Wood Style: Flower Tree

" Suzune, use your Byakugan and see if there's anything strange up ahead."

Shimura Kentei quickly retreated and gestured for Hyuga Suzune to activate her Byakugan and scan the area ahead.

Hearing that, Hyuga Suzune leaped onto the top of a nearby tree, activated her Byakugan, focused her attention forward, and searched for suspicious targets.

"What is it?"

With her one-tomoe Sharingan activated, Uchiha Mikoto asked softly.

"There's something wrong with the air ahead. It contains a toxin that can paralyze the human nervous system, and it takes effect extremely quickly."

Shimura Kentei gave a casual explanation as he waited for Hyuga Suzune's scouting results.

"There's nothing containing chakra within a kilometer ahead, but there seems to be a river at two o'clock!"

After observing carefully for several minutes, Hyuga Suzune jumped down and reported what she had found.

"Looks like we're almost at the target location!"

Shimura Kentei showed a delighted expression, realizing they were about to reach the center of the Death Forest.

A river ran through the middle of the Death Forest, dividing the entire forest in two. Since Hyuga Suzune had spotted the river, they were clearly close.

"We'll take a detour to the river and establish our camp there!"

After saying that, Shimura Kentei wrapped his face in the Venom Suit and connected it to a small air filter inside his helmet before detouring toward the river Hyuga Suzune had mentioned.

Their supply of drinking water was limited. They had to find a stable water source as soon as possible for their daily needs, so their next camp had to be built near the river.

The three soon arrived at the riverbank. After walking along the river for a while, they finally stopped beneath a cliff.

"Which one of you knows Earth Release ninjutsu?"

After surveying the surroundings, Shimura Kentei nodded in satisfaction, set down the two backpacks on his back, and looked toward the two girls behind him.

"You want to build a camp here?"

Looking at the cliff face more than seventy meters tall, Uchiha Mikoto felt that something might be wrong with this guy's head.

The rock here was extremely hard granite. Even Earth Release would have difficulty excavating it, much less building a camp within it.

"What, you want to build the camp in the woods instead? Aren't you afraid poisonous bugs will crawl into your bed while you're sleeping?"

Shimura Kentei grinned wickedly. He really wanted to know whether this girl was afraid of little bugs, especially the disgusting-looking kind.

"I don't know Earth Release!"

Uchiha Mikoto's little face turned pale. She stopped insisting on her opinion and said that she did not know Earth Release.

Hyuga Suzune beside her also shook her head, indicating that she did not know Earth Release either.

"Fine, looks like I'll have to do it myself!"

With a sigh, Shimura Kentei sheathed the Great Sword on his back and secured it with the hook on his pack. He took a deep breath, sprinted toward the cliff face, and climbed with both hands and feet, using the protruding rocks for support. Before long, he reached a height of fifty meters.

He controlled the tips of the wings on his back, driving them forcefully into the rock. Then he extended Chakra Threads and wrapped them around protrusions in the cliff face, securing himself in place.

"Clang!"

Shimura Kentei drew the Great Sword from his back and swung it with force. Under its sharp edge, chunks of hard rock continuously fell away, and soon a hollow large enough to hold one person appeared.

After steadying himself inside the hollow, Shimura Kentei pressed on, transforming into a miner as a series of clanging impacts echoed out.

The Great Sword in his hand truly deserved to be called a weapon forged with heavy gold. Even without chakra enhancement, it remained incomparably sharp. Saying it could cut iron like mud would not be an exaggeration.

After working like this for half the night, he finally dug out a stone cave two meters wide and ten meters deep.

"We'll make do with this for tonight. Tomorrow, I'll dig out an inner room for you two."

After the two girls cleared away the excavated rocks, Shimura Kentei indicated that they would rest here for the night.

Neither girl objected. They obediently walked to the innermost part of the cave and lay down back-to-back.

Although they came from ninja clans, ninjas had no concept of being pampered. Their current environment was already quite good.

