Secrets of Antiquity

Shaye mastered the fundamentals of Sealing Techniques with astonishing speed. The runes and principles that others found obscure and difficult became orderly and comprehensible under his powerful memory and analogical thinking. As Bunpuku taught him increasingly advanced material, his feelings grew more complicated—he was pleased to have found such a gifted student, yet also harbored a faint concern for where that talent might lead.

That day, Shaye was using a branch to copy a complex composite Sealing Formula onto the ground, trying to understand the conversion logic between several energy nodes. Bunpuku watched quietly from the side, offering occasional pointers.

"Here, the energy reflux is too fast. It will strike the main structure, so you need to add a buffering 'vortex' rune," Bunpuku said softly.

Shaye suddenly understood and immediately revised his diagram.

"Tch, a vortex rune? That's way too inefficient!" Shukaku's distinctively hoarse voice cut in impatiently again. "Why not just use a reverse 'repulsion' force field to shove the energy back? Simple and direct! You humans just love making simple things complicated!"

Shaye paused, branch in hand, and asked curiously, "A 'repulsion' force field? What kind of rune structure is that? Grandpa Bunpuku never taught me."

"Hmph! That's because your current Sealing Techniques are too backward! All sorts of things have been lost!" Shukaku's tone carried disdain and a certain ancient sense of superiority. "Back in ancient times, those people had far more tricks for manipulating energy than you do now!"

"Ancient times?" Shaye caught that phrase. He knew very little about this world's history, and Shukaku's words greatly piqued his interest. "What were ancient times like?"

Bunpuku opened his eyes slightly, as though he wanted to say something, but in the end he merely sighed softly and did not stop him. Some histories were perhaps truer when told by one who had lived through them, though this witness's perspective was bound to be deeply biased.

"Ancient times?" Shukaku sounded as though someone had opened the floodgates, or perhaps as if he had nursed grievances for too long and had finally found someone to vent them on—even if that someone was just a brat. His voice abruptly became distant and filled with resentment. "Back then, this world wasn't the godforsaken wasteland it is now! Especially this place!"

He seemed to point with an invisible force toward the Land of Wind outside the temple.

"This place?" Shaye looked at the endless wind and sand beyond the door. "But it's all desert now."

"Desert?! Pah!" Shukaku seemed to have been struck in a sore spot and became even more agitated. "Before I was even born, this place might not have been the most fertile, but it was nowhere near this bad! There were trees! There was water! It couldn't compare to the territory of Water Loach and Old Nine, but people could definitely live here!"

Shaye froze. The Land of Wind... had not always been a desert?

"Then... how did it become like this?" he pressed.

"It was all that damned woman's fault!" Shukaku's voice brimmed with primal fear and rage. "That woman who came from beyond the heavens! Kaguya Otsutsuki!"

Kaguya Otsutsuki!

The name was like a bolt of lightning, instantly striking certain hazy fragments of memory deep within Shaye's mind! Scattered short-video recommendations from his previous life, snippets from novels he had happened to glimpse... This name was the origin of chakra in the Naruto story? The final big boss?

He held his breath, his heart accelerating of its own accord.

"That woman!" Shukaku roared on, as if unleashing a fury that had been bottled up for a thousand years. "She planted a damned tree on this land! That tree crazily absorbed the energy of the entire world! The earth withered, the rivers dried up! All life was stolen by that tree! This land was the first to suffer!"

Shaye's pupils contracted sharply.

Planting a tree? Absorbing the world's energy? The earth withering?

He suddenly recalled those fragmented bits of information from his previous life: the God Tree, the Chakra Fruit, devouring a planet's energy...

A terrifying, coherent conjecture exploded in his mind!

"That tree... what happened to it afterward?" Shaye's voice was slightly hoarse.

"Afterward? She ate the fruit the tree bore and gained unimaginable power! Hmph, but she also brought greater trouble upon herself!" Shukaku snorted, apparently holding Kaguya in considerable contempt. "After that came her two 'good sons'..."

"The Sage of Six Paths... Hagoromo Otsutsuki?" Shaye blurted out instinctively. That name had left a deeper impression on him.

"Oh? You brat actually know that old man's name?" Shukaku sounded mildly surprised, but the resentment soon drowned it out. "That's right! That old man and his younger brother! They fought their mother until heaven and earth were turned upside down! That was true world-destroying power!"

Shukaku's voice held a trace of barely perceptible awe and fear toward power on that level.

"How the hell would I know the specifics? I hadn't even been born yet at the time—the Sage of Six Paths split the Ten-Tails into the nine great tailed beasts! I only heard the Sage of Six Paths mention it casually afterward," he said vaguely. "Anyway, the mountains and rivers were shattered, and the land sank! This land had already been nearly drained dry by that damned tree, and after that battle between mother and sons, it was completely finished! The terrain was utterly changed, the water sources were completely cut off, and nothing remained but this endless sand! Pah! It was all those bastards' doing!"

The temple fell into a brief, dead silence.

Only the flame of the oil lamp continued to flicker, illuminating Shaye's utterly stunned little face.

So that was it! So that was what had happened!

The vast, boundless desert of the Land of Wind had not formed naturally. Its origins lay in a shocking calamity from ancient times! The ancestor of chakra had planted the God Tree to plunder energy, followed by the sealing war between the Sage of Six Paths and his mother. Those twin disasters had layered together and turned this land completely barren!

That explained why the Land of Wind's environment was so harsh and Sunagakure so impoverished. The source of it all could actually be traced back to the mythic age of antiquity!

Shaye felt an inexplicable shudder. The sand beneath his feet bore such a heavy, cruel history. The scars of war could run so deep that they changed the landscape of an entire continent and endured for thousands of years!

Bunpuku had listened in silence the whole time. Only now did he slowly speak, his voice carrying endless weariness. "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The sins and conflicts of the past have become today's wind and sand. Though Shukaku's words are extreme, they are largely true. This desert is a... scar left behind by the God Tree's plunder and the war of gods."

Shaye lowered his head and looked at the half-finished Sealing Formula he had drawn on the ground. These exquisite techniques, created to restrain energy, seemed so insignificant compared to the abuse of energy that had nearly destroyed the world—yet they were also so important.

Once again, he deeply realized that chakra was both the foundation of this world and a force that concealed the seeds of destruction.

At the same time, a thought surfaced beyond his control: if the desert had been caused by energy being plundered and destructively used, then was it possible... through precise control and guidance of energy... to change this desert in turn?

The thought was far too bold, even somewhat arrogant, yet like a seed, it quietly fell into his heart.

Shukaku seemed tired from talking, or perhaps he had recalled unpleasant memories. He grunted a few times and said no more.

Yet Shaye could not calm down for a long while. He gazed outside the temple, his eyes seeming to pierce through the thick stone walls and see the ancient secrets and eternal pain buried beneath that endless yellow sand.

(End of Chapter)