The already lazy and drowsy Miwa Masayo suddenly thought of something.
Her spirit instantly snapped back to attention, and she whipped her head around to stare at Uchiha Yoru.
Yoru asked curiously, "What is it?"
Tilting her head, the tabby stared at her human with a strange tone and asked, "A mark you can still sense from that far away… is that a Flying Thunder God mark, nya? When did you develop it to this point, nya?"
Uchiha Yoru answered, "It only counts as more than half finished. This mark still can't respond to my technique formula. There are still a lot of problems left to solve…"
"Nya! While you were eating and drinking with me, you still managed to get it to this stage, and you're still not satisfied!?"
The more Miwa Masayo spoke, the angrier she became.
"Yoru, you can't do this, nya. It was supposed to be time to rest, and you're still working this hard. You're going to make me feel stupid and lazy, nya!"
Uchiha Yoru could only explain helplessly, "You can't blame me for that. Inspiration came all of a sudden, and then it suddenly reached this stage. I didn't want that either…"
"From now on, you're going to rest properly, just—"
Miwa Masayo looked around.
The beach had been turned into a mess by the battle, and it had been stained filthy by the octopus's blue blood. The seawater was mixed with emulsified squid slime and black octopus ink. Everything was dirty.
Seeing her dilemma, Uchiha Yoru comforted her, "Don't worry. Squid slime, octopus blood, and ink are all proteins that break down easily. Once the tide rises, seawater will flood over this place, and all this mess will dissolve away."
"By the time the tide goes back out after sunrise, even the beach will be back to normal."
Only then did Miwa Masayo relax. Just then, she spotted a clean reef, lifted a white paw, and pointed at it.
"Then you're going to stay there with me and watch the stars. We'll wait for sunrise together."
"What about the octopus tentacles—"
"We're not touching those two octopus tentacles either, nya!"
Miwa Masayo glared at Uchiha Yoru with a fierce little expression that was more adorable than intimidating.
"That much meat won't go bad even if it soaks in seawater for one night. It'll even help wash away the fishy blood smell, nya."
"Alright, alright. We'll watch the stars together."
"That's more like it, nya. That's what resting is, nya. You're not allowed to secretly work hard and improve yourself, nya!"
"Okay, okay."
Under the push of the rising tide, the octopus ink gradually spread outward. Before long, the whole stretch of seawater had turned black as ink, and the remains of the bonfire on the beach were swallowed by the tide and completely extinguished.
The surroundings became so dark that one couldn't even see a hand in front of one's face, and against that darkness, the stars above seemed even more brilliant.
Although the shinobi world did not have a silver river spanning the heavens from end to end, the charm of the starry sky was not diminished for it in the slightest. It still deeply captivated Uchiha Yoru and Miwa Masayo, who were lying on the reef.
Uchiha Yoru raised his right hand and made a grasping motion toward the sky, as though he could catch those twinkling stars that way.
"I hope that one day, we'll refine our bodies into saints and step into the sea of stars in the form of true immortals."
"Nya…"
Miwa Masayo had insisted that Yoru watch the stars with her, but she herself could no longer hold out. Her eyelids drooped, and in response to his words, she could only make the simplest sound.
"Alright, go to sleep. I'll stay with you."
"You're not allowed to secretly work hard, nya…"
"I won't. I'll just sit here, listen to the sea and the woods, look at the stars, and watch the sunrise."
"I want to watch the sunrise too, nya…"
"Alright. I'll wake you up."
After receiving Uchiha Yoru's promise, Miwa Masayo fell asleep at once with soft little snoring sounds.
Ever since they had arrived in the Land of Hot Water, Miwa Masayo had inexplicably fallen into a state of tension. Every moment, her nerves had been strung taut, always ready for battle.
Later, after Uchiha Yoru obtained Xiao Ke and his own mind entered that slightly-off state, Miwa Masayo became even more tense. For the past three years, it had always been Uchiha Yoru carefully taking care of her and protecting her with his strength. Now that something had happened to him, the tabby had instinctively added the duty of protecting her human onto herself.
That situation continued until yesterday.
Uchiha Yoru had initially suppressed Xiao Ke, and they had also left the mainland of the Land of Hot Water, which made Miwa Masayo uneasy. The burden on her body suddenly vanished, the tension in her heart was swept clean, and that in turn triggered a full emotional release.
