"Naruto: My Ninja Skills"Chapter 192: Can One Attain Immortality?
"Is this... really something achievable through comprehension alone?"
"Can chakra become this dangerous?"
"This isn't the proper path for chakra usage."
After realizing the danger of what Yūshin wielded, the Sage of Six Paths' followers couldn't suppress their urge to discuss freely among themselves.
According to the chakra usage path designed by the Sage of Six Paths, Yūshin's approach indeed counted as "going astray." The Ninja Sect wasn't a combat organization—at this time, it resembled more of a purely religious group.
But ignorance wasn't a crime. Yūshin was merely an untrained wild chakra user; his chaotic experimentation and wrong direction were understandable... The Sage's current followers certainly wouldn't be extreme enough to immediately condemn others.
Even if Yūshin was a "heretic," they were willing to give him a chance for reformation rather than sending him straight to the stake.
Unlike his followers' suspicions, the Sage of Six Paths was willing to believe in human comprehension, because he considered himself human too, and his own comprehension was frighteningly high... Compared to himself, Yūshin's achievements were child's play.
Whenever the Sage of Six Paths encountered what ordinary people considered miraculous, he would compare it to himself and reach a conclusion... such things were perfectly normal.
If the Sage of Six Paths' own comprehension and talent rated 1000, wasn't it normal for others to have a value around 100?
One could only say the old sage overestimated humanity as a species. Without systematic knowledge inheritance and predecessors' accumulated experience, how could ordinary people possibly develop Kekkei Tōta?
So the Sage of Six Paths had his flaws too—at least, his cognition was limited... He'd stood too high since birth, so he considered other peaks merely ordinary heights.
"Put it away, Gan. Your research results are quite impressive, but... the direction is problematic."
The Sage of Six Paths naturally wasn't afraid of Yūshin's tricks—these things couldn't break Truth-Seeking Orbs anyway—but he had to consider his followers' thoughts.
More importantly, letting others realize chakra could be weaponized wasn't beneficial... The sage couldn't be completely oblivious to this concept.
"Never use such techniques against others." So he couldn't help adding another warning.
The Kekkei Tōta developed and extended from Ice Release, Yūshin called it Condensation Release. The flames, through "burning," would draw away the ice crystals' temperature, causing the freezing effect to continuously extend toward absolute zero—undoubtedly, this technique possessed tremendous lethality.
Yūshin had long been developing this area; otherwise, he wouldn't have abandoned other Kekkei Genkai. But he'd been stuck at a certain bottleneck unable to succeed—counting the years spent on this timeline, he'd been stuck for decades.
Now he understood—his previous failures were due to insufficient chakra quality... A candle burns at only a few hundred degrees; to reach temperatures above a thousand, one should burn coal instead.
"I understand, Sage. I've only been researching chakra based on interest and curiosity, with no intention of using my findings for anything... I was just idle anyway, so I started researching."
Yūshin dispersed the flames, looking innocent as he addressed the Sage of Six Paths and his followers.
These words made quite a few people's eyelids twitch.
At this moment, the Sage of Six Paths looked at Yūshin much like the Third Hokage once viewed young Orochimaru... lonely, intelligent, studious, with research spirit and tremendous initiative.
Such people needed proper education, because they were the type most likely to go astray.
"Sage-sensei, take this Gan with us. We can't let him stay here alone," a follower suggested to the Sage of Six Paths.
Hmm? Sage-sensei? This form of address was somewhat strange, easily reminiscent of "Master Roshi."
The Sage of Six Paths nodded and asked Yūshin directly:
"Are you willing to follow me and learn how to use chakra, Gan?"
This wasn't a rash question, nor was it because Yūshin had treated him sincerely. From the beginning, he'd sensed a willingness to follow in Yūshin's chakra.
"Very willing, Sage-sensei."
Regardless of whether the address was awkward, Yūshin immediately followed suit—being even a second late would show disrespect to his own destiny.
"Do you have anything to pack?"
"Nothing at all. I'm completely alone, Sage-sensei."
"Good, then let's depart."
The Sage of Six Paths was, after all, a sage. He carried an otherworldly, transcendent aura, so he couldn't possibly be sentimental. After bringing Yūshin aboard, the group set off again.
