Natural Energy

"Lord Hokage, Aoba Kamikawa has taken the Jinchūriki to the woods outside the village. Should we take action?"

"No need. Just maintain vigilance from a distance."

Every move Aoba made was under the Third Hokage's control. Naturally, he had seen what Aoba was doing.

The Third Hokage turned to look beside him. At this moment, the two advisors were no longer at his side, but Shikaku Nara, the strategist.

"He did it deliberately. He may still harbor some misgivings. He is deliberately distancing himself from the center of Konoha."

Meanwhile, Aoba brought Naruto to the riverbank.

"Watch carefully." As he spoke, Aoba stepped onto the tree trunk and walked up it. This was tree climbing, the basic training for ninja chakra control. The next stage was water walking.

According to the original timeline, Kakashi would not teach them this move until after Naruto graduated, during the Wave Country mission.

But as a transmigrator, Aoba had no such reservations. Whatever came to mind, he simply did it.

In truth, if Konoha did not have so many good things he coveted, he would have fled this rotten village long ago.

But there was no helping it. Konoha had a solid foundation. Even after being tossed around by a bunch of idiots, a starving camel was still bigger than a horse.

"That's amazing! How did you do that?" Naruto immediately started shouting in excitement again.

From childhood until now, aside from Iruka, his teacher at the Ninja Academy, no one had ever seriously taught him ninja skills.

So even though he found it difficult to follow, he still worked extremely hard and listened with full attention.

Because the Nine-Tails was inside him, even a tiny amount of chakra leaking out from it was an enormous amount of energy for the current Naruto. That Nine-Tails chakra interfered with his own chakra.

As a result, although he possessed a huge amount of chakra, controlling it was exceptionally difficult.

Still, the kid was tough-skinned and resilient. Once he became serious, he was not afraid of falling or pain. After one afternoon, he could already manage to climb a few steps up a tree.

"Alright, that's enough training for today. You're still young. Training too much will affect your growth."

"Really? It's already afternoon? Then we need to prepare dinner."

Before Aoba could react, Naruto turned and jumped straight into the river beside them.

Only then did Aoba realize that he had gone to catch fish.

After thrashing around underwater for quite a while, he surfaced with a palm-sized little fish in his hand.

"Look what I caught... but it's kind of small."

Aoba reached out and pulled him from the river.

"Fish is a good choice for dinner. Let me try too."

As he spoke, he extended his right hand into the river. Then an electric flash flickered across his hand. Moments later, more than a dozen large fish floated up from beneath the surface.

"Wow... amazing, amazing, Brother Aoba!" Naruto shouted as he rushed into the river and scooped up the large fish. Then he began preparing the fish with remarkable skill.

He really was extremely skilled. It was obvious that he did this often.

This was one of Konoha's famous scenes. The Fourth Hokage's son, the descendant of Konoha's hero, Konoha's future deterrent-level fighting force, Naruto Uzumaki, had to catch fish in the river himself just to eat.

There were all kinds of interpretations of this on the internet in later generations. Some claimed the Third Hokage had brainwashed Naruto for certain political reasons, and so on.

But in Aoba's view, every explanation was complete nonsense. In reality, one could say the original author was an idiot. But in this real world, there was only one explanation: the leadership was entirely made up of morons. There was no second explanation. That was the real answer.

Aoba could understand it, though. After all, the ninja village system in the entire ninja world had only existed for a little over fifty years. And those fifty years had been punctuated by three world wars.

That meant the leaders of these ninja villages could only reach this level. Expecting a group of killers who had gone to war and started murdering from childhood to govern a country was pure nonsense.

Naruto grilled the fish while Aoba was responsible for eating it. To be honest, Naruto's cooking was only mediocre. Still, Aoba generously praised him.

He knew that such a simple compliment might make Naruto happy for a long time.

Aoba did not agree with many of Naruto's actions in the later parts of the story. The kid had been brainwashed too thoroughly later on. No matter who it was or what they had done, once they came to him, they could be forgiven. The key was that he often forgave murderers on behalf of other people.

All kinds of his actions were truly a little absurd.

But the current Naruto, aside from liking to pull pranks to get people's attention, basically had no real flaws. In Aoba's eyes, he was only a mischievous yet pitiful child.

"Alright, Naruto. It's getting late. You should go back and rest. You're still growing, so you need more rest if you want to grow taller."

"Ah... you're leaving, big brother? Then can we train here together again tomorrow?"

"Of course. I still have the whole day tomorrow."

"That's great. See you tomorrow." Naruto said cheerfully, then ran off.

Aoba remained where he was for a while, but nothing happened. He turned around and glanced at the woods behind him. After thinking for a moment, he ultimately said nothing and simply left.

He returned to the home he had not lived in for a long time.

Since he would be leaving on a mission the day after tomorrow, he did not pack much. He merely created several clones and had them briefly tidy up the bedroom. Then he sat cross-legged on the bed.

Aoba needed to begin cultivating as well. But his cultivation was different from everyone else's.

As a transmigrator, Aoba Kamikawa did not possess a traditional golden finger. Even this body was merely that of an ordinary civilian ninja. Without a golden finger or a Kekkei Genkai, how could someone survive in this perilous world?

Aoba had once agonized over this. Fortunately, he could barely be said to have received a small transmigration benefit. His soul and Mental Power were exceptionally strong.

The reason he had gained this benefit was because, when he transmigrated here, he had devoured the residual soul and Mental Power of this body.

Thus, he had not only inherited most of the other person's memories, but had also greatly strengthened the intensity of his own soul and Mental Power.

This was also why he had been able to evade the Interrogation Unit's questioning back then. The Yamanaka clan's spiritual secret techniques were a variation of Yin Release. They were exceedingly intricate, but that did not mean their Mental Power was strong.

He could not resist the Yamanaka clan's secret techniques invading his mind. But after the invasion, he had not completely lost control. Instead, he deliberately concealed part of his memories, allowing him to evade that investigation.

In Naruto, methods for cultivating Mental Power were extremely rare. Even if they existed, he could not learn them.

But as a transmigrator, Aoba knew that Mental Power held an extremely important hidden role in this world. Many ninja techniques, and even Kekkei Genkai, required the support of Mental Power to display their effects.

Therefore, during his cultivation, he had tried to explore the use and cultivation of Mental Power. It had yielded no results. He had figured out nothing.

But in the process, he had gained an unexpected harvest.

As Aoba sat cross-legged on the bed, wisps of faintly glowing mist emerged around him.

This was a sign of Natural Energy gathering.