The Alchemist in Bleach

The Ghost Sword, as the name suggests, is a strange sword. What is a strange sword?

Is a sword that can change length at any time considered eerie?

Is swordsmanship performed by a sword that can change length at any time considered bizarre?

For short periods, it's two or three inches; for long periods, it's two or three hundred inches!

Ichiro was speechless with astonishment. How could someone master such swordsmanship?

Of course, what puzzled Ichiro even more was that Gin seemed to have stopped pushing his own limits and was now trying to defeat Shinsou tactically.

Thinking about it, Ichiro sighed, but didn't interrupt Gin. Anyway, he'd just cry after it was all over.

Well, at this point, Ichiro still firmly believed that the condition for Bankai was to defeat the sword spirit, but he forgot that when Ichiro was learning Bankai in the original work, the challenge given to him by Uncle Zangetsu was to find the real Zangetsu among countless swords!

However, this is not entirely Ichiro's fault, since he lacks understanding of Bankai. In his previous life, his general understanding of Bankai was that one could use it once they had completely gained the approval of their Zanpakuto.

And what could be more convincing to him than defeating him?

Furthermore, since Urahara Yoruichi achieved her Bankai by defeating the sword spirit, this created a misconception for Ichiro: that using the Transcendental Bankai requires breaking through one's own limits in a short period of time to defeat the sword spirit and gain recognition...

Another reason is that Ichiro did not go through the process of training Bankai. After the world became a Shinigami, his spiritual pressure was in place, and he directly activated Bankai. Therefore, others assumed that he knew about it, and they rarely focused on this term in their usual research.

So the end result is that Ichiro still believes that defeating the sword spirit is the way to obtain the complete Bankai!

Meanwhile, Gin, who had roughly guessed the true method to obtain Bankai, had already begun to take action. While fighting with all his might against Shinsou, he was also sensing the power of the sword spirit Shinsou, using it as a clue to find the power within his own body.

He believes that this may be the purpose of Urahara's invention of the Transcendental Body!

The essence of the Transcendental Body is to assist the Shinigami in training their Bankai. Therefore, if you cannot understand your own Bankai through a sword spirit that possesses Bankai power, then you will not be able to obtain true Bankai!

It's even possible that Bankai might not be possible at all!

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Chapter 219 Bankai: Godslayer Spear

During his battle with the Divine Spear, Silver gradually gained some understanding and began to further imitate the movements of the Divine Spear.

He discovered that the gap between him and the Blade Spirit Spear was not just a difference in strength; in terms of technique, he was not as skilled as the Blade Spirit Spear in using the Shikai of his Zanpakuto.

This caused Gin to temporarily stop exploring Bankai and instead focus on improving his proficiency with Shikai. How could he talk about Bankai if he couldn't even use Shikai properly?

Time passed slowly, and Ichiro's brows began to furrow. Two days had passed since the beginning, and Gin still hadn't succeeded.

He roughly understood why Yin had slowed down the pace, but the problem was that it had dragged on for too long…

Intense battles take a heavy toll on both the mind and body. While physical depletion can be recovered through healing, mental depletion cannot.

If this kind of consumption continues, it will be very detrimental to silver!

But Ichiro had no choice. The battle between the two was still very intense and dangerous, and interrupting it rashly might have the opposite effect.

Furthermore, Ichiro believed that since Gin had made this decision, he must have his own reasons, and Ichiro trusted Gin quite a bit.

Of course, most importantly, by now, he could vaguely sense that his theory about Bankai might, perhaps, be slightly flawed...

This is not surprising, since he himself has not experienced Bankai training and only analyzed it based on existing information. Because Bankai is very difficult, there is relatively little information available. Therefore, it is quite normal for the analysis to contain errors.

Under Ichiro's worried gaze, time slowly passed. Two more days went by, and the battle between Gin and the Blade Spirit Spear continued. At this moment, Ichiro's brows furrowed even more tightly.

Four consecutive days of high-intensity combat without sleep have taken a huge toll!

While Shinigami possess exceptional physical abilities, their physical exertion is equally immense. In fact, there are very few examples of prolonged battles in Soul Society; most battles are resolved quickly.