After some time, the Sage of Six Paths felt reassured about Yūshin.
After all, Yūshin was different from Orochimaru. Yūshin's loneliness was objectively caused by his environment—previously, his surroundings contained nothing but rocks and trees. If he wasn't lonely, would he befriend trees?
After joining the group, he wasn't withdrawn or arrogant, but harmoniously integrated with the followers, becoming an unremarkable member among them.
Yūshin was quite capable of acting. After all, his lifespan exceeded everyone else's at this time... Actually, it wasn't acting—being too deliberate would prevent him from fooling the Sage of Six Paths.
Yūshin maintained a calm mindset, interacting with people as he naturally would—simply treating others sincerely, without needing to do anything extra.
Half a year later, the group had expanded to over fifty people. By then, the Sage of Six Paths had led everyone in a circuit and returned to his starting point from another direction... a small village.
The Sage of Six Paths' relatives and earliest followers all resided here.
Here, Yūshin met Ōtsutsuki Hamura and several Byakugan children... It seemed everyone was quite consciously working hard to reproduce and restore the world's vitality.
Well, naturally it was for restoring the world's vitality—surely not out of lust?
Moreover, the Sage of Six Paths led by example, because Yūshin saw two rather different children... They lacked Byakugan; the older brother looked quite proud, while the younger seemed somewhat simple.
No need to ask—these were Indra and Asura.
The Sage of Six Paths stayed in the village for half a year, settling most of the fifty followers there, then departed again with just three people... Yūshin was naturally among these three.
This departure lasted another five years. When the Sage of Six Paths returned to the village with over a hundred people, not only had his children grown up, but children doing odd jobs were running everywhere in the village.
By this time, the Ninja Sect had begun taking shape.
Clearly, the Sage of Six Paths was selective and meticulous when choosing chakra transmission targets; otherwise, this village's scale would definitely exceed its current size... Yūshin could create so many chakra users in a short time, let alone the Sage of Six Paths.
The sage didn't do this not because he couldn't, but because it violated his purpose for establishing the Ninja Sect.
Since Yūshin joined the Ninja Sect, he'd never received preferential treatment from the Sage of Six Paths—the sage treated all disciples equally.
As for what Yūshin had learned over these years—well, though one couldn't say he'd learned nothing... At minimum, he could now keenly distinguish good and evil intentions in others' chakra.
After returning to the village for the second time, Yūshin rested only three days before receiving another summons from the Sage of Six Paths.
Now things were stable. Yūshin thought this while feeling something was off—it's only evening; shouldn't I be sneaking through the back door at midnight to seek Sage-sensei?
After Yūshin paid respects to the Sage of Six Paths, the sage didn't immediately explain why he'd summoned him.
Over these years, the Sage of Six Paths had continuously observed Yūshin's character, finally confirming he was someone worthy of trust.
This was somewhat redundant—Yūshin was definitely steady as an old dog. Having evolved from a basic plant-person to an advanced plant-person, he was definitely incredibly stable—so stable that lacking pulse and heartbeat would be fine.
"Gan, you're someone infected by the God Tree. If nothing unexpected occurs, your lifespan will certainly far exceed mine."
The Sage of Six Paths approached the topic from a fresh angle.
Before the Sage of Six Paths, Yūshin hadn't deliberately aged his body—this would easily backfire and appear dishonest... Such petty tricks couldn't possibly fool the Sage of Six Paths' Rinnegan.
Compared to mortals, the Sage of Six Paths' lifespan should have been very long, but the Ten-Tails within him was a ticking time bomb.
When the Sage of Six Paths' chakra declined from peak to ebb, the Ten-Tails inside would become restless... The Sage of Six Paths had long planned for this.
When that time came, he would choose to actively extract the Ten-Tails and divide it into nine parts.
This meant he would lose his life... at least superficially, he would lose his life.
"Living too long—I actually don't know whether this is a blessing or a curse."
Yūshin's response also surprised the Sage of Six Paths, but this was completely genuine sentiment without any pretense.
"Your thoughts... are indeed more profound than ordinary people's."
