At dusk in Sunagakure, the windblown sand was tinged with a warm golden hue. Shaye's small figure passed through the gradually quieting streets and skillfully turned onto the path leading to the secluded temple.
Inside the temple, the oil lamp burned like a bean. Monk Bunpuku still sat upon that plain cushion. Seeing Shaye enter, a gentle smile appeared on his wrinkled face. "You're here."
"Master." Shaye nodded lightly and sat on the cushion across from him, but his gaze could not help drifting toward the complex Sealing Formulae on the old monk's abdomen. He could "feel" that the big fellow seemed particularly restless today.
"Hmph! Brat, you've come to disturb my peace again!" A shrill, hoarse voice rang directly in his mind, laced with impatience. It was Shukaku.
Shaye silently replied in his heart, "Don't you complain about being bored all day? I came to keep you company, and you're still unhappy?"
"Pah! Who wants your company? I'm the noble One-Tail, not some scrawny little brat's playmate!" Shukaku retorted angrily, but Shaye could sense that there was no real malice in that consciousness. Instead, it carried a hint of... expectant denial.
"Shaye," Bunpuku slowly said, interrupting the silent exchange between man and beast, "today, we will study the basic rune structure of the Four Symbols Seal. It involves a delicate balance between space and energy..."
The old monk dipped his finger in water and traced intricate lines across the stone floor. Shaye immediately composed himself and watched with full concentration. His mental strength, far beyond that of children his age, allowed him to clearly remember every turn of every rune and the implied flow of chakra.
"Tch, the Four Symbols Seal? Such crude stuff!" Shukaku snorted disdainfully in his mind. "The ancient seals I've seen outnumber the grains of rice you've eaten! Something like the Adamantine Sealing Chains, which can draw upon natural energy, now that's what—" It abruptly stopped halfway through, seemingly realizing it had said too much.
Shaye's heart stirred. "Natural energy"—the term reminded him of certain vague concepts he had encountered in his previous life. He did not press for answers, merely engraving the words deep into his memory. He knew he could not rush when trying to pry things from this tsundere tanuki.
By the time he left the temple, the night was already deep. Shaye's mind held not only the beginnings of the Four Symbols Seal, but also several older, more obscure barrier runes that Shukaku had "accidentally" revealed.
He did not head straight home. Instead, he turned toward Elder Chiyo's residence. Today was the day he had been permitted to borrow Medical Ninjutsu scrolls.
The one who opened the door, however, was Sasori of the Red Sands. The young Sasori's expression remained indifferent. Upon seeing Shaye, he merely shifted slightly aside to let him enter.
"Grandmother Chiyo went to an elders' meeting." Sasori's voice carried no inflection. "The medical scrolls are in the study inside. Find them yourself."
"Thank you, Senior Sasori." Shaye thanked him politely, but his gaze was involuntarily drawn to an unfinished puppet arm on the workshop bench. Its internal structure was extraordinarily intricate. Gears and chakra-conducting metal wires were combined in ways he had never imagined, filled with a strange sense of beauty.
Sasori noticed his gaze and, unusually, asked an extra question. "You understand it?"
Shaye took a deep breath, suppressing the excitement in his heart, and pointed to several key connections. "Here... using elastic metal plates instead of rigid joints—is that to cushion impacts? And this conduction circuit seems to bypass the usual nodes. Is that to reduce chakra loss?"
A faint flash of surprise passed through Sasori's eyes. He had not expected this frail-looking brat to possess such sharp insight into puppet structures. He did not answer. Instead, he picked up a tool and adjusted the angle of a tiny gear on the puppet arm before speaking coldly. "A standard circuit has a 0.3-second delay. Change it like this, and it drops to 0.1 seconds. The difference between life and death often lies in those 0.2 seconds."
Those words struck Shaye like lightning. He stared blankly at that tiny alteration as concepts like "optimization" and "efficiency" from mechanical design in his previous life perfectly overlapped with the "precision" and "lethality" of Puppet Technique.
After finding the medical scroll containing the Healing Technique and basic knowledge of the body's meridians, he practically floated away.
Back home, lying on his crude bed, Shaye's mind was still racing. The grandeur and precision of Sealing Technique, the ingenuity and lethality of Puppet Technique, Medical Ninjutsu's exploration of life energy, and the wild idea in his home regarding Magnet Release—combining the material foundation of earth with the energy form of wind...
These seemingly unrelated fields of knowledge began to vaguely sketch out wondrous connections through the perspective of his soul from another world.
"The body is the foundation, the source of energy... Chakra is a tool, the power source... Puppets are extensions, vessels for function... And Sealing Technique and barriers are programs for controlling and restraining energy..."
He extended his still slender, feeble-looking hand and loosely clenched it in the darkness.
"What if... what if I could make a 'furnace,' using Sealing Technique and barriers as its core program, Puppet Technique to forge its shell and energy circuits, and the knowledge of Medical Ninjutsu to guide energy in 'repairing' and 'strengthening' this body..."
A concept so vague that it was almost impossible to grasp, yet one that made his heart pound wildly, silently surfaced for the first time in the depths of his mind like a mirage in a sea of sand.
The night was still long, and on this night, many puzzle pieces were destined to begin seeking the places where they fit together in the heart of this transmigrator.
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