Let's go, guys! We've finally reached our first goal of 100 power stones, this is the result of your effortless grind!
Now, let's push for 500 power stones by the end of the week! Just tap that fucking vote button, no need to risk your life carrying a scorching-hot potato like a power stone! Hurry up and drop it here! 🔥✨
----
The words sounded grand.
In truth, that night Makoto managed only three or four extra punches before collapsing on the spot.
Extreme sports as a pastime? Best not to push it without supervision.
[Weakling! Weakling!]
The bratty system cackled mercilessly.
Too bad Makoto was out cold, dead to the world, deaf to its taunts.
Still, the spirit deserved some credit.
To chronicle his journey from nothing to something, Makoto sought out paper and pen from the school that very day, embarking on Makoto Fujimiya's Struggle Diary.
"No effort, no reward. To walk further down the Shinigami path, to prove I'm not just some cheat meat riding, I resolve to start striving today!"
"Most folks at the Genji School hail from Rukongai's streets, illiteracy's the norm, and barely three in ten can read. They're a bunch of mumbling dolts who can't even say what year it is on the Soul King's calendar. I asked about the living world's timeline, some died in Tenpyō 10, others in Enkyō 20. I tried converting it…"
"…then remembered I'm illiterate too."
"Anyway, I'll just track time since I joined the Genji School."
[Genji Calendar]
[January 13: Tonight, Sasakibe-san bared his soul to me. Sure, he whipped me with that bamboo stick, but he's a good guy. To honor our bond, I pushed to 104 punches today.]
[As the saying goes, No small steps, no great distances. If I improve by 4% daily, compounding exponentially, I'll hit fifty times my current strength in just a hundred days! Two hundred days, twenty-five hundred times! Three hundred days, thirteen thousand times! My will's only going to toughen.]
[As long as I keep progressing… I'll outstrip even Kakarot!]
[That's right!]
[A man proves himself through action! I'm not some loser leaning on a bratty cheat!]
[Watch me land ten thousand gratitude punches a day!]
[January 14: Hit 104 again.]
[Could've squeezed out one more, but Sasakibe-san zapped me three times, so I had to redo a round. That electrified bamboo stings like hell, but it's definitely for my own good.]
[Yes! Sasakibe-san's a solid guy.]
[Keep it up, Makoto!]
[Tomorrow's you's got this.]
[January 15: 104. Hurts, but I can hang on]
[January 16: 104. Really hurts.]
[January 17: Same as above.]
[January 18: Ditto.]
[January 19: Crawled back tonight.]
[Fuck you, Sasakibe! Why's he hitting harder every day?!]
[Sasakibe! May your son be born without a foreskin!]
[Keep pushing!]
[January 20: Makoto, this can't go on.]
[If this keeps up, the Sekkiseki might not kill me, but Sasakibe's bastard hands sure will.]
[Wake up, my unrivaled talent!]
[The front courtyard's teeming with Rukongai students in class. A quick stroll, and I'm bound to find some fierce or smelly-footed girl to catch that lousy blade's eye!]
[Why am I even wrestling this stupid rock?]
[January 21: Took on nearly thirty, none could fight worth a damn. Most were weaker than me and couldn't even cough up points. I'll check again tomorrow.]
[January 22: Spotted a guy named Satō bullying someone in the corner. Who could ignore that?]
[Tch, you're the one.]
[January 23: Eat, sleep, beat Satō.]
[January 24: Eat, sleep, beat Satō.]
[January 25: Eat, sleep, beat Satō.]
[January 26: Stumbled on a bespectacled girl in the library bigger than even Unohana!]
[Noted. Next time she's alone, I'll test my blade on her.]
[January 27: Satō tried to run today. Beat him twice, he says he won't try again.]
[January 28: Damn it! Satō's gone.]
...
A moonless night cloaked the sky, the wind howling high, whispering through the silent woods beyond the thicket.
A figure draped in pitch-black garb crouched deep within the bamboo grove, his gaze fixed on a modest bamboo hut aglow with faint light spilling from its window.
Though the Genji School's facilities and lodgings were spartan to a fault, its commitment to nurturing skilled scribes and Kidō masters meant nearly all its vast library was laid bare to its students, no secrets withheld.
As a former student himself, the man in black knew this well.
With a subtle gesture, he beckoned to the shadows.
A sharp whoosh cut the air as several figures, clad in identical dark attire, emerged from the dense forest around him.
The lead silhouette slowly peeled back his mask, revealing a face battered black and blue, swollen and stern.
This was Satō.
Or rather, his true name was Nobukazu Hachiya.
A lesser scion of the Hachiya branch, a minor noble clan tied to the Central 46, he served under the covert command of the Onmitsukido.
Years ago, he'd been dispatched on orders from above, sent to infiltrate District 64's calamity zone, tasked with gathering intelligence and, if the chance arose, assassinating key figures of the Genji faction, chief among them Genryusai Shigekuni Yamamoto.
Don't ask how he accepted such a mission, nor how he planned to kill Yamamoto afterward.
After all, the collective madness of the Central 46 was a truth universally acknowledged in the Seireitei.
In short, since arriving, Nobukazu had operated under the guise of Satō, a lowly student, biding his time behind enemy lines for years with little to show for it.
That quiet routine shattered not long ago.
Through eyes narrowed to slits by swollen bruises, Nobukazu glared at the lit study in the distance, his expression venomous.
Ever since that Genji member, Makoto Fujimiya, appeared at the school days prior, he'd latched onto him, relentlessly seeking confrontations, probing his strength.
Had Nobukazu not clung to the caution of a seasoned infiltrator, enduring beatings without revealing his true skill, he'd have been exposed during those early skirmishes.
Even so, that faint thread of suspicion set alarm bells ringing in his mind.
He knew he might've slipped during one of his covert interrogations of the students.
Yet, whether the enemy couldn't confirm the intel's validity or his disguise was simply too flawless, days of surveillance yielded no sign of Makoto reporting to his superiors.
It seemed the kid just wanted a fight.
But as a professional operative, Nobukazu refused to tolerate even the slightest flaw in his mission.
If that was the case, erasing the threat physically was his only option.
One of his team slipped silently to his side.
"Sir, frontline reports confirm several Genji leaders departed for District 40 today."
"Currently, only the target and the librarian remain in the study."
"Your orders?"
Finally!
The moment the report hit his ears, Satō's battered, round face twisted into a grimace of feral glee.
Tonight, he'd repay every bruise from those past days!
You damned brat, I'll make you taste what I've endured!
"Go!"
---
T/L: Do you have a guess who the librarian with bigger boobs than Unohana's is?
***
Bonus Chapter:
100 Power Stones = 1 BC
300 Power Stones = 2 BC
500 Power Stones = 3 BC
700 Power Stones = 4 BC
1000 Power Stones = 5 BC