"Teacher, I discovered that the steam from boiling water seems able to push certain things…", Gamamaru said excitedly.
When the words fell, Arisu's steps paused slightly. At first, he was briefly stunned.
The next second, Arisu's pupils suddenly shrank.
'Damn!'
A ripple stirred in Arisu's heart.
For hundreds of years, he had thought Gamamaru was simply keeping to his role as the heir, hiding on his own mountain peak eating, drinking, and enjoying life.
But he had never imagined that this frog had secretly been researching something like this.
The trajectory of the original story flashed through Arisu's mind in an instant.
According to the original timeline, Gamamaru should have already inherited the authority of Mount Myoboku's sage by now.
He should have become the Great Sage who ruled Mount Myoboku.
But because of Arisu's arrival, Gamamaru had never succeeded to the position. Instead, he ended up with plenty of free time and unexpectedly walked down a completely different path.
This shock only lasted for a brief moment.
Arisu's expression suddenly darkened.
Something wasn't right.
Arisu narrowed his eyes slightly. A cold gaze swept lightly toward the still-excited Gamamaru.
Gamamaru was just about to reach out and adjust the wooden wheel beside the ceramic jar, completely unaware that danger was approaching.
In that instant, Arisu moved.
Whoosh!
Without any warning, Arisu's body did not move, yet an invisible force gathered at his fingertip and precisely struck the center of Gamamaru's forehead.
"Ah!"
Gamamaru's wide-open eyes froze instantly. His body toppled forward limply and he lost consciousness in an instant.
Immediately afterward, Arisu raised his hand and placed it on top of Gamamaru's head.
His pupils suddenly transformed. As the tomoe rotated, they turned into concentric purple rings, the patterns of the Rinnegan. Sage chakra surged out together with the power of his eyes.
"Extract!"
With a soft sound, a translucent soul identical to Gamamaru's body was forcibly pulled out from the body and floated in Arisu's palm.
Gamamaru's soul still had a blank expression, as if he had not yet recovered from fainting.
"You…"
Arisu lowered his eyes. His gaze was cold as ice as he stared at the soul in his palm. The power of the Rinnegan scanned through it layer by layer.
He examined every strand of the soul's pattern, trying to find traces of extraterrestrial demons or consciousness from another world.
Mount Myoboku was isolated from the world.
Gamamaru had never encountered any strange beings from outside. Yet research into steam power, something far beyond the era, was too abnormal. Arisu had no choice but to be cautious.
Three minutes later, the glow of the Rinnegan gradually faded. Arisu's tense shoulders relaxed slightly, and he quietly let out a breath in his heart.
The origin of the soul was pure and flawless, filled with the natural aura of Mount Myoboku. There were no traces of foreign consciousness invading it, and certainly no signs of a transmigrator seizing the body.
It wasn't that Arisu was making a big deal out of nothing.
It was simply that he had lived for too long and seen too many sinister tricks. His vigilance was already carved deep into his bones.
"Alright."
Arisu lightly lifted his palm. The purple glow of the Rinnegan wrapped around the soul and gently sent Gamamaru's soul back into his body.
A moment later, Gamamaru's eyelids trembled slightly. He shook his round head and rubbed his forehead with his forelimb before sitting up in a daze.
"Mm… Teacher, what happened? Why did I suddenly faint just now?", Gamamaru asked groggily.
Arisu withdrew his hand, and his tone instantly became gentle. He reached out and lightly patted Gamamaru's head.
"It's nothing. Just now I sensed a strange trace on your body. I thought maybe a wandering ghost had possessed you, so I checked to make sure."
"Oh, oh."
Hearing this, there wasn't even a hint of suspicion in Gamamaru's round eyes. Instead, he nodded obediently.
His teacher was the sage who ruled Mount Myoboku, a being with heaven-reaching power. Naturally, he would not attack him without reason. This inspection had only been for his safety.
"Oh right, Teacher, come look at this thing!"
Gamamaru rubbed his round head. His confused expression quickly changed into intense excitement as he pointed at the simple device behind him.
A clay pot sat over a bonfire made of dry wood. The spout of the pot was connected to a bamboo tube, and boiling water churned violently inside.
White steam surged out through the bamboo tube and directly struck a wooden wheel set up beside it.
The palm-sized wheel was pushed by the steam and began spinning rapidly. Even the small wooden block beneath it was dragged along and slowly moved.
"Teacher, look!", Gamamaru gestured with his hands, his voice full of excitement.
"As long as you boil the water, the steam that comes out has force! It doesn't just push the wooden wheel. I also tried pushing stones and wooden boxes. The hotter the steam is, the stronger the force!"
"I was thinking that if we made this device bigger and used a larger pot to boil more water, maybe it could push even heavier things."
"Maybe it could even pull logs or ore without any problem!"
Gamamaru crouched beside the device, fiddling with the bamboo tube and wooden wheel as he chattered about his discoveries.
"I tried lots of methods. Only when the bamboo tube is sealed well and the steam gathers together before spraying out does the force become the strongest!"
"This saves way more effort than ninjutsu. It doesn't need chakra. You just have to boil water!"
Arisu lowered his eyes and looked at the crude yet clearly structured steam device before him.
This was no small discovery. It was clearly a complete prototype of a steam engine.
He had originally thought Gamamaru had spent hundreds of years idling around Mount Myoboku, just eating, sleeping, and occasionally having prophetic dreams.
He had never expected that this frog, who had lived for centuries, would stumble upon steam power by accident.
Arisu nodded slightly and gently patted Gamamaru's head, "You've done very well. But how did you come up with this idea?"
Gamamaru chuckled and scratched his head, "That day I kept thinking, if we didn't have sage arts, what would we do? So I thought of these things…"
Arisu smiled faintly and nodded, "For now, don't mention this matter to outsiders. Not even to the other frogs of Mount Myoboku. Continue researching quietly. If you have any new ideas, come tell me first."
It would be best if these things did not spread into the ninja world.
The technology of the ninja world was already abnormal. If something like this appeared so many years earlier, then when Hashirama and Madara became friends, they might not be meeting by a small river. They might be chatting on WeChat instead…
As Arisu left Gamamaru's mountain peak, he thought for a moment.
'Perhaps we should establish a secret department dedicated to researching technology, letting Mount Myoboku stay at the forefront.', Arisu pondered slightly.
This idea had potential.
After all, Mount Myoboku had far too much time. In nearly a thousand years, technology could break through countless things.
Perhaps by the time Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara founded Konoha, Mount Myoboku might already have satellites in space…
———
At the Senju clan's territory, singing and dancing filled the air.
They were celebrating Senju Shuichi's lightning-fast defeat of Uchiha Izumichi.
On this day, the Senju clan grounds were filled with cheers and excitement.
Only one person was unhappy.
———
[Inside A Secret Chamber]
Senju Shuichi was crying, secretly setting up a memorial altar for Uchiha Izumichi.
"Izumichi… I'm sorry. I didn't expect it. I didn't want to kill you…", Senju Shuichi cried, filled with deep regret.
He had never imagined that he would kill Izumichi with a single punch.
———
Several years later, Senju Shuichi did not choose to use his strength to expand aggressively. Instead, he quietly remained in the Senju territory and rarely took action.
Ever since Izumichi's death, Senju Shuichi had become more and more lonely. He spent his days sitting by the river, sometimes sitting there for an entire day.