Uchiha Xuan's thinking is like a supercomputer searching for a unique solution in billions of data. In his eyes, this absurd "supernatural" phenomenon was quickly stripped of all its mysterious clothes, leaving only a cold chain of logic.
Funeral?
Last words?
This group of dead souls that have long been reduced to coke are just a group of teachers with unresolved obsessions, trying to make up for the unfinished final lesson of their last "student" - Chiyo Saori before they are completely annihilated.
Through resonance and infection, they do not want to resurrect those low-level X Sequence ninjas, but want to use their bodies as loudspeakers and blackboards to imprint some kind of puppet master knowledge system that transcends life and death into the cornerstone of this new world.
"Childish desire to inherit." Uchiha Xuan's fingertips tapped lightly on the throne, and the pair of Eternal Mangekyō's eyes turned indifferently, "Since you want to go to class so much, then I will make the course schedule, I will decide who is the student, and I will... correct your final homework."
Instead of choosing to suppress this growing torrent of consciousness, he decided to completely detonate it and then swallow it in one gulp!
"Command: Start 'Final Lesson Plan' immediately."
The cold and unquestionable instructions are conveyed to every execution unit through the neural network of Scarlet Eye Tower.
"From X Sequence, select twelve individuals with the highest mental toughness and Puppet Technique with the best talents. From now on, they will enter the seventh isolation area numbered 'Underworld', with Z0 as the sole instructor, and conduct a seven-day closed intensive training."
"The training content is generated in real time by the main system. It is externally declared as 'Advanced Puppet Neural Synchronization and Combat Application'."
The instructions were like precise scalpels, quickly cutting open the internal structure of the empire and setting up a new and strange stage.
Twelve elites wearing brand-new numbers X Sequence, with a look of absolute obedience on their faces, walked into the pure white training ground code-named "Underworld".
The ceiling and walls of the venue are densely etched with spell matrices driven by Divine Tree chakra. They are the audience, the cage, and the final incinerator.
Chiyo Saori, or Z0, stood in front of them expressionlessly.
She knew that every move in this so-called course, every Isshiki, was personally designed by Uchiha Xuan, based on the precise deconstruction of the battle data of those dead teachers.
On the surface, they are learning supreme puppet control skills, but in fact, every movement and every handprint is cleverly embedded with a psychological suggestion structure called "Gate-Opening Rite".
The purpose of Uchiha Xuan has never been to stop this "teaching" from the dead.
What he wanted to do was to make all the participants, including the twelve students and the seventeen dead souls watching behind them, think that they were carrying out a sacred inheritance.
However, the core of this inheritance has long been stolen and replaced by the ultimate fear of the "door" connecting life and death.
What he wants is that when these students learn to open the door, the only thought in their mind is to weld the door shut with their own hands.
As the training entered its third day, the atmosphere became extremely depressing.
A student codenamed X-1204 is practicing a move Taijutsu named "Cross Throat-Lock Hand".
This is the melee puppet technique that Ghost Cleaver was most proud of during his lifetime, requiring the caster to instantly simulate the extreme twisting force of the puppet's joints.
Just when he crossed his hands and was about to complete the locking action, his body suddenly stiffened!
Those hands that were supposed to be full of murderous aura actually automatically combined into an ancient and complex sacrificial handprint in a weird way that went against the principles of muscles.
His pupils dilated instantly, and his throat made a sound that was not his own, as dry as sandpaper rubbing, and he spat out the long-lost ancient saying Uchiha Clan word by word:
"Ashes nourish the door, blood feeds the key."
Before he finished speaking, a black shadow flashed past.
Chiyo Saori appeared behind him like a ghost, and struck the back of his neck accurately with the knife. The student fell to the ground without even making a sound.
She immediately followed the emergency plan, activated the shock charm on the students, and reported the "level three mental pollution incident" to the main control room.
The whole process went smoothly and extremely quickly.
But in front of the light curtain of the control throne, Uchiha Xuan slowed down this scene three hundred times.
He clearly saw that the timing of Chiyo Saori's attack was not after the student said the ancient proverb "after", but at the moment when the first syllable was squeezed out of his throat.
