Chapter Sixty-One: The Quincy

“Enough with the small talk. I have other tasks to attend to.” The man’s wristwatch suddenly chimed, cutting short the teaching assistant’s pleasantries. He reached into his storage space and produced a Quincy cross and a small test tube. “This Quincy cross contains the entirety of a Quincy’s skills. Since your AT field can generate spirit particles, you should be able to use it. The method is the same as with a skill transmission jade. Moreover, this cross itself is crafted from the finest materials, making it the perfect medium for spirit particle gathering. As for the test tube, it holds Yhwach’s blood, containing fragments of his soul capable of constructing a Schrift. Don’t worry about being countered by the Auswählen—Yhwach’s personal will has already been wiped clean.”

As he spoke, the man seemed to recall something else and added, “The Auswählen is exactly that phenomenon you hypothesized in your thesis as the reason for Ichigo’s mother’s death. Your guess was spot-on—Ichigo’s mother really was a Quincy. As for the Schrift, it’s just as you theorized: a mysterious power akin to a Soul Reaper’s released Zanpakuto. You actually deduced the story from the author’s thought process—and you succeeded! You’ve got promise!”

With that, he patted Feng Xue on the shoulder, turned, and hurried off, leaving Feng Xue standing in the wind, clutching the two artifacts in utter bewilderment.

...

In this world, the plot of “Bleach” had been lost from the Fullbringer arc onward. There were only scattered fragments, nothing systematic. Even after venturing into a demi-plane to explore the storyline, only part of the Fullbringer arc had been recovered. As for the Quincy Wandenreich and such, they were utterly out of reach.

Why? Just think about the map in the latter part of Bleach! The Quincy invaded the Soul Society, then came the Royal Guard, the Soul King’s palace...

As a transmigrator with only the fate of a side character, what right did you have to join such a war?

As for the source of Ichigo’s power and the cause of his mother’s death, only Isshin Kurosaki, Ryuuken Ishida, and Kisuke Urahara knew the truth. In the story, it was only ever revealed in conversations between Isshin and Ichigo. How could an outsider possibly know?

To avoid these pitfalls, Feng Xue approached the problem from the author’s perspective, reasoning backwards from already-known results—

First, it was known that the world of Bleach featured four types of powers or races (Bounts were artificial and filler, so not counted): Soul Reapers, Quincies, Hollows, and Humans. These four powers corresponded to one another.

Since Quincies could destroy Hollows while Soul Reapers could only purify them, it followed that Soul Reapers corresponded with Humans, and Quincies with Hollows.

So far, Ichigo possessed the powers of Soul Reaper, Hollow, and Human. There was no reason he would lack Quincy powers. Adding in the fact that his father was a Soul Reaper, his mother could hardly be an ordinary person; most likely, she was a Quincy.

This could also be deduced from the structure of the story. The protagonist had gained a Zanpakuto to fight Soul Reapers in the Soul Reaper arc, attained Hollowfication to confront Hollows in the Arrancar arc, and could use Fullbring to oppose Fullbringers in that arc. Logically, there would be a “Quincy arc” in the later plot, in which Ichigo would acquire Quincy powers, with the enemy likewise being Quincies. However, such power could not appear out of thin air, so his mother being a Quincy was certain—and not just any Quincy, but a remarkable one.

But why would a Quincy fall so easily to a Hollow? That would surely become the narrative linchpin of the Quincy arc.

Having established that the Quincy arc would appear, one could next consider the potential of the Quincies.

The Quincies had been nearly annihilated by the Soul Reapers, so any returning Quincy faction would naturally be the Soul Reapers’ enemies, setting the stage for another war between the two. As antagonists meant to draw in the protagonist, Quincies had to surpass the Soul Reapers in strength.

Yet Soul Reapers wielded Zanpakuto and Bankai, with all their astonishing powers, while the only glimpse of Quincy might seen so far came from Uryu Ishida—a mere hint. The only power able to contend with Bankai had been the “Final Quincy Form,” which, once used, cost the Quincy all their powers. This could not serve as a standard means of combat, so in the later story, such power would inevitably become normalized, akin to Shikai or Bankai for the Soul Reapers.

But that alone would not suffice. If all Quincies became carbon copies of one another, and every fight devolved into the same formula, readers would grow weary. The author would surely bestow each Quincy with unique abilities, just as every Soul Reaper had a different Zanpakuto.

Thus, the story would evolve into a chess match of ability-revealing and countering between Soul Reapers and Quincies, relying on wit or strength to overcome the enemy’s power.

Therefore, Quincies must have some means of obtaining unique personal powers, a method rivaling or even surpassing a Soul Reaper’s Bankai!

Since this power did not require the soul-based acquisition of Soul Reaper or Hollow abilities, nor the trauma of a parent attacked by a Hollow for Fullbring, it should be the easiest of the four major powers in Bleach to obtain, with potential no less than that of the protagonist Soul Reaper.

The specifics of this method were unclear, but as the last Quincy in the living world, Uryu Ishida was sure to obtain such power—perhaps by joining the Quincy faction. In the logic of shonen manga, he would inevitably defect back to the protagonist’s side in the end. By following the trail of Uryu Ishida, it should be possible to track down the method for acquiring this power.

...

This, then, was the general content of Feng Xue’s thesis. For someone who knew the entire plot, reverse-engineering such an essay was child’s play. But to outsiders, it was an eerily precise, almost prophetic deduction.

Had this thesis appeared in his previous life, it would have earned him, at most, the title of “prophet” when the manga reached the corresponding chapters. In this era, however, such a work was enough to increase a soul-type transmigrator’s power by thirty percent!

It could be said: the influence of this thesis meant that even if Feng Xue chose to drop out and live the rest of his life idly, under the protection of the various soul-type transmigrators, he could easily become a leader of a mid-tier faction.

Of course, these were not Feng Xue’s immediate concerns. At this moment, he was wholly focused on comprehending the information within the Quincy cross.

For reasons unknown, this cross was not the pentacle design favored by advanced Quincies, but rather resembled the cruciform style Uryu Ishida first used. Yet from the moment Feng Xue touched it, the surge of spirit particles around him made clear this was no ordinary artifact.

“Spirit particle gathering... Flying Scythe Kick. These seem straightforward enough. Blood Veil—will that interfere with the AT field’s defense? The Vollständig actually requires activating both Blood Veil and Blood Armor at once—that’s a heavy load. But with a body reinforced by Gourmet Cells, I should manage... There it is, the Schrift! So I just need to drink this?”

Feng Xue produced the test tube containing Yhwach’s blood. It was small, holding only about two milliliters, sealed with a simple wooden stopper. It looked unremarkable, yet the moment Feng Xue pulled the cork, a sharp, chilling spiritual pressure burst forth from within.

“Is this really drinkable?” With cold sweat on his brow, Feng Xue held the tube before his face. Thinking of the Schrift’s formidable power, he gritted his teeth, shut his eyes, and downed the scarlet liquid in one gulp.