LIGHTNOVELONLINE 71 – The Hunt
-Back In Hueco Mundo-
Hisashi had been hunting together with the everyone for months and months now. Though Harribel, Nel Tu, Pesche, Dondochakka and BawaBawa were along for the ride the only ones actually hunting Hollow were Hisashi, Apacci, Sung-Sun and Mila Rose. BawaBawa was at least convenient as a form of transport between hunting grounds.
The growth from consuming Hollow below the Vasto Lorde and Arrancar level just wasn't worth it for those at those levels. The only exception was Hisashi who had his system making the consumption process much more efficient and also granting him experience on top of that allowing him to still benefit from hunting weaker prey.
Their followers didn't mind though as Harribel had seemed to really take to doting on Nel Tu just like Hisashi had. She liked to play all sorts of games with them and Hisashi regularly introduced new games with her that they could play to keep her entertained during their downtime between hunts. Besides that what she loved most was riding on Hisashi's shoulders when he dashed around at high speed like he was some kind of rollercoaster ride.
Pesche and Dondochakka were just happy so long as Nel Tu was happy and currently she was happier than they had seen her in quite a while so they gladly followed along with the group. They also stuck close to protect her from any danger.
Mila Rose was actually the one that took to it the most. Probably some kind of subconscious effect of her form being a lion because she definitely had the hunting instinct. She seemed to always be excited to hunt and actually enjoyed hunting together as if they were some kind of pack. She even opened up more to him once they started hunting. Only a little though. She was still the quietest member of the Tres Bestias.
Though Apacci and Sung-Sun were still motivated, even more so with the threat brewing in Las Noches looming over them they just couldn't compete with the passion Mila Rose had for it.
Hisashi was making sure to infuse them with [Spiritual Energy Absorption] whenever it started running low on them so they could absorb as much spiritual energy as possible. Thankfully as a passive skill it was one of the skills that actually cost less of his spirit power to infuse than his active ones making it possible for all three of the girls to have it running around the clock.
As for his own progress.
=Notification Summary=
[+4,556,370 XP from Hollow]
[+223,300 Spirit Power from Hollow]
[+205,436 Spirit Power from Spiritual Energy Absorption]
[+18 Levels]
[+18 Stat points]
=Status Panel=
[Name: Saito Hisashi]
[Soul Age: 58]
[Race: Hollow]
[Rank: Vasto Lorde]
[Level: 212 -> 230]
[XP: 108,630/265,650]
=Stats:=
[Strength: 325]
[Dexterity: 633]
[Constitution: 150]
[Intelligence: 250]
[Spirit Power: 2,620,205 -> 3,048,941]
[Available Stat Points: 0 -> 18]
=Passive Skills:=
[Spiritual Energy Absorption]
[Ultra-Speed Regeneration]
[Acidic Touch]
[Silencioso]
=Active Skills:=
[Soul-Body Separation]
[Spirit Power Concealment]
[Illusory Aura]
[Blut]
[Energy Blade]
[Transcribe]
[Hachigyō Sōgai]
[Cero]
[Kūmon]
[Negación]
[Skill Infusion]
[Sonído]
Maybe it was his nerve about having to face Aizen, but he pumped all of his free stat points into Dexterity. Running was good. Running faster was better. Unfortunately he couldn't outrun the speed of light. At least not yet.
[Dexterity: 633 -> 651]
[Available Stat Points: 18 -> 0]
His stat growth had slowed down drastically as levels were becoming harder to come by and a single stat point meant a lot less to him now after every transformation had multiplied his existing stat points to insane levels. He would take whatever he could get and his spirit power was still growing significantly making up the bulk of his growth now.
They were currently hunting a small group of adjuchas. Between him and the Tres Bestias it wasn't hard to take them down. There were either no or virtually no other Vasto Lorde lurking around Hueco Mundo so the only concern was running into Arrancar from Las Noches, but anything else they ran into didn't stand much of a chance even to Hisashi alone, let alone all four of them.
This batch belonged to Mila Rose so after they had defeated them Mila Rose quickly got to work on devouring them. Even though their bodies lasted longer in Hueco Mundo than they did on Earth the time was still limited. Their corpses would lose energy and slowly dissipate. Hisashi's best guess was that without a valid container spirit particles wanted to equalise just like entropy. Once a soul "died" it was no longer capable of holding on to the spirit particles.
Just like with entropy this meant that Hueco Mundo's high spirit particle density severely slowed down the dissipation process that spread out the spirit particles. The denser the ambient spirit particles were the slower the process. Even Hueco Mundo and Soul Society's higher densities of spirit particles couldn't completely stop the process though so every moment wasted not consuming them was energy lost to the environment.
Before Mila Rose managed to finish the last one though she suddenly paused.
"I feel... strange," she said unsurely.
Hisashi immediately turned to her curiously. "What's it like?" he asked her.
"Like I'm full and about to explode?" she answered unsurely.
"In that case congratulations should be in order," he told her.
She seemed excited from the way her ears and tail were moving.
It seemed the rest had noticed their strange behaviour and came over to check.
"Are you ok Rose?" Harribel asked her with concern.
"I think so," Mila Rose said.
"She should be ready," Hisashi said.
Harribel nodded seriously.
"What?!" Apacci shouted. She seemed upset. It wasn't surprising since all three of them could be quite competitive with each other. Mila Rose and Apacci were definitely the most competitive out of the three of them though.
"We should find a place before she does. I can use my barrier to suppress the effects. It would help to be out of sight so I can set it up," Hisashi said interrupting Apacci before she could start something.