Therefore, if Yin continues like this, it is very likely, no, it is absolutely certain that something bad will happen!

However, just as Ichiro was about to intervene forcefully, an unexpected event occurred...

Before Ichiro's shocked eyes, a 13-kilometer-long sword appeared out of thin air and pierced through the chest of the sword spirit, Divine Spear!

The sharpshooter stared in astonishment at the long sword piercing his chest, momentarily unable to accept it. Was that all?

However, the surprise was only momentary. A moment later, a warm smile appeared on the sharpshooter's face, and he said softly, "Congratulations, Silver, you succeeded. Say my name now~"

The silver eyes, which held the hilt of the knife at the other end, opened slightly, revealing fatigue, but were filled with a bright light.

His smile was slightly weak, but his voice was unusually firm: "Bankai: God Slayer Spear!"

After saying that, he closed his eyes, leaned forward, and fell to the ground.

"Pfft~"

Before he even landed, Ichiro appeared in front of Gin in an instant, catching him in his arms to prevent him from falling to the ground, and said with satisfaction, "Congratulations, you succeeded."

Ichiro did not immediately take Gin away from the underground space. Instead, he placed him on a rock and began to treat his injuries. At the same time, he fed him some liquid food to replenish his energy.

Currently, although Gin has successfully learned Bankai, to be honest, the process was completely beyond Ichiro's expectations. He originally estimated that with Gin's talent, he should be able to master it in less than two days. After all, they were very serious about training Gin.

But in reality, the time taken almost doubled!

The time lost is a minor matter, since his only important matter recently is the Kido Research Bureau, but that still requires waiting for news from the Ōmaeda family, so there's no rush for now.

What's truly serious is the burden that the extremely long battles place on Silver's body!

My body was severely depleted, and in the end I almost entirely pulled through by sheer willpower!

This made Ichiro realize that his judgment about Bankai might be wrong; the awakening condition shouldn't be defeating a sword spirit, although all current records indicate defeating the sword spirit, but it shouldn't be...

It was these subtle differences that led Ichiro to make the wrong judgment.

Ichiro bears some responsibility for Gin's current condition.

This made Ichiro ponder deeply: when exactly did he lose his reverence for knowledge? Besides the theory of Bankai, was there any other theory of his that was wrong?

Arrogance often arises unexpectedly!

Fortunately, Ichiro discovered this arrogance before it grew too strong, and there was still a chance to salvage the situation.

Just as Ichiro began to reflect on himself, Gin, lying on the rock, also fell into the deepest sleep under Ichiro's skillful touch, and his physical functions were rapidly recovering.

With Ichiro's current skill in the Dao, this small matter is quite easy to handle.

.......

Time passed quickly, and four hours went by. Yin's eyebrows twitched, and he opened his eyes slightly... opened them, but not fully. You couldn't tell whether his eyes were open or not, but he was definitely awake.

"You're awake? What happened? Why are you acting so recklessly? Did you discover something?"

Ichiro, who was sitting to the side reading a book, saw that Gin had woken up, closed the book in his hand, and asked with a smile.

Yin sat up from the ground, nodded, and said, "Yes, during the battle with the Divine Spear, I discovered a problem. When my... So we can deduce that relying on breakthroughs in battle is not feasible. To learn Bankai, one must use the sword spirit manifested by the Transcendent Body as a guide to explore the true Bankai. This should be the function of the Transcendent Body."

"I see. It seems I was wrong after all. So Urahara and the others didn't break through in battle and learn Bankai after defeating the sword spirit. Instead, they learned Bankai from the sword spirit first and then defeated it? Hmm, that should be it."

"Ichiro-senpai, don't you know Bankai? It's easy to misunderstand others, but I remember you know Bankai, right?" Gin looked at Ichiro with confusion.

This was precisely what puzzled him the most. Logically speaking, someone who had mastered Bankai should understand the process and have firsthand experience with it. How could Ichiro, with his abilities, draw the wrong conclusion?