Not only had Miwa Masayo acted more spoiled and unreasonable toward Uchiha Yoru than ever before, she had even taken the initiative to provoke that octopus monster carrying tailed beast chakra, taking the role of tank in the battle.
After venting herself for most of the night, Miwa Masayo had completely exhausted both her mind and body.
Utterly worn out, the tabby was now nestled in Uchiha Yoru's arms—the safest place in her heart. Only after relaxing there did the overwhelming fatigue and sleepiness finally overtake her, pulling her down into a deep, sweet dream.
Uchiha Yoru gently stroked the little tabby's fur.
Listening quietly to the sound of the waves and the forest, watching the twinkling sky above, his own heart also gradually became calm. Without even realizing it, he entered a very strange and wondrous state of mind.
The feeling was very familiar.
With only a slight recollection, Uchiha Yoru remembered it.
A few months ago, in early summer, in the small courtyard of his home, during the final few dozen minutes before completing his hundred-day foundation building, he had felt exactly like this.
That meant his cultivation had once again reached completion in a new stage and was now in its most perfect state—spirit complete, energy full.
Back then, completing foundation building had let him step directly into the Foundation Establishment realm.
But today, what he sensed was only the increased activity of natural energy, especially those faint purple motes, whose activity had reached an unprecedented level. It was as if, so long as he wished it, he could draw those lightning-aspect natural energies into his body and open the final step of his foundation building phase.
And yet, in some dim and indescribable way, he could also sense that now was not the best moment to absorb lightning-aspect natural energy and begin this new stage.
He still needed to endure for a short while longer.
Uchiha Yoru decided to trust his intuition.
Besides, he had just promised Miwa Masayo that he would rest. If he used the moment when the tabby was asleep to complete a breakthrough instead, wouldn't that little cat be furious out of her mind?
At that point, she would definitely ignore him for several days, run back to Cat Castle alone to sulk, or secretly slip back to Konoha and wreak havoc on the cured meat, ham, salted fish, and other things he had left at home.
Those things themselves were naturally not worth much. And cultivating alone with total focus could indeed be very efficient. That feeling of burying oneself in cultivation could even be exhilarating enough to send one flying.
But on this uninhabited island, without Miwa Masayo, this dao companion, to provide conversation and balance, the life of cultivation would become far too dull.
Cultivators were not stone statues without feeling, desire, or longing.
On the contrary, cultivators possessed great feelings, great pursuits, and desires so vast they were hard to imagine.
After all, they were people who wanted immortality.
It was just because what cultivators sought was too great and too much that ordinary people, seeing how little they cared for the wealth ordinary people treasured, ended up under the illusion that such people were detached from mortal life.
Uchiha Yoru was very aware of this.
The role he had assigned himself was that of a grand thief standing above the heavens, plundering the wealth and resources of the shinobi world.
There were far too many things he wanted.
So Uchiha Yoru would not break his word.
Especially not to his dao companion.
And besides, bathing in the sea breeze, emptying his mind completely, and immersing himself in the feeling of his body being so full and complete was a new and comfortable state.
It felt a little like secretly getting a perfect score back when he was in school, then hiding the exam paper from everyone else and enjoying the satisfaction all by himself.
Only when the eastern horizon above the sea began to glow faintly did Uchiha Yoru wake Miwa Masayo and invite her to watch the sunrise together.
When the line between sea and sky first turned bluish white, the island itself was still shrouded in darkness, making it possible to clearly observe every change in color along the horizon.
As the sky gradually brightened, the whiteness at the horizon slowly shifted toward blue. And at the very instant the final thread of white light vanished, Uchiha Yoru's vision was suddenly filled with purple radiance. He opened his mouth instinctively and drew in a breath.
Uchiha Yoru smacked his lips in puzzlement.
Just now, he had taken in a huge breath of slightly fishy sea wind. But besides that, it seemed something else had also been drawn into his body.
He immediately inhaled a few more times with force, but never again felt that same sensation. Looking up at the bright blue line of the horizon, he grew thoughtful.
In no more than an instant, the purple radiance vanished completely.
The red sun rose up from the surface of the sea, and the orange-red sunlight shone across the faces of Uchiha Yoru and Miwa Masayo, gradually becoming orange, then quickly turning yellow.
By the time the sunlight had become golden and dazzling, the sun had fully leapt free of the sea, and light flooded heaven and earth, completely driving away everything from the previous night.
