Indra, a mere Genin, obviously had no place to speak at a meeting full of Jonin.
As he waited for Tsunade to give him instructions, he grew bored and noticed a change in the All-Heavens Pearl.
As the All-Heavens Pearl's owner, Indra could sense that it had gained a "progress bar."
Once the bar filled up, or his next chakra reincarnation died, he would get a chance to travel to another world.
Indra keenly noticed that the bar had advanced a little recently.
Was it when I killed those Hidden Stone and Hidden Sand ninja? Or when I saved Nawaki?
After considering it, Indra figured those were the two most likely possibilities.
Testing it would be simple. He just had to kill an enemy ninja.
When the meeting ended, Tsunade added in passing, "Indra, Mikoto, come treat the patients with me."
"Yes, Lady Tsunade!"
Mikoto immediately answered, and Indra followed suit.
He could conduct his test whenever he wanted. There was no rush.
But having him treat patients...
Indra sidled up to Tsunade, nudged her thigh with his elbow, and whispered, "I don't know Medical Ninjutsu yet!"
"You? I wasn't counting on you anyway.
"Mikoto's help will be enough. You can just be my little assistant.
"That way, you won't run around the battlefield and die somewhere without anyone knowing."
Medical Ninjutsu wasn't something one could learn overnight.
Even though Indra had learned Monster Strength, Tsunade still thought he had a long way to go.
Unlike Mikoto, Indra hadn't focused on studying Medical Ninjutsu. No matter how hard he tried to catch up now, he couldn't possibly learn it that quickly.
"How can you say I can't do it when you haven't taught me? What if I can?"
Seeing how confidently Indra spoke, Tsunade burst out laughing. "You spent all that time studying under Mikoto's grandfather. You haven't even opened a basic Medical Ninjutsu textbook, have you?"
"..." Indra was momentarily speechless. Watching Tsunade laugh without stopping, he protested indignantly, "Teach me first, then say that!"
Faced with his stubborn insistence, Tsunade taught him the D-rank Poison Extraction Technique and the C-rank Bleeding Suppression Technique with a smile.
She also wanted to see just how talented Indra was at Medical Ninjutsu, given how quickly he had learned Monster Strength.
These two medical techniques corresponded to the first and second stages of a medical ninja's training.
Tsunade brought Indra a cup of coffee mixed with milk and instructed him, "I won't ask you to memorize medical knowledge just yet. Try separating these two liquids first."
Indra took the cup and released his chakra, beginning to separate the liquids.
Fine strands of chakra flowed into the cup, wrapping around every molecule of liquid.
My perception seems to have improved. Is this the Sheep Talisman's effect?
After repeatedly using the Sheep Talisman, Indra could feel that controlling his chakra had become easier.
And whenever his chakra control wavered, the Tiger Talisman hanging around his neck glowed faintly.
The power of balance, kid!
With the Tiger Talisman's help, Indra's chakra output remained perfectly steady, without the slightest error.
The milk and coffee mixed together in the cup gradually began to separate.
Several minutes later, the milk and coffee had completely separated into two layers, one above the other.
"Huh? You actually did it?"
Tsunade, who had watched the entire process, could hardly believe her eyes.
She strongly suspected that Indra had secretly practiced for a long time back in the village. Otherwise, there was no way he could have completed it so easily on his first attempt!
Then Tsunade handed Indra a withered branch to test him on the second stage. Unsurprisingly, he failed.
"Whew. That's more like it." Tsunade let out a long breath and looked at Indra as though she had found a promising young talent.
Since he really did have an aptitude for this, she would have to teach him properly.
"I certainly can't let you start treating people right away. Watch how I treat them from the sidelines and learn the basics of medicine first."
Tsunade called Indra over and brought him and Mikoto to the first-aid station at the rear of the Hidden Leaf camp.
Wounded soldiers lay on beds, missing arms and legs a common sight. Most of them also showed signs of poisoning.
The gruesome scene left Indra silent. Dead bodies weren't frightening by comparison. It was the wounded struggling on the brink of death who truly made his heart clench.
Tsunade explained as she treated them, but as more and more casualties arrived, she finally made an exception.
There were too few medical ninja in the rear. Rather than leave some of the wounded to await death, she might as well let Indra and Mikoto try to save them.
As everyone knew, the more people a doctor killed while treating them, the better their medical skills became.
The saying sounded like utter bullshit, but it had now become reality.
As Indra relentlessly farmed the wounded for experience, his proficiency in [Poison Extraction Technique] and [Bleeding Suppression Technique] skyrocketed.
By the time the fighting ended that night and Indra returned to camp to rest, he had mastered the basics of both medical techniques.
Lying in the same tent as Mikoto, Indra didn't fall into an exhausted sleep.
He kept refining chakra to replenish what he had overused that day, while turning his attention to the All-Heavens Pearl.
The progress bar went up... because I changed those people's fates.
It looks like the All-Heavens Pearl can absorb some kind of energy whenever I change someone else's fate.
Earlier, I changed Nawaki's fate by preventing his death. That was what made the bar advance a little.
Most of the people I treated tonight were nobodies, or people who would have survived anyway. That's why the bar advanced so little.
Indra was delighted. He had finally figured out another function of the All-Heavens Pearl.
He took a deep breath to calm his excitement.
Indra took out the Sheep Talisman and prepared to use Astral Projection to head over to Tsunade and help himself to some of her chakra.
Just as he was about to act, the sphere of light inside the All-Heavens space began to glow faintly, and a mass of chakra burst out of it.
Another chakra reincarnation died?
What more was there to say? Indra immediately headed into the All-Heavens space to happily loot the remains.
As Indra eagerly devoured his own chakra inheritance, his aura grew several times stronger, pushing him straight to Chunin level.
While Indra reviewed this chakra reincarnation's memories, a mass of distinctly different energy gathered in his dantian.
Qi!
The instant this mass of qi touched his chakra, the two fused together.
At their core, both were his own "power," so there was no rejection whatsoever.
This chakra reincarnation of his had come from the Under One Person World.
He had been reborn during the Republican era, growing up alone and destitute before eventually joining the Three One Sect.
Because he was a chakra reincarnation, he had a decent talent for cultivating qi, so the Great Fullness Immortal, Zuo Ruotong, had accepted him as a disciple.
He hadn't managed to prevent Zuo Ruotong's battle with Wugen Sheng. Zuo Ruotong had still uncovered the truth of Reverse Birth Triple Layer and learned that the technique could not lead to heaven or make him an immortal.
But the chakra reincarnation had persuaded Zuo Ruotong to hold on a little longer, preserving the Three One Sect.
From then on, however, the Three One Sect was no longer a sect pursuing mystical transcendence. It simply continued to exist as an ordinary school.
After learning that Reverse Birth Triple Layer was not a path to immortality, many disciples left, and the entire sect declined in a short time.
In the years that followed, the chakra reincarnation worked to restore the sect's former glory, diligently cultivating Reverse Birth Triple Layer while actively fighting in the war against Japan.
Then, while killing Japanese soldiers, he was ambushed by the Bihu Mountain Ninja Group and armed troops.
He didn't possess Zuo Ruotong's strength, and his cultivation hadn't even reached Reverse Rebirth Second Layer. Unsurprisingly, he died on the battlefield.
Before you continue