Nine-Tails Chakra? Hand It Over!

Inside the Ice Mirror Maze, the air seemed frozen solid.

Sasuke lay on the ground, his body riddled with Senbon. The Sharingan he had just awakened was now tightly shut, and his chest rose and fell so faintly it was almost imperceptible. To protect Naruto, he had used his body to block that fatal strike.

"Sasuke..."

Naruto knelt on the ground, his pupils trembling, his mind completely blank.

That rival who always called him dead last, the one he had always wanted to surpass, had just... died?

"Unforgivable..."

A low growl squeezed out from deep in Naruto's throat, carrying the tremor of a wild beast.

"No matter what... I will never forgive you!"

Boom!

An unprecedentedly terrifying aura erupted from Naruto in an instant.

The previously calm bridge surface began to crack, and rubble rose into the air. Scarlet Chakra, like boiling magma, burst from Naruto's body and rapidly enveloped him. This was no ordinary Chakra—it was the power of the Nine-Tailed Fox, filled with hatred, slaughter, and violence!

Before this power, even the Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals created by Haku creaked under the strain, as though they could shatter at any moment.

This power was too evil, too overwhelming. Even Kakashi and Zabuza in the distance had no choice but to stop fighting and stare over in shock.

Yet while everyone else was intimidated by this horrifying power, Ye Tian, hiding behind a concrete barrier, had eyes shining like twin floodlights.

"Holy crap! So this is Nine-Tails Chakra?"

Though Ye Tian was still clutching his chest and pretending to be sick, his Divine Sense had already locked firmly onto that soaring mass of red energy.

In his eyes, that was no evil power at all. It was an erupting active volcano! A moving mine of high-purity Spirit Stone!

"Though it's full of violent negative emotions, the energy density... is more than a hundred times greater than ordinary Chakra!" Ye Tian excitedly clenched his crutch. "If this were in the cultivation world, this would definitely be the Essence Blood power of a fourth-rank or higher demonic beast! What a waste, what a terrible waste!"

Watching Naruto squander that precious energy as freely as a sprinkler truck, Ye Tian's heart bled.

This wasn't a fight. This was practically burning money!

"No, I can't let him waste it like this. As a thrifty Cultivator who keeps a proper household, I have an obligation to help him recover some of that 'waste gas.'"

While everyone was focused on the battle, Ye Tian quietly pulled a thumb-sized little bottle of green jade from his robes.

It was a low-grade magic artifact called the Gathering Spirit Bottle. Though its capacity was limited, it was perfectly suited for temporarily storing highly concentrated energy.

By now, Naruto had completely undergone Tailed Beast Transformation. A red tail whipped wildly behind him, and a single roar shattered every ice mirror around him. Haku was sent flying by the shockwave and slammed heavily onto the ground.

"Now!"

Ye Tian's gaze sharpened. Seizing the instant when the Nine-Tails Chakra burst outward and scattered, he swiftly formed a strange hand seal with his left hand while holding the bottle in his right, aiming its mouth toward Naruto.

"Heaven and Earth Without Bounds, borrow the power of Yin and Yang—Absorb!"

A faint pulling force, nearly impossible for ordinary eyes to detect, precisely caught that wisp of the purest source Chakra leaking from Naruto's body.

That strand of red energy seemed alive. Drawn by the force, it traced an incredibly thin red line through the air and silently slipped into Ye Tian's Gathering Spirit Bottle.

"Sealed!"

With quick hands, Ye Tian immediately plugged the bottle and slapped a tiny sealing talisman over its mouth.

The entire process was smooth and seamless, taking no more than a blink. Other than Ye Tian himself, no one noticed that amid this earth-shaking battle, someone was secretly skimming off the profits.

"So hot!"

Even through the jade bottle, Ye Tian could feel the violent heat inside.

But he did not put it away. Fortune came from danger, and he was currently stuck at the bottleneck of the Qi Refining Fourth Level. This power was the perfect fuel for breaking through!

"Refine for me!"