The Sage of Six Paths shook his head, not pursuing this topic further... After all, he wasn't in a hurry to die.
"You've followed me for so long. Regarding chakra, is there anything you want to learn?"
Kekkei Mōra...
That was impossible.
Kekkei Mōra essentially seemed not to be something learnable—this skill apparently could only be achieved through "evolution" and life-level advancement, and even then, not with 100% certainty.
Yūshin thought for a moment and decided people should be realistic. One's appetite shouldn't be too large. Being modest and learning just a tiny bit of profound knowledge from the Sage of Six Paths would satisfy him.
As a person, one must never be greedy.
"Sage-sensei, I want to learn the ability to create form from void and grant life to form. May I?"
Creating form from void meant controlling yin power sourced from spiritual energy.
Granting life to form meant controlling yang power sourced from life energy.
Yūshin wanted to learn Yin-Yang Release—specifically, Six Paths Yin-Yang Release... Cough, for example, the Sage of Six Paths could transform the Ten-Tails into nine Tailed Beasts through minor surgery, using precisely this power.
Well, compared to Kekkei Mōra, Yin-Yang Release was indeed insignificant.
Setting aside the unattainable Kekkei Mōra and Six Paths Yin-Yang Power (i.e., the power to activate Six Paths: Chibaku Tensei—the Six Paths would never surrender this power), Yin-Yang Release and Six Paths Sage Techniques were the most realistic learnable skills from the Sage of Six Paths.
But although Six Paths Sage Techniques were the strongest type of sage arts, they lacked uniqueness... Mount Myōboku and Ryūchi Cave's sage techniques were also sage arts—though slightly weaker, they were essentially the same.
So Six Paths Yin-Yang Release was almost the only choice—miss this village and there'd be no such shop again.
What? Only children make choices; adults should want everything?
Just talk—only children get to want everything. Adults wet their shoes when urinating, so what more could they want—adult diapers?
As for learning other ninjutsu, not only did the concept of ninjutsu not exist at this time, but even if it did, the Six Paths wouldn't teach it... Joking aside, what was the Ninja Sect established for? How could the Six Paths possibly teach disciples killing techniques?
Simply put, the Six Paths transmitted the "way" of chakra usage, not specific "techniques."
This idealistic approach also doomed his failure. Compared to "non-killing" philosophy, killing techniques were faster to learn and more effective to use.
When the Sage of Six Paths heard Yūshin's request, he paused... Guess what the sage was thinking?
He sensed Yūshin's sincere heart.
"Gan, you personally witnessed the great battle between me, Hamura, and our mother, correct?"
"Yes, Sage-sensei."
"I understand. But what you want to learn is extremely difficult—it might consume your entire lifetime. Have you thought this through?"
"I'm very clear about this. But knowing the difficulty yet pursuing what's right—isn't this precisely the principle Sage-sensei has taught us?"
"Good. Then I'll teach you the ability to create form from void and grant life to form."
What someone wants to learn is closely related to their life experiences. The Sage of Six Paths considered Yūshin's desire to learn Yin-Yang Release perfectly reasonable.
Because Yūshin had witnessed the world-ending war and seen the withering of life and the entire world, Yūshin feared the world's destruction again. But if such events truly occurred, after learning "creating form from void, granting life to form," he could play a role in the destroyed world, becoming a force for restoring the world's vitality... This was how the Sage of Six Paths thought.
One could only say his reasoning was extremely correct—even excessively so.
The Sage of Six Paths felt very satisfied, even somewhat gratified. Because restoring the world's vitality was precisely what he was currently doing. Yūshin's preparatory imitation of this behavior—wasn't this taking him as an example?
A good disciple, an absolutely excellent disciple.
"Gan, extend your hand."
Yūshin stepped forward several paces, then spread his palm flat. Subsequently, the Sage of Six Paths placed his palm over Yūshin's.
Well, this was still experiential learning?
Indeed, one couldn't expect too much from geniuses' specific teaching abilities. Their instructional template was often "first like this, then like that, then this way—how about it, learned it yet?"
Yūshin expressed: No wonder I need to spend my entire life learning this.
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