Ryūchi Cave.
In a darkened chamber.
The damp room was simply furnished: a large bed, a table, and a chair. A black-and-white serpent was coiled along the edge of the bed.
Its black, vertical pupils warily surveyed the surroundings, its gaze occasionally flicking toward the boy lying on the bed.
"It's been three days already. Could the boss be dead?"
Yinqian smacked his lips and flicked out his tongue, wondering whether to put the body to use. He'd never tasted fresh meat before.
Whenever his brothers and sisters in the cave talked about it, it sounded delicious.
In Ryūchi Cave, only clan members with strong physiques got to eat fresh meat.
Weaklings like him could only scrounge up a little of what the others left behind.
Most of the time, he ate things like mice and insects.
He'd long since grown sick of them.
"Lord Manda said... if your contracted partner dies, you can fill your belly with them. He's been craving Lord Orochimaru for ages."
"But... Ao was the only one who ever accepted me... I don't really want to eat him."
"Boss, please don't die, okay?"
Yinqian kept on muttering, struggling to resist the temptation of his appetite as he greedily licked his lips.
He was used to this lonely life.
The other snakes often shunned him, and he didn't have many friends.
Ao was practically his only friend.
When he heard that Ao was going into seclusion to train, he'd volunteered to stand guard, so the other snakes wouldn't disturb Ao's cultivation.
Ao, lying on the bed, had actually been listening to Yinqian's muttering the entire time. His soul had been floating in midair in this state for three whole days.
"Just a little longer, and I'll make it!"
After receiving the Sage's guidance at the White Snake Temple, he'd observed the White Snake Sage absorb Natural Energy from beginning to end.
He'd learned the complete method.
He'd thought he would need more time to study before he could figure out how to fuse Natural Energy with his soul.
But after watching the White Snake Sage's entire cultivation process, a progress bar had appeared before his eyes once again.
The completion rate was already at 52%!
Only now did Ao realize that the Light Screen tracking the progress of the experiments from his previous life could also be applied to Senjutsu training.
He could treat cultivation as an experiment...
That meant that as long as he learned every step of the process and understood the method, he could easily complete his Sage Mode training.
He'd thought it would be easy.
But after starting his Senjutsu training, he'd spent three days experimenting, only for the progress bar to get stuck at 92%.
His soul had already undergone a transformation.
With Natural Energy empowering him, his entire body radiated a strange golden light that encircled him like a sun.
His mental energy had changed qualitatively. What had once been nothing but a vague, ethereal presence was gradually condensing into golden liquid, beginning to take on a liquid form.
"Is my body really going to starve to death?"
Ao spread his hands helplessly. He didn't dare return to his body, because the White Snake Sage had warned him that his soul couldn't return until he'd completed his Senjutsu training.
His body would merge with his soul and force out the Natural Energy he'd worked so hard to absorb, causing severe side effects. At best, his soul would be damaged and he'd lose his memories; at worst, his soul would be destroyed and his body would die.
The process was incredibly tedious.
He had to maintain his soul state, carefully sense the fluctuations of Natural Energy, and adjust his soul's vibrations to match its frequency as closely as possible. Once he detected the multicolored energies radiating around him, he could begin the process of fusing with them.
The White Snake Sage's method was to divide her body into seven sections and fuse each one separately. If she failed, she could sever the affected part and keep the remaining soul alive, rather than risk her entire body disintegrating.
Ao had taken her advice. With the progress bar's help, he divided his body into six sections: his limbs, torso, and head.
Unlike the White Snake Sage, who believed Natural Energy had no attributes, he'd found that each color of Natural Energy seemed to represent a different attribute.
His soul could easily fuse with most colors of Natural Energy, and each one gave him a distinct feeling.
They even seemed to affect his mood.
Light blue felt sad and lonely; gold represented joy and happiness; red meant anger; and black represented tension and fear, among other things.
The only part left was his soul's head, which still hadn't fully absorbed Natural Energy.
His head...
Why couldn't it absorb Natural Energy?
The other parts had managed just fine.
Ao found his current state strange, as though something were blocking the process.
The progress bar had stalled.
He knew he'd run into a problem.
He immediately paused his training and began figuring out what had brought his experiment to a halt.
"Soul... Natural Energy... head..."
Ao listed all the conditions affecting his head and ruled them out one by one. Before long, he'd found the cause.
"The Sharingan... so that's it! The Uchiha's unique ocular power... it remained in my soul, too?"
As soon as he identified the problem, he got to work solving it.
First, he followed the Cursed Seal method Orochimaru had created to strip away the soul, separating the soul eyes that held the Sharingan's ocular power.
The process was agonizing.
It felt as if countless steel needles were stabbing his eyes. Every time his soul was torn, it shuddered. Wounds caused by separating a part of his soul at its very core couldn't heal normally.
The essence of his soul seeped away through the wounds in his eyes.
"Argh..."
"Hss!"
"How did Orochimaru endure this kind of pain when he tore his soul into pieces to create the Cursed Seal?!"
Ao had torn out his right eye from his soul. The pain made him curl up and collapse to the ground, groaning softly again and again.
Was this the price of power?
The pain was unforgettable.
With trembling hands, Ao began to remove his second eye.
He didn't dare waste any more time.
The wounds in his soul were worsening. The soul that had been balanced until now was beginning to tear apart and show signs of dissipating.
He knew his soul had been damaged. He needed to return to his body to recover and prevent it from getting worse.
But in his current state of soul cultivation, his body had absorbed a large amount of Natural Energy, making it impossible for him to return.
He was trapped between two impossible choices.
"I wonder... if I'll survive this time!"
After removing his left eye, Ao noticed the progress bar had moved another 3%! He immediately realized that he'd made the right move.
He endured the piercing pain and moved on to the next step, putting all his strength into removing his right eye.
Two soul eyes floated silently in midair, like a pair of blood-red gems.
The Uchiha's unique ocular power flowed slowly within them.
The three Tomoe were like a formation, maintaining a dynamic balance.
Ao realized that he could still see the state of his soul body through his eyes.
With his eyes detached,
he could even see his entire body.
The progress bar surged again, reaching 98%!
Soon, he "saw" boundless Natural Energy rushing into his head. A halo appeared behind it and gradually spread until it encompassed his entire head. The head of his formerly dim blue soul body now blazed with golden light.
Hum!
An invisible wave spread out from Ao's soul body.
In an instant,
the progress bar finally reached 100%!
The Natural Energy throughout Ryūchi Cave began to surge.
A wild force swept through the surroundings.
His Sage Soul Body was complete.
Ao's consciousness returned completely. He gently pressed the two eyes into the sockets of his soul body.
A sense of obstruction washed over him, causing slight discomfort.
It felt as though they didn't belong to him.
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