Hiding in the shadow of the concrete barrier, Ye Tian gripped the jade bottle with both hands and directly activated the devouring method from the Supreme Alchemy Scripture.

Rather than absorbing the Chakra directly into his body, he guided that wisp of Nine-Tails source energy through the Laogong acupoints in his palms, letting it seep bit by bit into his Meridians.

Boom!

The instant it entered his body, that scorching power infused with extreme hatred began rampaging through him, as though it wanted to burn his Meridians to ashes.

"Hmph. Mere beastly power, and you dare run wild inside this Daoist's body?"

Ye Tian snorted inwardly as his Divine Sense descended to suppress it. Though the Spiritual Power within him was not as vast as that Chakra, a Cultivator's Spiritual Power utterly surpassed Chakra in both quality and level.

Like a skilled beast tamer, he guided that violent red torrent through his Meridians again and again, washing away impurities and negative emotions, leaving behind only the purest fire-attributed power.

[System Notification: High-level fire-attributed demonic beast source detected. Conversion in progress...]

[Conversion successful! Fire Spirit Root purity increased by 10%!]

[Experience surged... bottleneck loosened!]

Along with the system's pleasant notifications, Ye Tian felt a crisp cracking sound come from his Dantian.

The blockage that had felt lodged in his throat vanished instantly, replaced by an unprecedented sense of ease. The vortex of Spiritual Energy within him doubled in size, and his previously thin gaseous Spiritual Power began showing signs of liquefaction.

Qi Refining Fifth Layer!

He had made it!

Ye Tian was overjoyed. This was a small step in a major realm, yet a huge step on the path of cultivation! At the Qi Refining Fifth Layer, he could use more minor spells and even attempt to refine some simple offensive talismans.

However, bliss came with side effects.

Nine-Tails Chakra was, after all, an extremely yang and scorching power. Though Ye Tian had absorbed its essence, the immense heat still made his body temperature skyrocket.

At that moment, Ye Tian looked like a fully cooked shrimp. His skin was bright red, white steam rose dramatically from his head, and even his clothes gave off a faint scorched smell from the heat.

Just then, Sakura, who had been guarding Tazuna, looked back in extreme nervousness.

That glance nearly scared her out of her wits.

The already "terminally ill" Ye Tian was now curled up in the corner, his entire body red, smoke rising from his head. He looked as though he were about to spontaneously combust!

"Ahhhhhhh—!!"

Sakura let out a shriek even sharper than when she had seen Sasuke collapse.

"Kakashi-sensei! This is bad!! Ye Tian's not going to make it!!"

Kakashi, who was confronting Zabuza, was startled. Had the boy been caught up in the earlier battle? He hurriedly spared a glance in that direction.

Pointing at Ye Tian in the corner, Sakura cried out tearfully, "He... he has such a high fever that he's smoking!! He's about to catch fire! Sob, sob, Ye Tian, don't die!"

Ye Tian, still immersed in the joy of his breakthrough: "..."

He slowly opened his eyes, exhaled a mouthful of scalding air, and watched Sakura prepare to rush over and give him "emergency cooling." The corners of his mouth twitched violently.

This was fucking awkward.

"Cough, cough..."

Ye Tian could only force himself to say in a voice hoarse as if he had swallowed charcoal, "Don't... don't come over... This is... this is me using internal energy to force out poison... Cough, cough, yes, forcing out poison..."

What kind of fucking poison extraction came with steam-engine special effects?

If there had been anyone here who understood science, they would have known at once that this was absolutely not a normal human physiological reaction.

Fortunately, Haku and Naruto's battle soon reached its climax. The terrifying aura of the Nine-Tails once again drew everyone's attention, sparing Ye Tian from being doused with cold water on the spot.

Ye Tian wiped the hot sweat from his forehead. Feeling the abundant power within him, he looked at Naruto, who was grinding Haku into the ground in the distance, and revealed a meaningful smile.

"Thanks for the treat, little fox."

Next, it was time for me to collect interest on that Kubikiribōchō.