Oracle Eye

A faint, almost imperceptible trace of satisfaction flashed through Madara Uchiha's cloudy eyes. His withered fingers twitched slightly, pointing toward the shadows of the cavern.

"Come out." His voice was hoarse, like scraps of paper scraping together.

From the shadows, as silently as bubbles rising from a swamp, several white, aloe-like humanoid creatures emerged—White Zetsu. Among them, one had half a face of unsettling pitch-black, radiating a cold, sinister aura—it was Black Zetsu.

"Lord Madara does not have much time left," Black Zetsu said in that distinctive hoarse voice, as if it came from the depths of the earth. "You need to become familiar with your new power as soon as possible. Lord Madara will guide you personally. This is... the final inheritance."

Uchiha Narong's heart chilled. He knew the critical moment had arrived. His face quickly shaped itself into just the right mix of gravity and gratitude, and he bowed slightly. "Yes, Lord Madara! This junior will not fail your expectations!"

Over the next few months, the dark underground cavern became Narong's frenzied training ground. Madara Uchiha's life was already like a candle guttering in the wind, but relying on a demon-like will and the faint life force he drew from the Gedo Statue, he forcibly kept one breath in his body and poured a lifetime of experience, knowledge, and understanding of power into the "successor" before him.

Madara's way of teaching was just like the man himself—domineering, precise, and utterly devoid of warmth. The first thing he forcefully instilled was an essential understanding of Hashirama Senju's cells and Wood Release.

"Wood Release? Hmph. Foolish juniors only think it makes trees!" Madara slumped on the stone chair. Though his voice was weak, it carried unquestionable authority. "This is the ultimate manifestation of Yang Release! It is the power to create life and command life! The key lies in will! Use your will to command chakra, to shape its form, to grant it nature! Do not just pour in chakra at random like a dumb ox!"

At first, the Wood Release Narong produced was crooked and feeble, without any real power. Madara watched coldly from the side, his vicious reprimands merciless. "Your chakra flows like a stream! Imagine your will as a blade, as a mold! The essence of 'Wood Release: Silent Stranglehold' is concealment and absorption. With all that noise, are you afraid the enemy won't notice you? Again!"

Under Madara's high-pressure tempering, Narong's progress could only be described as godspeed. His compatibility with Hashirama cells was extremely high, as if his body had been born to adapt to this power. In just a few months, he could already skillfully perform a reduced-range Wood Release: Deep Forest Emergence, manipulate Wood Release: Thorn Killing Technique as easily as moving his own arm, and even condense the embryonic form of Wood Release: Wood Dragon Technique. Though it was far from the First Hokage's level, it already possessed considerable combat strength and chakra absorption ability.

As for the Mangekyo Sharingan, Madara's guidance leaned more toward experience and warnings.

"The Mangekyo is the window of the soul, and also the eye of a curse." Madara's Mangekyo flickered with a dim glow. "Those eyes of yours... are very unusual. They lean toward 'analysis' and 'control,' unlike the common direct-attack type. But remember, the stronger the ocular power, the deeper its erosion of yourself! Use it too often, and you will eventually fall into eternal darkness!"

At this point, however, Madara's tone shifted slightly, carrying a trace of deeper meaning. "However... your luck, brat, is so good it makes one jealous." His cloudy gaze swept over Narong's vitality-filled body. "Hashirama Senju's cells, that vast life force and Yang Release power, just happen to make up for the physical deficit caused by the Mangekyo's excessive extraction of Yin Release chakra. The drawback of blindness... perhaps in your case, it will be greatly delayed, even... no longer become a fatal shackle. What you need to worry about now is not blindness, but whether your chakra and mental strength can support the consumption of those eyes!"

Those words exploded through Narong's mind like thunder! Now that Madara had pointed it out, he immediately looked within himself. Sure enough, the burden coming from both eyes mainly came from the intense consumption of mental strength and chakra. As for the cellular necrosis and irreversible deterioration of vision described in the original work, caused by an imbalance of Yin Release, it was minuscule under the scouring of the vast Yang Release life force inside him!

He knew Hashirama cells had this wonderful use! Otherwise, why would he have done fusion experiments with Orochimaru? Narong's heart was calm and still. This meant that he did not need to pursue the Eternal Mangekyo through the fusion of a brother's eyes, and could still use the power of the Mangekyo relatively "safely"! The only limit had become his blue bar and mental strength! This was undoubtedly fantastic news!

Madara continued to guide him on how to finely control ocular power, and how to combine ocular techniques with ninjutsu and taijutsu. He also focused heavily on tempering Narong's resistance to genjutsu, even though Narong's Mangekyo itself had extremely high resistance to genjutsu. "A true strong one cannot have shortcomings. Relying on a bloodline limit while neglecting the basics is the path to death."

Apart from technique training, Madara was more like a living encyclopedia of the ninja world, analyzing history, commenting on every nation and every bloodline limit, and sharing every detail of his battles with Hashirama Senju. "Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will never be defeated in a hundred battles. Your enemies are not only the ninja before your eyes, but also the interests, systems, and chains of hatred stretching for decades behind them."

He even revealed the secrets of forbidden techniques such as Izanagi and Izanami, as well as the mysteries of the Rinnegan and the Ten-Tails, opening for Narong the gate to the pinnacle powers of the ninja world. "Knowledge is a weapon, and also poison. How you use it depends on your own capacity."

Several months flew by. Narong's strength underwent a qualitative leap, steadily stepping over the threshold of Kage level. And Madara Uchiha, this withered lamp that had burned through all its oil, finally reached the moment of going out.

