The Heavenly Fire Cult

Teacher Shinku had of course failed to obtain any information from the Yuan Clan, but that didn't mean Touma had failed too.

Yes, you read that right. Though Touma had never left the village, he actually had an inside source within the Yuan Clan. He had only learned about this source from his mother just before setting out.

Touma's late father, Dou Huan, had been an orphan of war, but that didn't mean he had no family at all.

After all, there was no way he could have graduated from the Ninja Academy and become a Genin on the stipend for war orphans alone.

Especially since Dou Huan had a talent for Taijutsu. Training in Taijutsu consumed even more resources than training as a ninja who used ninja tools.

It was only thanks to his uncle's support that Dou Huan had been able to grow quickly into a Genin. Even their family's home near Konoha's central business district had been paid for in full by Touma's great-uncle.

However, as a retainer to the former daimyo, Yuan Jiuxiong, that great-uncle had been required to remain at the daimyo's residence at all times, ready to serve.

It was only after Yuan Jiuxiong abdicated two years ago and his brother, Yuan Benxiong, succeeded him that Touma's great-uncle, Dou Ying, finally had a chance to rest.

Presumably, once the transfer of political affairs was complete, Dou Ying, who had no children, would move to Konoha to retire and live with Touma and his mother. The previous daimyo had already approved this arrangement.

After working for Yuan Jiuxiong for so many years, Dou Ying had gradually earned the former daimyo's trust and gained control of some of the daimyo's personal, secret forces.

The two most famous were the Jinyuan Group and the Heavenly Fire Cult.

The Jinyuan Group had begun as a band of bandits on the plains northwest of Konoha, originally organized by wandering ninja of mediocre ability.

Later, with secret funding from Yuan Jiuxiong and Ghost Hand Dou Ying's management, it recruited many of the ninjas at the top of the Bounty Exchange's mission completion rankings and introduced comprehensive, formal training. It had since developed into a ninja organization as powerful as an average small ninja village.

There were many similar ninja organizations in the Shinobi World, but they were not classified as ninja villages for two reasons. One was that they lacked a unified voice and suffered from internal factional conflicts. The other was that their overall strength simply did not qualify them as ninja villages.

First, a ninja village needed to be founded by a ninja of Kage Level. A ninja called a "Kage" had to be clearly superior to an ordinary jōnin not only in combat strength, but also in virtue and prestige, earning the recognition of the local populace.

Second, establishing a ninja village required the backing of a relatively independent and stable government.

Take Orochimaru founding Otogakure in the Land of Rice Fields in the original story. He must have had the support of the daimyo of the Land of Rice Fields.

Otherwise, once Otogakure was established, it would have had no way to receive domestic missions through the country's government channels. Without a steady stream of missions, the village's fragile economy would collapse at the slightest shock!

The other organization, the Heavenly Fire Cult, was publicly regarded as a cult in the Land of Fire, though the government didn't do much to suppress it.

To put it plainly, many high-ranking officials in the Land of Fire might not have known that the Jinyuan Group was one of Yuan Jiuxiong's forces, but they almost certainly knew, at least to some extent, that the Heavenly Fire Cult was his money-making operation.

After all, in just the previous year, the Heavenly Fire Cult had collected hundreds of millions of ryō from its millions of followers.

It was thanks to this money that Yuan Jiuxiong had dared to implement sweeping reforms during his reign, vigorously develop technology, and build infrastructure, tripling the size of the capital.

Of course, besides raising money, the Heavenly Fire Cult also served as a scapegoat for human experimentation. Most of the clinical trials conducted on human subjects by the Mitsuki Pharmaceutical Group, which Orochimaru had established in cooperation with the Yuan Clan, took place within the cult.

Unfortunately, after the new daimyo, Yuan Benxiong, took power, he had his eye on the Heavenly Fire Cult too and wanted to snatch it from his older brother. The two were still bickering over it!

