Yes, that was right. In the Shinobi World, Kage Level was openly considered the strongest tier, but within the Otsutsuki Clan, it was probably only enough to count as an ordinary clan member.
Of course, this was only Kaede Kitahara's own estimate. He did not know the specifics. But if even such a weak Otsutsuki Honest Man like Otsutsuki Kinshiki had lower-ranked clan members who had sacrificed themselves for him, then thinking about it from that angle…
There probably really were ordinary clan members at Kage Level.
And considering that the Otsutsuki Clan generally lacked combat experience, and generally relied on Chakra Pills to raise their strength, there should be plenty of trash-tier Kage Level clan members among them.
In that case, wouldn't the souls of those powerful experts who had once been famous throughout the Shinobi World but had already died come in handy?
Unlike the weak White Zetsu created by his mother, Otsutsuki Kaguya Hime, these were top-class fighters. They had fought their entire lives and were all experienced combat masters.
If the Otsutsuki Clan sent weak clan members, they might even get knocked flat by experienced elite Jonin. If there were enough of them, turning the tables was possible.
Just thinking briefly about that possibility made Kaede Kitahara unable to hold back his excitement.
Because the pressure the Otsutsuki Clan placed on him was far too great. Even Otsutsuki Kaguya, Otsutsuki Isshiki, Otsutsuki Momoshiki, Otsutsuki Kinshiki, and Otsutsuki Urashiki were only the vanguard forces of the Otsutsuki Clan.
The ones that came afterward would be the truly terrifying ones.
"Looking at it this way, the Sage of Six Paths really might be preparing something in secret."
Kaede Kitahara murmured to himself. He did not know whether this counted as making things up in his own head.
But clearly, as Otsutsuki Kaguya's eldest son, that master of Ninshu who loved the Shinobi World the most could not possibly have spent more than a thousand years doing nothing.
Perhaps even the thousand years of war in the Shinobi World had been some kind of selection process for Ghost Soldiers.
Holy crap.
Once his mind started going in that direction, Kaede Kitahara could only say he really could not hold it together.
So, as the Sage of Six Paths, Otsutsuki Hagoromo had originally left behind Ninshu to improve human lives, spread productivity, and try to use Chakra to achieve mutual understanding between people. Then why had he not interfered in the affairs of the Shinobi World for the next thousand years?
Do not tell him that Hagoromo died a thousand years ago.
As an Otsutsuki, he had even reached Six Paths Level. There was absolutely no way he could die that easily.
In the Shinobi World, possessing great power did not mean living a long life. The most typical example was the First Hokage, the God of Shinobi, Senju Hashirama. His strength had been powerful enough, right? Yet he had only lived to middle age, and his death was completely inexplicable.
Uchiha Madara secretly escaped with his life through Izanagi, but so what?
In the end, he still did not live to a hundred before becoming old and decrepit.
Nagato was even worse, dragged down by the Rinnegan until he looked like he had a short life written all over his face.
To put it plainly, ninja were like children swinging broadswords. Ordinary mortals had obtained superpowers comparable to gods, but at their core, they were still ordinary humans. They were not gods.
The Sage of Six Paths was different. He was a proper Otsutsuki. On a genetic level, he was completely different even from his two sons later on. He was not a mortal like Otsutsuki Asura and Otsutsuki Indra.
So those two might have exhausted their lifespans in a short period and died, but the Sage of Six Paths could not. Even the decay of his physical body seemed strangely suspicious.
His younger brother Otsutsuki Hamura's physical decline seemed more normal. After all, Otsutsuki Hamura probably had not reached Six Paths Level. He had only played support.
The one who had truly fought Otsutsuki Kaguya Hime for three months was the elder brother, Otsutsuki Hagoromo.
Even the Chakra of Otsutsuki Asura and Otsutsuki Indra reincarnating again and again through generation after generation, constantly creating powerful ninja one after another, was that really because those two souls and wills remained immortal and unwilling to let go? Or had they been influenced by the Sage of Six Paths, so that although their souls had entered the Pure Land, their Chakra continued reincarnating from life to life?
Constantly forging Ghost Soldiers in preparation for the final battle against the Otsutsuki Clan in the future?
Kaede Kitahara felt that he really could not be blamed for thinking in conspiracies. This fit his understanding far too well.
It was just that in his previous life, he had not even seen Naruto's true ending, so all of this could only be his own speculation.
"Whatever. Forget it!" Kaede Kitahara temporarily set aside his worries about the future and prepared to start this round of the lottery.
He wondered what he could draw this time. It was not as if he could get good things every time. More often, he got perfunctory stuff.
"Stop!"
A moment later, Kaede Kitahara called for it to stop.
"Earth Release: Super Light-Weight Rock Technique!"
Kaede Kitahara froze for a moment. He had not expected to actually draw something good this time. It was Iwagakure's signature Ninjutsu, Earth Release: Super Light-Weight Rock Technique.
He remembered that this move could greatly reduce the weight of an object and allow flight.
The ability to fly was definitely an extremely rare thing in the Shinobi World.
Aside from Earth Release: Super Light-Weight Rock Technique, there was also Earth Release: Added-Weight Rock Technique as a complementary tactic. It could be said to be an extremely practical Ninjutsu.
A moment later, a large amount of information about Earth Release: Super Light-Weight Rock Technique appeared in Kaede Kitahara's mind. He immediately could not help frowning. This Earth Release: Super Light-Weight Rock Technique could make a person's body infinitely light, even allowing them to fly into the sky.
But there was also a problem. After using Super Light-Weight Rock Technique, the caster's own physical strength and physical destructive power would also drop to a certain extent.
It had to be paired with Added-Weight Rock Technique in order to restore combat strength. Without Added-Weight Rock Technique, this Ninjutsu could only be used by Kaede Kitahara for flying. At the very least, he would not be able to use it for close-range surprise attacks.
However, he could still release Ninjutsu from high altitude, so it was not as if he would have no ability to fight back.
Aside from that, maintaining Super Light-Weight Rock Technique required an enormous amount of Chakra. But for Kaede Kitahara, who was born with an extremely vast amount of Chakra and also had Dragon Vein Chakra as backup energy, that flaw basically did not count. It was almost the same as not existing.
The Chakra required to use Super Light-Weight Rock Technique normally was not even consumed faster than his body could recover on its own. That was exactly how outrageous the Uzumaki Clan's Sage Body was.
Kaede Kitahara tried following the key points of Super Light-Weight Rock Technique that had appeared in his mind and began attempting to fly.
Before long, he felt his body grow light. His entire body actually rose with the wind.
This was the sign that Super Light-Weight Rock Technique had been successfully activated. In fact, because his body had become infinitely light, even a gust of wind could blow him away. He had to use the matching technique to stabilize himself in midair and stop himself from drifting.
Under the night sky, Kaede Kitahara flew through the air on the wind. Beneath the moonlight, he looked like a Sage.