Chương 10: Path of Cultivation

The next morning, the rising sun cast a warm light across the village. Touka, a morning grandmother, had already prepared breakfast: glistening white rice, a crisp, golden-fried saury, moon-shaped pickled radishes, and a steaming bowl of soup. With no assignments scheduled for the day, Shuji stretched his limbs in the woods beside the residence before settling down to plan his training routine. He knew the timeline of this world. The Akatsuki, Madara, the Divine Tree, the Otsutsuki...

these names hung above him like daggers. Even as a man who valued peace and quiet, he understood a fundamental truth: in this world, becoming strong was the prerequisite for enjoying life. The core logic of a shinobi's growth was simple: Toughen the body, squeeze out potential, and polish taijutsu. Refine skills, master weapons, and adapt to any variable. Study jutsu, expand options, and master environments. Among these, learning jutsu gave him the quickest results, but the foundation remained physical strength.

The process of training the body was the development of physical energy. Every agonizing moment of breaking past his physical limits forged his willpower. Physical energy and mental strength complemented each other, jointly driving the growth of chakra until both reached the peak of his current physical potential. Only after reaching that point did a shinobi dedicate their focus toward mastering jutsu.

From this perspective, setting aside the existence of chakra and the extraordinary potential granted by the 130 trillion cells of the human body in this realm, the fundamental logic of power was no different from Earth's. As a descendant of the Senju, Shuji naturally possessed a vast chakra reserve and a stronger physical foundation. Now that he had perfectly merged with Hashirama's cells, his future ceiling far exceeded that of ordinary shinobi. Yet it was not enough.

Kage-level strength would only suffice against the Akatsuki. To survive what came after, one had to surpass the Kage level and reach the Six Paths tier. To reach that level, looking back at the original history, two paths offered guidance: The Otsutsuki system and the Sage Arts system. The Otsutsuki were the source of chakra, a species that roamed the cosmos harvesting life energy from planets to convert it into chakra and empower themselves.

In theory, the Senju, Uchiha, Uzumaki, and Hyuga all traced their lineage back to Otsutsuki bloodlines. One could continuously harvest chakra to strengthen themselves, purifying and regressing their lineage back to its origin. In the original timeline, one path for an Uchiha to achieve this was integrating Hashirama's cells to gain potent Yang-release chakra, combining it with their own Yin-release chakra to awaken the Rinnegan, becoming the Ten-Tails Jinchuriki, and ascending to Kekkei Mora as a true Otsutsuki.

As for the Senju, the path was never explicitly detailed, but the logic was likely similar: acquiring a powerful Sharingan? However, a crucial point was often overlooked. Uchiha Madara, who awakened the Rinnegan through this method, was the chakra reincarnation of Indra, son of the Sage of Six Paths. Senju Hashirama was the reincarnation of Asura. Both inherited the specific chakra nature of Hagoromo, who had been the Ten-Tails Jinchuriki.

This meant the strict condition to awaken the Rinnegan required not just the fusion of Yin and Yang chakra, but inheriting the core energy essence derived from the Ten-Tails itself. Shuji didn't know enough about that path yet, so he set it aside. What about the Sage Arts system? The ceiling shown in the original history was higher than standard shinobi, though lower than a complete Otsutsuki.

The strongest known practitioner of Sage Arts was Hagoromo himself, followed by Hashirama Senju, a figure who stood at the absolute pinnacle below the Sage of Six Paths. As a native power system of the shinobi world, the Sage Arts resembled the cultivation logic of classic martial traditions more than standard ninja chakra. The first step, and the hardest, was sensing nature energy. After that came absorbing nature energy and balancing it with physical and mental energies to form Senjutsu chakra.

