〖Year Twelve〗
Feeling that you've fully absorbed the legacy of the Buddhist arts, you decide to take up the Ultimate Meaning of Swordsmanship once again, continuing to temper both your will and your body.
At the same time, by channeling sword intent, you aim to better master the newly acquired rule-based powers.
You enter the Water Curtain Cave, leaping into a natural deep well that stretches to the seabed—right into the core of the most concentrated Dragon Vein energy.
You begin circulating both the Sage Art and your breathing technique.
In this state, your vision becomes extraordinarily sharp. Even without activating any ocular powers, it's as if you can see through all things.
This is an unprecedented experience. You speculate that it must be connected to the fact that you've cultivated the Battle Saint Scripture to the tenth layer, purged all the violent energy within you, and achieved a mind as still as water.
Three completely different cultivation methods overlapping has produced an unexpected synergy!
You activate the Tenseigan, and to your surprise, you can faintly perceive the hazy strands of rule-based powers floating throughout the world.
You're unable to grasp them just yet—but this already allows your mastery over the Rule of Life to advance at an unimaginable speed!
In less than a year, by constantly refining your spirit and body through the Ultimate Meaning of Swordsmanship, you've fully mastered the Rule of Life.
You also used the remaining time to successfully refine the Rule of Void.
You find that sometimes the Rule of Void can substitute for the spatial rule component within Shinra Banshō—the Almighty Push—but although similar, the two are fundamentally different. The Rule of Void can only temporarily replace it, not truly transform into a Divine Technique!
...
That same year, minor conflicts erupt between the great shinobi villages, fighting over trade routes and mining towns.
A Konoha squad led by Sasuke, Enra, and Naruto takes part in these operations for field experience. All three are prodigies whose years of travel and training have brought them to the level of elite jōnin.
The squad's logistics team, including one of your clones, are no slouches either—their strength firmly at jōnin level.
Konoha's generational power gap is once again being bridged by this new wave of youthful talent...
...
〖Year Thirteen〗
The flames of war engulf the shinobi world. A true great war is on the verge of breaking out.
Konoha's elite team—Sasuke, Enra, Naruto—shines brilliantly across the battlefield. Tsunade, the current Hokage, decides that the next Hokage will be chosen from among these three.
You instruct the Shark Sage and Eel Sage to dispatch their summoned beasts to secretly assist Nagato, ensuring that he gathers all nine Tailed Beasts before the war begins.
Because of your past success fusing the conflicting forces of water and fire rules into a Divine Technique, you now decide to attempt the same with the Rules of Life and Death—using the Ultimate Meaning of Swordsmanship to refine them, channeling the prototype Divine Domain in hopes of creating a new Divine Technique.
Unfortunately, while your power surges during the first experiment, the fusion ultimately fails. You suffer injuries from containing the explosive clash of conflicting rules.
...
〖Year Fourteen〗
The Fourth Great Ninja War erupts.
Nagato, leading the Akatsuki from the shadows, seeks to make this war so devastating that future generations would become utterly disgusted with warfare—thus bringing true peace.
During the war, Naruto—one of Konoha's rising stars—is ambushed by a mysterious powerhouse and loses Kurama, the Nine-Tails.
Fortunately, thanks to Naruto's longstanding connection with Sunagakure, the rift between the two villages is mended. Granny Chiyo, unwilling to see Naruto die like Gaara once did, sacrifices her life to resurrect him after Kurama is extracted.
At the same time, with help from the powerful summoned beasts you directed, Nagato successfully gathers all nine Tailed Beasts and begins exploring how to craft a doomsday weapon to permanently suppress all war.
Sasuke, Enra, and Naruto embark on a mission to track down and unmask the true mastermind behind the shinobi world war.
Due to your injuries, you put the development of your new Divine Technique on hold.
You focus instead on recovering—absorbing natural energy from the Dragon Veins, practicing your breathing technique, and consuming vast amounts of chakra metal.
When your stockpile runs dry, you order the ninja cats to sell some low-grade weapons that the White Ape had used in the past, exchanging them for large quantities of chakra metal.
These White Ape Sage weapons stir up a storm in the summoning beast world. Some even begin calling you the "White Dragon Sage." Entire races of summoned beasts pay visits to your dwelling—but none of it concerns you.
All matters of receiving guests are handled entirely by the Eel and Shark Sages...
...
〖Year Fifteen〗
Nagato finds and recruits Hiruko into the Akatsuki. Though the doomsday weapon remains incomplete, the Akatsuki's overwhelming strength allows the war to rage across half the shinobi world.
While investigating the mastermind behind the war, Konoha's elite squad defeats many outer members of the Akatsuki, further boosting their strength. But against the core members—each of Kage-level power—the damage is negligible.
Bored during your extended recovery, you remember the broken sword.
More than a decade ago, you'd been too eager to battle the White Ape, and afterward became too absorbed in developing new cultivation techniques. You'd completely forgotten about the broken sword you obtained from the old Sword Saint.
You hadn't understood how to use it back then. Now that your power has vastly increased—why not give it another try?
You fiddle with the broken sword and suddenly feel a resonance.
You create a blood-and-flesh clone and infuse it with your Ōtsutsuki bloodline.
As expected, once the Ōtsutsuki bloodline is stripped away, there's no need to comprehend anything—the information hidden within the broken sword is drawn out directly by your Ultimate Meaning of Swordsmanship, flowing into your body.
Seems the sword's original master had a grudge against the Ōtsutsuki clan!
Among the information is a breathing technique passed down by the Sword Saint—more complete than what he previously taught you.
Unfortunately, after years of modifying it and integrating your own insights during usage, your breathing technique has long since fused with the Sage Art.
It has become an entirely new breathing style!
Thus, the original version is no longer particularly useful to you. So, you take advantage of the situation and upgrade your current breathing technique using the full version as a reference.
Besides that, there's a two-handed sword style focused on striking acupoints—exceptionally refined. At its peak, it can release sword aura and even birth sword intent!
Regrettably, you've already surpassed the sword intent stage and attained the Ultimate Meaning of Swordsmanship.
The sword style can only serve as inspiration. Though pairing it with the Byakugan's acupoint precision is feasible, it brings back the old question—if the enemy's already been pierced, what's the point of hitting pressure points?
Still, it might be useful against enemies with monstrous vitality...
Luckily, there's a sword technique named "Sword-Nurturing Art," which allows one to infuse a sword with the power of both body and spirit over time.
A sword nurtured this way can form a mental bond with its master, allowing it to fly through the air without any external aid.
You've flown swords before—using chakra, ocular power to control gravity, or even reshaping Truth-Seeking Orbs into blades.
But a technique that lets a weapon merge with your being simply by nurturing it? That's something you've never seen before.
It seems mostly impractical… but you decide to give it a try anyway.
The problem is, you don't have a suitable sword. At your current level, no regular material can meet your standards.
That broken sword might be ideal, but repairing it would take tremendous effort.
Then, a bold idea occurs to you—what if your body became the sword? Nurturing the sword would be nurturing yourself!
Isn't that the very essence of breathing techniques—to develop one's potential and master the body?
It seems that ever since cultivating the Battle Saint Scripture and purging your inner malice, your thinking has grown increasingly sharp!
So, to gather more chakra metal to fuel your body's growth—and to forge your body into a sword—you instruct the ninja cats to mix half the fruit into pills rich with medicinal energy, and sell them on your behalf.