Wide, thick tires with deep treads rolled over loose sand dunes, leaving behind two winding trails that were soon smoothed over by the wind-blown sand—as if time itself had manifested.
Time quietly slipped away as the sun rose and set and the dunes shifted shape. Before they knew it, Hii Kōri and his four disciples had been trekking through the Great Sand Sea for over a month.
Compared to the somewhat "tamed" environment of villages built around oases, this vast, empty sea of yellow sand laid bare the most cruel face of the desert before every brave soul—or fool—who dared to set foot in it.
The blistering heat beneath the daytime sun, as if the blazing orb itself had fallen, could evaporate any liquid exposed to its light. The very air distorted into bizarre lenses, making it impossible to rely on sight confirmation of the path ahead.
And once the sun set, the heat remaining in the sand—which couldn't store thermal energy—would rapidly drain into the moistureless air, causing temperatures to plummet from over forty degrees during the day to single digits or even below freezing.
The raging sandstorms that could kick up at any moment provided unexpected surprises.
Such extreme conditions were something even Sasori, born in Sunagakure, had never experienced—let alone Yahiko's trio, who had only traversed a relatively mild and stable route on their way to Sunagakure.
Routes like this? In the Country of Wind, they were just... well.
That's why Hii Kōri had prepared this sand buggy in advance. Thanks to storage scrolls, supplies carrying capacity wasn't an issue in this world. With the capacity of those large storage scrolls installed in the vehicle's "trunk," they could live extravagantly for half a year. Even if the vehicle rolled over, the supplies Hii Kōri carried personally would sustain their group for three to four months.
Under these circumstances, he had no reason to rush.
Hii Kōri slowly cruised through the Great Sand Sea, letting the Four children fully experience this extreme environment.
How to maximize conserve energy and moisture under the blazing sun. How to use the sand layer for insulation on cold nights. How to set up stable rest points. Methods for distinguishing different desert terrains, the feel underfoot, and proper techniques for exerting force. Ways to set traps using quicksand or unstable dunes. Methods for predicting sandstorm progress. Tips for determining direction using the stars...
They say practice is the best teacher—and that's undoubtedly a universal truth.
Compared to the dry words in books, the four children clearly learned faster through personal experience.
But although the main purpose of this training was to promote deeper trust between Sasori and Yahiko's group, Hii Kōri didn't neglect teaching them individually.
The Rinnegan's enhancement of Nagato's abilities was unquestionable. Having already mastered five nature transformations, what he needed now wasn't mere "techniques," but deeper development and excavation of the Rinnegan itself.
Hii Kōri remembered that the Rinnegan's dōjutsu included techniques manipulating repulsive and attractive forces. Coincidentally, those two moves that bastard Gojō Satoru used most often—"Blue" and "Red"—were applications of these very forces in terms of manifestation and operational logic.
Strength, power, range—all depended solely on chakra quantity. That was the most convenient aspect of ninjutsu. Based on this property, it is envisaged that for various abilities and techniques could be reproduced through ninjutsu as long as they were logically feasible. Difficulty of execution and chakra utilization rate could be adjusted later.
The names "Shinra Tensei" and "Banshō Ten'in" sounded impressive, but from Hii Kōri's perspective, their application of force was quite crude—though of course, considering that the original "medium" for performing these techniques was Yahiko's processed corpse, it was understandable.
Since there was no need to consider bodily load and protection, standing still and indiscriminately crushing everything in range was indeed an efficient solution.
Moreover, given Nagato's level of education in the original work, it was hard to expect him to play other tricks with repulsion and attraction.
Chibaku Tensei was already a degraded version of the technique the Sage of Six Paths and his brother used to seal their mother—something carved in the Rinnegan's original skill set, not a technique Nagato developed himself.
But based on Nagato's performance in the original work, he truly had taken the Rinnegan's skill set to its limits. From this perspective, his mind was fine—he simply lacked the corresponding knowledge.
So Hii Kōri taught him Suna's prized secret technique, Sand Manipulation—along with a stack of physics lecture notes.
