Living in the forest part 3

Another half a year went by before I knew it. Now that I knew that I no longer needed to worry about picking a zanpakuto that would take decades to master I felt more secure in choosing my spirit abilities. I already reached rank 50 and acquired my fifth spirit ring but I have yet to consolidate these 10 levels. I wonder how much more beautiful I will become once I go through another cleansing. I sat down in my underground lair and entered my inner world.

I sat in front of the orb of vitality and willed a tendrall to envelop me in the rich vital energy. My head clouded over in bliss as the impurities in my skin and hair were cleansed. after only half a day I awoke from my trance and went to the bathing area I set up in my underground training field. A quick wash later and I was staring at my perly white skin in amazement. no blemishes could be seen and my hair was soft as silk. My beautiful appearance took a qualitative leap and reached the ranks of the gods. After indulging myself for about a day over how beautiful I am I focused once more on my cultivation. Lies! it took me two days to get over myself.

Once I was done admiring myself I went into my inner world and used the rest of the energy to age my second spirit ring until it too shone the same radiant red as my first spirit ring. I deemed this an appropriate level and dived into all the possibilities that the abilities of bleach had to offer. The reason I didn't pick Naruto was because I really only wanted a couple of abilities from that world but those could wait until later.

Now that I had my speed and ability to deal crippling damage to others, I needed an ability to restrain. After looking through several options I came upon one that will not only accentuate my beauty but will also compliment my fighting style. Once I made my selection the slot indicating a free space where a spirit skill is supposed to go disappeared. my second spirit ring started glowing a bright red before slowly one by one ice crystals started floating from the oceans depths and hovering mid air in all directions. My inner world had never looked more beautiful.

I found myself standing atop the surface of water so clear you could see down the oceans depth. With countless shimmering balls of light swimming in the deep. butterflies dancing upon the surface of the sea, among the countless diamond like crystals in the air under a midnight sky with flecks of gold dotting the surface of the deep abyss known as space.

I was captivated by every little change my inner world went through and I could not wait to see what came next.

I exited my inner world and summoned my second spirit ability.

"Dance sode no shirayuki"

My asauchi disappeared and in its place came an unfathomable chill as ice spread in all directions with me as the epicenter. a crown of ice crystals floated atop my head releasing my royal aura. It was something I could appreciate.

I chose rukias bankai as my second spirit ring and with it slowly emerged all the memories of how to wield the essence of absolute ice. A decades worth of memories of how rukia wielded her control over ice flooded in the form of golden orbs within the sea of my inner world.

When I chose rukias bankai I gained the ability to freely wield the essence of absolute ice but not the preset powers that come with her release form. If I wanted to use any of sode no shirayuki's dances I would need to reproduce them on my own. while assimilating all the techniques I acquired from my second ring would take at most a month, reproducing the abilities of her release forms to perfection using my own abilities to shape and manipulate the freezing attribute of the sword will take me at least a year. While all the memories of sode no shirayuki were present in the gift package I do not have the same control over ice as her even if I have her experience stored in her memories.

The reason why rukia was able wield the dances in her shikai form was because sode no shirayuki was guiding her attacks with the preset release phrases.

I did not have that liberty but I would rather spend half a year learning to do it myself and gain the ability to freely manipulate the freezing attributes of absolute ice than be limited to four dances of limited range.

So thats what I did. I buckled down to practice recreating the dances, because those four dances represented the pinnacle of ice control sode no shirayuki was able to create and bestow upon those who wielded her.

I started by creating a fine mist with numerous ice crystals floating within. The purpose was to obscure the vision of my opponents while invading them with ice essence stored in the crystals they breath in so I spent a couple of weeks to master releasing this mist as quickly as possible without having it scattered in the wind. I named it crystal mist in memory of zabuza and his silent killing technique.

The next couple of weeks were spent replicating the first dance in which a giant ice circle surrounds my target and shoots a white beam of pure ice essence to flash freez everything above the circle. It took me a while to make it so I could freely switch between it either being cold enough to shatter my opponents into tiny ice crystals or just cold enough to encase them in ice and bind them using the freezing effect without killing them.

the second dance was similar to the first dance but I modified it to encase my opponents in ice by shooting out a ray of absolute ice that will flash freez anything in its way from a white circle array that hovers in mid air.

the third dance I modified to form countless ice swords that I can shoot from mid air. once they shatter they quickly freez their surroundings including the battlefield. The tricky part here was splitting my attention to control multiple ice creations at the same time. luckily for me my dojutsu ability to see in perfect clarity up to 100 meters in perfect 360 degree vision paired with byakuyas experience of wielding millions of sakura petals in battle allowed me to quickly master this form.

the last dance was something I didn't bother modifying because it looked perfect already was the ability to instantly freez my opponents into ice itself. it was the pinnacle and most deadly of all the ice since if the opponents had a ridiculous regenerative ability they could survive the first dance but they would never survive having their entire beings become ice essence and having their existence completely erased.