Benevolent Kaguya remained silent for a moment. She could tell that Kiyohara had no intention of explaining the matter in detail.
She lowered her eyelashes slightly.
"Very well. Everyone has their own secrets. I have no right to press you about the cards you have hidden up your sleeve."
Kiyohara took out a second sealing scroll from his clothes. This was the flesh and blood of several members of the Otsutsuki branch family that he had collected in addition to everything else while exploring the ancient city on the Moon.
Although the purity of their bloodline was inferior to that of the Great Elder, the advantage was that there was plenty of it.
He unrolled the scroll.
Several Otsutsuki corpses were released from the seal and floated in midair.
Kiyohara then turned toward the juvenile Ten-Tails that was still lying helplessly beneath the rock wall. He slightly spread the five fingers of his left hand, and an invisible force of attraction pulled the Ten-Tails out from beneath the cliff and lifted it into the air.
The juvenile Ten-Tails struggled several times within his grasp. Its ten tails weakly thrashed about while a hoarse growl came from its mouth.
"Eat."
Kiyohara brought the Otsutsuki flesh toward the Ten-Tails' mouth.
The Ten-Tails' Rinne Sharingan suddenly lit up.
It violently opened its mouth, and several of its tails opened their mouths as well. One piece after another, they tore into the flesh floating in the air and frantically swallowed it down.
Its body began to swell.
Something seemed to be writhing beneath its dark-red skin. The black curse-like markings covering its surface became increasingly dense, while the length and thickness of its ten tails began increasing at a speed that could be seen with the naked eye.
Then, a change occurred.
The Ten-Tails' body began to harden.
Its limbs stopped struggling and slowly drew inward toward both sides of its body. A layer of grayish-brown, bark-like material gradually covered them.
Its ten tails stopped thrashing.
Instead, they extended upward. The tips of the tails merged together, and from that point of convergence, something began growing upward, gradually transforming into a thick tree trunk.
The surface of the trunk was rough and cracked. Within those cracks flowed a faint golden radiance of chakra.
Its body curled into itself and became a gigantic root ball. Countless thick roots extended from the bottom of the root ball, burrowing into the ground of the canyon and drilling deep into the layers of rock beneath it.
Its head tilted upward.
Its mouth opened, and from deep within its throat emerged a tender green branch.
The branch continued to split, stretch outward, and thicken. Eventually, it spread across the sky above the canyon, forming an enormous canopy that blocked out the heavens and the sun.
In less than half a quarter of an hour, the terrifying and grotesque juvenile Ten-Tails had transformed into a towering tree.
The trunk was so thick that it would take dozens of people joining hands to encircle it.
The tree rose straight from the bottom of the canyon and soared into the clouds, reaching a height of more than one hundred meters.
Its enormous canopy blocked out the sky and sunlight, casting the entire canyon beneath a dense layer of shade.
This was the God Tree.
Unlike any tree Kiyohara had ever seen in the modern world, this tree radiated an unmistakable aura of chakra.
Its very existence was already altering the concentration of natural energy within the canyon.
Kiyohara could sense the natural energy surrounding them slowly gathering toward the God Tree at an extremely gradual rate.
"So this is the God Tree."
"A thousand years have passed. I never imagined that I would see it again."
At the same time, deep within the Moon, inside the sealed space.
Evil Hagoromo sat cross-legged in an eternal darkness.
Dozens of golden chains pierced through his body.
The chains extended from the void, firmly binding him within the sealed space.
He had been sitting in this darkness for a thousand years.
There was no light.
There was no sound.
There was not even any sensation of time passing.
The only way he could sense anything from the outside world was through the chakra connection within his body that originated from the same source as the God Tree.
And just now, that connection, which had remained silent for a thousand years, had suddenly been disturbed.
Evil Hagoromo abruptly opened his eyes.
"The God Tree?"
"Who helped Mother restore the God Tree? Mother no longer has enough power to cultivate the God Tree by herself. Someone must have helped her, and that person possesses an enormous amount of chakra, enough to awaken the Ten-Tails."
"Hahahaha!"
Evil Hagoromo was delighted.
