REVIEWS AND POWERSTONES PLSSS!!!!!REVIEWS AND POWERSTONES PLSSS!!!!!REVIEWS AND POWERSTONES PLSSS!!!!!Chapter 128: Two Months of Groundwork
More guests kept arriving, and Matsushita Yusuke did his rounds before handing everything back to Soifon.
She was running in every direction at once, but somehow appeared to be enjoying herself.
That back-and-forth continued through several more circuits of greetings, stretching from midday all the way to early evening, until the whole operation was finally wrapped up.
All that was left was feeding everyone and sending them home happy.
On that front, Soifon offered Matsushita Yusuke one of her rarer gestures: genuine approval. The oversized cafeteria had absorbed every guest without issue, with no logistical headaches to speak of.
"You occasionally make actually smart decisions."
"You really can't give a compliment without making it weird, can you."
As for the working relationship between the two of them, it had been developing quickly over these past months. Captain and vice-captain were complementary by design, and after enough time grinding through the same problems together, the way they operated was starting to fit.
"Someone's asking for me. I'll be back."
Soifon tapped him on the shoulder on her way past. Matsushita Yusuke nodded.
"Go. Don't worry about me."
Finally alone, he retreated to the captain's office and settled in for a moment of quiet.
The grin was on his face before he'd fully sat down.
All right. Time to count the haul.
He couldn't help doing the thing where he rubbed his hands together, expression openly anticipatory.
Let's go through it one by one.
Short-term rewards had stacked up considerably. Rather than picking through each individual notification, there was something deeply satisfying about letting it all accumulate and collecting in one clean sweep. Better to let it all hit at once.
He dismissed the individual reward screens and jumped straight to the summary.
Give it to me straight.
First, the stat panel.
[Reiatsu Level: 19] (Current Cap: 65)
[Zanjutsu: 63] [Hakuda: 49] [Hoho: 51] [Kido: 71] (Composite: 100)
[Overall Assessment: Mid-Rank Captain Level]
Compared to two months ago, the numbers had shifted dramatically across the board.
Starting with the Reiatsu Level: based on his own observations and reasoning, Matsushita Yusuke had worked out some time ago that the cap figure was the meaningful indicator. The number to watch.
60 was the threshold. A line in the sand.
Below it: sub-captain territory. Above it: past the standard ceiling, into the range where advancement started pointing somewhere genuinely significant.
A cap of 65 wasn't low, viewed in context. In day-to-day exchanges, running out of steam mid-fight due to insufficient reiatsu wasn't going to be a concern.
Reiatsu mattered. There was no arguing with that.
After all, Aizen Sosuke, Soul Society's foremost Kido scholar and Captain of Squad 5, had once formally proposed the theory that reiatsu was the fundamental measure of combat power. As a card-carrying member of the Club, Matsushita Yusuke was fully committed to defending his boss's academic contributions.
For practical reasons as well: his primary offensive method ran entirely on Kido, and Kido output was directly tied to reiatsu output. Which made this his most essential resource by every reasonable measure.
The problem was that raising this particular number had limited options.
Self-training alone was too slow to be worth the time investment. Quests were the only reliable way to push it upward directly, and that meant the efficient path was always through the quest board.
Even though he'd cleared the 60 threshold, climbing further isn't going to be easy. Reaching Aizen's level, let alone the Captain-Commander's, is a long road from here.
Every time the numbers moved, Yusuke felt a small, genuine satisfaction.
And then he remembered that people operating several times beyond his current ceiling were right next door, and the satisfaction evaporated completely.
Not much to celebrate, honestly.
Better to put his head down and grind through a few more quests.
On that note, he also checked the skills column.
[Skill: Soul of the Blade]
[You bear the name of Kenpachi, and with it the weight of that inheritance. You will push yourself to uphold what that name demands, and in return, the legacy of Kenpachi will stand behind you. A title carried through generations will grant enhancement across multiple disciplines.]
This one had come in about a month ago.
By rights it should have appeared the moment he formally took the post. The delay had been mildly suspicious, and in hindsight, the cause wasn't hard to trace. Approximately one month ago, Unohana Retsu had shown up at his door looking for another round.
He'd assumed that after formally taking over, they were squared away. Clean slate.
Unohana had a different read on the situation.
She came whenever she felt like it. Rain, shine, no occasion necessary, she'd just materialize and expect a fight. She seemed to have decided he was a reasonable substitute for whatever she was actually waiting for.
The commentary practically wrote itself, but honestly? Matsushita Yusuke didn't have strong objections.
Every sparring session brought small quests along with it. The individual gains were modest, but modest gains added up, and in that sense indulging the mad old woman had been quietly productive.
The method didn't really matter. Getting stronger was the goal.
Although.
Wait, is that mindset already Kenpachi-coded?
He blinked, then let out a small laugh and shook his head at himself.
Chasing that line of thought wasn't going to be productive.
Back to the skill.
Soul of the Blade didn't provide passive stat bonuses. What it gave, as best he could work out from testing, was a toggleable state.
When activated, all four core stats each received a boost somewhere in the range of five to ten points.
On paper those numbers were absurd.
He knew exactly how much effort had gone into every single point on that panel, because he'd earned each one personally. The further along the development track you got, the harder the next increment became. A flat bonus of five to ten across the board, on demand, was the kind of thing that broke the normal rules entirely.
But. What's the catch, Gul'dan?
He didn't know yet. The skill had been in his panel since it arrived and he hadn't actually activated it.
Please don't let the cost be something unreasonable. That's all I'm asking.
So: panel improvements, skill acquisition, overall trajectory.
The rough picture was clear. Whatever he'd been operating at two months ago, a bottom-rung captain by any measure, had been pushed up to somewhere around the midpoint of the captain bracket.
The rate of improvement was striking.
But he also understood the shape of it. This was a new content area unlocking and flooding him with update bonuses. It wasn't the normal baseline.
The Academy years had their own ceiling and their own pace. Taking the captaincy had broken that ceiling open and triggered a burst window. Once the burst settled, growth would slow down, find its new rhythm, and level off into something more gradual.
That was the expected progression.
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