Flying Close to the Ground

"That, that..." The old farmer held up his stick, unsure whether to strike or not.

Kamiya Keiyun smiled. "My name is Yun Jing. I'm a Doctor of Agronomy, specializing in rice. It happens to be my field of expertise, and I got curious when I saw it, so I came over to take a look."

"Huh? What's agronomy? And what's a doctor?" The farmer hesitated, though he understood the part about specializing in rice.

But rice was something everyone knew how to grow. What was there to research?

"Sir, may I ask you a few questions?" Kamiya Keiyun asked.

"Uh, but I'm in a hurry to get home for dinner," the old farmer said.

"Don't worry. Once I'm done asking, I'll give you ten thousand ryo," Kamiya Keiyun said.

"Ah..." The old farmer paused. He was starving, but the man was offering far too much money.

"Then go ahead and ask." The old farmer lowered his stick.

"Let's find some shade first. There's a tree over there." Kamiya Keiyun pointed to a nearby tree. There were several stone stools beneath it, clearly a spot where people often came to cool off.

"Alright." The old farmer nodded and followed Kamiya Keiyun over to sit down.

"What's your name, and how old are you this year?" Kamiya Keiyun asked.

"My name is Inosaburo. I'm thirty-one this year," the old farmer replied.

Kamiya Keiyun was somewhat startled. Thirty-one? You look more like sixty-one!

As for Inosaburo, he understood that name too. It meant the third son in a family that grew rice.

Just like Tanjiro, whose family made charcoal by burning firewood, commoners' names had never been particularly elaborate.

"How many rice crops can you grow each year? What's the yield per mu?" Kamiya Keiyun asked again.

"Uh, twice a year!" Inosaburo answered. "As for yield, it's usually around a hundred jin per mu."

"This..." Kamiya Keiyun was speechless. That yield was ridiculously low—worse than the Tang Dynasty's standards!

Of course, perhaps this village was simply too backward and did not represent the Land of Fire as a whole.

"Is everyone like this? Have you exchanged information with the neighboring villages?" Kamiya Keiyun asked.

"Uh, we have. Actually, yields used to be pretty high, but they suddenly dropped over the past few decades!" Inosaburo said.

"Did anyone come to investigate? Do you know the cause?" Kamiya Keiyun asked again.

"People from Inari Shrine came to take a look. They said the years of war had damaged the land, offended Inari, and that Inari had brought down Rust Punishment," Inosaburo answered honestly.

"Huh?" Kamiya Keiyun was speechless at being dragged into this for no reason. So this was how the people of Inari Shrine handled things?

No wonder Kamiya Hiromi did not seem to have any skills. Without his identity as the shrine master, he was not much different from a street punk.

His mother, on the other hand, danced the ritual dances beautifully and had passed them on to Sanyō.

"Did any officials come and say anything? Didn't any specialists in rice research come by?" Kamiya Keiyun asked again.

"Why would those officials ever come to a remote place like this?" Inosaburo said disdainfully.

"Uh, the officials won't come, but the shrine people will?"

"We pooled our money and paid them! Three hundred thousand ryo in total!"

Kamiya Keiyun was speechless. So that was it. Officials in the Land of Fire had no sense of responsibility toward the people. The situation in his original village had not been an exception, but the norm.

If officials only knew how to collect taxes and did not care whether the people lived or died, then that meant—

The soil here was fertile for revolution!

If he spread agricultural knowledge and, while he was at it, some revolutionary ideas, it should be easy to build a force.

Unfortunately, the ninjas in this world were far too powerful, and Chakra was a force that seemed capable of cultivation.

There might really be immortals in this world.

More importantly, Kamiya Keiyun had not forgotten that this world's main storyline was giant robots fighting aliens.

He did not know when the aliens would arrive, but resisting them required an orderly world. Even a poor order was better than no order at all.

"M-My lord, is there anything else you want to ask?" Inosaburo asked cautiously.

"Uh, no, wait..." Kamiya Keiyun remembered something and asked, "Do you know which city has relatively developed industry?"

"Huh? What is industry?" Inosaburo asked in return.

"A place that is especially good at making things, or where its products are particularly famous!" Kamiya Keiyun explained.

"Oh, then you must mean Sakura City. I heard that eight or nine out of every ten good things in the Land of Fire are made in Sakura City!" The old farmer said. "Like lamps that glow, iron carriages, and so on."

"Oh?" Kamiya Keiyun nodded. "I understand. Sir, here's your money! Oh, and the next time you plant rice, try soaking the seeds in limewater first. Then wash them before sowing!"

"Alright, alright!" Inosaburo hurriedly took the money and stuffed it into his clothes. When he looked up again, he found that the young man had already appeared more than ten meters away!

Ah! A ninja lord!

Inosaburo knew nothing about Doctors of Agronomy, but everyone knew what ninjas were. Ninjas stood above ordinary people!

So the words of a ninja lord could not possibly be wrong!

"Soak seeds in limewater? I'll try it when I get home!"

Sakura City lay northwest of Konoha. To its west was the Land of Rain, and to its north was the Land of Grass. A massive river also ran through the city.

The Land of Fire as a whole was shaped like a fish, and Sakura City was located where its eye would be.

At the intersection of three nations, foreign trade was naturally flourishing. With a river within its borders, it also possessed the necessary conditions for industrial development. As long as the city lord had even a little sense, developing the city would not be difficult.

Sakura City had been Kamiya Keiyun's intended destination from the start. Asking the old farmer had merely been a casual question.

But the problem was that this city was rather far from Konoha—an entire 1,400 kilometers away!

"No choice. I'll run!" Kamiya Keiyun sighed helplessly. Many things he needed might not be available in an ordinary city. Rather than go to a nearby city and find nothing, he might as well go somewhere farther away and buy everything in one trip.

It was also a good chance to train Wind God Leg!

In Kamiya Keiyun's plans, Wind God Leg was a movement technique that combined combat, long-distance travel, close-range footwork, maneuvering in confined spaces, and explosive bursts of speed. But his home had been too small to give him any chance to practice it!

Now, however, he had a round trip of 2,800 kilometers to do whatever he wanted with!

Fortunately, he was a ninja. With Chakra enhancing him, he could run incredibly fast.

If he had been an ordinary person, traveling 1,400 kilometers would take at least a month!

Kamiya Keiyun first began deducing the sprinting section of Wind God Leg. His learning target was Lingbo Weibu!

When using Lingbo Weibu, not only did running consume no internal energy, it even accumulated it. The farther one ran, the greater the advantage.

When Qiao Feng and Duan Yu competed, Qiao Feng held the advantage for the first thirty li. But later, Qiao Feng's internal energy began to fail, while Duan Yu continuously replenished his energy as he ran and caught up. Then Qiao Feng conceded defeat.

However, Kamiya Keiyun did not understand the I Ching, so creating the original Lingbo Weibu was unlikely. What he could rely on was still Heaven Rewards Diligence.

He worked to reduce Chakra consumption while maintaining high speed. At the same time, Kamiya Keiyun tried to reduce wind resistance—minimizing the area of his body that came into contact with the air.

For example, by tilting his whole body, the area directly facing the wind could be reduced to half, or even a third, of its original size!

The key was to use extremely high speed to balance a person's weight against the upward resistance of the wind. Ordinary people definitely could not do this. If they tried, they would only fall over.

But ninjas with Chakra could. Chakra strengthened their legs, while the repulsive force between Chakra and the ground accelerated them.

Whoosh!

Kamiya Keiyun turned into an afterimage, tilting forward as he raced ahead!

No, this was no longer running at full speed. He was flying close to the ground!