After bidding farewell to Akane, Hii Kōri left Rōran in a different direction from the one he had arrived by.
It wasn't that he was deliberately trying to avoid anyone in particular. He chose this route simply because taking this detour made the journey back to Sunagakure easier. Along the way, he could also pass by a few small oases and pick up some candied fruits that Vegeta liked as souvenirs.
After all, in this vast godforsaken sea of sand, the only being capable of completely evading the range of his Kagura Mind's Eye for an extended period was probably Black Zetsu—if he really had nothing better to do than keep following Nagato.
But if Black Zetsu really was tailing them, then making a detour was even more pointless.
When he first made contact with the Dragon Veins, Hii Kōri had been able to tell from the Star Memories recorded within them that this torrent of natural energy—the very blood of the planet—also possessed a certain "informational" capability.
Simply put, it remembered its grudges, even if it had no way to act on them.
The barrier around Rōran was formed from the power radiating from the Dragon Veins. Having lost the Dragon Veins' own intelligence, its characteristics had become more rigid and direct. Naturally, this included a powerful rejection of anything carrying Ōtsutsuki data or lineage—what one might call a specialized anti-Ōtsutsuki effect.
Of course, after more than a thousand years of dilution and intermingling, the so-called Six Paths descendants still left in the ninja world were no longer distinct enough for the Dragon Veins to treat them any differently.
But Black Zetsu was another matter.
Although he was Kaguya's "third son," Black Zetsu's essence was a product of Yin–Yang Release, and he had no genetic lineage in the conventional sense. However, he was the genuine custodian of Kaguya Ōtsutsuki's Karma.
In the Dragon Veins' eyes, Black Zetsu's enmity was off the charts. Forget about finding a way to sneak in quietly; if the Dragon Veins even detected him, the only reason it wouldn't rise up and blast him with a few Star Breaths was that it was already on its last legs—purely a case of having the will but not the strength.
As the current contractor of the Dragon Veins, Hii Kōri's situation was far better. From now on, whenever he entered or left the Dragon Veins barrier around Rōran, he no longer needed to mimic the barrier's frequency with Rainbow Release like he had the first time.
Take this departure, for instance. He didn't feel the slightest obstruction. In fact, the barrier's effect even clung to him for a while, concealing his tracks until he had traveled a considerable distance before gradually fading away.
It was truly—one could even say nine parts—thoughtful.
The sun blazed fiercely as sand billowed in the wind. Once he left Rōran's territory, the blessed, fertile land instantly reverted to the monotonous sea of sand.
After walking a certain distance, Hii Kōri casually pulled the off-road vehicle from his shadow, propped up the canvas cover, and only then released his students. The wild roar of the engine resumed, wide tires rolling over the dunes and leaving two tracks that would soon be buried by the wind and sand but remained starkly visible for now.
Glancing back at his students, whose faces had once again puckered up like wrinkled plums in the windblown sand, Hii Kōri laughed cheerfully. Then he stepped on the accelerator, savoring the joy of charging headlong across the desert.
With the tedious administrative work finally out of the way, he could now turn his attention to a detailed study of the connection the Dragon Veins had granted him—and exactly what kind of power it contained.
First, as evidenced by his newfound freedom to enter and exit the Rōran barrier, this connection was itself a form of "authority."
The prosperity of this world today was built upon the remnants of the Star Blood that had seeped into the land. As the Dragon Veins' contractor, he could, to some extent, wield the power of these "Blood Traces."
In other words, he could extract and exploit these Blood Traces, much like his original plan to extract the Dragon Veins for his own use. The cost, naturally, would be turning the land within that range into a lifeless dead zone.
Truthfully, this was an authority he had little desire to use. Draining a resource dry was rarely a good idea.
Setting aside such exhaustive applications, however, this authority also granted Hii Kōri the ability to read information from the natural environment, much like viewing the Dragon Veins' memories.
By calming his mind and communicating with his surroundings, he could read the "memories" recorded by the planet since its birth from everything around him. When expanding his perception through environmental media, his accuracy and freedom of movement were greatly enhanced.
And it wasn't limited to one-way reading. He could also "communicate" with animals and plants.