Shimura Kentei sat cross-legged at the cave entrance to keep watch while examining the Great Sword in his hand.

"Not bad... As expected of a master craftsman from the Land of Craftsmen. This workmanship is impeccable!"

Gently stroking the blade, which had not chipped in the slightest, Shimura Kentei was extremely satisfied with this Great Sword meticulously forged by the Land of Craftsmen.

Although heavy gold was incomparably hard, the craftsmanship of the Land of Craftsmen was indeed remarkable, bringing out the material's properties to near perfection.

He figured he could probably use this thing to trade blows with a Susanoo.

Of course, if he actually tried that, the shockwaves would likely kill him first.

The strength of such a giant was no joke, far beyond even Tsunade's monstrous power.

"Just how terrifying was Asura's physical strength?"

At that thought, Shimura Kentei could not help recalling the scene from the Naruto anime where the Sage of Six Paths recounted the past.

There had been a moment when Asura wielded a Truth-Seeking Orb and directly confronted Indra's Susanoo. That had not been some incomplete Susanoo, but its ultimate form. A single slash could split mountains and sever rivers, yet Asura had endured it through physical strength alone.

Compared to that, the strength Uzumaki Naruto possessed after mastering Sage Mode was utter trash.

Before his transmigration, countless netizens had mocked ninjas for being fragile, but that referred to ordinary ninjas. Every member of the Otsutsuki family was a superhuman tank with absurd vitality.

"How am I supposed to get those two girls' body data under Tsunade's Shadow Clone's watch?"

Shimura Kentei looked back at the two little girls sleeping back-to-back and pondered how to win their sponsorship.

His original plan had been to simply drug the two girls unconscious and get to work. It would have been direct and efficient, but Tsunade's Shadow Clone was secretly watching them!

If that woman discovered his intentions, she would definitely beat him into a meatball.

He needed a perfect opportunity!

The night passed like that. At dawn, Shimura Kentei slept briefly, then rose and wielded the Great Sword once more, becoming a miner again.

After spending an entire day, he finally dug out two inner rooms large enough for people to rest in. When night fell, Uchiha Mikoto and Hyuga Suzune returned.

"How did the scouting go?"

Sitting down cross-legged, Shimura Kentei handed the two girls water flasks, signaling them to drink and rest, then asked about the day's findings.

This time, his target was the Man-eating Tree Tsunade had mentioned. While he spent the day here as a miner, the two girls had gone out together to explore the central region, especially the area shrouded in unknown poisonous gas.

"The poisonous gas covers an area three kilometers in diameter, right at the center of the Death Forest. We investigated the surroundings, but we didn't find anything like the Man-eating Tree Teacher Tsunade mentioned. It's very likely inside that poisonous gas.

"And when I looked from a distance, there seemed to be a rather tall tree in the center, with a very large flower at its top."

After taking a sip of water to soothe her dry throat, Hyuga Suzune described what the two of them had discovered.

"A very large flower? Could the First Hokage have used Wood Style: Flower Tree Collision here?"

Shimura Kentei frowned slightly. The first thing that came to mind was Wood Style: Flower Tree Collision.

Wood Style: Flower Tree Collision was an upgraded version of Wood Style: Deep Forest Emergence. Not only was it more powerful, but it could also bloom with enormous flowers that scattered poisonous pollen to paralyze the enemy's nerves, much like the neurotoxic gas they had encountered earlier.

Still, that made sense. They had not encountered a single tree that still retained Wood Style properties along the way. For Wood Style power to remain after so long, it would need to be a stronger Wood Style tree, and Wood Style: Flower Tree Collision fit that condition perfectly.

He just did not know how much Wood Style power remained in that flower tree. Hopefully, it would not disappoint him.

"Wood Style: Flower Tree Collision? Is that one of the First Hokage's Wood Style ninjutsu?"

