"Melt all those tablets for me."
Uchiha Xuan stands on the edge of the Naka River cliff. At its feet are the ruins of Uchiha Shrine, which were once regarded as holy places.
He pointed at the thousands of pieces of ebony wood that had been cleared out of the ruins, and his tone sounded like he was dealing with a pile of moldy firewood.
"That's the ancestor..." A prisoner in charge of transporting muttered subconsciously, his voice shaking like chaff.
Xuan didn't turn around, didn't even give him a look.
The puppet supervisor's fingers moved slightly, and the prisoner's kneecaps instantly shattered, and the screams were muffled in his throat before he could even leave his mouth.
"There is no place for the living to live, so why should the dead occupy the land?"
Chiyo Saori stood behind him, holding a holographic projection board in his hand, with a new building blueprint on it.
"According to your request, there will be no statues of gods." Chiyo's finger crossed over the blueprint. "All the collected old spiritual tablets and captured ninja tools have been refurbished, and the extracted alloy is just enough to cast the core pillars. This is not only a building material, but also a 'conceptual' replacement."
Using the ancestral tablets to forge instruments of torture to suppress future generations, this woman has always been perfect in understanding his bad tastes.
The progress of the project is astonishingly fast.
Under the dual effects of chakra and modern machinery, a giant building named "First Flame Hall" rose from the ground in just three days.
It does not have any of the cornices and brackets of traditional shrines. The whole thing is like a huge, upside-down black iron cover, full of the beauty of industrial violence.
The interior of the hall was suffocatingly empty.
There is no altar table, no futon, only a hundred-meter-high red copper pillar standing in the center.
This copper pillar leads straight to the dome, with a rough surface and dark red lines pulsating on it like blood vessels - that is the core of "Fire Seal" directly embedded.
It is like a huge signal transmission tower, broadcasting the Uchiha Xuan chakra band 24 hours a day.
"You need to print the seal when entering, and you need to look up for approval." Xuan stood on the high platform under the copper pillar and looked at the cold metal totem. "In this hall, any direct gaze without permission will be regarded as interference with the signal source."
The dedication ceremony was held at noon.
Three hundred children walked into the main hall in a square formation.
The oldest of them is only ten years old, and the youngest is only five years old. They all wear gray cloth clothes without any clan emblem.
These are the seeds that have just completed the first round of "Warning Vision" implants.
There are no windows in the hall, and the only illumination is the dim red light emitted by the red copper pillar in the center.
The air was filled with the smell of burnt metal after cooling.
"Let's get started." Xuan sat on the black seat at the bottom of the copper pillar, leaning on one hand and looking bored.
An instructor with a cold face suddenly waved his baton.
"<Xuanlin Codex>Article 1!"
"All our flesh and blood are given by the Lord!" Three hundred young throats roared at the same time, and the sound echoed in the empty metal hall, making people's eardrums hurt.
Buzz--
The first circle of lines at the bottom of the copper pillar lights up.
"<Xuanlin Codex>Article 2!"
"The old days are all false, but the Lord is true!"
The light of the copper pillar climbed upward along the lines, and the dark red Kakkō illuminated the dull and enthusiastic faces of the children.
That expression doesn't look like a human being, but more like a batch of precision instruments waiting to be shipped out of the factory.
Just when the lines were about to light up at the top, a sudden change occurred.
In the third row of the phalanx, a thin boy suddenly twitched violently.
He held his head tightly with both hands, and a single Tomoe appeared uncontrollably in his originally dark pupils. It was the memory residue that originally belonged to the deep bloodline of his body.
"No... it's not..." The boy fell to his knees, foaming at the mouth, his uncontrollable eyes staring at the ground, and mumbling indistinctly, "Madara...Lord Madara is looking at me...Lord Madara said..."
The surrounding children dispersed instantly like frightened sheep.
Chiyo Saori's eyes turned cold, and Chakra Threads instantly popped out from his fingertips. Several poisonous Senbon had already locked onto the back of the boy's head.
"Defective products with incomplete memory cleaning." Chiyo's voice was steady, "It is recommended to destroy it immediately to avoid contaminating the data source."
Chiyo just raised his hand when it was pressed down by an invisible repulsive force.
Xuan stood up and walked down the high platform step by step. His boots made a crisp "ta, da" sound on the metal floor.
He walked up to the twitching boy, squatted down, and looked at the struggling pair of One-Tomoe Sharingan with interest.
"It's very interesting." Xuan stretched out his hand and forcibly pinched the boy's chin, forcing him to raise his head. "The ghosts of the old era are still swirling in your hippocampus? That old ghost Madara died cleanly, but left quite a mess."
The boy was shaking all over, and the Tomoe in his eyes were spinning wildly, as if he was instinctively resisting the man in front of him.
"Don't kill him." Xuan let go, took out a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his fingers, "It just so happens that the copper pillar's 'filtration system' has not been tested on in vivo subjects."
He pointed to the huge red copper pillar behind him.
"Tie him to the base of the pillar. Connect his nerve cord directly to the main network of Fire Seal." Xuan's tone was as calm as if he was talking about inserting a plug into the socket. "Since there is noise in his head, use high-power noise to cover it up."
Two guards immediately stepped forward and dragged the boy toward the copper pillar like a dead dog.
Heart-rending screams immediately sounded, accompanied by the sizzling sound of some kind of electric current passing through the flesh, but soon the screams turned into meaningless guttural sounds.
Three days later.
The side door of the First Flame Hall opens slowly.
Chiyo Saori walked into Xuan's office holding a thick report.
"The experimental subject was put back." Chiyo projected a body data map in mid-air.
In the picture, the boy is sitting quietly by the bed and drinking porridge.
His eyes were open, but the original black pupils and the uncontrollable single Tomoe had disappeared.
Instead, there was a pair of pure black eyes without any lines.
Bottomless, like two mouthfuls of Withered Well.
"Even if he actively calls Chakra, Sharingan's Tomoe form will no longer appear." Chiyo reported, "But after testing, his insight and dynamic capture capabilities have not disappeared., on the contrary, it is more stable. The system log shows that the memory sector in the hippocampus of his brain about 'Madara Uchiha' and its related history has been completely formatted and replaced with a piece of underlying logic that cannot be deleted - absolute obedience to you."
Xuan leaned on the back of the chair, looked into those dead black eyes, and the corners of his mouth curved with satisfaction.
This is the effect he wants.
There is no need for those fancy patterns, nor the so-called "eyes of soul reflection" that tend to breed arrogance and paranoia.
Tools must look like tools.
"The old Sharingan was too noisy. It was a product of emotion." Xuan knocked on the table, "This pure black 'Silent Eye' is in line with the aesthetics of the New Empire."
He raised his head and looked out the window at the red copper pillar reaching into the sky.
"Since the technical verification has been passed, don't waste time."
Xuan's voice was understated, but it pronounced the end of an ancient family.
"Approve 'Gene Purge Plan'. Send all the Uchiha Clan who are still breathing and send them to the First Flame Hall in batches."
Chiyo closed the folder and bowed slightly. "Yes. The first batch of lists has been made, in the name of 'pilgrimage'."
Xuan turned around and looked into the distance.
There, the seventh-day celebration after the completion of the First Flame Hall is about to begin, and an "ultimatum" from the Five Great Nations coalition is also being sent here at full speed by a Ninja Hawk who does not know whether to live or die.