Yang God Martial Way

Rubbing his head, Sarutobi Toru sighed. "Forget your youth! Get on the bed and lie down already!"

Might Duy was naturally cultivating the Yang God Martial Way that Sarutobi Toru had provided.

The Human Immortal Martial Way of the Yang God had immense potential. At its peak, it could easily crush Kaguya. Unfortunately, the Martial Scripture only recorded cultivation up to the Martial Saint realm.

And the Martial Saint realm was only equivalent to a Special Jonin in combat power. Against ninjas of the same level, its methods were even more limited, making defeat far more likely than victory.

However, a Yang God Martial Saint possessed pure physical strength and could further evolve the body itself. Reaching the Martial Saint realm granted a lifespan approaching two hundred years—something Chakra could not achieve.

Moreover, the Yang God Martial Way did not conflict with Chakra, at least not at the Martial Saint realm. It even had a mutually reinforcing effect.

Otherwise, Might Duy would not have become so addicted to training that he could not pull himself away. The Yang God Martial Way Sarutobi Toru had given him produced vastly greater results than his own training methods.

Of course, the Great Qian Martial Scripture in Sarutobi Toru's possession was riddled with traps and errors. Though he had filled in many of its gaps through research on the human body, there was no way he would practice it himself.

Thus, Might Duy became Sarutobi Toru's honored test subject, used to test the flaws in these martial arts.

That did not mean Sarutobi Toru simply left Might Duy alone after having him practice. Every week, he conducted a thorough examination of Might Duy's body, correcting and treating any problems he found. By now, Might Duy had completed the flesh-tempering and skin-tempering stages and was working on tendon-tempering. In truth, his martial arts had already been treated and corrected several times.

Hiruko gave Might Duy, who was lying on the bed, a complete examination. Looking over the report, Sarutobi Toru let out a breath of relief.

"Mm, there's nothing seriously wrong this time. Several tendons show signs of overtraining. Lower the intensity of training in those areas when you go back, and there should be no problem."

"Is that so? Hahaha! Sure enough, there's no difficulty that can't be overcome beneath the flames of youth!" The moment Might Duy got out of bed, he became excited again.

Beside him, Hiruko and Sarutobi Toru were both covered in black lines, their faces full of helplessness.

After leaving Root's Underground Base, although they carried out missions for Root, Danzo's three disciples were essentially only nominal members. They normally did not need to wear Root masks.

Besides missions and human experiments, Sarutobi Toru spent most of his time working at Konoha Hospital.

Konoha Hospital was no longer the emergency field hospital it had been in the Original Work. It had become a renowned open hospital in the Land of Fire. The entire hospital had been rebuilt into a structure more than a dozen stories tall and dozens of meters high. In addition to the scarce Medical Ninjas, it also employed many ordinary doctors.

The daily flow of people through Konoha Hospital accounted for as much as sixty percent of Konoha Village's total traffic. Aside from the small number of ninja from the village, countless wealthy people came here by reputation to seek treatment.

Konoha Hospital's income alone had already surpassed the entire village's mission revenue, yet the number of proper Medical Ninjas in all of Konoha had only just exceeded one hundred.

Konoha Ninja Academy now had a dedicated medical program, and it had even become the academy's most popular field. The Third Hokage, who had once feared that Medical Ninjas would weaken the village's combat strength, now wished every ninja student possessed medical talent.

There was no other reason. He had finally learned what it felt like to wield the power of money!

With money, they could train more ninjas. With money, they could acquire more Kunai, Explosive Tags, and Shuriken. With money, they could buy more Burst Potions, Healing Pills, and Recovery Pills. With money, they could directly commission Perfect Potions and artificially create all kinds of geniuses!

Konoha had now fully recovered from the First Shinobi World War and had even developed considerably. The Third Hokage, who had supported the establishment of Medical Ninjas, had gained the title of "Ninja Hero" and was regarded as a wise man no less great than, if not greater than, his own teacher.

As he stepped through the hospital doors, the doctors hurrying busily back and forth still cast respectful looks toward Sarutobi Toru. Though he had removed his own name from the Medical Ninjutsu he and Tsunade had developed, his superb medical skills had still made him a star Medical Ninja second only to Tsunade.

He arrived at Konoha Hospital's underground level, which had been converted into a large multifunctional medical laboratory. In terms of legitimate medical research, this was already Konoha's most advanced laboratory. To put it confidently, it was also the most advanced laboratory in the Land of Fire, or even the entire Shinobi World.

The moment Sarutobi Toru entered the laboratory, he saw an identical figure studying something.

Hearing him, the figure turned around. It looked exactly like Sarutobi Toru.

Poof! The figure vanished. Sarutobi Toru closed his eyes slightly, and when he opened them again, understanding filled his gaze. He sighed. "A Sage Body... what a nuisance."

What Sarutobi Toru and Tsunade were researching now were the legendary Hashirama Cells. This project, led by the Second Hokage, had originally been intended to recreate the unmatched power of the God of Shinobi and protect the Land of Fire and Konoha Village.

However, the research at the time had yielded no results beyond causing the deaths of numerous volunteers. It was urgently halted by the Second Hokage and sealed away. Now, in order to study the terrifying vitality of the Sage Body and create a new type of Healing Potion, Sarutobi Toru had set his sights on the Hashirama Cells.

The results could not be called a failure. By extracting vitality from the Hashirama Cells and combining it with his Healing Hormone, anyone who drank the potion would gain healing abilities nearly comparable to the Byakugou Seal or a Sage Body for a short period.

But it could not be called a success either. Only the vitality extracted from Hashirama Cells could alleviate the side effects of the Healing Hormone. The proposed improved formula, which was supposed to directly synthesize a Healing Potion, had failed completely.

In other words, the output of Healing Potions was entirely tied to the cultivation of Hashirama Cells. Yet cultivating Hashirama Cells was no easy task. Based on the amount required for a single bottle, this potion cost even more than a Perfect Potion—over ten million ryo per bottle.

Still, though it was expensive, Elite Jonin could generally afford it. Jōnin could grit their teeth and keep a bottle in reserve as well. Anyone below that found it very difficult.

In particular, Sarutobi Toru's idea of using Healing Potions to forcibly cultivate the Yang God Human Immortal Martial Way had been completely shattered.

"The vitality of a Sage Body comes from Natural Energy. With such immense vitality, if Hashirama Senju had not died, he might have lived as long as the Sage Toad or White Snake Sage—an old immortal. I really wonder what kind of battle could have left even a Sage Body unable to recover."

Even among the successive Asuras, Hashirama Senju was unquestionably outstanding. Just look at the later Asura, Uzumaki Naruto. Hashirama Senju could fight Madara and the Nine-Tails alone, while Uzumaki Naruto and the Nine-Tails only came out even against Sasuke.

And without the power-up bestowed by the Six Paths, even if Naruto and Sasuke had trained to their peaks, there would still have been quite a gap between them and Hashirama Senju and Uchiha Madara. Such a peerless genius in Sage Jutsu had ultimately died in internal conflict, leaving Sarutobi Toru deeply regretful.