Chakra Grand Circulation

The Shinobi World was far too chaotic. In the past thousand years, only during the period when Senju Hashirama suppressed the Shinobi World had there been fifteen brief years of peace.

Half of all shinobi died before reaching thirteen, and at most twenty percent lived past thirty.

Civilians had it even worse. They were like weeds on the ground, born silently and dying silently. No one knew when they died or how.

Aburame Tetsumaru did not want to die, so he had to become a shinobi. As a shinobi, he could wield power, create value for the village, become someone valuable, and not be discarded so easily.

There were many taboos even after becoming a shinobi: he could not be mediocre, or he would easily be used as cannon fodder—no examples needed; nor could he stand out too much, or he would become a target, like Hatake Sakumo.

Most importantly, he could not become Hokage. Better yet, he should not even think about it. That position was cursed by fate.

The First fell out with his best friend and fought him, then died in the line of duty from severe injuries;

The Nidaime was attacked by Kumogakure rebels during negotiations with Kumogakure, then died in the line of duty from severe injuries;

The Sandaime was beaten up by his disciple, sealed away a pair of hands, and died in the line of duty;

The Yondaime was betrayed by his disciple, sealed the Nine-Tails, and died in the line of duty;

The Fifth was beaten into a vegetative state and usurped, but at least lived until retirement, becoming the first Hokage not to die in the line of duty;

The Sixth was beaten to death and then revived. Perhaps because he had already died once, and because he was a Hokage during peacetime, he did not die in the line of duty;

The Seventh was the most miserable corporate-slave Hokage and would most likely die from overwork in the line of duty.

Even shinobi who wanted to become Hokage mostly met unfortunate ends. Such a terrifying position would scare Aburame Tetsumaru to death if it were handed to him.

In the end, it was Senju Hashirama's fault. After establishing the one-country, one-village system, each nation's armed forces became unified around their shinobi villages, but he failed to achieve a greater unification, and chaos escalated into war.

Well, actually, he should not be blamed either. How could unification possibly be achieved through overwhelming military force alone?

The trend of the Warring States Period in the Shinobi World had been toward greater chaos. Without institutional foundations for Great Unification, without unified military preparations, without even preparations to establish a unified ideology, how could unification be achieved?

Unification was never inevitable. It was accidental. It did not fall from the sky; it grew from the grassroots.

When the Ancestral Dragon swept across the Cosmos, the nobles might have resisted fiercely, but the common people of the six states had tacitly accepted it. The entire process saw none of the desperate, fight-to-the-death battles from the early Warring States Period.

But there was one responsibility Senju Hashirama could not escape. After every nation established shinobi villages, he devoted himself to balancing their military strength. He had been far too naive.

A balance of military power was not a guarantee of peace. On the contrary, the more balanced things were, the more fiercely they would fight, until a victor was decided.

After he died, conflict became the norm. When there were enough shinobi, they fought wars, slaughtering each other until the skies went dark and corpses carpeted the ground. When too many shinobi had died, there was peace, and they slaughtered one another through missions.

Against such a backdrop, shinobi from small nations died in eighteen different ways, while shinobi from major nations also struggled desperately between life and death. Privilege, cover-ups, conspiracies, and assassinations became normal in the Shinobi World, while fairness, openness, kindness, and perseverance were bizarre exceptions.

Why was Jiraiya's Tale of the Utterly Gutsy Shinobi so unpopular among shinobi? Because it did not reflect reality.

As a transmigrator, Aburame Tetsumaru's first choice had naturally been to watch his words and actions, fade into the crowd, and thoroughly embrace the way of lying low.

Unfortunately, his young and untamed body betrayed him. In his first fight, he beat up the Zhijie brothers, then smugly showed off. When both sides brought in their parents, damn it—their father was a Jonin, and their grandfather was an Elder.

Most terrifyingly, when the parents met, he still failed to restrain himself and beat them up a second time right in front of their father. He had dug himself into a grave.

Afterward, Tetsumaru could only follow through on his impulsiveness and establish the image of a hotheaded fool, using it to avoid possible retaliation from the higher-ups.

Then Aburame Masao's disappearance made him doubt his parents' ability to protect him, so he further cultivated the image of a genius and earned the appreciation of Aburame Shihui, an Elder with real authority in the clan.