Uchiha Mikoto could not help asking curiously. She knew that the First Hokage possessed Wood Style power, but only in general terms. She did not know the specifics.

"Wood Style: Flower Tree Collision is an upgraded version of Wood Style: Deep Forest Emergence. It is more powerful, and it can bloom flowers that spread poisonous pollen to paralyze opponents. It once even paralyzed Uchiha Madara despite his Susanoo defense."

After giving a brief explanation, Shimura Kentei began considering how to enter the central area and determine what was happening there.

"Even Susanoo couldn't defend against it!"

Uchiha Mikoto's eyes widened in extreme shock.

Although she had never seen the Dojutsu known as Susanoo, she had read detailed records about it in her clan's archives. It was said to be an absolute defense, yet it still could not block the First Hokage's Wood Style pollen.

"That pollen really can seep into my chakra. Fortunately, I discarded that portion of chakra during the day. Otherwise, I definitely would have been affected and passed out."

Hyuga Suzune spoke of one experience from earlier that day. She had curiously tried to make contact with the pollen and nearly ended up trapped there. Even now, the memory made her shudder.

"Why were you fine after inhaling that pollen earlier?"

Uchiha Mikoto suddenly asked. She recalled that Shimura Kentei had been the first to discover the pollen and recognize that it could paralyze the nerves. He had clearly experienced it firsthand.

So why had he acted as if nothing had happened?

"How was I fine? I only absorbed a small amount, but it still affected me. However, our Shimura Family's Super Speed Technique acts on the nervous system and has strong resistance against this kind of neurotoxin. Even if we're affected, we can purge it quickly.

"It isn't only the Super Speed Technique that affects the nerves. Other portions of the Body Strengthening Secret Technique can also increase resistance to their corresponding toxins.

"Of course, I mean biological toxins. If it's a chemical toxin, there's nothing we can do about it."

Shimura Kentei did not hide anything and spoke frankly. There was no point concealing it, since they would learn it once they cultivated the full Body Strengthening Secret Technique.

As a well-rounded youth of the new era, he was already thoroughly familiar with the concept of immunity to all poisons. In those wuxia novels, any divine skill that did not grant immunity to all poisons would be too embarrassed to call itself a peerless art.

Moreover, there were quite a few poison experts in the ninja world. Thus, when he had created the Body Strengthening Secret Technique, he had focused on developing poison resistance. At this stage, he had achieved modest results.

Naturally, his current poison resistance only worked against biological toxins. There was nothing he could do about chemical toxins.

The principle behind the Body Strengthening Secret Technique's poison resistance was to enhance the body's metabolic ability. Biological toxins could be metabolized by a strong body, but chemical toxins could not. The human body simply could not metabolize those things.

So, his main account still had not reached max level. He had to keep grinding in obscurity!

Uchiha Mikoto and Hyuga Suzune exchanged a glance and said nothing more, but they attached even greater importance to the Body Strengthening Secret Technique.

Ninjas would use every possible means to accomplish their goals, and poison accounted for a large portion of their methods. More than half of all ninjas coated kunai, shuriken, and other ninja tools with deadly poison.

Hanzo of the Salamander, the Demi-God of the Land of Rain, had relied on poison to intimidate the ninja world. If one wanted to survive until the end in the ninja world, poison resistance was extremely important.

"Don't think too highly of the Body Strengthening Secret Technique's poison resistance. The reason I endured it earlier was not only because I inhaled little poisonous pollen, but also because the pollen itself was not very toxic.

"Perhaps time has weakened that flower tree's power by several levels. Otherwise, we would definitely have been finished.

"And get a good rest tonight. Tomorrow, I'll teach you chakra control techniques."

After giving that reminder, Shimura Kentei returned to his inner room to rest.

Meanwhile, within the Senju Clan, Uzumaki Mito sought out Tsunade's main body, who was cultivating the Yin Seal on the top floor of the secret archive. However, what she came to say made both Tsunade and Senju Tōsu grit their teeth in fury.