8 8 - Small Discovery

The next day, Rumi woke up to the sunlight directly hitting her face. As she opened her eyes and got up lazily, she realized that she was alone in the house.

"Huh? Where'd Rukia and Renji go?" Rumi muttered, looking at the empty house.

"Maybe they went out to get breakfast? Man, I hope I get to eat my typical breakfast here..I hope it's not that onigiri again."

After fantasizing about the food she'd rather be eating for a good few minutes, she finally decided to do something.

"Well, let's just check on my reiryoku progress first.." She muttered before checking her stats.

[Name : Fujiwara Rumi.

Age : 2 days. (Soul Society)

Race : Newly crossed soul.

Relationships : Abarai Renji (Acquaintance), Rukia (Acquaintance).

Reiryoku level : Moderate.

Stored reiryoku : 157/1000.

Skills : Sloth (Passive), Guradian's Vigil (Passive), Fire Resistance (Passive).

Tools : None.]

Looking at the amount of stored reiryoku, Rumi was quite surprised.

"Wait, how long did I sleep again?"

[Answer, you slept for 11 hours this time.]

"11 hours?!" Rumi found that it was a little absurd. Before she went to bed last night, she slept for a total of 11 hours just in the cave. It should already be too much sleep for anyone, yet she had dozed off after dinner.

She thought even if she slept, she wouldn't sleep that long since she had plenty of sleep already.

But, now..she realized how wrong she was.

She slept for eleven hours without even waking up once.

"That's a total of 22 hours in a day." Rumi muttered with a chuckle. "Never thought I'd be getting this much sleep in afterlife."

Now that she thought about it, she had been asleep for more time than she had been awake in Rukongai. Apart from following that one guy, finding a cave full of bodies and following Renji to find Rukia, she really didn't do anything much.

"And yet I already got over 15 percent of the required reiryoku just by sleeping. Talk about being efficient." Rumi nodded, as a weird sense of accomplishment and satisfaction flowed through her mind.

With a good mood, Rumi decided to go for a walk and stretch her legs.

Walking out of the house, she saw that the sun was already high up in the sky. It seemed that she had been sleeping until afternoon.

She walked for a while until she ended up at an open space with fewer trees. But, what surprised her a little was the two figures standing there.

It was Rukia and Renji, they seemed to be training.

Renji was focused and it seemed like a rather difficult training as he was sweating, despite all he was physically doing was standing while having his hands out.

Rumi took a closer look and soon realized that he was doing a reiatsu training. He seemed to be channeling his reiryoku somehow and exert it as reiatsu.

"Interesting." She muttered as she watched carefully.

Rukia also seemed to be doing well herself and soon, Rumi saw a light ball coming out of Rukia's palm.

"Wow, so that's reiatsu?" Rumi asked, walking over to them.

Both Renji and Rukia looked surprised to see her, before Renji scoffed and said, "Oh, seems like our freeloader is finally awake."

"Freeloader? Who?" Rumi asked, as if she was oblivious.

"Come on, you clearly know who I'm talking about." Renji said.

"Nope."

"You..." Renji gritted his teeth, before turning away with a huff.

Rukia laughed at Renji's reaction and decided to join in bullying Renji, "Well, I believe Renji here is calling you a freeloader."

"Me?!" Rumi exclaimed like she had just realized this and turned to Renji, "How could you say such cruel words to me?!"

"Cruel? Please, if I wanted to say cruel words, I wouldn't have just stopped at calling you freeloader." Renji replied.

"What does that suppose to mean?!" Rumi said, crossing her arms. "Also, it's you guys not waking me up. How's that my fault?"

"Seriously now that's my fault?" Renji said, rolling his eyes.

"Well.."

"Come on, if you two don't stop fighting, I'm gonna get better scores than you at the exam." Rukia said with a smirk.

"As if I'd let that happen!" Renji said, turning his attention to Rukia now.

'They sure are lively.' Rumi thought as she watched them banter. Looking at their close relationship, she felt a little warmth in her chest and maybe even a little envious as she also realized she had no such relationship.

But, maybe that was for the best.

Rumi lightly shook her head at the thought.

Just then, Rukia turned towards her and asked.

"Rumi, you haven't been able to reiatsu yet, right?" Rukia said. "Do you want my help? Of course, you have to do all my chores-"

"Ah..forget it then." Rumi replied, sitting down and leaning her back to a tree nearby. "I'll just watch you guys train first."

Rumi said that just because she didn't want the chores. Besides, if they were already calling her a freeloader, she thought there was no reason as to why she shouldn't just go with that. It benefitted her anyways.

With that thought process, she observed how Rukia and Renji practiced exerting their reiatsu.

Rukia was a bit skeptical to just let her watch at first but fortunately, she decided to let her be.

As Rumi observed, she noticed a subtle shift in the air around Renji and Rukia. Renji's aura seemed to pulse with a rhythmic energy, like waves crashing against a shore, then receding. The air around him shimmered slightly, a faint visual dance of his reiryoku being channeled outward. Rukia's reiatsu, in contrast, was more refined and controlled, resembling a gentle but persistent breeze that swirled around her, causing small eddies of dust to rise and fall in a delicate dance.