For Miwa Masayo, this was her first time watching a sunrise over the sea.
She was quite moved by it.
For Uchiha Yoru, on the other hand, he had almost seen none of it.
The moment the first ray of sunlight touched his face, he recalled the information connected to that breath just now. That instant of purple radiance before sunrise… wasn't that the so-called Dawn Purple Qi?
Uchiha Yoru immediately stopped caring whether he was watching the sunrise or not. He carefully examined his body, but found no difference at all. Only when he checked the dantian, that place existing somewhere between reality and illusion, did he discover that the thread of purple qi was drifting in the center of it, slowly radiating outward and upward.
During that process, his body seemed to be receiving slight benefits, but he could not clearly compare them. Perhaps the gains were too faint for him to detect with certainty.
Still, from that subtle sense given by his intuition, Uchiha Yoru confirmed that the thread of purple qi was beneficial.
It was simply something that needed to be accumulated over a long period of time before enough results would appear.
As for perseverance…
Since entering foundation building, when had he ever not started training before sunrise?
So long as he grasped the timing properly, he would never miss that single thread of purple qi before dawn.
[There's just one problem. If I flew west in an airplane, wouldn't that mean I could absorb purple qi twenty-four hours a day?]
[The speed requirement would be pretty high though—close to 1,666 kilometers per hour. About one and a half times the speed of sound.]
[Where exactly am I supposed to get a supersonic aircraft in the shinobi world? And if my own speed reached that level… hard to imagine.]
After tossing aside that utterly unrealistic fantasy, Uchiha Yoru finally came back to himself.
By then, the sunrise was already over.
Miwa Masayo lightly tapped Uchiha Yoru's arm with a paw and said, "Thank you for waking me up. I'll give you a present as thanks, nya."
With that, the tabby stretched out one of her adorable little paws. Resting on her round paw pad was a smooth, lustrous pearl, reflecting a soft gleam in the sunlight.
Uchiha Yoru asked in surprise, "What is this?"
Miwa Masayo was a straightforward cat sage. Other than tasty food, she had no concept whatsoever of keeping property. It was impossible for her to be hiding a pearl on her person.
Tilting her head, Miwa Masayo answered, "I don't know, nya. I dug it out of that big octopus's body last night, nya. There were two of them, nya."
As she said that, the tabby raised her other paw as well. It too held a smooth, round pearl, similarly glowing with a gentle sheen.
She brought the two pearls beneath her nose and sniffed them, then praised them with satisfaction, "They smell really nice, nya."
"That big octopus was stinky inside, but these two beads smell good, nya."
Uchiha Yoru knew that pearls were not unique to shellfish.
Sea snails, crabs, and squid could also produce pearls. Of course, shellfish did so more easily and in far greater numbers.
Among them, the pearls produced by soft-bodied creatures such as octopus, squid, and cuttlefish were not collections of calcium carbonate and aragonite crystals, but enamel-like substances made of calcium phosphate and apatite crystals, with extremely high hardness.
But that giant octopus they had encountered last night had emitted very strong tailed beast chakra.
The pearls dug out of its body were certainly different from ordinary enamel pearls. They might very well possess some extraordinary property.
Curious, Uchiha Yoru reached out to take the octopus pearls while casually asking, "Rika-chan, from which part did you get these two pearls?"
The tabby let her human take them. She tilted her head and thought for a moment before answering, "I dug them out from the cut, nya."
"Now that I think about it, there seemed to be other pearls in the octopus's head too, nya."
Suddenly, Miwa Masayo realized that Uchiha Yoru's eyes had gone vacant and unfocused, and that he was slowly bringing the pearls to his mouth.
All the fur on her body instantly stood on end.
"Nya! Yoru, how could you do that!?"
"How can you eat pearls, nya!? What if they're poisonous, nya!?"
The tabby was not worried about losing her spoils. She was afraid her human would poison himself.
Those octopus pearls had, after all, come from the body of a monster connected to tailed beast chakra.
And tailed beasts were always tied to all kinds of negative words—hatred, resentment, slaughter, madness.
Who could guarantee that something related to a tailed beast was not poisonous?
Panicked, she leapt to her feet and tried to smack Uchiha Yoru's cheeks with her paws, hoping to stop him from swallowing the pearls.