If that was the case, then he finally had a chance to escape.
Kiyohara stood beneath the God Tree and looked up at its enormous canopy that blocked out the sky.
"Wait here for me."
After saying this to Benevolent Kaguya, his figure disappeared into the enormous shadow cast by the God Tree.
When he appeared again, Kiyohara had already collected portions of the flesh left behind by several dead shinobi.
These shinobi were death-row criminals who had committed serious crimes. Kiyohara had also found several death-row criminals who were still alive.
Benevolent Kaguya floated in midair and watched as Kiyohara spread the sealing scrolls across the tangled roots of the God Tree.
The patterns of the techniques engraved upon the scrolls lit up one after another under the stimulation of chakra.
Two Impure World Reincarnation formations that had been prepared in advance emerged from the scrolls.
At the center of each formation was a freshly collected DNA sample, along with a piece of living tissue that had been peeled away from the roots of the God Tree.
"Impure World Reincarnation."
Kiyohara formed hand seals with both hands.
Twelve streams of grayish-white dust and smoke rose from the formations.
The dust and smoke rotated in the air, gradually gathering together and taking shape. Slowly, they outlined twelve human figures.
The first to take form was a tall, middle-aged shinobi.
Bloodstains from the moment of his death still remained on his face. His eyes suddenly opened.
"Wasn't I dead? Where is this place?"
"Hahahaha! I'm alive again! I want women! Women!"
The voices of the other eleven revived individuals soon rang out one after another.
"What happened? Why is my body grayish-white?"
"I clearly remember dying during the Third Shinobi War!"
Kiyohara gave them no time to continue asking questions.
The Mangekyo Sharingan appeared within his eyes.
A crimson light flashed.
His ocular power transformed into twelve invisible spiritual attacks that simultaneously entered the minds of the twelve resurrected individuals.
Everyone's expressions changed from confusion to bewilderment.
Then the bewilderment turned into emptiness.
Finally, all twelve lowered their heads together and stood silently in place like puppets whose strings had been cut.
Their consciousness had already been suppressed into the deepest depths of their souls.
What remained was nothing more than pure chakra vessels that could be controlled and manipulated at will.
"We can begin."
Benevolent Kaguya remained silent for a moment before raising both hands.
Ocular power surged from her eyes and flowed into the trunk of the God Tree.
The enormous body of the God Tree trembled slightly.
The roots that had been coiled throughout the bottom of the canyon slowly rose from the soil.
They extended toward the twelve Impure World Reincarnation bodies.
The roots wrapped around them and firmly fixed them in place.
Then, the God Tree began extracting their chakra.
The chakra being drained away flowed along the roots and gathered into the trunk. From there, it continued upward until it reached the branches.
Meanwhile, the Impure World bodies that had been completely drained of chakra automatically recovered after only a few seconds.
Grayish-white cracks spread across their skin before healing once again.
Chakra surged from the depths of their souls and filled the vacancies left behind by the chakra that had been extracted.
Then the God Tree drained them dry again.
The process continued over and over.
Benevolent Kaguya watched the scene with her brows slightly furrowed.
"This technique…"
"I have lived for several thousand years, yet I have never seen anyone capable of summoning the souls of the dead from the Pure Land back into the living world and giving them immortal bodies."
"Even more astonishing is that the chakra within these bodies can actually recover."
"So this is the wisdom of the shinobi."
Kiyohara leaned against the roots of the God Tree with his arms folded across his chest.
"The Otsutsuki clan relies far too heavily on their natural talents. They are born with the Byakugan, born with powerful chakra, and born with bloodline limits. Their innate strength is already sufficient, so they have little motivation to research techniques and similar things."
The "pills" of the Otsutsuki clan were the most typical example.
Why bother cultivating painstakingly?
They could simply refine the flesh and chakra of other people into "pills" and obtain power directly.
After Otsutsuki Momoshiki consumed the "pill" formed from Otsutsuki Kinshiki, his strength also increased explosively, and it seemed that there were no significant side effects.
A technique like this could indeed make it very easy for someone to lose themselves in the pursuit of power.
Benevolent Kaguya fell silent.