On this day, Madara's aura was so faint it could barely be sensed. He summoned Black Zetsu and Narong before the throne.

"Narong... you... have done well." Madara's voice was as thin as a thread, but his eyes were clear, as if lit by a final flare before death. "My road... ends here. The Eye of the Moon... I leave it to you..."

He raised his hand with difficulty and pointed at Black Zetsu and the White Zetsu. "They... are my... will and... forces... to aid you..." Then he looked deeply at Narong. "Remember... peace... lies in dreams... Tailed Beasts... 'Akatsuki'... Nagato... Rinnegan... key..."

His arm dropped. The light of the Mangekyo dimmed completely. The Asura of the ninja world, Madara Uchiha, passed away suddenly.

The cavern fell into dead silence. Black Zetsu and the White Zetsu stood in solemn silence.

Narong looked at Madara's remains, his feelings too complex for words. There was a trace of respect for a mentor of power, but even more than that, there was ambition for the road ahead. He stepped forward and respectfully closed Madara's eyes. However, just as his fingers touched Madara's already cold eyelids, his own Mangekyo—the pair of eyes he had renamed the "Oracle Eye"—suddenly sent out a strange throb!

A powerful sensation of "craving" and "attraction" came from Madara's lifeless Mangekyo!

This is... Narong's heart shook violently! The left-eye ability of his "Oracle Eye"—"Truth Analysis," which could perceive the structure of all things, the flow of energy, and the composition of techniques to the extreme, and release a higher-dimensional "deconstruction ray" that disintegrated things on the levels of matter and energy—was now spontaneously "analyzing" Madara's Mangekyo! The analysis feedback showed that this pair of eyes, from the same source and containing powerful ocular power, seemed to have a pure ocular power origin that could be "analyzed" and... "absorbed"?!

A thought so bold it bordered on madness rose in his mind! The Eternal Mangekyo required the fusion of close blood relatives' eyes in order to balance ocular power and eliminate side effects. But he had Hashirama cells to compensate for bodily loss, and the side effects had already been greatly reduced. Then, if he directly "devoured" the ocular power origin of Madara's powerful Mangekyo, could he greatly increase the total ocular power and might of his own "Oracle Eye" without changing eyes?! This was a path no one had ever walked!

Suppressing the excitement in his heart, Narong took a deep breath and said to Black Zetsu, "Lord Madara's remains must be properly settled. These eyes contain Lord Madara's final will and power. They cannot be allowed to fall into the outside world. I will personally keep them."

Black Zetsu was silent for a moment, then said in a low voice, "Yes, Lord Madara. Everything will be as you command."

Narong carefully removed Madara's Mangekyo Sharingan and sealed them in a specially made container. Afterward, he ordered Black Zetsu and the White Zetsu to secretly bury Madara's remains deep within the cavern.

Once he was the only one left, Narong could not wait to take out the container. He drew a deep breath, and the Oracle Eye opened at full power! His left eye's "Truth Analysis" ability activated, focusing his gaze on the lusterless Mangekyo inside the container.

In an instant, the world in his eyes became a complex model made of countless tiny energy flows and structural lines. In his "eyes," Madara's Mangekyo was no longer a physical object, but two highly condensed masses of incomparably pure Yin Release ocular power origin that radiated fluctuations from the same source!

It really works! Narong roared in his heart. He tried to guide his own ocular power, like tentacles, carefully touching those two ownerless masses of origin.

At first, there was rejection, but the same-source Uchiha bloodline and the fine control of "Truth Analysis" quickly broke down the barrier. The pure ocular power origin, like a hundred rivers returning to the sea, slowly flowed into Narong's eyes!

The process was slow and painful, with swelling and stabbing pain coming from both eyes, but accompanying it was an unprecedented fullness and growth of ocular power! He could clearly feel that the total ocular power of the "Oracle Eye" was rising, and his control over "Truth Analysis" and his right-eye ability—"Domain Deflection," which could interfere with spatial coordinates, vectors, and force fields in a small range, realizing attack deflection, trajectory distortion, and even the destruction of localized spatial stability—had significantly strengthened!

After an unknown amount of time, the absorption was finally complete. Inside the container, Madara's Mangekyo had turned into two dull, ordinary eyeballs without the slightest energy fluctuation. And Uchiha Narong slowly opened his eyes.

Buzz!

The patterns in his eyes seemed to have grown a little more complex and profound. His ocular power surged. Wherever his gaze reached, the structures and vectors of the surrounding space seemed even clearer. Though there was still some distance before a qualitative transformation into the Eternal Mangekyo, this devouring had undoubtedly pushed his "Oracle Eye" a great step forward, making the foundation of his ocular power even deeper!

"A... brand-new road!" Narong clenched his fist, feeling the powerful force in his eyes, and a smile of control over everything appeared on his face. Madara's legacy had been completely inherited by him in another form.

He turned and looked toward the endless darkness outside the cavern, the Oracle Eye flashing with cold, wise light.

"The Eye of the Moon Plan... will be carried out," he murmured, the corner of his mouth curving upward. "However, that will be after I have completely 'analyzed' the power of all Tailed Beasts and 'deflected' the trajectory of the entire ninja world's fate. The final 'Infinite Tsukuyomi' will only be the absolute embodiment of my will!"

The new Madara Uchiha, bearing a pair of Oracle Eyes that had stepped onto a unique path of evolution, was about to stir up the winds and clouds of the entire ninja world.