When the Aburame Clan faced a financial crisis at age five, Tetsumaru used his relationship with Elder Shihui to hand over Sugar Ant breeding technology, trading wealth for the appreciation of every high-ranking member of the clan.

All of that took him farther and farther from the way of lying low. He could only continue selling the image of a genius in order to protect himself.

The clan needed geniuses. Only by being needed could he receive protection, and the greater the need, the stronger the protection.

To use an inappropriate analogy, if a drug lord's son wanted to deal with the family's chemist, ninety-nine percent of the time, the drug lord would hang up his own son and beat him senseless to vent the chemist's anger.

Aburame Tetsumaru had punched an Elder's grandson and established his earliest genius persona. From then on, he was able to come into contact with the clan's upper ranks, including Jonin, Elders, and the Clan Head.

With contact came firsthand information. Aburame Tetsumaru quickly abandoned the idea of cultivating the image of a political genius, because the political intelligence of his own clan's upper ranks was barely above zero.

Their standards were terrible. If he did not explain things thoroughly, they would not understand, but if he made things clear, it would be too blunt. What if it reached the Sandaime's ears, or even Danzo's...

Too terrifying.

Judging from the White Fang Incident, the Nine-Tails Incident, the Uchiha Clan Massacre, the abuse of Naruto, and other events, Third Hokage Sarutobi Hiruzen's thoughts were unpredictable. Who knew what he would interpret certain words to mean if they reached his ears?

Shimura Danzō's mind was dark beyond measure, and his reading comprehension could twist all the way down to the eighteenth level of hell.

Then, through Ant Sugar, Aburame Tetsumaru discovered that economic geniuses simply did not exist in the minds of the upper ranks.

Elder Shihui had put it especially clearly.

"Do the ants have to be cared for by you? Does the Ant Sugar have to be harvested by you?"

"It would be better if you did it, and the output would be higher. But there's no need. Go do what you should be doing."

"You children had better produce ten Jonin. Otherwise, no matter how much money you make, it will all have to be handed over to others."

It could not have been clearer. Without combat strength, there was no money. No matter how much he earned, it would all be for nothing.

Faced with such blunt and realistic truth, Aburame Tetsumaru had nothing to say. What the clan needed most were powerful shinobi and combat geniuses. Everything else had to take a back seat.

Although his talent for the clan's secret techniques was atrocious, Tetsumaru really was a genius shinobi. Because of that, he earned the Elders' favor and care. Whatever he wanted, they gave him.

The clan needed Aburame Tetsumaru to achieve excellent results in the Entrance Exam and win honor for the clan. They absolutely would not allow anyone to harm him.

The Aburame Clan had strength without being ostentatious, and its internal struggles were not life-and-death affairs. It gave Aburame Tetsumaru the opportunity to work hard and encouraged him to become even more outstanding. In the Shinobi World, this was an incredibly rare opportunity. Being reborn into the Aburame Clan meant he had truly lucked out.

It was far better than being reborn into some Kaguya Clan, Uchiha Clan, or even Hyuga Clan. Which of those families was not deadly?

Not to mention being reborn among the vast civilian population outside the shinobi villages. That was what it meant to cry to heaven and earth with no answer.

So reincarnation was a technical skill.

Aburame Tetsumaru did not care at all about the approaching Entrance Exam. Among all the six-year-olds in Konoha, he had either beaten them up, washed their faces with various powders, or given them both treatments.

First place is definitely mine. Easy.

What he was considering now was the future.

The Kikaichū Secret Technique was incompatible with him. If he continued down the Kikaichū path, Aburame Tetsumaru felt that he could obtain the rank of Jonin before turning thirty.

Jonin was not bad either. It was the highest professional rank in the Shinobi World, with a high income and considerable authority.

But Aburame Tetsumaru could not accept that.

In a few years, the Second Shinobi World War would begin. After that would come the Third Shinobi World War, the Nine-Tails Incident, and the Konoha Crush Plan.

Well, the Konoha Crush Plan was not dangerous. Orochimaru took the lead, and the whole village tacitly sent the Sandaime on his way while dragging Sunagakure down as company. Jonin faced no danger at all.

Then came the truly fatal Nagato Rice-Carrying Incident, followed by Madara hypnotizing the entire world during the Fourth Shinobi World War. Jonin would just be cannon fodder.