Her reaction was not a response, but a prediction.
She already knew what would happen.
"Interesting." Uchiha Xuan raised a cold arc at the corner of his mouth.
Half an hour later, Chiyo Saori was summoned to the throne room at the top of Scarlet Eye Tower.
Uchiha Xuan didn't speak, just waved his hand.
The light curtain in front of her lit up and played an image synthesized by the system at high speed.
In the picture, there is a virtual lecture hall.
Seventeen puppets of different shapes - the lifetime masterpieces of the burned Hidden Sand Village teachers - sat in a circle like living creatures, as if listening to something.
And in the position of the podium is the sacrificial fire that soared into the sky!
The burning flame is the lectern.
In front of the podium, stood a puppet, exactly the image of Ghost Cleaver.
He slowly raised his hand and began to explain the mystery of Puppet Technique, but what came out of the puppet's mouth was the cold, majestic, oracle-like voice of Uchiha Xuan:
"Real education begins with teaching students how to die correctly."
The picture freezes.
Uchiha Xuan leaned lazily on the throne, his eyes penetrated the light curtain, and looked directly into Chiyo Saori's unwavering eyes.
"Z0, who do you think should take this class?"
He threw the question out as if he was conducting a random assessment, but the question itself was a sharp knife that could cut open the soul.
Chiyo Saori was silent.
She looked at the image of the teacher in the picture, and listened to the master's voice that sounded like a god of creation, and the air in the entire space seemed to freeze.
After a long time, she slowly raised her hand and took off the Obsidian Ring that represented her "Z0" identity.
This ring is a symbol of her new life and a token of her complete separation from the past.
She gently placed the ring on the cold metal table in front of her, making a crisp sound.
"Let me go."
Her voice was still calm, but in the depths of those dead eyes, a dark, determined flame ignited.
What she chose was not betrayal, but to carry out her master's will in a more thorough way.
She was going to walk through that door herself and burn it to the ground from the inside.
The next day, Underworld training ground.
Chiyo Saori stood on the podium again, facing the twelve pairs of eyes that were becoming increasingly hollow, as if they would be occupied by "things" at any time.
But this time, she is no longer the instructor Z0 who executes the system program.
She slowly raised her hand and made an action that had never been recorded in any monitoring data.
The one that belongs to "Chiyo Saori", the last disciple of Ghost Cleaver, the last action that the teacher witnessed at the end of his life - holding his forehead and bowing his head.
It was mourning, farewell, and the end of the inheritance.
The whole place was dead silent.
The bodies of the twelve students stopped breathing at the same moment, and in the depths of their pupils, there seemed to be seventeen shadows scrambling to wake up!
At this moment, a sudden change occurred!
In the center of the training ground, the extremely hard alloy floor shook slightly without any warning.
Immediately afterwards, with a heart-wrenching "creak" sound, a pale white human finger bone broke out of the ground!
It carries the coldness and dampness of the tomb, like a tentacle stretching out from hell, gently and accurately resting on the toe of Chiyo Saori's shoe.
The consciousness of the twelve souls about to awaken instantly boiled!
However, Chiyo Saori did not flinch or even tremble.
Instead, she faced the white bone, took half a step forward, and lightly ran over the phalanx with her toes.
Her voice was as calm as declaring a physical law, echoing clearly in every corner and reverberating deep in the consciousness of the dead souls.
"Today's lesson will teach you how to burn yourself clean."
The moment the voice fell, the entire Scarlet Eye Tower, from the foundation to the top of the tower, all the talisman substrates etched in the wall, heated up at the same time, bursting out with a dazzling dark red light, as if the entire tower turned into a giant furnace that was about to start!
And deep in the ground where no one noticed, the Divine Tree vine that quietly regenerated and crawled finally completed its work.
Its top covered with nerve veins has completely wrapped a bone the size of a baby's skull that was buried deep in the remains of the Warring States Period.
The vines rock gently, like a mother's cradle to comfort her baby.
An extremely slight, yet extremely clear cry sounded quietly in the eternal darkness.