The One Who Steps on the Earth

A crescent moon hung high in the sky as Hui and Chuanhe stood once again at the cave entrance where they had arrived.

Looking at the small town in the distance, its nightscape so starkly different from Konoha, a seed of longing for peace was planted in Hui's heart.

One day, he would realize his mother's dream and rid this world of strife forever.

The geniuses of the Uchiha seem to be cursed with a strange fate. Every person who stands at the pinnacle of this clan eventually, for one reason or another, walks down a path in pursuit of what they define as "peace."

The next day, in class.

Naruto looked at Hui, who was not far away, feeling a bit strange. He didn't know why, but he could sense that Hui seemed happy today, as if he had let go of many heavy burdens.

The day passed in a similar fashion, and by evening, he had finished his training with Naruto and Sasuke.

At this point, the only reason he still came to school was for his two friends.

Standing by the deserted riverbank, Hui watched the afterglow of the sun in the distance.

The Shadow Clone Technique is quite special; once practiced to a certain degree, it seems that, apart from his father, no one can distinguish the real body.

Even he himself couldn't do it now. His current Four-Dimensional Perception could only detect animals without chakra, or reserve genin whose chakra levels were on par with Sasuke's current level.

But it wasn't that he couldn't perceive anything at all; it was just that for such faint chakra, there was no need for him to expend so much effort to keep using Four-Dimensional Perception. Simple ninjutsu detection was enough to know.

How exactly does the Shadow Clone Technique make it impossible for anyone to distinguish the real body? According to the records in the study, even the legendary Sage Eye—the Rinnegan—cannot distinguish the real body.

Hui, who had used the Shadow Clone Technique to attend school that day, fell into deep thought.

The soul? That's it! The Rinnegan does not have the ability to extract souls from a distance. If one were close enough to do that, there would be no need to extract a soul just to verify the identity.

If chakra transformed into the five elemental releases simulates real matter, then does the shadow clone simulate the soul?

Is the soul also a form of matter? Since the Rinnegan can "see" it, according to the previous theory of matter, the soul must be a type of matter.

Thinking of this, Hui discovered a new problem: if it simulates real matter, why is the destructive power of chakra so anomalous?

Aside from the ultimate weapon and antimatter his father had mentioned, Hui had never heard of a similar situation.

Hui was completely baffled and thought to himself, Perhaps this is part of a later lesson. I've only had two lessons so far, and they have already completely overturned the conventional learning of ninjutsu. What else could follow?

On the side, Chuanhe watched as Hui practiced Water Release ninjutsu at home all day, having finally acquired the water affinity.

Perhaps it was time to change Hui's perception. Chakra is indeed the easiest substance to manipulate precisely among everything he currently knows, and by far. But for someone with such a vast horizon, it was clearly unwise for Hui to remain fixated on ordinary ninjutsu.

Thus, Chuanhe asked, "Hui, if it were you, how would you go to the Hokage Rock?"

"Take the stairs, of course," Hui replied, feeling puzzled.

"Why not just step on the wall and walk up?" Chuanhe said with a smile.

"Isn't... isn't that against the rules?" Hui felt even more confused.

"Shouldn't the logic be to think about walking up the wall first, then realize it's against the rules, and only then take the stairs?" Chuanhe countered.

"This..." Hui was at a loss for words. It seemed that was indeed the case; why had he directly ignored the simpler method?

Clearly, his father had a purpose in asking this. So, where had he fallen into a fixed mindset?

Hui thought about how he had practiced Water Release all day and successfully acquired the water affinity; it should have been a happy occasion. His father hadn't objected at the time. What was the difference?

"Dimension?" Hui thought of this word; it seemed to be the only possibility.

What had he overlooked? It seemed there was only one conclusion he hadn't applied: manipulating all matter. But without using chakra, the difficulty of directly manipulating these substances was astonishingly high.

No matter how he thought about it, he couldn't find the answer. Hui felt it would be better to just try it. The last time he tried to directly manipulate non-chakra matter was when he was writing in the four-dimensional space.

