Time continued to pass, and Yuji's responsibilities as Kazekage gradually became more manageable.
Routine administrative matters were handled by Shimizu on his behalf. Beyond occasional visits to the orphanage and the underground research laboratory, Yuji would make periodic rounds through certain key village departments. The remaining time could finally be devoted to his own training and development.
Sealing Jutsu, Water Release, Earth Release, eye technique refinement, chakra nature transformation, all of these were areas where Yuji continued making steady progress. The abilities he had acquired through the system, such as Blood Release and his healing ninjutsu, had already been pushed to their ceiling and were unlikely to see dramatic breakthroughs.
The Ope Ope no Mi on the other hand required experience points to develop further rather than direct training.
So meaningful growth in his actual combat power had to come from other angles.
In practical terms, at the level he had already reached, even mastering additional techniques would produce only marginal improvement. Unless he could develop a forbidden technique of genuinely staggering power, or at minimum learn an S-rank ninjutsu, his rate of growth would naturally slow.
Year fifty-one of the Hokage era.
The Sand Village's military campaign through the Land of Rain had concluded with overwhelming force, sweeping through the country's internal chaos at a speed that left observers across the ninja world struggling to process what they were seeing.
Garrison forces were now being positioned across every region in a long-term suppression deployment, with the goal of thoroughly reshaping the Land of Rain's internal culture and outlook from the ground up.
Led by the four great hidden villages, the ninja world continued its chorus of condemnation against the Sand Village's behavior. But not a single force had the capacity to actually do anything about it. It remained nothing more than words.
On Konoha's side, Minato's ascension combined with the Land of Fire's pharmaceutical resources spreading across the ninja world's markets had proven enormously popular. The revenue generated had contributed significantly to Konoha's reconstruction efforts and had given the village a fresh sense of momentum in a remarkably short time.
The village's morale had risen meaningfully. By following the same commercial path the Sand Village had pioneered, Konoha appeared to be lifting itself out of the war's shadow and beginning to move toward its former strength.
Everything was developing in a positive direction for them.
In the Hidden Stone Village, Onoki had been working to find a way to break through the market dominance held by both the Sand Village and Konoha. Watching Konoha successfully imitate the Sand Village's model and carve out a profitable share, the old man had naturally grown restless. And he had actually found a path forward. The approach was to enter the medicinal herb cultivation industry, reaching cooperation agreements with numerous nations and villages to contract the farming of raw medicinal ingredients.
The Land of Earth itself had also begun promoting widespread herb cultivation programs and related policies internally.
As long as both the Sand Village's and Konoha's pharmaceutical industries continued operating, their demand for raw medicinal ingredients would remain constant. Even if those two villages were taking the larger share of profits, the Hidden Stone Village could at minimum drink from the soup they left behind.
It had to be said that Onoki's long years of experience had produced a genuinely sharp eye for opportunity.
The Hidden Mist Village was occupied with its extensive internal reorganization and reforms. The Hidden Cloud Village, having suffered the heaviest losses of any village in the Great Ninja War, had its attention focused almost entirely on recovery and rebuilding and was relatively quiet.
This was the current state of the ninja world.
Although the villages still generated occasional friction and small-scale conflicts, these were nothing compared to the lingering aftershocks that had followed the Second Great Ninja War.
One day, on the open desert outside the Sand Village.
Yuji brought his hands together in a sequence of seals and aimed at a large boulder some distance away.
"Secret Technique: Mandala Binding."
As he drove his chakra outward, the boulder was immediately surrounded by a triangular spatial formation. The spatial barriers began contracting inward, and within moments the enclosed rock had been compressed into fine powder. When the technique dissolved, the dust drifted away on the wind.
"The activation speed is still slightly too slow. And the damage potential this technique can impose on a target is still too closely tied to the user's own breathing rhythm. Spiritual force and chakra control are both critical factors," Yuji said, lowering his hands and considering the result.
This secret technique could only be learned by Fuma clan members. The difficulty of mastering it was considerable. But for Yuji, it presented no fundamental obstacle. His innate talent in space-time ninjutsu had been dramatically enhanced by the Ope Ope no Mi, which meant his predisposition toward techniques of this nature was extraordinary.