However, by the time the brothers' negotiations completely broke down, the Heavenly Fire Cult's valuable assets and key decision-makers would probably already have been moved out. What remained would likely be odds and ends of little value. The one in charge of this cleanup was none other than Touma's great-uncle, Ghost Hand Dou Ying.

Dou Ying's nickname was Ghost Hand, but his real talent lay in bookkeeping. During Yuan Jiuxiong's reign, the finance minister's position was nominally held for four-year terms, but Dou Ying himself was the one who actually managed the nation's accounts.

Many elders of the Yuan Clan had once tried to catch Yuan Jiuxiong in a misstep so they could put their favored clansmen in power. But no matter how thoroughly they examined the public accounts, they couldn't find a problem.

In particular, the elders could clearly tell that the country's economy was improving and the people's incomes were rising, yet the treasury's revenues kept shrinking.

Even massive infrastructure projects couldn't possibly have consumed that much silver. The treasury's shrinking revenues meant that the fixed incomes of these unproductive Yuan Clan elders were dwindling.

Touma brought Haruno Kizashi to the Heavenly Fire Cult's contact office and presented the token his great-uncle had mailed back.

Until ownership of the Heavenly Fire Cult was transferred, the purple-red token engraved with blue-green flames was the cult's most important symbol of authority, representing its leader, Tianhuo Zhiyuan.

There was no actual cult leader. The so-called Tianhuo Zhiyuan was merely a stand-in skilled in the Transformation Technique. Yuan Jiuxiong personally wrote every speech delivered in public, so the stand-in could be considered Yuan Jiuxiong himself.

The Heavenly Fire Cult's doctrines were quite unusual. They were somewhat akin to the slogan "Are kings and nobles born to be so?" and openly advocated overthrowing the Yuan Clan's rule.

However, aside from frequently holding public rallies and large social gatherings, they took no actual action against the Yuan Clan.

In fact, ordinary followers sometimes even helped other members resolve disputes and overcome difficulties in their lives, making society considerably more stable.

Therefore, even if some members of the Yuan Clan disapproved of the Heavenly Fire Cult's existence, they had no reason to go after it.

After all, the Land of Fire had no public law prohibiting its citizens from opposing the Yuan Clan's rule. And since the Yuan Clan's rise to power had hardly been honorable, there was no way to openly deal with this so-called "cult."

There were even followers and offices of the Heavenly Fire Cult in Konoha. Sarutobi Hiruzen knew roughly where the cult came from, so he had never paid it much attention.

Little did anyone know that, besides collecting money and overseeing human experiments, the Heavenly Fire Cult was also Yuan Jiuxiong's largest intelligence network. It was this intelligence network, the largest in the Land of Fire, that had allowed him to hold the daimyo's seat securely for twenty-four years.

After Touma showed the highest-ranking Heavenly Fire Token and stated his question, he received the corresponding information for free.

Just as Teacher Yuhi had previously surmised, the new daimyo, Yuan Benxiong, really did distrust Watanabe Kenfu, the finance minister.

He had his reasons. Watanabe Kenfu wasn't originally from the Land of Fire at all. He had fled there from the Land of Rivers, but somehow managed to marry into a noble family in the capital and transform himself from a refugee into a noble.

As it happened, the daimyo was changing at the time. In just two years, Watanabe Kenfu had risen from an inconspicuous junior clerk in the Ministry of Finance to the former finance minister's right-hand man. When the minister retired due to illness, he was recommended as acting finance minister.

Once his appointment was made permanent through the proper channels, he immediately began promoting comprehensive trade cooperation with the Land of Demons.

After all, the Land of Demons was a country poor in natural resources. A scarcity of natural resources meant a small population, and a small population meant weak production capacity. It surely had no high-value specialty goods.

This so-called comprehensive trade cooperation looked, no matter how you looked at it, like the Land of Fire was giving the Land of Demons full support!