Of course, it was best not to have unrealistic expectations about the intelligence of animals and plants. Summoning beasts with human-like intelligence had all undergone specialized training, and even among them, those capable of speech were a minority.
Second, Hii Kōri's sensitivity to natural energy had risen by several orders of magnitude.
His Rainbow Release chakra was fundamentally the result of pushing the flow, circulation, and transformation properties of Wind and Water chakra to their extremes to simulate natural phenomena. In essence, it was still fundamentally different from natural energy.
Now, however, without even drawing on natural energy, techniques performed with Rainbow Release chakra could directly interact with natural energy, thereby expanding their range and intensity.
The issue was that this interactive strength was difficult to control. Earlier, Hii Kōri had casually tested it on the road, and it ended up triggering a brief sandstorm that nearly flipped the vehicle.
Similarly, if he was close enough to the Dragon Veins, Hii Kōri could even receive natural energy support directly from them, activating Sage Mode in an instant.
This process had nothing to do with Hii Kōri's own manipulation; it was purely the Dragon Veins' natural energy adapting to his rhythm, reducing the burden and difficulty of use to the absolute minimum.
Sage Mode, of course, was not exclusive to the Three Great Sacred Lands—Mount Myōboku, Ryūchi Cave, and Shikkotsu Forest. The so-called senjutsu was simply the technique of utilizing natural energy.
Just like the secret techniques of various ninja clans, these methods were completely unsuitable for outsiders—or, in some cases, simply impossible for them to practice.
The Sage Modes of the Three Great Sacred Lands were essentially techniques developed over millennia by the summoning beast clans living there, optimized for their own unique life forms. They were not designed for human use.
Mount Myōboku's and Ryūchi Cave's Sage Modes were depicted in the original manga; users would undergo physical changes toward toads or snakes during training or after use.
As for Shikkotsu Forest's Sage Mode… well, toads and snakes were at least vertebrates. Slugs were mollusks.
What kind of Sage Mode would that be? Junji Ito Sage?
Excluding the Three Great Sacred Lands, the remaining references for Sage Mode were Jūgo, the origin of Orochimaru's Cursed Seal techniques, and the God of Shinobi, Hashirama Senju.
The latter was relatively easy to understand. Hashirama Senju possessed Wood Release, the kekkei genkai most closely tied to "nature." It was only natural that he could sense natural energy through the plants he summoned.
That he went on to develop his own nearly perfect Sage Mode was only to be expected.
As for why this Sage Mode wasn't passed down, it was likely because the abilities and conditions for use were too specialized—much like Tobirama Senju's "improved" techniques.
It couldn't be that Hashirama was just too bad at explaining things, right?
Hmm… actually, that wasn't entirely out of the question.
As for how close Hii Kōri needed to be to the Dragon Veins to trigger this fully automatic Sage Mode… it was probably limited to the territory of Rōran itself.
After all, the Dragon Veins really were on the verge of death. The cost of transmitting natural energy over long distances was too great; the gain wouldn't be worth the loss.
But thinking along these lines, his authority could be used to "draw blood" from other places to replenish the Dragon Veins. Not necessarily to revitalize it, but at least to extend a tributary.
For Hii Kōri, integrating natural energy with chakra to form senjutsu chakra wasn't particularly difficult.
After all, he had spent years simultaneously operating and harmonizing multiple types of energy—different chakra natures, cursed energy, life force, spiritual energy—and had even formulated several types of kekkei genkai chakra. In this regard, he was quite experienced.
Compared to the question of whether he could fuse them at all, the extraction rate of natural energy and the ratio for mixing with chakra were the trickier issues.
It wasn't that the extraction was too slow to be useful in combat. Thanks to his Dragon Veins authority, his extraction rate was remarkably fast. Compared to the Fourth Hokage—who spent five minutes gathering natural energy for three seconds of combat—he was practically a 120W fast charger.
But being too fast wasn't necessarily good either. Having already experienced a Yin Release chakra rampage, Hii Kōri had no desire to repeat the experience. Judging by Jūgo, too much natural energy might even cause brain damage.
As for the mixing ratio… Mount Myōboku's Sage Mode requires a 1:1:1 balance of natural energy, spiritual energy, and physical energy. But as mentioned earlier, that was the toads' training method.
