" come with me! We have to save them!"
Seeing the panicked figures tumbling out amid rocks and fallen trees, Kikyo immediately prepared to rush forward.
But Kagetsu shook his head.
"No need to go through all that trouble."
Before his words had even faded, he brought his hands together.
"Wood Release!"
The earth instantly surged.
Countless flexible wooden branches burst from the ground.
Guided by the precise perception of Sage Mode, the branches skillfully avoided the falling rubble and splintered wood. One by one, they wrapped around the fleeing people, gently lifting them away from danger before depositing them onto a nearby clearing.
In the blink of an eye, everyone had been rescued.
Seeing this, Kikyo stopped where she stood. She turned back and walked to his side.
"Let's go. We're leaving this place."
Kagetsu looked at her in surprise.
"I thought you'd guide them out of the mountains."
Kikyo glanced at the shaken crowd in the distance.
Their clothes were clean. Their bodies were strong and well-fed. Compared to the war-torn villagers struggling outside the mountains, these people had lived far more comfortably.
She looked away and spoke softly.
"Although they were raised as nourishment for the demonic tree, they lived peaceful and affluent lives inside that miniature world."
"They could even cultivate and pursue immortality."
"We destroyed everything they relied on."
"They may not thank us for saving them… they might even resent us."
Kagetsu looked at her with surprise. He hadn't expected her to think about it so clearly.
Kikyo seemed to read his thoughts.
"This kind of thing happens often," she said calmly.
"Because I've helped many strangers, I understand the complexity of human hearts better than most."
"After all… Onigumo eventually became Naraku because of the malice in his heart."
"Then let's go."
Kagetsu reached out and took her hand. Warmth spread through his fingertips.
With a thought, he activated the Flying Thunder God Technique.
Their figures vanished instantly.
"Is this… spiritual power?"
Kagetsu opened his eyes slowly.
A faint white glow appeared above his palm.
The energy felt gentle and pure.
Unlike chakra,which is formed from the fusion of physical and mental energy,spiritual power originates from the depths of the soul itself.
Nearby, Kikyo sat cross-legged.
Following the methods recorded in the Blood Sacrifice Tree Nurturing Method, she was attempting to merge natural energy with her spiritual power in order to condense Sage Power.
Sensing the fluctuations from Kagetsu, she looked up and smiled faintly.
"Congratulations. You've become a monk."
Kagetsu stared at the faint light in his palm and laughed self-mockingly.
"Looks like talent really matters when it comes to spiritual power."
"I've practiced for so long using the method in the book, and this is all I've managed to produce."
"Then again, that technique was originally meant for 'fertilizer.' It was never designed to be efficient."
He casually dispersed the spiritual power and stretched his arms.
"But it doesn't matter. I'm not planning to use spiritual power for fighting."
"As long as it's enough to cultivate Sage Power, that's good enough."
He had managed to awaken spiritual power thanks to the cultivation method designed for humans used as nourishment for the demonic tree.
The technique forcibly stimulated the birth of spiritual power in people who normally had no talent for it.
The downside was obvious.
The spiritual power he currently possessed was extremely weak.
At best, it could perform a few harmless tricks. It had no combat value whatsoever.
Furthermore, once spiritual power was awakened using this method, the technique itself became useless afterward.
In the world of Inuyasha, spiritual power couldn't be actively cultivated. It only grew slowly over time as a person aged.
Kagetsu had no idea how long it would take for his newly awakened spiritual power to reach a level capable of fighting.
Fortunately, he had no intention of relying on it for combat.
His goal was simply to attempt the fusion of spiritual power and natural energy described in the Blood Sacrifice Tree Nurturing Method.
After studying the technique for some time, he already understood the basic principle behind the so-called "sage."
By combining a demon's demonic power with a human's spiritual power, one could produce Sage Power, gaining both the longevity of demons and access to powerful techniques.
In simple terms, these "sages" were humans who had fused with demonic power.
Their strength wasn't comparable to the legendary sages of myth, but their lifespan could rival that of demons.
In fact, the sages of the Inuyasha world were almost the opposite of the Sage Mode in Naruto.
Naruto's Sage Mode granted tremendous combat power but didn't significantly extend lifespan.
Meanwhile, sages in the Inuyasha world possessed only moderate strength,roughly equivalent to ordinary demons,but could live for centuries.
But for Kagetsu, that was perfect.
Longevity was extremely difficult to achieve in the Naruto world.
Here, however, simply following the method in the manual might allow him to obtain a lifespan comparable to a demon's.
As for why the technique relied specifically on a tree demon instead of other demons,
The reason was simple.
Creatures like the man-faced fruit tree, artificially created from human corpses, possessed incomplete intelligence.
Compared to other demons, they were easier to control and served as a stable vessel for demonic power.
However, neither Kagetsu nor Kikyo intended to follow the original method of the technique.
Even ignoring the fact that cultivating a demonic tree would take decades, such a method would create a huge weakness.
If the tree were destroyed, the practitioner would suffer serious backlash,or even die.
For them, it was far safer to use the energy fusion principle described in the technique and combine natural energy directly with spiritual power.
Since returning to the shrine, the two had been experimenting with exactly that.
Kikyo could sense natural energy, but she had only recently begun learning to control and absorb it. She lacked experience, so her progress in fusing it with spiritual power was slow.
Meanwhile, Kagetsu was already highly skilled at controlling natural energy through Sage Mode.
But he originally had no spiritual power at all,so he couldn't even attempt the fusion.
That was why he had turned his attention to the "fertilizer cultivation" method.
After practicing diligently for some time, he had finally managed to awaken his first wisp of spiritual power.
Kikyo walked over and sat beside him.
She sighed helplessly.
"Compared to my own spiritual power, natural energy from the outside is extremely difficult to control."
"Even when I draw it into my body, merging it perfectly with spiritual power is very difficult."
"Don't worry about it," Kagetsu said with a grin.
"Just keep trying."
"Besides, even if the fusion fails, it's not dangerous."
"You have no idea,when I was learning Sage Mode, if I made a mistake I would've turned into a stone frog."
"I guess I'll need a bit more practice before I succeed," Kikyo admitted.
Then she looked at him with clear curiosity.
"But I'm really curious about this Sage Power."
"So hurry up and try it yourself."