Land of Earth Person

The night was deep, and Ōnoki's heavily guarded residence was utterly silent.

Suddenly, a short figure moved like a ghost, using agility far beyond what their age should allow to silently take down two ANBU hiding in the shadows.

Ōnoki clapped his hands, a smug yet disdainful sneer appearing on his face:

"Hmph. Young people are still young. Do they think sending a few people to watch me is enough to keep an eye on this old man? I stopped playing such petty tricks decades ago."

He moved, swiftly melting into the night as he dashed toward a distant abandoned mine outside the village.

However, he failed to notice that the air some distance behind him seemed to ripple faintly. A figure almost completely blending into the night silently followed him.

Through her goggles, Kurotsuchi watched her grandfather's nimble back and sighed softly before muttering:

"Grandpa, your methods of scouting and counter-surveillance from the shinobi era have long since become obsolete. This is the age of technology, where even Chakra fluctuations can be shielded to a certain extent."

Soon, the old man and the young woman, one in the open and one concealed, arrived at the secret laboratory whose entrance had been cleverly disguised as a collapsed mine tunnel.

After descending underground and passing through layer upon layer of security, they entered a completely different world. Various instruments and cultivation tanks glowing with eerie light stood throughout the facility, filling it with a unique technological atmosphere.

Two middle-aged men dressed as researchers, but whose sharp eyes clearly marked them as shinobi, immediately bowed respectfully upon seeing Ōnoki. "Lord Ōnoki!"

Ōnoki merely nodded slightly and walked straight toward the deepest part of the laboratory.

There, an elderly man with disheveled hair and a white coat furrowed his brows at a row