The exchange between Silas and the fruit seller caught Shiba Kūkaku’s interest.
She was still working through the fruit Silas had handed her, the sweet-tart juice bursting in her mouth, but her eyes stayed fixed on the two men talking.
Silas turned it over in his mind.
If fruit that handed out experience really only grew on a handful of trees, then the conditions they grew in had to be unusual.
Either the soil held some special spirit particle, or there was a source nearby shaping the composition of the spirit particles.
Either way, it was worth a look.
“Sir, when are you heading back?”
“My boy’s still in his exam. We were going to set off once he finishes this afternoon, but it’s a deep mountain trip, half a day to get there. You’re a Shin’ō Academy student, sir. Wouldn’t it be difficult for you to leave?”
“That’s easily handled.” Silas smiled.
“I happen to be off these few days, so I can head out.”
The seller nodded again and again at that.
“Settled, then. How about I wait for you here this afternoon?”
“Alright.”
Shiba Kūkaku, listening closely from the side, couldn’t help her curiosity at seeing Silas actually willing to travel that far over a few fruit trees.
“Silas, is this fruit really worth going all that way for?”
“Call it satisfying my curiosity.”
Silas answered with a smile and offered nothing further.
Looking at the fruit shimmering with fragments, those fragments were the only part of it truly valuable to him.
He reached into the basket, rummaging through the fruit and absorbing the fragments as he went.
[Obtained Tiny Spiritual Power Fragment x44, Spiritual Power Level EXP +44]
[Spiritual Power Level: Rank 10 (EXP: 2755/3000)]
The breakthrough in his Spiritual Power Level was creeping closer and closer.
He split the remaining fruit into two portions, handed one to Nanao and carried the other himself, meaning to share it out among his classmates and teachers back at the academy.
Nanao took the bag and looked at him seriously.
“Are you really going?”
“Yeah. No harm in a look.” Silas nodded.
“Maybe I’ll turn up something interesting.”
A flicker of hesitation crossed Nanao’s eyes.
She wanted to go with him.
“Too bad… I can’t come.”
There was plain regret in her voice.
“The elders at home won’t let me go far.”
Shiba Kūkaku’s eyes darted about, and then she spoke up.
“Hey, Silas, I’ll go with you.”
Nanao’s eyes went wide with disbelief as she looked at the girl.
“Sis,” Shiba Ganju tugged at her quickly, “Brother said he’s taking us to eat at that famous Ichiraku Ramen tonight!”
“We can eat ramen any time.”
Kūkaku shook her little brother’s hand off, her eyes bright as she looked at Silas and thumped her chest.
“I’m plenty interested in those trees myself. Besides, I know the Rukongai. With me along, maybe I can be some use.”
Silas blinked.
He could have sworn he had just heard the name of his own shop.
He thought about it briefly, then nodded.
“Alright then. I’ll be in your care.”
“Great.” Kūkaku thumped her chest again, excited.
“Then once the exams finish this afternoon, I’ll wait for you here with baldy!”
Hearing that, the seller silently rubbed his balding head.
Silas turned and left with the faintly restless Nanao.
Before he went, he glanced back over his shoulder.
“By the way, if you do go to Ichiraku, use my name for twenty percent off.”
Shiba Ganju scratched his head, baffled, as he watched Silas walk away.
“Using his name gets you a discount?”
…Time slipped by, and afternoon came around.
Students who had finished their exams began filing out.
When he reached the gate, the fruit seller and Shiba Kūkaku were already waiting.
The seller’s son was still young, and he looked crestfallen, as though it hadn’t gone well.
He made a stark contrast with the high-spirited Shiba Kaien nearby.
“Silas, over here!”
Kūkaku waved at him, brimming with energy.
Spotting Silas, Kaien smiled and stepped forward.
“So you’re a senior at the Shin’ō Academy. We’ve met once before. I hope Kūkaku hasn’t been any trouble to you.”
“Not at all. We’ll be classmates soon enough, so we ought to keep in touch.”
Silas smiled and traded a few pleasantries with Kaien.
“Everyone’s here. Let’s move.”
Once they were out of the Seireitei, the group split up and went their separate ways.
As dusk drew in, with the seller leading, Silas and Kūkaku reached a village in the woods of West District Two.
