In the manga, the main reason Chad and Inoue Orihime stayed safe was Ichigo.
By then Ichigo was a Captain-level Shinigami, and one on good terms with the Soul Society.
Naturally they gave that kind of firepower some room.
And Ichigo did not stand alone.
Behind him were Shihōin Yoruichi, of one of the Four Great Noble Clans, and the former Twelfth Division Captain, Urahara Kisuke.
Once it was known that Aizen was the real traitor, it followed that Urahara and Yoruichi had been framed back then.
Never mind the group of Hollowfied captains the two of them had rescued.
Ichigo had not made contact with the Visored yet during the Soul Society arc, but the people in the Soul Society knew those individuals had to be connected to Urahara and the others.
Six captain-level fighters.
A Kidō Corps captain.
A captain-level Ichigo.
Eight captain-class in total, along with several at lieutenant strength.
And that was the picture from over a hundred years ago.
Who knew how many of those lieutenants had advanced to captain by now.
Against a force like that, the Soul Society would have to be out of its mind to move on Ichigo.
Which meant they would not touch anyone standing at his side either.
They even let Uryū go, after he lost his powers.
Stand with Ichigo and not even Mayuri would dare act recklessly.
So until he had sufficient strength of his own, going along on the Soul Society trip was undoubtedly the best option.
Of course, the plot had not started yet.
Which left Lucas exactly one thing to think about.
Getting stronger, as fast as possible.
He started training immediately.
He knew the basic methods for physical conditioning, so he dropped to the floor and rattled off push-ups.
Then he stopped.
“This won’t work. My body’s too strong. Push-ups like this feel like nothing at all.”
He had done over a hundred.
Not because he could not do more, but because he felt perfectly fine.
A hundred push-ups were no different from taking a hundred breaths.
That was the problem with a constitution this strong.
Push-ups were no better than doing nothing.
To improve quickly, he needed to make his body feel pressure.
He scanned the room and set his sights on a cabinet.
Solid wood, quite heavy, and packed full of books.
The weight had to be over two hundred kilos.
He walked up to it, gripped it with both hands, and lifted.
Two hundred kilos of loaded bookcase came up like a toy.
“Not very heavy. But it’ll do.”
Holding the bookcase, he started weighted squats.
Light as it was for him, the pressure did build as the minutes wore on.
And he noticed something else.
His stamina drained and recovered at the same time.
The recovery could not keep pace with the drain, but it was far faster than it had any right to be.
Another benefit of the missing limiter, clearly.
He kept at it for over two hours before finally setting the cabinet on the floor and sitting down to rest.
The moment he stopped the high-intensity work, his recovery rate jumped noticeably, as if a buff had been applied to him.
It made him marvel all over again at what losing the limiter had done.
While resting, he checked the panel again.
〔Name: Chad〕
〔Spiritual Pressure: Ordinary Human (69%)〕
〔Abilities: Brazo Derecha de Gigante (Unawakened 81%), Brazo Izquierda del Diablo (Unawakened 5%)〕
“It really works. One percent every two hours.”
“So thirty-eight more hours of training and the Fullbring awakens. Add the rest time on top and I can have it up in three days.”
He looked over the numbers, pleasantly surprised.
Three days was nothing.
Not with the monstrous recovery the missing limiter gave him.
A dozen-plus hours of training a day was no trouble at all.
It was getting late, so he stopped there, showered, and went to sleep.
The night passed without incident.
The next morning, after he washed up and ate breakfast, he was about to start training when he opened the panel and could not tear his eyes away.
The reason was simple.
It had changed again.
〔Name: Chad〕
〔Spiritual Pressure: Ordinary Human (70%)〕
〔Abilities: Brazo Derecha de Gigante (Unawakened 82%), Brazo Izquierda del Diablo (Unawakened 6%)〕
Every stat had gone up a full percent.
Keep in mind he had done nothing all night.
He had slept, and improved anyway.
“This has to be another limiter benefit. You really can get stronger just by lying down.”
Then he caught the more important detail.
The Brazo Izquierda del Diablo had gained progress too.
In the manga, the only reason Chad’s left arm ever awakened was that he entered Hueco Mundo.
The Brazo Izquierda del Diablo was essentially closer to a Hollow, so it was Hueco Mundo that let him sense the changes in his left arm, and how he learned his power leaned that way at all.
After all, the reason Fullbringers could awaken their Fullbring was that, while they were still fetuses, their mothers had been attacked by a Hollow, and the Hollow’s residual power passed to the child.
That was the only way the Fullbring took root.
So the essence of Fullbring ran closer to a Hollow, and awakening the left arm normally required an environment like Hueco Mundo, saturated with Hollow power.
But now, with the limiter removed, Lucas did not need to do anything.
The left arm would awaken on its own in a little over three months.
Then there was his spiritual pressure, climbing as well.
At the current rate, he would break past the ordinary-human level within a month.
Probably sooner, in fact.
Once the Brazo Derecha de Gigante awakened his strength would skyrocket, and barring accidents, his spiritual pressure would likely skyrocket with it.
“Wait. If my spiritual pressure climbs too fast, the Soul Society will detect me, won’t it?”
Karakura Town was a high-density spiritual area, under constant Soul Society surveillance.
He revised the training plan on the spot.
Find Ishida Uryū first.
See if he could learn a way to hide his spiritual pressure while training it.
And if that did not work, he would figure it out himself.
The road of self-exploration was always open.