Hui began to release his chakra, continuing until all the chakra he had extracted was dissipated.

Then, he began to try to manipulate the water in the cup in front of him.

The water in the cup slowly floated up under his control, beginning to change into various shapes at his command.

Looking at the water, Hui frowned. It was difficult—extremely difficult—and the amount of mass he could control was very small. If he added any more, he wouldn't be able to control it with such precision.

"Why are you still using the method of controlling chakra to control it? It's clearly not the same thing anymore," Chuanhe said as he watched the floating ball of water.

Hui was bewildered; what did that mean?

"When facing enemies far weaker than themselves, the precision of a ninja's ninjutsu and shuriken is terrifyingly high. That kind of precision doesn't come from nothing," Chuanhe said, offering another example since Hui seemed confused.

Is there something wrong with the method of... manipulating chakra? Shouldn't one just precisely manipulate every bit of cha...

Hui suddenly had a flash of realization. So that was it.

In the material world, on a macroscopic scale, there has never been a pure substance like chakra.

The mixed nature of chakra also greatly increases the difficulty of manipulation.

This is why the difficulty of controlling chakra varies between the original owner and others.

Unless, like a jinchuriki, one practices persistently to use Tailed Beast chakra just as they would their own.

Ninjutsu is like a precision instrument; if even one seal is wrong, the technique cannot be completed correctly.

Chakra is like that, but other substances are not.

If one stops pursuing precision and instead operates with a holistic perspective...

The water orb before Hui confirmed his answer; the difficulty of the entire operation plummeted, and the water orb began to fly all over the room, albeit a bit crookedly.

"I understand, Father!"

"Is that all? What else is there?"

What else? Hui looked at Chuanhe with a blank expression.

"What I want you to understand, Hui, is not just this."

What else could he do? In terms of dimensions, all he could manage was simple Four-Dimensional Perception. What else was there? Wait, four dimensions?

It turned out that his thinking had been too narrow all along. If he was already thinking in four dimensions, why was his way of approaching problems still confined to a flat plane? The essence of that example was actually to get him to fly directly up to the Hokage Rock.

Hui looked down at the floor and began to manipulate the matter of his entire body in a holistic way. Trembling, Hui began to lift off the ground.

Chuanhe watched Hui and spoke to himself: "The thing I find most incomprehensible in this world is this very phenomenon. Human self-awareness in this world is like a creator god, as if it can directly imbue matter with energy."

"I, who believe most firmly in the conservation of mass and energy, find myself doubting when faced with this reality."

"If the soul is a higher dimension, then the soul is also matter. Should I continue to explain it with even higher dimensions? It would be an endless cycle, generation after generation."

"I think back to my original world: the brain controls the body by sending electrical signals. Could that mean the brain controls electrons?"

"Following this line of thought, the result is that human self-awareness controls matter. Although the matter is microscopic, existence is existence."

"Let's conduct a simple thought experiment: a super-civilization capable of perfectly predicting the four fundamental forces predicts that a sun in a galaxy will explode in a thousand years. But a thousand years later, the intelligent life in that galaxy prevents the sun from exploding through tireless effort."

"Doesn't that suggest that human self-awareness plays at least the role of a fifth fundamental force in this process?"

Hui was left dazed by the long string of explanations, even though he didn't fully grasp all the concepts.

But what he didn't understand was... hadn't there already been an answer? It could be explained by a fifth fundamental force.

Hui voiced his confusion to Chuanhe.

"That question is very complex. We'll discuss it later when we talk about forces," Chuanhe said after a moment of contemplation.

"In short, Hui, you've realized it now, haven't you? We no longer need to be confined to ordinary ninjutsu. Ninjas who possess extraordinary abilities should have been looking toward the sky all along. It is a pity that the number of ninjas in this world who can fly can be counted on one hand."

"Those who keep their feet on the ground lack even one dimension in their way of thinking. How can they hope to go any further?"