Later, there would also be the plot from some giant piece of nonflammable trash. The Shinobi World would suffer multiple Otsutsuki Invasions. This was an interstellar invasion—who knew what world-destroying scenes it would become in reality?

If he wanted to survive, being a Jonin-level cannon fodder was absolutely not enough.

Aburame Tetsumaru had three cheat abilities: knowledge from his previous life, Insight, and Kikaichū.

The knowledge from his previous life included scientific systems, philosophical systems, and technological achievements. It told Aburame Tetsumaru what he needed to do and, more importantly, what he was capable of doing.

Insight allowed him to understand the details of the Shinobi World with meticulous precision, while Kikaichū could replace many tools. Together, they solved the question of how to do things.

Insight was especially crucial. With it, Aburame Tetsumaru could accomplish far too many things:

He could observe Kikaichū in minute detail, analyze them precisely, and breed them precisely.

He could monitor himself, perfectly grasp the routes of Chakra circulation and the blockages in his Chakra Meridians, then precisely control Kikaichū to perform microscopic surgery and clear those meridians.

It was precisely through dozens of micro-surgical corrections that Aburame Tetsumaru's Chakra reserves became exceptional, enough to rival the Uzumaki bloodline.

With his abundant Chakra, Tetsumaru could lavishly expend Chakra to nourish his body. His physique grew stronger, his Chakra reserves increased further, and thus he entered a positive cycle.

But the excellent effects of those adjustments were also troubling.

There were fifteen days left until the Entrance Exam, and for Aburame Tetsumaru, this was a special day.

After a year of adjustments, Aburame Tetsumaru's Chakra Meridians had reached a critical juncture. In martial arts terms, it was called opening the Ren and Du Meridians, establishing a grand internal Chakra circulation.

Ordinary shinobi painstakingly refined Chakra, but no matter how much they refined, it would all eventually dissipate, quickly or slowly.

Tetsumaru used his powerful control to direct Chakra throughout his body and nourish its development as much as possible, but most of the Chakra still dissipated uselessly.

When combat training began, he had to start from extracting Chakra all over again. It was an enormous waste.

Moreover, dissipating Chakra made every shinobi a source of Chakra emissions. Sensor shinobi could detect them from dozens of kilometers away, and experienced shinobi could use that to judge their strength.

Aburame Tetsumaru wanted to store Chakra. By storing it, he should be able to reduce the distance at which he could be detected, conceal his strength, and release it suddenly at a critical moment. It would definitely be a trump card.

For him now, concealing his strength was most important, because he had discovered that his Chakra reserves might exceed those of his father, Aburame Kazekazu.

Aburame Kazekazu was a Chunin!

Oh my god, this is fatal. An Aburame Clan shinobi had more Chakra than the Uzumaki Clan. If that were discovered, he would one hundred percent be suspected, then researched, and then there would be no afterward.

He could conceal it in everyday life by controlling the amount of Chakra he refined, but during training and battle, he could not control it at all. He could avoid people while training now, but what would he do after entering the academy?

Was there any way in the Shinobi World to store Chakra?

There really was. The Yin Seal was certainly the first choice, but it was the culmination of the Senju secret technique system and Uzumaki Sealing Technique. An Aburame could not learn it.

Aburame Tetsumaru opened a drawer and turned it over. Two Explosive Tags stolen from his father were stuck to the back of the drawer.

The second method was Explosive Tags, talismans that sealed Fire Release Chakra. They were a black technology that solidified Chakra.

Tetsumaru had already studied basic Sealing Technique, but faced with this extremely sophisticated seal, he was like a complete novice. He could not understand it at all and had no place to begin.

The third method was Tailed Beasts. Tailed Beasts were aggregations of Chakra and could draw Chakra from the void, so they definitely possessed powerful Chakra-storage mechanisms, but he had no qualifications to approach them.

Could he store it in a dantian, then?

No. The lower, middle, and upper dantian of martial arts concepts, or the dantian, sea of qi, Purple Palace, and Divine Court of cultivation concepts, did not exist in the bodies of people in the Shinobi World.

In the end, based on Taoist theories from his previous life, Tetsumaru racked his brains and came up with a plan to open the Ren and Du Meridians, constructing a grand internal circulation to draw in Chakra.

Why those two meridians? Because only those two matched the routes of Chakra flow, and structurally, they were perfectly symmetrical, located along the front and rear midlines of the body.

