Chapter 258: The Hokage Parallel World
Three days ago, while flying over this area, the desert below suddenly displayed an illusory image of a ruined city, like a mirage.
In the center of this illusory ruin, there was something that looked like an altar, engraved with sealing symbols.
Unfortunately, the image disappeared too quickly for Li Yao to see clearly.
However, even after the illusion vanished, Li Yao continued to sense an extremely faint energy fluctuation.
It definitely wasn't natural energy—Li Yao was certain.
Because this kind of energy could be sensed, but not touched. Like the reflection of the moon in water—visible, but untouchable.
It was like a true mirage—perceptible, yet intangible.
Natural energy didn't behave like that.
Natural energy was omnipresent—even in desert regions it was abundant, not limited to places with vegetation.
If what he sensed had been natural energy, it wouldn't have been so faint, so easily missed unless focused upon.
In short, after discovering this unique energy, Li Yao became intrigued and stopped, focusing entirely on sensing it.
At first, he wasn't sure if this could be energy from the Dragon Vein.
But this morning, as the illusions of the ruined city began appearing more frequently, Li Yao finally managed to get a good look at the altar and the sealing script engraved on it. What really confirmed it was the Flying Thunder God kunai stuck into the altar.
Only then did Li Yao realize what this city ruin illusion actually was:
The Rōran ruins from the Naruto movie The Lost Tower.
Once he remembered Rōran, he had a pretty good guess as to what kind of energy he was sensing—it was very likely the Dragon Vein.
Li Yao didn't remember much about The Lost Tower's plot.
Only that Naruto and a younger Minato had teamed up in a time-travel-based adventure.
The Dragon Vein, as described in many early Naruto fanfictions, was supposedly a chakra source formed from a part of the Ten Tails' body, a kind of tailed beast-level existence.
But after the final arc of the original series, that theory fell apart.
Rather than the Dragon Vein's massive chakra reserves, Li Yao was more interested in its ability to manipulate time and space.
There was no doubt: Naruto's time-travel to the past had been triggered by the Dragon Vein's power.
Time-space abilities—especially those allowing travel across timelines—were critical.
If he could use the Dragon Vein to develop a corresponding time-space chakra, then Li Yao might actually stand a better chance when facing the Ōtsutsuki clan in the future.
At the very least, if he couldn't win, he could escape through time and space, regroup, and try again later.
Or, going even further—he might even be able to travel into other anime worlds someday.
The possibilities were exciting.
But there was a problem troubling him.
According to the canon timeline, the city of Rōran shouldn't have been destroyed yet—it should still exist.
But in this Naruto world he had landed in, the Kingdom of Rōran seemed to be nothing more than legend.
From what Li Yao's Wind Clone had found while investigating in Sunagakure, there was one key detail:
"Illusory."
Some had reported seeing a city in the desert, and even claimed to have entered it.
But the city behaved like a mirage—an illusion. Those who entered couldn't touch anything within it.
Others, like Li Yao now, had seen ruins—but again, only as projections, completely untouchable.
There were a fair number of such accounts, but all described only an illusory mirage.
It seemed the Kingdom of Rōran didn't actually exist in this version of the Naruto world.
"Could it be that I've transmigrated into a version of Naruto where Rōran never existed?"
A sudden hypothesis took root in Li Yao's mind—and the more he considered it, the more plausible it seemed.
As is well known, Naruto contains the concept of parallel worlds. The ability to travel back in time wasn't limited to the Dragon Vein—in the later Boruto arcs, there were also powers allowing time travel.
This meant there were many timelines—many versions of the Naruto world. In other words, parallel universes.
If that were true, then Fugaku's Mangekyō Sharingan's inability to see any future where Li Yao existed made perfect sense.
Li Yao suddenly realized—
He had always suspected that Fugaku's Mangekyō Sharingan didn't truly "see" the future.
After replicating Fugaku's chakra and activating that "future-seeing" ability on himself, Li Yao saw nothing in the future that included himself.
At first, he thought it was due to his unique status as a transmigrator.
But now he understood: Fugaku's Sharingan wasn't seeing this world's future—it was showing him glimpses of future timelines in parallel Naruto worlds.
Just like in Avengers: Infinity War, where Doctor Strange watched countless possible future outcomes—not of one world, but of many parallel timelines.
In essence, Strange wasn't seeing the future of his own world—he was witnessing actual futures that had already occurred in other timelines.
The same applied to Fugaku's Mangekyō Sharingan.
It displayed real outcomes from parallel timelines that had already progressed into the "future."
But Li Yao had only crossed into one version of the Naruto world.
Since this world's future hadn't reached that point yet, Fugaku's eye technique naturally couldn't display a future where Li Yao would die.
Because among all Naruto parallel worlds, only this one had Li Yao.
In all others—he simply didn't exist.
"Then what about the Great Toad Sage of Mount Myōboku? Could his so-called prophecy also be…"
Definitely.
Li Yao suddenly remembered—the Great Toad Sage relayed his prophecies to Jiraiya by "dreaming" of images from the future.
Which meant he too was "seeing" the future.
Therefore, the Toad Sage's prophecies worked in the same way as Fugaku's Mangekyō Sharingan—they weren't visions of this world's actual future.
Which also meant that no matter how much the Toad Sage dreamed—he would never see any future involving Li Yao.
If that was true… Li Yao could finally breathe a sigh of relief.
The most dangerous thing for someone who transmigrated into the Naruto world wasn't physical enemies, but those with the ability to see the future—especially if they had the power to act on that knowledge.
Now, though… he could relax just a little.
However, while the existence of parallel timelines eliminated the threat of his future being seen, it also confirmed that in this version of the Naruto world, the Kingdom of Rōran didn't exist.
Which meant his plan to research time-space chakra via the Dragon Vein was doomed before it could begin.
The city ruins he had seen were merely a projection of the Dragon Vein's energy from a parallel Naruto world—not a real place in this one.
So the Dragon Vein itself didn't actually exist here either.
Li Yao could only detect tiny traces of that energy through its time-space projection's influence on this world.
And even then, only sense it—not interact with it.
If he couldn't interact with it, he couldn't gather concrete data about the energy, much less study it.
Also, the ruins of Rōran wouldn't remain visible indefinitely.
According to the records found by Li Yao's Wind Clone in Sunagakure, such mirage-like illusions of the Rōran ruins never lasted more than a month.
A month.
Separated by an entire dimension.
No matter how powerful his perception, Li Yao had little chance of deriving time-space chakra from this.
Sigh. "I'll take what I can get."
Li Yao sighed internally. There was nothing he could do about the dimensional barrier. All he could do now was stay here and study as much as he could within the limited timeframe—trying to decipher some properties of the Dragon Vein's energy.
And so, over the following days, Li Yao remained fixated on sensing the increasingly frequent illusions of the ruined city below.
Meanwhile, Yuzu served as a helpful maid—making regular trips to a nearby oasis town in the Land of Wind to bring him food and water.
(END CHAPTER)
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