For ordinary shinobi, cognitive bias was the greatest barrier: they had to first know nature energy existed before they could consciously feel, absorb, and transform it. Shuji didn't have this problem. His next step was perception itself. Nature energy was everywhere. Shuji suspected that the giant creatures of this world and the absurd physical durability of its humans stemmed from long-term nourishment by natural energy. You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

When he had first familiarized himself with his body, he had tried to sense nature energy and failed completely. Returning from his mission, he reorganized his thoughts. There were two known inheritances for Sage Arts: the Toad Sage Mode of Mount Myoboku and the Snake Sage Mode of Ryuchi Cave. Toad Sage Arts were gradual: secret toad oil helped the body sense natural energy. Successful practitioners gained toad-like iris patterns and eye shadow in Sage Mode.

Snake Sage Arts were violent and direct: the White Snake Sage injected natural energy straight into the body. You survived and mastered it, or you died. The essence of both methods was forcing direct contact and adaptation to pure nature energy. Was there another way? Yes, the Divine Tree. To harvest a planet's energy, the Otsutsuki planted a Divine Tree, refining its life force into a Chakra Fruit. The shinobi world had once been planted with a Divine Tree, which had already produced fruit.

The tree inherently possessed the capacity to absorb and process nature energy. Wood Release, created by Hashirama Senju, possessed the trait of absorbing chakra. Shuji theorized that Hashirama had drawn upon his bloodline and Asura's chakra to trace and imitate the properties of the Divine Tree, which was why Wood Release naturally suppressed tailed beasts. What Shuji needed to do was not merely learn Wood Release jutsu, but dig into the origin of the Wood Release Kekkei Genkai itself.

"Wood Release: Vitality Technique!" With a quiet murmur, the ground beneath Shuji trembled slightly. A young green sapling emerged from the soil and rapidly grew before his eyes. Sunlight reflected off its bark as its branches opened with a soft rustling sound. Once the sapling reached his shoulder, Shuji deliberately reduced his chakra output, maintaining only a weak connection to it.

"Keep growing," he whispered, watching intently. Shuji extended his perception like invisible feelers, binding his awareness tightly to the sapling. The tree responded with startling sharpness, its root system expanded underground like a hungry predator hunting for food. The soil moved and bulged. Even more striking was the transformation in its branches. The soft twigs twisted and hardened under the sun. They danced in the air, then they stopped suddenly, pointing straight toward Shuji!

Shuji felt the tree's primal instinct clearly through the connection: a desperate, ravenous hunger for chakra! Pain prickled across his skin as sweat beaded at his temples.

"Calm down..." he muttered, quickly forming the Snake seal. The twisted branches froze inches from his chest, moving reluctantly. Shuji focused on guiding the tree's senses away from himself, steering it toward that ubiquitous, elusive force filling the atmosphere. He felt the tree's emotion shift from rage to confusion. Then, it caught something, the faint, omnipresent nature energy permeating heaven and earth that Shuji himself had been unable to sense.

Just when he thought he was about to make a breakthrough, something unusual suddenly happened. The small tree violently grew upward again, its trunk groaning under strain. After gaining barely ten centimeters, its form twisted unnaturally. Branches bent at impossible angles, and dark, fluid-like patterns appeared across the bark. Shuji instinctively stepped back. In that instant, a gray decay swept rapidly up from the roots! As if touched by an invisible hand of death, life withered wherever the gray passed.

Within three seconds, the entire tree turned to solid stone, freezing even the smallest leaf as it trembled in the breeze. Shuji stood ground, fine beads of sweat gathering on his brow. A total failure. And a dangerous one at that. The wood created by his jutsu was not naturally durable enough to handle the pure force of raw nature energy. Even backed by his chakra, the wooden structure acted like a castle of sand, collapsing the moment the torrent of nature energy hit it. Yet he had not walked away empty-handed.

The moment the Wood Release attempted to absorb nature energy, subtle ripples had fluctuated through the surrounding air. Like a pebble dropped into a calm pond, it created tiny, almost imperceptible vibrations. It was precisely that faint shift that allowed him to touch a whisper of the natural energy he had been blind to before. Standing silent in the quiet forest, Shuji closed his eyes, replaying that fleeting ripple over and over in his mind.