r18novel Chapter 52 The True Purpose of Squad 0
Chapter 52 The True Purpose of Squad 0
If this spirit rice is successfully bred and widely cultivated, the rice eaten daily by all the Shinigami of the Gotei 13 can be transformed into spirit rice.
No need for Kiryu to personally intervene, no additional costs required; simply sow the seeds, wait for them to grow, and cook them into food. This means an army can receive a continuous and stable spiritual pressure enhancement from its daily diet, a gradual and cumulative process.
"I have a feeling we've created something amazing."
Shen Yi muttered to himself.
Before transmigrating, when he was just a spectator, he hadn't really thought much about the Zero Division's setup. But after transmigrating and personally experiencing how Soul Society operates, he felt something was off about the Zero Division's selection mechanism.
The selection criteria for the Zero Division is "those who have created something of great significance to Soul Society"—in other words, those who have made a huge contribution.
This seems reasonable at first glance; those who have made contributions should deserve higher status and honor.
But the question is, what is the true responsibility of the Zero Division?
They are the guardians of the Spirit King, the last line of defense that serves as the wedge maintaining the balance of the three realms. Since they are guardians, the strongest person should be chosen to take on this role, not the one who has made the greatest contribution.
It's like a country selecting elite troops to defend its homeland, but instead of choosing from strong and capable soldiers, it pulls civilian personnel and scientists to fight. Yes, that's right, a genius scientist can be worth a thousand soldiers, and scientific research results can multiply the combat effectiveness of the entire army several times over, but asking him to personally go to the battlefield and fight the enemy with bayonets is just crazy.
Take Kiryu Hikifune, for example. As a captain, her strength is certainly not bad, but she's only at an average level within the Gotei 13. Her promotion to the Zero Division was entirely due to her groundbreaking "Temporary Soul" technique, not because of her fighting prowess.
In the manga, Nimaiya Oetsu has his moments of glory, and in the anime, Senjumaru also has his moments of glory, but she is basically just a tool and background character for the protagonist to become stronger.
Thinking of the other members of Squad Zero, Shen Yi recalled their contributions to Soul Society.
Oetsu Nimaiya's Zanpakuto, Shutara Senjumaru's Shinha armor, and Kirinji Tenjiro's medical hot springs—these technologies, when they were first created, were all groundbreaking inventions capable of changing the landscape of Soul Society.
However, since their creators were promoted to Squad Zero, these technologies have not made any substantial progress.
The Zanpakuto remains the same Zanpakuto. The Shikai and Bankai are entirely up to the Shinigami to figure out. Most Shinigami don't even know that their Zanpakuto is made from multiple Hollows. They don't even understand the essence of their own swords, so how can they have Bankai?
Needless to say, the Shinigami armor, although officially it is said to have considerable resistance to impact and slashing, and can effectively transmit the Shinigami's spiritual pressure without hindering combat movements.
In reality, the Shinigami Armor didn't show any defensive power in actual combat. Even an ordinary Hollow could easily tear it apart. Shinigami would still be bitten to death if they were meant to be bitten to death, or stabbed to death if they were meant to be stabbed to death. The black cloth's enhancement to Shinigami was almost negligible.
As for Ichigo Kurosaki's Shinigami robe that can self-repair and whose spiritual pressure increases as it becomes more complete—that thing is not a Shinigami robe at all. It is actually the Quincy's Shizuseki robe, or at least a Shinigami robe that has been fused with Quincy power.
On the contrary, the Technology Development Bureau founded by Kisuke Urahara completely changed the daily life of the Shinigami in just over a hundred years.
The most typical example is the Divine Messenger. Before this thing appeared, the Grim Reapers had been using the Hell Butterfly for thousands of years.
These spirit beings are essentially carrier pigeons. Their advantage is convenience and efficiency; they can accurately locate the recipient through spiritual pressure. However, they can only transmit information in one direction and lack real-time interaction capabilities. In an emergency, by the time the butterfly arrives, it's too late.
Why did the creators who could change Soul Society have their technology stagnate after being promoted to the Zero Division?
A bolder hypothesis gradually took shape in Shen Yi's mind: the existence of the Zero Squad was never meant to reward innovation, but rather to prevent it.
To put it bluntly, the true purpose of the Zero Division is to remove those geniuses who could potentially shake the foundations of Soul Society from the historical stage, make them the guardians of the Soul King, and then isolate them from the world in the name of "protecting the Soul King."
Although the monk Hyosube Ichibei was not one of the five nobles who betrayed King Rei, he was also an observer and acquiescer of that conspiracy. Later, he even became King Rei's protector. For him, the most important thing was not justice, fairness, or progress, but stability.
He would never allow any change to the balance that had been maintained for thousands of years. In the original story, he even stated explicitly: if the Soul King could no longer serve as a wedge, then let Ichigo Kurosaki become the next Soul King.
From the audience's perspective, Aizen and Yhwach are indeed villains.
But Aizen probably killed fewer people than Retsu Unohana did back then. That first Kenpachi was a truly unprecedented and unparalleled villain who slaughtered his way through the chaotic world of Soul Society.
The biggest reason why Aizen and Yhwach became enemies of Soul Society was not how many people they killed or how many bad things they did, but that they wanted to change the world. Aizen did not want a false king to stand in the sky, and Yhwach did not want his "father" to become a pathetic puppet.
However, if we turn our attention back to Ichigo Kurosaki, his position is actually quite delicate.
Kurosaki Ichigo is true to his name; all he wants is to protect those he cares about. As for the millennia-old feuds between the Soul Society, Hueco Mundo, Hell, and the factions of Shinigami, Quincy, and Fullbringers, he doesn't really care.
If it weren't for the schemes of those ambitious individuals that one after another affected his family and friends, he would never have willingly gotten involved in this war that spanned the three realms.
This is why, in the original story, Gin Ichimaru said that Ichigo Kurosaki's "eyes were full of confusion" when they were fighting in Karakura Town—in Ichigo Kurosaki's mind, he was just an ordinary high school student, but he inexplicably became a savior and was pushed step by step to the front line of the battlefield.
Only at the very end did he truly understand his own heart and carry out the path of protection to the very end.
But this has nothing to do with Soul Society itself—it protects specific individuals, not the corrupt system.
"It's not that exaggerated."
Yizhou Tongsheng's voice pulled Shen Yi back to reality from her reverie. She was still examining the rice seedling in her hand, the purple ends of her hair hanging down and brushing against the tips of the rice leaves, and said nonchalantly, "At most, it can only be promoted to the level of a seat official."
After speaking, she looked down at the rice seedling again and gently touched the tender green leaves with her fingertips. The leaves trembled slightly, as if responding to her touch.
That's really exaggerated!
It should be noted that the Seat Officer is already the pinnacle for most Shinigami—although most Seat Officers seem to be no different from cannon fodder to true powerhouses, being instantly killed in the Thousand-Year Blood War.