After a night spent holding each other, Kushina, who had been chatting with Ryun about her thoughts and expressing her love, eventually fell asleep because her heart had found a rare moment of relaxation.
Ryun quietly held her until the early hours when the sky began to lighten. Finally, he carefully carried Kushina to the bed, left a letter behind, and then directly left the Senju clan grounds and Konoha.
In the letter, he stated that he needed to go outside Konoha to seek power that could change destiny. Ryun told her to take good care of herself, eat well, sleep on time, and wait for his return within Konoha.
After reading the letter, Kushina could not help but cry again, but in the end, she obediently followed Ryun's arrangement and chose to stay patiently in Konoha.
After leaving the village, Ryun used summoning communication techniques to send all recent news about himself to Orochimaru. After leaving Konoha, he found a place to preserve Asuka's body, then went alone to the sacred land, Ryūchi Cave.
The sage arts he had not yet fully mastered needed further training, and the various powerful sage techniques within Ryūchi Cave were a key focus of his studies this time.
Inside Ryūchi Cave, Ryun studied together with Black Dragon. Their long time together deepened their relationship, but Black Dragon felt that the young man's heart had changed greatly.
The former Ryun would actively chat with him, even telling strange jokes, but since Asuka's death, he had become silent and rarely showed a happy smile.
His heart was almost entirely devoted to cultivating sage arts, to the extent that the Three Great Snake Maidens felt neglected, thinking the young man was no longer as likable as before...
Time passes without notice in the cave, and half a year went by in the blink of an eye.
After long, relentless effort in learning and arduous training, under the guidance of the White Snake Sage, Ryun finally completely mastered the Ryūchi Cave Sage Arts and the vast majority of sage techniques.
"Since you have learned the sage arts, it is time to leave the cave... I have nothing left to teach you!"
"Remember the debt owed for the teachings of Ryūchi Cave. There will come a day when our snake clan calls upon you to repay this karma. You must not refuse..."
The White Snake Sage spoke solemnly from its high seat.
Ryun took less than a year to learn almost all of its sage arts and techniques. With this terrifying growth speed, he was destined to have a place in the future ninja world.
By planting a seed of goodwill in Ryun today, Ryūchi Cave would surely reap rewards in the future.
"The kindness of Ryūchi Cave is not something I dare forget. If there is ever a need for me in the future, I will naturally not refuse!"
Ryun said, bowing deeply to it, then left Ryūchi Cave with the help of the Three Great Snake Maidens.
The Three Great Snake Maidens jointly performed a long-distance spatial transportation array, sending Ryun back to that remote snake valley he had been to before.
After leaving the snake valley, Ryun did not plan to return to Konoha. Instead, he directly entered the Land of Rain.
He lingered within the Land of Rain for a long time, attempting to find Nagato and, right in front of White Zetsu, dig out Uchiha Madara's Rinnegan, to make him taste despair...
Unfortunately, after searching for a long time, he could not find Nagato's whereabouts. Even Jiraiya, who was usually stationed in the Land of Rain, seemed to have vanished into thin air.
After wasting several days in the Land of Rain, Ryun ultimately left this damp nation he despised.
Following the advice his teacher Orochimaru had given him nearly half a year ago, he went to the Land of Rice and temporarily stayed within the daimyo's residence.
Ryun lived there for a period of time. The Daimyo of the Land of Rice took the opportunity to ask him a great deal about the mechanisms of a ninja village and requested that Ryun establish a ninja village completely belonging to the Land of Rice.
Finally, after half a year of construction and implementation, Ryun managed to set up the basic framework of Otogakure.
The reason he agreed to the Daimyo's request was entirely because of his teacher.
Orochimaru intended to create a ninja village of his own, so he actively promoted this.
Moreover, his biological laboratory within the Land of Rice was already fully constructed.
Ryun handled many matters on behalf of Orochimaru, who was tied up on the battlefield and unable to attend to them himself. Meanwhile, Ryun transferred Asuka's body to this biological laboratory, preserving it securely through scientific freezing equipment.
A year passed. The Second Great Ninja War was raging intensely. Ryun planned to take advantage of the chaos in the ninja world to quietly execute his own plans.
But just as he was about to leave Otogakure and begin his initial plans, a letter from the Lightning-Fire battlefield reached him through Orochimaru.
The letter was sent by Tsunade. In it, she described the major trouble she was currently facing.
Due to the incident with the Kumo-nin envoy group, the Land of Lightning and the Land of Fire had been fiercely fighting for nearly a year, with both sides engaging in many bitter and large battles.
The heavy casualties made Kumogakure somewhat restless, and so the short-tempered Third Raikage personally arrived on the battlefield!
The appearance of the Third Raikage instantly changed the previously evenly matched situation. The Lightning-Fire front line was in critical danger. Therefore, Tsunade, who was on the Lightning-Fire battlefield, thought of him, attempting to request that he come to help her defeat the strongest Raikage in history, from Kumogakure!
Tsunade's letter did not mention anything about Konoha or the Third Hokage. She asked Ryun for help using her personal name...
The clever Tsunade brought up Ryun's hatred for the Kumo-nin in the letter, telling Ryun that now was a good opportunity for him to take revenge...
In truth, through this letter, he could see Konoha behind Tsunade.
Those shameless Konoha higher-ups must have been unable to withstand the immense pressure brought by the Third Raikage, which is why they had Tsunade reach out to him.
Konoha wanted him, the 'God Slayer' who could defeat a demigod, to deal with that strongest Raikage!
Ryun originally did not want to bother with the affairs of the Lightning-Fire battlefield, but a few days later, Orochimaru also wrote him a letter.
The content and purpose of the letter were surprisingly similar to Tsunade's: both wanted to ask Ryun to take action and battle the Third Raikage.
The general idea in Orochimaru's letter was for Ryun to seek revenge where it was due, to settle grievances. Fighting the Third Raikage was for himself, for the deceased Asuka. He should not let Konoha's existence affect his determination for revenge...
Orochimaru felt that Ryun must surely hate Kumogakure. Perhaps he was just unable to set aside his pride, feeling that fighting the Third Raikage would mean helping the very Konoha that had betrayed him... which is why he was unwilling to go there for revenge.
Ryun was very surprised that Orochimaru would send such a letter. At this stage, Orochimaru still had Konoha in his heart. He probably did not want to see the Lightning-Fire front collapse, which is why he thought of writing to ask Ryun to take action, together with Tsunade.
If it were only because of these two people's requests, Ryun still would not have planned to help Konoha defeat Kumogakure. In his heart, he actually wanted to see these two villages fight to a point of mutual exhaustion.
However, a piece of news revealed in Orochimaru's letter gave Ryun a reason he could not ignore to go to the Lightning-Fire battlefield.
The content of that news was: Kumogakure's Two-Tails Jinchūriki would soon arrive on the Lightning-Fire battlefield!
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