Pulling his thoughts together, Silas left the training grounds and headed for the Shin’ō Academy library.
The library stood on the east side of the academy, in a plain, old building.
Inside it was spacious, the towering shelves lined up in neat rows, the air thick with the smell of old scrolls.
This was where Silas and Nanao met most often, and it was where they had first run into each other.
He crossed the lobby with the ease of long habit and made for a seat by the window.
A petite figure was already sitting there.
Ise Nanao was leafing through a thick tome, sunlight pouring through the glass and scattering dappled shadows over her.
Catching that familiar white hair at the edge of her vision always gave Nanao a strange sense of calm.
“Am I late?”
Silas sat down across from her with a book in hand.
“No. Same as always.”
“What are you reading?”
“Theory of Spirit Particle Composition, Third Revised Edition.” Nanao pushed up her glasses.
“I want to understand why some souls naturally have stronger Spiritual Pressure than others.”
“Find the answer?”
“No.”
Nanao closed the book and let out a sigh.
“What’s in these books is all basic theory. The real core knowledge is probably only in the Great Spirit Book Gallery, or the private archives of the Four Great Noble Clans.”
“Not the sort of place you can walk into whenever you feel like it.”
“That’s true.”
Silas opened the book in his hand, ‘On the Current State of the Soul Society Over the Last Three Hundred Years.’
Compared to academic papers, odds and ends like this interested him more.
The book laid out how splendidly the Soul Society was developing these days, though some passages turned quite sharp about the nobility’s immunity from punishment and their stranglehold on everything.
There were vague accounts of nobles killing commoner Shinigami for no reason, facing no consequences at all, and then going on to seize the dead Shinigami’s property…
Hold on, who put this book in my hands?
Silas flipped to the title page.
There was no signature, and as for the author, they had most likely been scrubbed out of existence already.
A moment later, Silas caught Nanao making small movements.
She drew a little paper bag out of the cloth pouch she carried and pushed it across to him.
“Here. Take a look at this.”
Curious, Silas opened the bag.
Inside were a dozen fresh, deep purple fruits about the size of a thumb, fine patterns running over their skins.
He picked one up for a closer look.
At first glance there was nothing special about it, until familiar specks of light welled up from inside, and Silas found it hard to look away.
This was…
the glow of a fragment.
These fruits actually held spiritual power in them.
Where had Nanao gotten hold of them?
Silas pushed the surprise down and looked at Nanao, who wore a faint smile.
Well.
The girl might as well have had ‘hurry up and ask me’ written across her face.
Silas put the fruit back in the paper bag, mumbled that it was good stuff, and went back to his book.
Nanao’s expression stiffened at the reaction.
After a silent moment, she puffed out her cheeks a little.
Her chest itched, as though a crowd of tiny Silases were scrabbling around in there.
She reached out and quietly nudged the bag of fruit further toward him.
Silas caught the movement out of the corner of his eye and laughed to himself, keeping his face blank.
“Aren’t you curious?”
Nanao couldn’t hold it in any longer, a note of frustration in her voice.
Only then did Silas look up, wearing a perfectly timed look of confusion.
“Hmm? What kind of fruit is this? Looks fresh.”
Faced with that smiling face, Nanao deflated like a punctured balloon and pouted.
“You are so annoying…”
Seeing the ‘tell me, tell me’ look on Silas’s face, Nanao gave him a few light kicks under the table before she explained, taking her time about it.
“I bought them on the way here. A middle-aged man who came to bring his child in for the entrance exam had set up a stall at the school gate. He said they were picked off the mountain behind his house and he wanted to earn a little travel money for the trip home.”
“People are allowed to set up stalls at the school gate?”
“Apparently not.”
Silas looked through the bag.
Only two of the fruits gave off the glow of a fragment.
“Can I try one?”
“Go ahead!”
Nanao waved her small hand.
Under Nanao’s expectant gaze, Silas picked out a fruit with a glowing fragment in it.
The instant he touched it, a system prompt popped up.
[Obtained Tiny Spiritual Power Fragment, Spiritual Power Level EXP +1]
Just as he thought.
The things really could hand him experience.
Silas put the fruit, no longer glowing now, into his mouth.
It was juicy, sweet and tart, and tasted very good.
In the Soul Society, spiritual power mainly grew by absorbing spirit particles out of the air, or by eating food that carried spiritual power in it.
But things like this, things that could raise his Spiritual Power Level experience, he had only run across now and then.
They were usually very expensive, and mostly in the hands of the nobility.
They were rare goods that money alone couldn’t buy without the right connections.
If these fruits really did come out of the Rukongai, they meant a great deal to Silas.
“They taste far better than ordinary wild fruit, and the spirit particle content is very high.”
Silas marveled at it sincerely.
“Right?”
Nanao’s face lit up visibly.
“You know my Kidō talent is pretty good, and my read on spiritual power is sharp too.”
Nanao dropped her voice a little.
“The moment I saw them I knew these fruits weren’t ordinary, but I didn’t have enough money on me, so I only bought a few.”
Something stirred in Silas.
In that case, there were plenty left.
“Is the man still at the school gate?”
“Should be. Why?”
“How much did he bring, and what’s he asking?”
“Twenty pounds or so, and the asking price is one thousand a pound.”
One thousand Kan.
In the money of his old life, call it a few dollars.
By Rukongai prices it wasn’t cheap, but for Silas it was well worth it.
Besides, the fruit itself was the lesser prize.
What he really wanted was a look at where it grew.
He could all but see the swarms of fragments flickering there.
“Alright. I’ll swing by the dorm for money first and then head over. Want to come?”
Nanao stood at that and packed her books away briskly.
She was curious too about what Silas meant to do with the fruit.
As far as she could see, beyond being rich in spiritual power and tasting good, the things had no other use.
By her reckoning, Silas chased comfort, skipped class constantly, and coasted through training.
She didn’t even know how he had scraped his way into the elite class.
He rarely showed this much interest in anything.
“Why do I get the feeling someone is talking about me behind my back?”
Silas rubbed at his itching nose.
“Ah? Is, is that so…”
Nanao’s eyes darted away.
Silas: ?
Caught red-handed.
“Nanao-chan, it’s rude to badmouth people behind their backs.”
Nanao felt a large hand press down on her head.
She tried to squirm free, and thanks to her guilty conscience, she failed.
“I didn’t… I wasn’t…”
Silas patted her small head.
“Alright, I’ll take Shunpo back for the money and meet you halfway. I’ll leave my book with you as well.”
With that, Silas’s figure vanished on the spot, leaving a gust of wind behind.
“Hey, Shunpo is forbidden inside the libra…”
Nanao watched his retreating back and let her arm drop, helpless.
She put the books on the table back where they belonged, then hurried after him.
Fortunately, she was getting used to Silas and his eccentric ways.