Sand force analysis? Go for it. Do it until you can't make a sound.
Physics was good. They had to learn it.
Konan also had to study physics.
Konan's Paper Manipulation Technique had many advantages: lightweight, stealthy, quick to activate, extremely scalable. The Paper Shuriken technique she'd already mastered almost freed her from dependence on ninja tools.
But correspondingly, she also had all the defects of ordinary paper.
Liquids and flames could greatly affect the paper she manipulated. Even using paper transformed from her own body, attached with stronger chakra, couldn't completely overcome this defect.
Of course, water, oil, and flame effects could be reduced through special processing, but the paper's inherently "lightweight" mass and stiffness would anyway be affected by environmental airflow.
How to use minimal chakra to strengthen paper in this dry, windy environment—where suspended particles could be driven by wind to pierce through paper—enabling smooth folding and smooth flight: that was Konan's current topic.
Although with Konan's talent in Yang Release, she didn't actually need to be so meticulous with chakra, in Hii Kōri's vision, he intended to develop Konan's abilities maximally toward stealth and operational range.
Paper played an irreplaceable role even in his previous life's environment, where electronic devices were extremely popular. In the Naruto world, it was even more common.
If the chakra residue on paper Konan controlled could be suppressed below a certain boundary, then perhaps lurking and intelligence gathering could be conducted through paper—something no one would be vigilant about.
Of course, this was just idea and hope. Even if Konan couldn't reach that level, it didn't matter. By that time, Hii Kōri might not even need such means.
But meticulous chakra budgeting and meticulous control could never harm a ninja.
Yahiko's situation was more embarrassing.
Besides Water Release, he indeed lacked talent in other nature transformations, and the desert environment greatly restricted Water Release. So Hii Kōri simply taught him the Hard Water-style Water Release learned from Hanzō.
Hanzō had said he could learn as much as he wanted, so once learned, it became his—he could teach whoever he pleased.
Hard Water-style Water Release focused on chakra condensation and absolute control of water. After abandoning conventional Water Release's freer operability and variable characteristics, what was gained was lower environmental dependence and higher stability—to some extent even exempt Earth Release's restraint over Water Release.
In the desert, Hard Water's stable structure could also mitigate liquid evaporation caused by high temperatures.
But considering Sunagakure's overall environment and Yahiko's aspirations, Hii Kōri taught him Hard Water-style while also adding some "political" content about organizational action ideas and methods.
Although he was only an amateur in this area, what he knew was tentatively sufficient for this era.
Hii Kōri planned to check the Country of Rain's situation in a couple years before considering whether to send Yahiko to assist Hanzō.
Or maybe later, help him raise a counter-flag and push Hanzō off his horse.
Although from the original work's perspective, Hanzō's position was understandable—his backbone broken, seeing no future for Amegakure, the aging demigod degenerating into someone who could only cling tightly to power accumulated in the past was indeed normal—it was still hard to harbor any expectations for him.
The power ninjas used was chakra, and one of chakra's constituent elements was spiritual energy. Though not to the point of "mind prevailing over matter," mentality did have a significant impact on ninjas.
If the heart became fragile, no matter how strong the ninja, death wasn't far off.
As for Sasori, perhaps because of the robot gift he received as a child, or because he'd grown up around Hii Kōri and been influenced, it was hard to say he had much interest in ninjutsu itself. But compared to conventional nature transformations, he did prefer the "hands-on research" aspect of puppet techniques.
Hii Kōri had already established the technical framework for large puppets and autonomous puppets years ago. Sasori's future learning space was endless. So compared to Yahiko and the others, Sasori's training was much simpler.
Along the journey, aside from efficient chakra extraction methods and operating techniques, the first knowledge Sasori learned was even how to excavate stabilizing caves for rest in sand dunes, and methods for securing windbreak tarps.
The contrast between the two sides was very stark.
But this didn't hinder the increasingly harmonious atmosphere between Yahiko's group and Sasori.
