise I will always feel indebted to you. Don't you want to be friends with me? A normal friendship can't develop from this kind of indebted relationship."

Gu Shi had his reasons, and Stark had his own stubbornness. Although he certainly wouldn't force Gu Shi to help him break through the enemy's lines if Gu Shi refused, he couldn't accept doing nothing and letting such an important matter as Gu Shi helping him break through the enemy's lines just pass by so easily.

Stark mentioned making friends, and Gu Shi finally took it seriously. He frowned as he walked and thought, and it took him a while to finally make up his mind.

"Alright then, although I don't plan to become a Arrancar so soon, I am somewhat interested in researching Arrancars. Stark, could you help me get a few Arrancars to use as test subjects? Hmm, I'll use Hollows. I estimate that I can't beat a Killian-level Arrancar. By the time you leave, we won't know who will be researching whom."

As he spoke, Gu Shi had a new inspiration, and his spirits suddenly lifted. He continued speaking with some excitement.

"By the way, if possible, you could send a few Arrancar to Tianpeng. If she uses Arrancar as materials for alchemy, she might be able to create something new. If she can manage to refine a Shikon Jewel or a Philosopher's Stone, that would be quite interesting."

Stark didn't know the connection between the Shikon Jewel and the Philosopher's Stone, but he could tell that Gu Shi wasn't just giving him the runaround; he genuinely wanted a few Arrancar. So he nodded in satisfaction.

“Okay, if it’s just to help the Hollows and Arrancar, the blue crystals made by Killian should be enough. I’ll go to the Hollow Forest to collect materials now. Please give Lilynet a heads-up, I’ll be back soon.”