She was just looking yet she was noticing their reiatsu.

'How's this possible?' She thought.

[Answer: this is due to the efficiency enhancement of passive skill, Sloth. As of now, it is being multiplied by ten times of your normal observational learning efficiency.]

'So, it turned out to be Sloth. What a cheat skill.' Rumi thought. Although she couldn't deny that she loved this.

'Well, might as well try it out.' She thought before started to focus on her own reiryoku in her body. Since she was learning how to do it, why not try it firsthand?

Although it was her first time trying this, Rumi sensed a flow of energy in her body. It was like a gentle breeze, cool and comforting but at the same time, it felt strong.

Rumi imagined herself releasing it outwards while closing her eyes and paying close attention to her reiryoku in her body. As she went into deep focus mode and let some of the reiryoku out, she felt that there was suddenly a small gush of wind around her.

"What..what's that?" Rukia muttered, confused by the sudden wind. Then, her eyes fell on Rumi who seemed to surrounded by it.

But, as she was about to say something, the wind died down pretty quickly. It was as quick as it came and it happened so fast that Rukia wasn't entirely sure if her eyes were seeing things or not.

Rumi opened her eyes at that moment and muttered, "So..that's how you do reiatsu."

Renji, who was engrossed in his training, turned to Rumi and said, "Heh, what? You're seriously going to say you learned how to use reiatsu just by looking once?"

Rumi nodded her head and smiled, "Exactly!"

"Look at this!" She said as she prepared to show off.

After all, what was the point of getting powers if she didn't show off?

With Renji and Rukia watching her, Rumi closed her eyes and exerted some of her reiryoku just like earlier. This time, another small gush of wind enveloped her before quickly disappearing.

"....that's your reiatsu." Renji said quietly, still looking at the remnants of the quick wind. "And you just replicated what we were doing? That should be unreal!"

"So I wasn't seeing things after all." Rukia commented, "Learning it just by looking and this reiatsu..honestly, it's kind of scary."

Even Renji had to agree to that, "Yeah, honestly, it's hard to believe you just got here yesterday. Man, you're gonna be one heck of a Shinigami."

"Haha. Thanks." Rumi wasn't modest at all with Rukia and Renji's admiration. She was feeling proud of it and it was all shown on her face, like saying to praise her more.

While Rumi was enjoying the spotlight, she heard a notification from system.

[You have impressed the individuals, Rukia and Abarai Renji with your reiatsu. Please choose one of the three options for reward.]

Rumi was taken aback by the suddeness of the system notification. It had happened once before, when she had woken up by that mysterious voice in her dream and avoided a potential diseaster. Back then, she also got new skill options where she ended up choosing Guardian's Vigil to help her achieve Sloth's full potential.

'So..how system works is..I can also get new rewards and options if I clear some of its hidden conditions?' Rumi guessed.

The phrasing and timings so far looked like they were rewards for completing quests. However, since there were no quests shown to her, she naturally guessed that there were hidden conditions and quests which she needed to find and clear in order to get more reward options.

'This should be really interesting if it's true..' Rumi thought to herself, barely holding back a smile. That would look pretty weird to Rukia and Renji if she were to start smiling for no reason.

"Rukia, Renji, I think I'm gonna take a little nap over there." Rumi said, pointing to the tree where she sat and looked at their training earlier. Since it would also look weird if she was suddenly spacing out as well, Rumi decided to make up an excuse of needing a nap.

Rukia and Renji looked at her, a bit dumbfounded.

Renji couldn't contain his inner thoughts anymore as he asked, "A nap? Didn't you just wake up or something?"

"No, I woke up like an hour ago so obviously I need a nap." Rumi replied. She thought it was better to lower their expectations now so that she could be a freeloader in peace.

Renji looked at her as if she had grown a second head and asked, "How?!"

"Secret!" Rumi said with a smile and then headed back to the tree to pretend to nap. Renji looked like he wanted to banter some more but she closed her eyes just in time before he could manage to say anything else.

With that, Rumi finally had the chance to space out all she wanted.

'Alright, let's relax and see what the options this time are.' Rumi told herself before finally checking the options. There were three options like the previous times, meaning it could be a rule that system would offer her three choices every time.

[Option 1 : Swift Recovery.

(Short description - It is an active skill that accelerates your natural healing and recovery process, by enhancing body's ability to recuperate from physical exhaustion, minor injuries and reiryoku depletion.)

Option 2 : Mind's Momentum.

(Short description - It is an active skill that boosts your cognitive abilities and reaction speed by allowing you to process information amd stimuli at an accelerated rate.)

Option 3 : Reiatsu Echos.

(Short description - It is an active skill that increases sensitivity to reiryoku and reiatsu in surroundings, and the ability to sense the fluctuations in reiatsu will be enhanced.)]

As she looked at the options this time, Rumi fell into a deep thought.

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A/N: Sorry for the delay.

I forgot to have the chapter scheduled to release at 12:30 am and fell asleep :(

I just realized so yeah, here we go