But her movements were blocked by a pair of large hands, and she was pulled into the safest embrace, unable to struggle free at all.
In the end, Miwa Masayo could only watch helplessly as Uchiha Yoru made a swallowing motion and sent both octopus pearls down his throat.
Uchiha Yoru was not a fool.
It was simply that, as a pathfinding cultivator, he was habitually inclined to trust his body and direct intuition whenever the supernatural was involved.
The moment his fingers touched the octopus pearls, two tiny arcs of electricity burst from them and struck the nearest finger with perfect accuracy.
The pain, sharp as a needle prick, raced from his index finger up through his wrist, elbow, and shoulder, only finally being dissolved by the natural energy he mobilized when it approached his heart.
It wasn't that the current itself was especially strong.
It was that the speed of that current was too fast.
Uchiha Yoru had not even had time to react. Neither chakra nor natural energy had reacted in time either.
If not for the complete protection his heart meridian provided around his heart, he probably would have experienced what it felt like to have his heart pierced by a needle.
But with the dissipation of that thread of lightning, the very first strand of lightning-aspect natural energy also merged into Uchiha Yoru's body.
Yes.
The power contained within the octopus pearls dug from the body of that octopus radiating tailed beast chakra… was actually pure lightning-aspect natural energy.
How many contradictions impossible to explain were hidden inside that fact alone was enough to make Uchiha Yoru feel like his brain might get boiled just from thinking about it.
Fortunately, he was not a theoretical cultivator.
He was a pure experiential cultivator.
As early as the moment Uchiha Yoru confirmed that the five elements did not truly exist, he had already started treating cultivation theory like toilet paper.
His attitude toward toilet paper was much the same as his attitude toward gods.
When he needed it, he was grateful beyond measure and practically wanted to kiss it twice.
But when he didn't need it, forgetting it existed was already the best outcome. More often, the mainstream attitude was simply to find it annoying for taking up space.
So since theory didn't work here, then he simply wouldn't think about theory.
And in any case, Uchiha Yoru did not have time to sit quietly and think through the problem now.
As soon as that first strand of lightning-aspect natural energy was absorbed, the active lightning-aspect natural energy in the outside world surged toward him, joyfully merging into his body and pouring into the rushing current within his meridians.
The advancement into the fourth stage of the Foundation Establishment realm had begun.
The addition of lightning-aspect natural energy altered the internal environment of Uchiha Yoru's body. His muscles, bones, nerves, meridians—even every single cell—began to change along with it, and vigorous life force welled up from the very foundation of those cells.
But lightning-aspect natural energy also disturbed the original balance of natural energies.
At this moment, Uchiha Yoru had to intervene actively, making sure that the gradually chaotic natural energies would not damage his meridians.
It was then that he quickly noticed the problem.
There was not enough lightning-aspect natural energy in the surrounding environment.
Even though lightning-aspect natural energy was gathering and even boiling faster and faster, he had already confirmed that all the free lightning-aspect natural energy within the range of his perception was still not enough to rebuild the balance of fire, earth, wind, and lightning.
If he could not rebuild that balance in one go, then his breakthrough would fail.
Uchiha Yoru could not even be sure whether, given a long enough period of time, he would be able to accumulate enough lightning-aspect natural energy to rebuild a new four-element balance later on.
It was highly possible that if this breakthrough failed, his immortal path would be cut off here, trapping him at this stage of foundation building, and forcing him to attempt the next stage with a state of only three or four natural energies.
And even if there was still a chance, even if he could ultimately break through successfully, who knew how much extra time it would cost?
That would be far too wasteful.
Just as unease began to rise within him, Uchiha Yoru sensed a unique kind of lightning-aspect natural energy.
And it was right in his hand.
Right inside those two octopus pearls.
At the same time, his body also developed a powerful hunger for the pearls—just like when he had seen that metallic oddity in the Land of Rivers that looked like tree bark.
In any case, by following his body's feelings and his intuition, Uchiha Yoru had already managed to come this far.
And in any case, he had already eaten things far less edible than this, and gained enormous benefits from doing so.
Then he would continue trusting his bodily senses.
He would eat the treasure his body wanted.
There really had not been much hesitation at all before Uchiha Yoru made up his mind.
He lifted the pearls and stuffed them into his mouth, ignoring Miwa Masayo's panicked objections, and swallowed them whole.
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