"The Sixth Great Nation?" Sarutobi Toru's lips curled into a faint, inscrutable smile. "That won't be easy."
More than merely difficult, it was practically impossible. Hanzo of the Salamander had entertained such thoughts during the Second Shinobi World War, yet even now, he had still failed to realize his ambition.
The Land of Rain was developing quite well now, but its small territory and harsh natural environment had not changed. Amegakure's strength was even more ordinary, relying entirely on Hanzo of the Salamander alone to hold it up.
Most importantly, more than half of Hanzo of the Salamander's strength came from the Salamander Poison Sac implanted in his body. With the Salamander Poison Sac, not only could he create a highly toxic domain in close combat, but even his Water Release contained deadly poison, its power comparable to a Kekkei Genkai. It could practically kill upon contact. Compared to ordinary Water Release, which relied entirely on massive quantities of water to create pressure and injure enemies, the difference in lethality was like heaven and earth.
Yet precisely because of this, Hanzo of the Salamander's strength could not be replicated. They could not possibly have Amegakure's ninja try one by one to see whether they could transplant a Salamander Poison Sac.
The success rate was likely even lower than that of Wood Release transplants. Back then, even Konoha, with all its vast resources, had been forced to urgently halt its Wood Release transplant experiments halfway through because the casualties were simply too great.
With the quality and number of Amegakure's ninja, even if they threw every ninja in the village into it, it would still be difficult to say whether even one could succeed as Hanzo of the Salamander had.
In other words, Amegakure lacked a truly profound inheritance capable of