The prerequisite for mastering this technique was possessing a latent affinity for space-time ninjutsu. The Fuma clan had developed specific training and teaching methods to cultivate this particular quality in their members, but had simply never shared those methods outside the clan.
Yuji then formed another seal, exhaled a sweeping wind technique, and raised a storm of sand across the desert floor in front of him. As the curtain of sand and dust was about to fall, his seals shifted and he deployed the Uchiha clan's signature Great Fireball Technique.
"Acceptable," he assessed quietly as the heat waves dispersed above him.
What he had learned from Bunpuku at the ninja temple went beyond Sealing Jutsu alone. What he had gained was also a deeper understanding of the philosophy underlying Sealing Jutsu.
And because Sealing Jutsu was itself a form of ninjutsu, the deeper his comprehension of sealing principles grew, the more his perspective on other techniques shifted and opened as well. It was as though the study of sealing was gradually elevating his overall ninjutsu craftsmanship to a higher plane.
Furthermore, Sealing Jutsu training moved in close harmony with mental force and Yin Release chakra, which was quietly and continuously refining the depth of his consciousness and inner state in ways he could feel but not always articulate.
This had also made the execution speed of relatively straightforward ninjutsu considerably faster for him now, including single-handed seals and technique deployment speed.
Of course, learning a technique and truly mastering it were different matters. How much practical power a technique actually produced depended heavily on the individual. One aspect was pure proficiency through repetition. The other was how the technique was deployed in actual combat. The same ninjutsu produced entirely different results depending on each person's understanding, their habitual application patterns, and the combat context in which they chose to use it.
As for chakra nature transformation, that had not presented significant difficulty for him. His eye technique contributed meaningfully to this area as a foundation.
At present, excluding lightning-attribute chakra, Yuji could deploy all six remaining chakra natures: Fire, Earth, Water, Wind, Yin, and Yang. If he were to successfully absorb and sustain Hashirama's cells, he would add Wood Release on top of these.
But he had no current intention of pursuing that path. The enhancement that Hashirama's cells could provide was genuinely extraordinary, but the village's research on those cells had not yet reached a sufficiently complete understanding. The side effects remained clearly present and could not be dismissed.
"Found him."
Yuji had just lowered his hands when a White Zetsu body emerged from the ground behind him and delivered the report.
"Oh?"
Yuji raised an eyebrow slightly.
He knew immediately who White Zetsu was referring to.
Hiruko. A student of the Third Hokage Sarutobi Hiruzen, though not an officially recognized disciple. He had received Hiruzen's guidance to some degree, placing him in a semi-apprentice relationship.
A character who had never shone prominently in the ninja world, existing in the same era as the Three Legendary Sannin but never achieving anything close to their fame. He had eventually betrayed and fled Konoha due to his research into the Chimera Technique, a forbidden jutsu.
Yuji had no particular high regard for this individual's capabilities.
The reason he had been keeping track of him served two purposes. First, as a story character, killing him would yield a certain amount of experience points. The second and more important reason was the technique itself.
As Yuji's own ninjutsu craftsmanship had continued developing, the kinds of techniques he needed to study now were necessarily of the highest possible complexity and depth. Examining advanced forbidden techniques was one of the most effective ways to deepen his understanding of ninjutsu's fundamental nature.
And the Chimera Technique was particularly interesting. It was capable of absorbing and fusing outside bloodlines, even including summoning beasts, encompassing bloodline limits within its range of absorption.
This particular quality captured Yuji's attention as a medical researcher.
But there was also a more personal reason for his interest. The ability to absorb and fuse external power sources was precisely what he was working toward through the system for his next major goal.
There were two things he wanted to absorb and fuse into himself. The first was dragon vein energy, to dramatically increase his base chakra reserves. The second was the Rinnegan currently in his possession, taken from Nagato.
The Rinnegan was the key item he wanted to use for awakening his eye technique to its next level.
The system did have a skill that allowed fusion of external power sources, but the cost was staggeringly high. It was completely out of reach in the near term.
So studying the Chimera Technique first was not a bad approach. Even setting aside his personal interest, bringing this forbidden technique back under the village's control as a reserved research resource had its own value.
"Where is he?" Yuji asked.
"You guessed correctly. He snuck into the Land of Wind," White Zetsu said with a sly tone.
"Let us go then. Lead the way," Yuji said with a nod.
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