The Otsutsuki were naturally powerful, so they had never bothered to study the techniques created by these ordinary humans.
Yet it was precisely these ordinary humans who had created a system of ninjutsu that even the Otsutsuki could hardly have imagined within only a thousand years.
"You are right."
She let out a soft sigh and once again raised her eyes toward the twelve Impure World Reincarnation bodies that were continuously having their chakra extracted by the God Tree.
"I never imagined that something like this could exist."
Hearing Kaguya's words, Kiyohara actually wanted to tell her that he had never imagined it either.
The forbidden-technique master, Tobirama, was simply too outrageous!
Kiyohara then spread his perception over the bodies of the twelve Impure World Reincarnation subjects.
The twelve resurrected individuals stood silently within the roots of the God Tree.
Their chakra was repeatedly drained, then restored.
Restored, then drained again.
Kiyohara collected all of this data.
Not long afterward, Kiyohara withdrew his perception and nodded slightly.
The data from the first stage had already been collected.
Next, he needed to take this data back and conduct a more in-depth study in the laboratory.
"I'll leave this place to you for now. The current chakra supply is sufficient to support the God Tree during its initial growth. Later, I will send more Impure World Reincarnation subjects here and expand the scale of the chakra supply."
Benevolent Kaguya nodded.
Kiyohara's figure disappeared from in front of her.
The modern world.
Konoha.
Underground Research Facility.
Kiyohara's figure appeared inside the deepest laboratory of the research facility.
This place was separated from his office by only a single encrypted fuinjutsu barrier.
Other than Kiyohara himself and a small number of people who had been personally authorized by him, no one could enter.
Several thousand pieces of high-purity ore mined from the Gelel Stone Mine were embedded into the walls of the laboratory.
The faint green luminescence within the ores illuminated the entire room in a cold green glow.
A massive experimental table occupied the center of the room.
The surface was covered with scrolls, test tubes, sealing talismans, and several chakra analysis devices that Kiyohara had personally designed.
A gigantic bookshelf stood in the corner.
It was packed with ancient books, ninjutsu scrolls, and notes on fuinjutsu techniques that had been collected from various parts of the Land of Fire.
Kiyohara removed his coat and draped it over the back of a chair before sitting down in front of the experimental table.
He opened a blank laboratory record.
He intended to continue researching the chakra circulation mechanism of the Impure World Reincarnation technique.
From the moment the idea of planting the God Tree had first appeared in his mind, he had continuously been thinking about one question.
Where did the seemingly infinite chakra of an Impure World Reincarnation body actually come from?
The question appeared simple at first glance, but once examined carefully, it touched upon the very core of the definition of chakra itself.
First, the essence of the Impure World Reincarnation technique was a summoning technique.
It summoned the soul of a dead person from the Pure Land into the living world and bound it within the body of a living sacrifice, transforming it into an immortal Impure World body.
The key material required to activate the technique was the shinobi's DNA.
Its function was to establish a connection to a specific soul through the information contained within the flesh and blood.
A shinobi's chakra naturally carried the imprint of their soul.
At the same time, chakra itself was a combination of spiritual energy and physical energy.
Therefore, as long as one obtained a person's flesh and blood, it was possible to use the soul information carried within their chakra to accurately locate that person's soul within the Pure Land.
Then where did the seemingly infinite chakra of an Impure World Reincarnation body come from?
Could it come from the portion of physical body retained by the person being reincarnated?
Obviously not.
A corpse could not produce chakra.
It certainly could not support the level of output possessed by a shinobi of Kage-level strength.
Then what about the living sacrifice?
That was equally impossible.
The highest-quality sacrifices were White Zetsu, whose strength was roughly at the level of a Chunin.
Yet the powerful individuals resurrected through their bodies far surpassed White Zetsu in both physical strength and chakra reserves.
This meant that after resurrection, the shinobi were not actually restricted by White Zetsu as their containers.
The greater issue was one of "precision."
The higher the precision, the closer the resurrected body would be to the individual's condition before death.
"Could the caster transmit chakra through the formula within the talisman?"
Kiyohara pondered this possibility.
