Once everything was settled, Jie prepared to leave for the Land of Fire.
"Please wait."
Sara approached before he could depart.
"Roran cannot repay what you have done, but please allow us to offer you something in thanks."
A guard was already hurrying toward them from the city, carrying a golden tray covered with cloth. He handed it to Sara, who raised it toward Jie with both hands.
"This has been kept by Roran's royal family for generations. We have never understood its true purpose, but it may be useful to you."
Jie was not expecting much.
Roran had no ninja and little contact with the major clans. Its treasury might contain gold, jewels, or some rare ornament, but none of those things interested him.
He was about to refuse when the cloth slipped aside.
A round object sat in the centre of the tray, giving off a faint purple glow. The light itself was unremarkable, but the chakra beneath it was not.
The energy on the surface was weak enough to miss at first, while something far denser remained hidden deeper within.
Jie stepped closer and removed the rest of the cloth.
It was a purple meteorite about the size of a small ball.
He recognized it.
"The Star?"
In his own era, the Star was Hoshigakure's greatest treasure and the foundation of its secret technique, the Mysterious Peacock Method.
Ninja trained beside the meteorite and absorbed the strange chakra it released. Once they learned to control it, they could shape their chakra outside the body into wings, beasts, and other forms.
The technique allowed Hoshigakure's ninja to grow stronger quickly, but the Star's chakra was harmful. Long-term exposure damaged the body, and many of those who trained with it eventually became seriously ill.
Jie had never considered using it for training. With his current chakra control, forming wings or animals was hardly difficult, and there was no reason to harm his body for such a minor benefit.
The meteorite itself was another matter.
An object capable of altering a ninja's chakra and strengthening it so quickly was worth examining, even if the technique built around it was crude. Its energy might hold something useful, especially now that his Six Paths transformation required increasingly unusual sources of power.
He had simply never expected to find it in Roran, much less in an era before Hoshigakure existed.
"Where did you get this?"
"The records say it fell from the sky long ago and landed inside the Dragon Vein. No one knows exactly when."
"Inside the Dragon Vein?"
Sara nodded.
"It remained there for many years before the royal family removed it. By then, it had already begun giving off that light."
She paused before adding, "It also reacted whenever the Dragon Vein's chakra became unstable. We believed the two were connected, but no one in Roran knew how to study it."
That explained why its chakra had felt so strange.
After spending so long inside the Dragon Vein, the meteorite had absorbed part of its presence. The faint aura around it resembled the Dragon Vein closely enough to hide the stronger energy sealed inside.
Jie picked up the Star and sent a small amount of chakra into it.
The meteorite responded immediately.
A strange power stirred inside and pushed back against his chakra. The reaction was not violent, but it was active, almost as though the energy within the Star resisted anything foreign.
Jie increased the flow slightly.
A thin layer of purple chakra appeared around the meteorite before fading again. The response was similar to the chakra used in the Mysterious Peacock Method, but still too faint to reveal how the technique worked.
The Dragon Vein's power came from the earth and natural energy gathered over countless years. Whatever existed inside the Star had come from somewhere else, and its nature had not been erased even after absorbing the Dragon Vein's chakra for so long.
That was far more interesting than the technique Hoshigakure later created from it.
Jie activated his Tenseigan and examined the meteorite more carefully. He could see layers of chakra beneath its surface, but the core remained difficult to read. The Dragon Vein's energy had mixed with the meteorite over such a long period that separating the two would take time.
He also noticed that the outer layers were uneven. Some carried more of the Dragon Vein's presence than others, suggesting that the meteorite had continued changing even after it was removed.
Another possibility came to mind.
If the Star belonged to Roran in this era, how had it eventually reached Hoshigakure?
Perhaps someone carried it away after Roran fell. It was also possible that some of the city's survivors later travelled to the Land of Bears and founded the village themselves.
There was no way to know from the Star alone, and Jie had little interest in chasing uncertain history. Understanding the meteorite's power mattered more.
Sara was still waiting for his answer.
"I'll take it."
"It is an honour."
Jie stored the meteorite away.
"I'll stay in Roran for a few days while I study it. Prepare somewhere quiet, and make sure no one disturbs me."
"Of course."
Sara ordered her guards to clear the way back to the city.
News of what had happened had already begun spreading. People gathered along the streets as Jie entered Roran, whispering about the stranger who had taken away the Dragon Vein and left a lake in its place.
Some still called him a god, but Jie ignored them. The misunderstanding would end once he left.
For now, the Star was more important.
The meteorite had spent years absorbing the Dragon Vein's chakra, yet the energy at its core clearly came from somewhere else. If he could separate the two, he might finally understand what made the Star so unusual.
Before heading to the Land of Fire, Jie intended to find out.
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