It wasn't that Hii Kōri had a rebellious streak and was determined to reject the Three Great Sacred Lands' Sage Modes out of hand. But since someone had already developed an independent Sage Mode, why shouldn't he do his own research?
Even if Hashirama Senju didn't exactly seem like a normal human—more like a plant-person who had atavistically reverted to the Divine Tree…
Besides, he could also study ways to optimize cursed energy in the process.
When Hii Kōri had used the technique "Yakumo Tatsu Mi Ken," it was clear that he had employed an energy similar to cursed energy but with a much more positive nature. That suggested the direction was logically feasible.
Of course, it was also possible that Hii Kōri's unique constitution—the result of being a Senju-Uzumaki hybrid who also inherited the traits of a jujutsu sorcerer—had led to the creation of such a unique power.
This was clearly an exceptional case with high specificity. Under normal circumstances, it couldn't serve as evidence or justification for experimentation.
But… why not tinker with it anyway? It wasn't like Hii Kōri was short on similar research topics.
After all, the biggest problem he faced in the short term was that his execution efficiency couldn't keep up with his thinking.
The speed at which his "quad-core 256-thread smart artificial" processed thoughts far outpaced the speed at which he could verify them through experimentation.
Things like repeated testing, puppet maintenance, data organization… these mundane tasks could be delegated to the researchers under him. But equipment processing speeds, experimental reaction times, material cultivation rates… these fixed factors would still bottleneck progress no matter what.
This wasn't a problem that could be solved with a little proactive effort. Having nine women pregnant together wouldn't shorten the gestation period to one month.
True, during this waiting period, Hii Kōri could work on other research topics. But there were only so many instruments, and there would always be times when everything was in use.
Then came expansion, hiring assistants, using Shadow Clones to handle more topics, and then pushing the entire laboratory to its breaking point again…
It was a merciless, blood-vomiting marathon.
Ah, Orochimaru, how I miss you! Let's form a laboratory together and stay together forever, okay?
In any case, aside from ninjutsu-related issues that could be resolved with pure thought and chakra manipulation, these kinds of long-term research topics—ones that wouldn't yield conclusions anytime soon—were exactly what Hii Kōri currently favored.
It wasn't like he could use his brain's processing power for crypto mining. Might as well put it to long-term use.
And obviously, optimizing cursed energy's nature wasn't entirely without merit. After all, energy extracted from negative emotions was inherently narrow and dark.
Many jujutsu sorcerers developed psychological issues due to using cursed energy. But if someone already had psychological problems and then started using cursed energy, the consequences clearly wouldn't be pretty.
It was precisely because of the inherently twisted nature of the ninja profession and the already abysmal state of the ninja world that Hii Kōri had never taught anyone the method of refining cursed energy.
This was the world of Naruto, not Gotham. And Hii Kōri was just an ordinary mediocre talent, not some DC writer's self-insert who could conjure up countermeasures for anyone with a conveniently evolving character like Batman.
Villains with mental issues, please take a left turn at the door and apply in the DC Universe. Thank you.
All in all, aside from the sandstorm Hii Kōri himself had accidentally caused, the return trip was uneventful. He successfully led his four students back to Sunagakure.
After sending them back to the workshop to settle in, he went to the Kazekage Building as usual to submit his mission report.
Familiar with the routine, he arrived outside the Kazekage's office, knocked, and entered. Only then did he notice that there were other jōnin already reporting in. Not paying it much mind, he simply nodded to the Third Kazekage behind the desk and the other jōnin as a greeting.
Seeing Hii Kōri hesitate, clearly indicating there were things better discussed elsewhere, Vegeta raised an eyebrow and casually dismissed him with a convenient excuse.
The message was obvious: go wait for him in their usual break room. He'd discuss the details after finishing up here.
In that space, the two of them didn't need to maintain formal superior-subordinate roles, and both appreciated the relaxed atmosphere.
Hii Kōri nodded, then walked out of the office and headed straight for the Kazekage Building's cafeteria.
If he timed it right, lunch should be just about ready. He had deliberately timed his return to coincide with this, after all.
"Now that it's come to this, let's eat first."
***
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