Kabuto could indeed transmit chakra into the body of a reincarnated individual through the formula.
However, when the Allied Shinobi Forces sensed the chakra of the Impure World Reincarnation bodies on the battlefield, they could directly identify which deceased shinobi the chakra belonged to.
This meant that the chakra they sensed had exactly the same nature as the chakra possessed by the reincarnated individual while they were alive.
Therefore, the source of the chakra could not be Kabuto.
The portion of chakra transmitted by Kabuto was more likely being used to convey command signals and control instructions to the reincarnated bodies.
"What about natural energy?"
Kiyohara considered this possibility as well.
But he quickly ruled it out.
Once natural energy was mixed into chakra, it would become "Sage Chakra."
Edo Tensei Minato had been able to directly break through the defenses of the Ten-Tails' Jinchuriki.
Yet Edo Tensei Minato clearly could not accomplish such a feat normally.
He still needed to actively enter Sage Mode.
Then, the only remaining possibility was that the chakra came from the soul of the person being reincarnated.
Kiyohara had always believed that a shinobi's soul was the true foundation.
Orochimaru's invention of the Living Corpse Reincarnation technique had indeed been a stroke of genius.
After all, the chakra of Indra and Asura had been able to reincarnate continuously for a thousand years.
But a shinobi's chakra inherently contained their consciousness, or rather, their soul.
Not to mention the Sage of Six Paths himself, who had remained alive and conscious for a thousand years.
If souls had a lifespan, the Sage of Six Paths would have died long ago.
The Otsutsuki clan was the same.
Their "Kāma" also replaced their physical vessels.
The difference was that their method was far more advanced than Orochimaru's.
It could completely assimilate these vessels and transform them into the physical body they possessed before, without being affected by the replacement.
Orochimaru's Living Corpse Reincarnation, however, could only transform his body into that of the other person.
The reason he still appeared to be Orochimaru was simply because he had used a disguise technique.
"Kato Dan was also able to transmit chakra to Tsunade through his soul, and he even managed to replenish her Strength of a Hundred Seal completely."
Kiyohara continued thinking.
Because the chakra was attached to the soul of the reincarnated individual, the reincarnated shinobi had a limit to the amount of chakra they could output.
The amount of chakra that the soul could utilize was fixed.
Unlike a living person, it could not increase through cultivation.
After the Impure World Reincarnation was released, Kato Dan had been able to transmit chakra to Tsunade through the Spirit Transformation Technique.
This also indirectly proved that the soul itself truly carried chakra.
But there was a problem.
A normal shinobi's chakra was limited.
Although the total chakra of a Kage-level shinobi was enormous, it was by no means infinite.
Then why did the chakra of an Impure World Reincarnation body display the characteristic of "infinite recovery"?
Kiyohara soon thought of a possibility.
"The chakra recovery mechanism of Impure World Reincarnation is similar to the Eight Gates Formation. It completely releases the latent energy within the human body."
"The difference is that when a living person opens the Eight Gates, their body will eventually burn out and die. An Impure World body, however, can repeatedly recover itself."
"Therefore, it produces an effect that appears to be infinite."
The basis for this deduction was quite simple.
The potential of chakra within the human body was actually enormous.
Certain methods were required to completely unleash that power.
The Eight Gates were precisely such a method.
The technique was similar to nuclear fusion.
If one gram of coal were burned, it could only release an extremely limited amount of energy. But if one gram of matter underwent complete nuclear fusion, the energy released would be equivalent to approximately twenty-five million degrees of electrical energy.
After Might Guy opened the Eighth Gate, the Gate of Death, the reason he was able to obtain power comparable to the Six Paths level was because he released all of his body's latent energy in an extremely short period of time.
The price was that his physical body was almost completely carbonized.
A living person's body simply could not withstand an energy release of that magnitude.
Naruto had also used a similar principle.
Its underlying principle simulated the nuclear fusion process of the sun.
By fusing the chakra of the Nine-Tails with Naruto's own chakra, it produced a new form of energy that could release an enormous amount of power within a short period of time.
However, the price was that it would rapidly consume the Nine-Tails' life force.
(End of Chapter)