Chakra Pills

As the main hall shook, the statue of Shakyamuni Buddha on the dais slowly rose from its lotus seat, bracing one hand against a pillar.

Touma reacted quickly. With a single thought, two Divine Wind Swords gathered in his palms, and he hurled them at the Buddha statue's knees.

However, no one knew what material the statue was made of. His Divine Wind Swords could cleave stone and jade, yet the moment they struck the statue, they vanished like mud sinking into the sea, leaving not even a scratch.

He followed up with the lightning and fire attacks of Hidden Thunder Sword and Azure Lotus Drop, but neither did any damage to the statue.

At the same time, Shinku Yuhi came to his senses. He lowered the bronze mirror, drew the Ninja Blade from his back, gathered his strength, and slashed at the statue.

This time, the purely physical attack, with no Chakra involved, worked. Its effect, however, was far from impressive.

After all, although Shinku Yuhi had mastered Konoha-Style Swordsmanship, he had little talent for Taijutsu. Without Chakra to enhance it, his Taijutsu was only average. It was more than enough to deal with ordinary Genin and Chunin, but it was no use against the eerie statue before them.

Luckily, Touma had spent plenty of time training in Taijutsu. After all, it was the only way he could quickly improve his strength without relying on outside help.

He drew the short staff from his back and gave it a flick. It transformed into a black spear nearly two meters long. This was Arahabaki Form, one of the techniques in Martial Combat Style: Staff Form Six. It allowed him to turn a staff into a spear.

"Arahabaki" came from the deity Arahabaki. As a guardian deity who watched over war and travel, he had his own divine weapon: the fabled Divine Spear: Touken Arahabaki.

The spear created by Arahabaki Form had a remarkably stable structure. Even without the black staff, its structure remained highly flexible when made purely of Chakra.

Of course, since the Buddha statue seemed to absorb Ninjutsu like Dark Release and Sealing Technique: Absorption Seal, the Divine Spear created by Arahabaki Form had to be sheathed in the black staff.

Just as expected, Touma thrust the spear straight into the statue. It took little effort to drive its black tip inside.

Then he shifted his grip and rolled both arms in opposite directions along the shaft. The black spear began spinning rapidly inside the statue. He was using Rigid Fist: Piercing Style, one of the techniques in Jidoryu: Fist Style Four, to generate a high-speed, spiraling force that pierced through its target.

The spear spun so quickly that Touma had counted fewer than ten seconds before it bored a huge hole through the statue's sturdy knee. Only then did he identify what it was made of: wood.

Though he had only two clues—the wood and its ability to absorb Ninjutsu—Touma immediately realized where the material came from. The statue was almost certainly carved from the God Tree felled by the two brothers, the Sage of Six Paths and his brother.

Now that he knew what the statue was made of, dealing with it would be simple.

In Naruto Shippuden, Naruto and Sasuke had damaged it with Senjutsu and Yin-Yang Release. In Boruto, Orochimaru had destroyed a God Tree replica with a Barrier Ninjutsu sealing technique.

Touma might not be able to use the former yet, but the latter posed no problem.

Touma wasn't particularly skilled at Sealing Jutsu or Barrier Ninjutsu, but Orochimaru was, and he had kept almost nothing from him.

After seeing Touma's talent for Wind Release, Orochimaru had introduced him to a Barrier Ninjutsu technique called Four Storms Void Formation.

It created an enclosed space filled with dense, high-speed wind blades. These blades weren't made of Chakra; they formed naturally when the barrier altered the environment within it. As a result, absorbing Chakra couldn't rob them of their physical cutting power.

Touma had studied the technique for a long time, but his limited Chakra meant he still couldn't cast it with a single Shadow Clone acting independently.

It seemed he would have to use his trump card.

Touma pulled the scroll from behind his waist, untied it, and spread it across his hands. The five large characters written on it were unmistakable: four "Essence" characters and one "Sage" character.

The "Essence" characters marked the reserve Chakra Pills stored in the scroll. These weren't the kind made by members of the Ōtsutsuki Clan, who devoured their companions and used the Rinnegan to refine them. Touma had created these by deeply transforming the form of his Chakra and condensing it with the Three Talents Seal.

The Three Talents Seal was one of the Uzumaki Clan's inherited seals that was rarely used. To activate it, the user had to meet the three requirements of "Heaven, Earth, and Man," making the process extremely complicated.

Fortunately, Orochimaru was interested in such complex matters. Through analysis and research, he had built a mathematical model of the Three Talents, which could calculate the required positions directly.

Intrigued, Touma had used the model to calculate the three requirements for himself and completed his first Three Talents Seal in the Forest of Death.

In terms of suppressing and sealing a Tailed Beast, the Three Talents Seal was far more effective than the Four Symbols Seal. But the Three Talents Seal's difficulty and inconvenience made it no match for the Four Symbols Seal.

Even Uzumaki Mito had used the Four Symbols Seal to seal the Nine-Tails. She could make corrections at any time, ensuring that as little Tailed Beast Chakra as possible leaked from her body. Had she used the Three Talents Seal, her straightforward way of thinking would have made it unlikely that she could calculate the three requirements correctly.

The "Sage" character at the center of the scroll marked a Sage Chakra Pill, which Touma had made using the same method.

However, this Sage Chakra Pill could only sustain Sage Mode for less than a minute. After using two or three Ninjutsu, he would automatically exit the mode. It was even less practical than Shibi's Insect Sage Mode.

He had made only three Sage Chakra Pills, and he truly couldn't bear to use one unless it was absolutely necessary.

As for ordinary Chakra Pills, he had refined nearly a hundred at once. Each one could replenish roughly half of the Chakra in his body.

And by taking two Chakra Pills while using Shadow Clones, he could make sure that splitting off clones wouldn't weaken his real body in battle.

Touma swallowed six pills in one go and created three Shadow Clones. The clones instantly moved to the other three sides of the Buddha statue. Together with his real body, they formed Hand Seals and cast Four Storms Void Formation!

A blue-white barrier instantly enveloped the golden God Tree Buddha statue. From outside the formation, Shinku Yuhi watched as the statue began to crumble from the top, turning into piles of wood shavings that fluttered to the ground.

In less than twenty minutes, the entire statue had been reduced to a heap of wood shavings mixed with gold dust.

With no puppet body left to control, the Yellow Springs Puppet Technique controlling the statue was completely undone as well.

Touma couldn't let the shavings go to waste. Never mind how much gold dust he might recover by sifting through them—the God Tree wood shavings alone were of immense research value.

He had never seen any God Tree samples in Orochimaru's laboratory. He didn't mind giving Orochimaru a push before the man realized how important the God Tree was.

With Orochimaru's intelligence, perhaps he really could have a flash of inspiration and develop Shinobi World technology that didn't exist in the original story!