However, this is precisely why Ichiro made the wrong judgment about Bankai. Because he possessed Bankai, everyone around him assumed he knew this, and they rarely discussed the topic with him. On the few occasions they did notice that Ichiro's statements were slightly different, they simply assumed it was a difference in description and didn't think about it further. But who knew...

"Me? I do know Bankai, but I've never practiced it."

"???" Gin looked at Ichiro in confusion. What did he mean by knowing Bankai but not having practiced it? Are there innate Bankai abilities?

"I can use Bankai once my spiritual pressure is high enough, so I have never undergone any Bankai training, whether it is traditional Bankai training methods or the Transcendental Body.

silver:"........"

I'm just a jerk!

Gin swallowed hard, then fell silent. He stood up from the ground, stretched his body slightly, and was about to tell Ichiro about the Bankai ability when he heard Ichiro speak.

"You don't need to tell me about your Bankai abilities. I trust you with tactical arrangements as well. Remember, it's the same old story: a secret is only a secret if only you know it. Once a second person knows it, it's no longer a secret, and the trump card you use is no longer a trump card, because you don't know if there's someone you can't see around you."

Yin nodded, swallowing back the words he was about to say. He still had great faith in Ichiro.

After Ichiro finished speaking, he took the recovered Gin outside and asked curiously on the way, "You must have discovered the secret of Bankai when you used Shikai, right? Then why did it take so long? With your talent, it shouldn't have been difficult."

"Yes, learning Bankai is indeed not difficult, but I spent more time learning how to use Shikai from Shinsou. Compared to him, my use of Shikai is still too poor. Didn't you say that a tall building starts from the ground up? Only with a solid foundation can you better unleash the power of Bankai. Otherwise, a half-baked person may make a lot of noise, but it's not very useful."

Upon hearing this, Ichiro nodded approvingly, finding this attitude quite commendable. However, he still reached out and tapped Gin on the head, offering a word of criticism.

"Your attitude is good, but you have no sense of propriety. If I hadn't been here today, you would be dead!"

"I only felt at ease doing this because I knew you were here, Senior Ichiro."

"Flattery won't work. I'll tell Matsumoto about this and let her teach you a lesson. You deserve it!"

"Uh... Ichiro-senpai, I was wrong!"

.......

When Ichiro brought Gin back to the Fourth Division, it was already past 3 p.m. Seeing that the team was busy, Ichiro sent Gin back to rest, rolled up his sleeves, and went into the nearby general medical center to help.

While taking the wounded and treating their injuries, he asked curiously, "What happened? Why are there so many wounded?"

"Isn't it the Eleventh Division again? They just finished the seat battle a few days ago, and now they're fighting again, and it's getting fiercer and fiercer!"

“Exactly! Ichiro, you really shouldn’t have taught their medical team. Since they got the medical team, they’ve been coming here so much more often than before.”

"Yeah, we used to be a bit restrained because it was too much trouble, but now that the team has a medical squad, everyone's gone wild. The problem is, they're not very good at treating people, so they've sent them all over!"

“…”

When Ichiro asked about this, some of the older members of the squad who were familiar with Ichiro complained to him, but there was nothing he could do. The medical team was the captain's idea, and there was nothing he could do if their skills were not up to par. He couldn't very well just send the people from their Fourth Division over there to cause trouble.

Therefore, he could only offer a helpless smile while treating the patient's injuries.

"Put in some extra effort, consider it practice."

.......

"Whoo~"

After treating the last injured person, Ichiro breathed a sigh of relief, took the water glass handed to him by Sekai, took a small sip, and stared blankly at the green plants in the courtyard.

It seems like it's been a long time since he's been able to dedicate himself so wholeheartedly to medicine. Over the years, he's been busy with various experiments, spending most of his time shuttling between the lab and his dormitory. Sometimes, he even spends several months at the Technology Development Bureau working tirelessly on experiments.

Treating patients with all my might like today feels pretty good.

"It's decided. After the Kido Research Bureau is established, I will stay in the Fourth Division for a while to rest. It's time to relax."

Standing beside Ichiro, Sekai looked at Ichiro's relaxed brow and smiled slightly: "It should have been like this a long time ago. A reasonable schedule is very important."

"Ah."