A child Sasori's age—how could he resist the kindness of Yahiko, the male succubus of the Country of Rain?
During breaks, Sasori often helped Yahiko repair small tools, or read books with Nagato.
Of course, the most common scene was the three little beans forming a circle, eagerly waiting for Konan and Hii Kōri to finish cooking.
Konan's stewed corn sweet soup suits Sasori's taste. This preference for sweets clearly follows Hii Kōri's habits.
If the sole purpose was to build trust and friendship among the four children, this over-a-month expedition had clearly been very successful. But Hii Kōri did have other goals for this operation.
Throughout this month, he had never stopped exploring for Rōran.
More precisely, he wasn't seeking traces of Rōran, but the Dragon Vein itself.
At first hearing, the two didn't seem to differ, but careful thinking revealed the distinction.
Although Hii Kōri didn't yet know what the Dragon Vein in the Naruto world actually was, considering what the name "Dragon Vein" represented in his previous world, and the many obvious contrasts between the two worlds, it easily associates to "earth Vein" and similar concepts often mentioned in feng shui.
Moreover Indeed, in this world, techniques called "Sage Techniques" that utilized "natural energy" did exist.
Combining these clues, it wasn't unreasonable to assume the Dragon Vein was a convergence of natural energy by this planet, flowing through the earth. And Rōran, as a country within a country, could not possibly cover the entire Dragon Vein with its area and landform.
Following this logic, Hii Kōri's route over the past month had actually been explored based on geomancy principles.
In geomancy theory covering the entire East Asian cultural sphere, terms like "earth vein" and "dragon vein" were unavoidable.
So-called geomancy: "kan" refers to the celestial way, and "yo" refers to the terrestrial way. In the historical records of the country where this discipline originated, "kan'yoka" was once listed alongside "five element practitioners," meaning observing celestial phenomena above and surveying geography below.
By the time of Hii... Kōri's era, some concepts from the five element practitioners had been delineated and collectively called "feng shui techniques" along with kanyuxue.
Although now degraded to something most easily heard from fake blind fortune-tellers under bridges, as a once-prominent field of study, feng shui overall was a composite discipline integrating physics, hydrogeology, astronomy and astrology, meteorology, environmental landscape, architecture, ecology, and human life information—multiple disciplines.
Many of its branches also had extensive application in the jujutsu field.
But in Hii Kōri's era, the term "kan'yo" was rarely used anymore—mostly replaced by "feng shui techniques." Those who still used this name were either genuine ancient texts or imitators trying to make things up.
The source of Hii Kōri's mastery of this technique is really somewhere between the two.
The pure-blooded mountain folk lineages that had preserved themselves to the present day as Shugendō practitioners were both inheritors of genuinely ancient bloodlines and holders of ideas that deliberately continue this classical terminology to demarcate the boundary between themselves and modern culture.
Though Hii Kōri didn't know if his previous self truly had mountain folk blood, he had indeed benefited greatly from the mountain folk, and had also been influenced by their philosophy. The traces of Shugendō in his jujutsu system were proof.
Similarly, this included the Kan Yuxue learned from the mountain folk.
And this knowledge, across worlds, had not disappointed him.
After nearly another month, having nearly carved a full circle of tire tracks along the Great Sand Sea's edge, Hii Kōri stopped the vehicle, gazing at the surrounding scenery that appeared identical from other areas.
"...Phew... took quite a while..."
Marveling thus, he walked to a sand dune. After inserting his arm into the gravel beneath his feet, he pulled a water hose from the scroll Yahiko carried over, letting water flow along his arm and seep into the yellow sand Below.
The water, imbued with Hii Kōri's chakra, transformed under his manipulation into continuous dendritic probes, rapidly spreading through the gravel.
He closed his eyes, using Kagura Mind's Eye to meticulously sense the fluctuations transmitted by the trident-shaped flowing water probes. After confirming a direction, he released his Spirit Thread Nerves woven into a "whip," extending ever towards that location.
Deeper and deeper, until they touched that fragment, that glimpse.
***
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