Throwing Down a Seed and Growing an Orchard?

"Want to learn? Sure."

The clone leaned closer to Naruto, lowering his voice with a hint of coaxing persuasion.

"Tomorrow morning, bring me three... no, five red bean cakes. The freshly baked kind from Old Li's shop at the village entrance. Then I'll teach you how to hang people up."

Naruto froze for a moment, then nodded so hard his head bobbed like a pestle.

"No problem! Five it is! I'll buy them first thing tomorrow morning! Big bro, don't you dare go back on your word!"

Seeing Naruto's solemn expression, the clone's mouth twitched.

He waved a hand and turned toward the shadow of the school building.

With a bang, he turned into a log that fell to the ground and rolled twice.

On the rooftop.

Sen, who had been sunbathing with his eyes closed, suddenly opened them.

The clone's brief yet eventful memories instantly flooded into his mind.

"This damn clone causes even more trouble than I do."

Sen curled his lips and rubbed his hair, hot from the sun.

It had hung the senior-grade bully from a tree and taken the Nine-Tails' jinchuriki as its little brother.

And that was supposed to be keeping a low profile?

It was practically dancing in the Third Hokage's minefield!

"Still, those vines were far stronger than I expected."

Sen rubbed his chin, reliving the sensation of the clone using Wood Release.

There was no need for hand seals, or even deliberate guidance. With a single thought, chakra could instantly transform into plant matter.

And the passive effect of "Life Drain" carried by those vines seemed to possess a natural suppressive effect against living creatures.

"I need to find somewhere and properly test the limits of this Wood Release."

Sen stretched lazily and leaped off the edge of the rooftop.

After bounding down the outer wall a few times, he landed steadily on the ground.

He avoided the crowd leaving school and deliberately took secluded alleys.

Half an hour later, he arrived at the edge of Konoha Village.

This was Training Ground 44, the outer perimeter of what would one day become the infamous Forest of Death.

Other than jonin who came here for special training, there was usually not even a ghost in sight.

It was perfect for someone like him, who could not show his face in public, to cause trouble.

Sen found a patch of grass that received decent sunlight and plopped down.

He pulled a bright red apple from his ninja tool pouch, casually wiped it twice on his clothes, and took a huge bite.

"Crunch, crunch..."

The apple was sweet, but Sen's mind was nowhere near eating.

All he could think about was Wood Release.

The system had given him the skill and its level, but no instruction manual.

He was like a primitive man clutching a nuclear bomb—he had the power, but no idea how to make the most of it.

"Since it's Wood Release, it should have something to do with how plants grow, right?"

After taking the last bite of the apple, Sen looked thoughtfully at the core in his hand.

He casually spat.

Several black apple seeds landed in the soft dirt before him.

"Let's see if I can make these things grow."

Sen crossed his legs and casually rested his hands on his knees.

He formed no hand seals. He merely slowly closed his eyes.

The chakra from the Divine Tree Origin flowed gently through his meridians like a docile sheep.

"Go."

Sen gave a soft shout in his mind.

A wisp of green chakra, so tiny it was invisible to the naked eye,

Silently seeped from his fingertips into the soil beneath his feet.

This chakra not only contained immense energy, but also carried a trace of the Divine Tree's most primitive and tyrannical life force.

In an instant!

The quiet grassland suddenly churned violently like boiling water.

"Rumble..."

A dull roar rose from deep underground, making even the earth beneath Sen's butt tremble faintly.

"Holy shit! That loud?"

Sen abruptly opened his eyes and stumbled back two steps in fright.

At the spot where he had spat out the apple seeds,

The soil exploded outward like a fountain.

Immediately afterward, five emerald-green shoots burst from the earth at a terrifying speed that defied the laws of nature!

One second to sprout!

Two seconds to branch!

Three seconds...

Those five shoots were like monsters pumped full of growth stimulant, shooting upward wildly before Sen's stunned eyes.

Their trunks thickened visibly, while the bark swiftly changed from tender green to weathered dark brown.

Countless branches spread outward like tentacles, interweaving into a massive green canopy.

