"Master, where are you in such a hurry to go…" The middle-aged man suddenly saw his master stop in his tracks.
This was a dense bamboo forest.
What were they doing here? He had thought his master was rushing back.
"I am Wang Yunshan, the current leader of the Five Mountains Alliance. Senior, please show yourself!"
The white-bearded old man lowered his head and bowed respectfully.
"Master?! You…"
"Chengde, don't speak," Wang Yunshan reminded him. "Use everything you have learned in your life and sense it with your heart."
"I taught you this."
Seeing the solemn look on his master's face, Du Chengde finally calmed his confused mind.
He suddenly realized that his master had sent the other disciples back to the mountain first and brought only him to this quiet bamboo forest for a reason.
Because he was the person closest to his master.
Then he would sense it carefully.
With everything he had learned over decades.
And then… he actually sensed it.
Not far ahead of the two of them, there was a mass of light and heat that could not be described in words.
What… was that thing?
"How did you discover me?" Shimizu asked, rather interested in the old man and the sturdy middle-aged man before him.
When he had been coming down the mountain earlier, he had sensed these two people's presence.
Although it was very faint, there truly was a weak energy inside their bodies, one level lower than chakra in terms of quality.
The white-bearded old man had a little more of it, while the middle-aged man had relatively less.
Their clothing also made them look rather like members of some sect from a television drama.
That was why Shimizu had used an invisibility technique and followed them all the way, wanting to find out exactly what was going on with these two.
"A spell?! The Innate Realm?!"
Wang Yunshan cried out in surprise, then immediately thought of the strange phenomenon from before.
"Was the display on the 'Flying Immortal from Beyond the Heavens' also your doing, Senior?"
If that was truly the case, then the person before him was simply…
An immortal.
Shimizu did not speak.
Wang Yunshan then coughed lightly a few times, realizing he had been rude.
"With strength like yours, Senior, to us you are like a bright lamp. It would be difficult not to notice you."
Their perception was that strong?
It seemed they had some special technique.
Shimizu's concealment ability might not be top tier, but it was still not something an ordinary jōnin could easily see through. Yet these two people before him were, at most, only a little stronger than ordinary people.
Martial artists, perhaps.
How had they discovered his movements?
"Then let's do it this way. Tell me everything you know, and depending on the value of the information you provide, I can teach you a few things."
…
After a long exchange, Shimizu had more or less figured out the basic situation of this Five Mountains Alliance.
The so-called Five Mountains Alliance was one of the few remaining ancient martial arts sects of the present era. Perhaps, hundreds or even thousands of years ago, it had once enjoyed great glory.
But now, it had declined to the point where the entire alliance had barely a dozen people left. If not for Alliance Leader Wang Yunshan having a "third brother" with a considerable mind for business, who had earned some money and used it to support and repay the sect, this ancient martial arts faction of theirs would probably have been swallowed by the tide of modernization long ago.
Then there was the matter of what they believed.
They believed that in ancient times, this world had once possessed the existence of "qi." However, as time passed, qi slowly diminished.
By the modern era, qi had vanished completely.
So for modern people to cultivate qi again, they would need to endure bitter training for decades without interruption before they might possibly produce even a single trace of it.
The effort required was far too arduous, while the gains were far too small. The decline of the ancient martial arts sects had therefore become inevitable.
And just like chakra, qi could be applied to the human body. It could be used to enhance strength, increase speed, and even produce some more mysterious effects.
Because they could not win through quantity, they could only put their efforts into the application of qi. As a result, people like Wang Yunshan, belonging to these ancient martial arts lineages, had improved their techniques for using qi to an almost outrageous degree.
In other words, their chakra control techniques were practically off the charts.
That was something Shimizu could learn from and use as reference.
There was also the fact that the qi Wang Yunshan and the others cultivated was acquired true qi, while the chakra inside Shimizu's body was "innate true qi." Therefore, there was a clear difference in level between the two types of energy.
After that, Shimizu learned that at exactly nine o'clock that morning, in Donghai, there had been a great eruption of "innate true qi."
Because of that phenomenon, almost everyone in Donghai had seen it, and naturally, countless videos had been uploaded online.
The event at Yue Mountain just now, at exactly noon, had been a relatively smaller eruption of "innate true qi."
Combined with what Shimizu had already keenly sensed when the chakra dispersed earlier, chakra had not truly disappeared. Instead, it had spread into this world as a form of energy.
A revival of spiritual energy?
Because of his reverse transmigration, he had brought chakra into this world, causing everyone in this world to start cultivating immortality from now on?
What Shimizu could not understand for the moment was how exactly he had brought such a terrifying amount of chakra into this world.
Because he himself simply did not possess that much chakra.
He could not figure it out.
Of course, this so-called "everyone cultivating immortality" was only an exaggerated idea. According to Wang Yunshan, although this world now possessed "innate true qi," it was still extremely weak at present, to the point that it was not worth mentioning for ordinary people.