The seller sent his child on home and looked up at the darkening sky.
“It’s dark now. Going up the mountain wouldn’t be safe. Why not stay at my place for the night and we’ll head in come morning?”
Silas looked at the hazy outline of the mountains in the distance.
“That makes sense. We’ll trouble you, then.”
They ate a simple meal at the seller’s house.
The food was plain, but it carried a rare kind of peace with it.
As the moonlight came down, Silas sat in the doorway looking up at the clear night sky, feeling an uncommon calm.
Kūkaku had settled down beside him at some point, arms resting on her knees, watching him from the side.
The young man’s white hair glimmered in the dark.
Kūkaku suddenly couldn’t quite recall why she had wanted to tag along.
“You seem to care a lot about those trees. Are they useful to you somehow?”
The girl’s large eyes sparkled in the night as she watched him quietly.
The moonlight fell into his eyes and gave back a calm depth.
“Simple curiosity. That might be where the joy in living is.”
“What about you? Why did you want to come?”
Kūkaku looked off into the distance, then buried her chin in the crook of her arm, leaving only half her face showing.
“Hmm. Probably curiosity too…”
The air went quiet.
A moonlit night, the forest, and the sound of insects.
After sitting a while, Silas yawned and stood to head inside.
“It’s late. Let’s rest. We’ve a walk ahead of us tomorrow.”
Kūkaku watched his back and smoothed down her stray hair.
She didn’t actually have an answer to that question.
The night passed in silence.
Early the next morning, they set out.
The further they pressed into the remote country, the sparser the buildings became, until in the end there was nothing but dense forest.
“We go up from here.” The fruit seller pointed at the mountain range stretching ahead.
“Those trees are deep in the valley, and the path isn’t an easy walk.”
“It’s fine. Lead on, sir.” Silas gestured for him to go ahead.
The three of them entered the mountain forest and followed a rough trail.
After about an hour’s walk, the trees around them grew denser, and the light came filtering through layer after layer of leaves, laying down dappled shadows.
“Nearly there.” The fruit seller wiped the sweat from his forehead.
“It’s just in that valley up ahead.”
They rounded a bend in the mountain, and the view opened up all at once.
A hidden valley lay before them, full of mist, several oddly shaped trees standing quietly in it.
The trees were roughly the height of a person and looked no different from any other tree, except that they didn’t seem very old.
“These are the ones.”
The fruit seller pointed at the little trees.
“I only found them recently. It’s strange. I come up these mountains to cut wood all the time, and I’d never noticed this place before.”
The trunks gave off the faint glow that belonged to fragments, and in Silas’s eyes they blazed.
Kūkaku looked the small trees over, a flicker of doubt in her eyes.
“These trees don’t look any different. Are you sure about this, sir?”
“It’s pleasant enough here, but there’s nothing special about the place. Doesn’t seem like it could grow fruit like that.”
The seller scratched his head.
“It’s these trees, for certain. Look, I picked all the fruit off them. There’s no mistake.”
“Oh, is that right?”
Kūkaku looked around while Silas walked closer and reached out to touch the faint glow on the trunks.
[Obtained Large Spiritual Power Fragment x5, Spiritual Power Level EXP +500]
[Spiritual Power Level Rank Up ↑]
[Spiritual Power Level: Rank 9 (EXP: 255/5000)]
Silas’s heart jolted.
Rich spiritual power flooded his body in an instant, and a sense of clarity ran through the whole of him.
His Spiritual Power Level had broken through.
These few trees had handed him Spiritual Power Level experience worth close to two months at the Shin’ō Academy.
That alone made the trip worth it.
Strangely, though, the system text didn’t disappear.
Under Silas’s gaze, a new line slowly surfaced.
[Obtained Tiny Hōgyoku Fragment, Hōgyoku Awakening Rate +0.05%]
[Unlocked Special Ability: Hōgyoku (Awakening Rate: 0.05%)]
A strange sensation rose in Silas’s chest.
Within a Shinigami’s spirit body, the two great vital points seated in the chest and the abdomen, the Saketsu and the Hakusui, are where spiritual power gathers.
In Silas’s perception, an impossibly small fragment was drifting inside the Saketsu in his chest, merging into his soul.
Composed as Silas was, even he was left staring for a moment.
Hō…gyoku?