Ten meters!

Fifteen meters!

Twenty meters!

In only a few short breaths,

Five towering trees, each requiring three people to wrap their arms around and over twenty meters tall, had been forcibly crammed into the clearing!

Sunlight filtered through the dense canopy, scattering dappled shadows across the ground.

A breeze swept through, and the leaves rustled thunderously, as though cheering for their rebirth.

But it was not over yet.

The instant those five enormous trees took shape,

Dense clusters of white flower buds suddenly emerged from their branches.

"Pop, pop, pop..."

Accompanied by a string of soft bursting sounds,

Tens of thousands of apple blossoms bloomed at once. An overwhelmingly sweet fragrance filled with the scent of life instantly spread throughout the edge of the training ground.

Yet the flowering period lasted only a single second.

The petals rapidly withered, replaced by green fruit after green fruit.

The fruit swelled in the wind, its color shifting from green to red before finally becoming a crystalline purplish red.

Plop.

A ripe apple fell from a tree and rolled to Sen's feet.

The apple was as large as a soccer ball!

Its skin gleamed enticingly, even faintly emitting a pale green chakra glow.

Sen stared blankly at the magical little orchard that had appeared out of nowhere before him.

He rubbed his eyes, then pinched his thigh hard.

"Hiss—That fucking hurt!"

This was not an illusion.

He had merely spat out a few seeds and fed them a thread of chakra.

Yet in just a few seconds,

He had created a giant orchard ready for harvest?!

"Isn't this Wood Release a little too unreasonable?"

Sen swallowed and bent down to pick up the soccer-ball-sized apple.

It was heavy in his hand.

After hesitating for a moment, he opened his mouth and took a huge bite.

"Crunch!"

The flesh melted in his mouth.

An incredibly sweet juice burst across his tongue.

Along with it came an extremely faint yet exceptionally pure strand of natural energy!

The energy slid down his throat and instantly nourished the meridians that had become somewhat exhausted from refining chakra.

"Holy shit! This apple... is a serious tonic!"

Sen's eyes instantly lit up like two hundred-watt bulbs.

This was no ordinary apple.

It was clearly a spiritual fruit grown with Divine Tree chakra!

One bite could quench thirst and hunger, slowly restore chakra, and even strengthen the body!

He was going to strike it rich!

Sen looked at the giant apples densely packed across the branches overhead.

A perfect path to wealth instantly popped into his mind.

With this ability, why would he still be a ninja?

He could just open a fruit store chain in Konoha Village and specialize in selling these spiritual fruits with attribute boosts.

Wouldn't all those ninjas who risked their lives doing missions every day line up to throw money at him?

Then he could lie in a villa every day collecting cash, drinking iced fruit juice, and watching everyone else fight and die on the front lines.

That was the true pinnacle of laying low!

The more Sen thought about it, the more excited he became. He hugged the huge apple and gnawed at it until juice covered his face.

He had even begun planning whether to buy grape seeds and watermelon seeds tomorrow.

To see whether he could grow even larger varieties.

Just as he was immersed in his wonderful fantasy of becoming the "richest man in the ninja world,"

An extremely cold voice, devoid of the slightest emotional fluctuation, suddenly drifted down from the canopy of the giant tree above him.

"To instantly grow trees on such a scale, and imbue the fruit with chakra attributes."

"It seems Lord Danzo's intelligence was correct."

Sen's apple-chewing motion suddenly froze.

Every hair on his body stood on end in that instant.

It was the intensely dangerous instinct of being watched by a venomous snake.

He slowly raised his head.

The sunlight streaming through the gaps in the leaves was somewhat blinding.

But within the shadows, he clearly saw a deathly pale mask.

Strange black patterns were painted upon it, as if mocking his carelessness.

An ANBU ninja dressed in a black bodysuit, with a short sword strapped to his back, was hanging upside down from a thick branch.

Those lifeless eyes stared fixedly at him.

"Sen Senju."

The ANBU ninja's voice seemed to drift out of hell.

"Come with us. Root welcomes your presence."