But for people like them, who had already practiced ancient martial arts, this was a genuine opportunity.
Because this was a change from nothing to something.
A qualitative transformation.
With this trace of "innate true qi," they would have the possibility of stepping into the Innate Realm.
The Innate Realm sounded rather impressive.
Then, according to Wang Yunshan's description, an Innate expert's fists possessed several hundred jin of force, and in ancient times, their combat strength could rival two or even three hundred well-trained soldiers.
That seemed like something a genin could do too.
After all, with chakra enhancing their bodies, a genin's strength and speed would not be much weaker than an Innate expert's, and that was without even mentioning the fact that shinobi could also use all kinds of ninjutsu.
And ninjutsu often produced unexpected results.
So in terms of destructive power alone, a genin might even be slightly above a so-called Innate expert. However, an Innate expert's perception and stamina far exceeded the level of a genin.
According to the description, martial artists who cultivated innate true qi had already achieved an innate circulation of true qi, allowing that energy to flow endlessly without interruption.
That was something genin, chūnin, and even jōnin could not do.
Shimizu estimated that this was probably related to the martial artists' terrifyingly refined techniques for using "qi."
Of course, all of this was only a scene Wang Yunshan had inferred from ancient texts. No one could truly confirm the real strength of an Innate expert, whereas Shimizu had personally experienced every stage from genin to his current Kage-level strength.
As he was now, never mind being a match for ten thousand men in ancient times; even in the modern world, he was an extremely terrifying existence.
When people spoke of being invincible under heaven, they were talking about him.
"May I ask Your Excellency's name?" Wang Yunshan asked respectfully.
"Shimizu Uzuki."
That name did not sound like he was from Huaguo…
So Shimizu added an explanation. "I'm from Huaguo."
It was just… a rather rare surname.
For a moment, Wang Yunshan did not know how he should address Shimizu. Shimizu really did not have much of an immortal air about him, and if Wang Yunshan directly called him an immortal, the distance between them would feel far too great. The young man before him was actually very easy to talk to, without that so-called detached air of someone removed from the world.
"Thank you very much, uh… Senior Uzuki, for the method of cultivating qi."
Heh. Senior Uzuki. What a familiar form of address.
"Then you can practice for now. I'll come back again."
"Where are you going, Senior?"
"To look around."
Before leaving, Shimizu suddenly thought of something else.
"Oh, right. Do you have a way to get me an identity?"
"An identity?"
"One that can withstand investigation."
Du Chengde stepped forward and gave his guarantee.
"No problem. Leave it to us."
…
And so, in the days that followed, Shimizu stayed on Yue Mountain for a while.
He had not expected that back then, after flying for only a little over an hour, he had directly crossed several thousand kilometers.
Supersonic speed.
But in his soul state, he had felt nothing at all.
During this period, Shimizu would occasionally give Wang Yunshan and Du Chengde guidance on extracting chakra, which, in their minds, was "innate true qi."
Only, because this energy was truly thin, their cultivation progress was exceptionally slow.
And not only was their cultivation slow, Shimizu's own recovery speed was slow as well.
Several days later, Du Chengde's third brother came over and informed him that everything had been arranged for Shimizu.
Speaking of which, his third brother was quite capable. He had founded a company of considerable scale, and Shimizu's public identity now was that he worked for this company as one of its senior executives.
With a legal identity, and after receiving a fair amount of respectful "gift money," Shimizu decided to return to Donghai.
Since he already knew that the era of spiritual energy revival had arrived, and that he was the culprit who had caused this era…
Or rather, the reformer who had led the change of the age, he planned to try relaxing his mind and play the role of this "reformer of the age."
Otherwise, having lived another life, would it not be a little pointless if he had no pursuits at all?
As Tobi had said, he really was a child of destiny.
Shimizu left. After several days spent together, the old man and middle-aged man, who had already begun to regard themselves as his disciples, led a group of younger people to line the path and see him off.
"Master, is he really the person who brought innate true qi to this world?"
"That is the only explanation. Otherwise, in modern society, who wouldn't have an identity?" Wang Yunshan firmly believed in his own judgment. "Only someone who had jumped out of a stone, or…"
Wang Yunshan extended his index finger and pointed toward the sky.
Although he had never once called Shimizu an "immortal," he knew in his heart that the small displays Shimizu had casually revealed from time to time over the past few days were undoubtedly immortal arts.
He had no choice but to believe.
"But he really doesn't seem like one. I feel like he's just an ordinary person. Didn't you see? He understands how to use phones and the internet even better than we do." Du Chengde truly felt that Shimizu was just a recently graduated university student.
No, it was very possible he had not even graduated yet.
"Perhaps that is simply the ability of an immortal," Wang Yunshan said, unconcerned. "How could the methods of immortals be something we can fathom?"
"That's true."
"Chengde…" Wang Yunshan suddenly spoke with deep earnestness.
"This era is about to change."