บท 6: Moving Forward
With renewed vigour Hisashi moved towards his goal. Just like he was able to find a decent few animal spirits in the park he died in he should be able to do the same in the other parks in Naruki. He starts with those nearby slowly making his way to Central Park closer to downtown Naruki. On his way he consumes many tanuki, squirrel, marten, snake, civet and bat animal spirits. Crazy enough he even managed to come across a lone bear spirit in one of the parks closer to the edge of the city where it met. He was rushing from one park to the next at full speed which had reached about 40 mph now.
He wasn't proud to be bullying these weak little animal spirits, but if it could let him see his family even a moment sooner he would swallow the shame and soldier on. Soon he had cleared out all the parks on the way to Central Park along with some wayward animal spirits between the parks. They may just have been some birds, but hey they counted.
[Mission: Devour 100 animal spirits 68/100]
[XP: 30/30]
[Level Up]
[+1 Available Stat Points]
[XP: 28/60]
'Add it into dexterity again system.' he remembered to add
[Answer: Affirmative host's dexterity has been upgrade by 1 to 9]
Finally he made his way to Central Park. It was almost larger than all the parks he had visited up to this point put together. He would rub his hands if he could in anticipation. There was no way he wasn't going to be able to complete his mission here. Suddenly he felt his hair stand on end. Wait he doesn't have hair anymore. Well he felt a chill up his spine. Damn beetles don't have skeletons. Well whatever.
He dashed behind a building, made sure to be releasing as little spiritual pressure as he could manage while being as silent and hidden as a 10 foot beetle could possibly be. He became surprisingly proficient in his time of need though.
He managed to see a male Shinigami with black mid length parted hair.
'Wait isn't this that Renji fanboy? Well as much of a loser as he is currently I am a bigger one so please don't find me right now. I guess my luck could be worse. Any seated officer would probably be able to sense me immediately.' he thinks silently.
"Tsk, I can't find the signal. Was it a glitch." Rikichi says smacking some kind of device in his hand and looking around before finally leaving.
'What was that about?' Hisashi wondered to himself.
[Answer: Hosts spirit power is currently so low it is barely above humans with above average spiritual power making it hard to detect. While moving at high speed host was slightly detectable, however the host's cowardly actions minimising his movement host managed to remain undetectable.]
'I wasn't really asking, but no need to call me out like that, I will be powerful soon enough. Just you wait!' he spits back at the system before sighing to himself. 'I think I'm going crazy between the 10 year hibernation and having no one to talk to besides the system.'
He gives it some time to let Rikichi make some distance before coming out from behind the building and heading deeper into the park. It's really good that regular people can't see him or this would be impossible to pull off during the day no matter how carefully he moves there's no avoiding the 10 foot beetle if you can see it.
He manages to find a burrow of Amami rabbits that died.
'Damn these things are really ugly for rabbits, aren't rabbits supposed to be cute, but I'll take every little bit I can get and there's quite a few of them here.' he though. He also found some Sika deer that filled his count out nicely.
[Mission: Devour 100 animal spirits 100/100]
[Mission Completed]
[Skill Soul-Body Separation granted]
[XP: 60/60]
[Level Up]
[+1 Available Stat Points]
'Yes!' he cheered himself on.
'Add the point to dexterity.' he made sure not to forget.
[Answer: Affirmative host's dexterity has been upgrade by 1 to 10]
'So where is the next mission.' he frowns.
[Answer: Completion of mission does not necessarily unlock a new mission. Missions depend on availability and the host's situation. System recommends making continuing steady progress levelling until new mission becomes available.]
'Well I guess that's something, can't complain too much about the help I'm getting.' he thought.
He hunted the rest of the animal spirits in the park until there were none left. From then on he would make sure to patrol the parks regularly to catch any new spirits that popped up before other hollow could eat them, they hollowfied or they simply dissipated.
While he was doing this he also made sure to visit his family home every morning and walked his sister to school while talking about how his previous day had been. She might not be able to hear him or see him, but talking to her made him feel just a little more human than his lonely life filled with nothing, but patrolling and hunting animal spirits had been making him feel. Maybe it's like when people talk to the grave of a deceased friend or family member and it helps them feel better. Rather ironic that in this case he is the deceased to the living that can't hear him. It's rather bittersweet, but he makes sure never to miss a day.
'Alright show me my status panel system.' he requested.
[Status Panel]
[Name: Saito Hisashi]
[Soul Age: 49]
[Race: Hollow]
[Rank: Hollow]
[Level: 6]
[XP: 128/210]
[Stats:]
[Strength: 5]
[Dexterity: 12]
[Constitution: 10]
[Intelligence: 5]
[Spirit Power: 39]
[Available Stat Points: 0]
[Passive Skills:]
[Spiritual Energy Absorption]
[High-Speed Regeneration]
[Acidic Touch]
[Active Skills:]
[Soul-Body Separation]
He had kept putting his free points towards dexterity as he still had no way to stay safe beyond having the ability to run away quickly when in need and really compared to Shunpo or Sonido he was still as slow as a snail. Meanwhile it seemed his Spirit Power slowly grew even without levelling up simply through the passive absorption of his [Spiritual Energy Absorption] skill adding roughly one point per day for no effort. He guessed it would be faster if it weren't for the dearth of spirit energy in Naruki City and probably most of Earth compared to Soul Society and Hueco Mundo.
'System explain Soul-Body Separation' he requested of the system.
[Answer: Host can use Spirit Power to coat part of his body, this part will be able to force the soul from a physical body or artificial body.]
'Not sure how useful that will be, but I guess I'll take what I can get for now.' he sighs before closing the status panel.
---
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