More importantly, the two meridians began at the same point, and their endpoints both converged at the face. They were only a little short of connecting.

Aburame Tetsumaru hoped that the grand circulation could effectively restrain and retain Chakra, achieving two goals: reducing Chakra dissipation and maintaining abundant Chakra under normal conditions.

Aburame Tetsumaru did not know how the Taoist or internal martial arts of his previous life opened such pathways. The method he chose was direct and dangerous: starting beneath both eyes, he would use Kikaichū to dig four channels upward and downward, connecting them respectively to the point between the brows and the philtrum.

The danger of physically excavating Chakra channels with Kikaichū was self-evident, so he had to proceed with extreme caution, advancing bit by bit.

To preserve his sharp senses, Aburame Tetsumaru even gave up anesthesia.

One in the morning, the hour of the rat, was also the time when yin turned to yang.

Aburame Tetsumaru deliberately chose this moment to open his meridians. He did not know whether it would help, but he needed a sense of ritual.

The operation began. Beneath his skin, Kikaichū began gnawing and digging. At first, it felt like needle pricks, but the pain quickly intensified. It hurt too much—worse than having a tooth pulled.

Soon, beyond the pain, an even stronger aching itch appeared. The Kikaichū had reached bone.

Every muscle in Aburame Tetsumaru's body tensed. He clenched a towel between his teeth and endured bitterly, while sweat soon covered his forehead.

Fortunately, the Kikaichū moved quickly. In less than ten minutes, they broke through. Aburame Tetsumaru collapsed limply onto the floor, not wanting to move at all.

Once the pain eased and the aching itch vanished, Aburame Tetsumaru thought that since he had already suffered, he might as well do it properly. Otherwise, he might not have the courage to cut himself again tomorrow.

Unable to suppress his reckless urge, he used his remaining stamina to control the Kikaichū and excavate another twelve parallel channels.

By the time it was all finished, Aburame Tetsumaru was soaked as if he had been washed in water. His face had begun swelling, especially his lower eyelids, which had swollen until his eyes were mere slits.

Another ten minutes passed, and Chakra flowed through the channels smoothly. It was completely different from the direction he had expected, which was for it to loop around the back of his head and pour into the front. The Chakra flow had layered itself, with inner and outer layers moving in opposite directions, two currents existing at once.

The third effect was noticed two hours later. The circulating Chakra in the meridians produced a pulling force, drawing scattered Chakra from throughout his body into the meridians, and dissipation began to decrease.

As the amount of Chakra in his meridians increased, its circulation speed rose slightly. Every slight increase in speed increased the pulling force a little. Although the increase was incredibly slow, this trend was simply wonderful.

Chakra dissipation had decreased, greatly improving his concealment. The Chakra circulation could maintain sufficient Chakra intensity. Aburame Tetsumaru had achieved both of his goals.

Cause for celebration.

When dawn began to break, Aburame Tetsumaru finally passed out in satisfied exhaustion. Without anesthesia, he had endured a whole night of agonizing pain. He truly could not hold on any longer.

For the next seven days, Aburame Tetsumaru stayed shut inside his room.

He had no choice. His face was too badly swollen, his eyes could not open at all, and his mouth could only open a tiny slit. He truly could not meet anyone.

On the eighth day, his eyes could finally open into narrow slits, and Aburame Tetsumaru himself felt much better. Yet the moment he stepped outside, he still frightened his parents badly.

After repeatedly examining him, his mother remained worried and forced him to go to the hospital. She even invited a medical Jonin to treat him, ultimately receiving the conclusion that there was no major problem.

His young parents did not believe it. Their son's face was swollen into a ball—how could there be nothing wrong?

Aburame Tetsumaru could only let his parents continue fussing over him.

Upon receiving the news, Elder Shihui even came personally to Tetsumaru's home and carefully examined his body. Only after confirming there was no problem did he leave.

Afterward, many relatives also came to visit him, and every one of them said, "Take care of yourself."

Fortunately, the swelling subsided rapidly over the next two days, and his parents and family gradually relaxed.

Because they had called in a medical Jonin, everyone heard about it. The Aburame Family had an idiot who messed around and made his own head swell up like a ball.

This time, Tetsumaru had truly become famous. From the clan to the entire village, Aburame Tetsumaru's name spread everywhere. He did not know whether he should laugh or cry.