A Door to a New World

In a nameless cave, Orochimaru walked unsteadily. Cold sweat kept beading on his forehead, and his face was paler than usual.

"Heh, heh, heh. Who would have thought that little brat had a way to attack the soul? I nearly died. But..."

At that, Orochimaru spat out a small piece of flesh. He held it to his nose and inhaled deeply, his face filling with rapture.

"What tremendous vitality. What pure energy. That body will be mine!"

Orochimaru put the piece of flesh away and headed deeper into the cave, where his secret laboratory lay...

Lu Zeming and Kumi Uzumaki traveled east. They had to make time to recover along the way, so it was not until the third day that they returned to the village.

As soon as he reached the office, Lu Zeming summoned the entire village leadership to a meeting.

"Everyone, sit down."

It was the first time any of them had seen urgency on Lu Zeming's face. No one dared ask questions; they took their seats.

Listening Yulong spoke first. "Village chief, why did you call us here?"

"I ran into Orochimaru while I was away."

The words struck the room like a stone dropped into still water.

Listening Yulong gripped the edge of the table so hard his knuckles turned white.

Tsukizaki Yuki's pen stopped moving, and his pupils narrowed slightly behind his round glasses. Kumi Uzumaki stood at the back without speaking, but her breathing had grown noticeably heavier.

"He placed the Cursed Seal of Heaven on me."

Lu Zeming unwound the bandage, exposing the black markings on his right shoulder. They had stopped writhing, but their unnatural chill seemed to lower the temperature in the room.

Listening Yulong shot to his feet. His chair legs scraped harshly across the wooden floor.

"How could Orochimaru..."

"Sit down."

Lu Zeming's voice was cold.

Listening Yulong clenched his teeth and sat back down.

Lu Zeming wrapped the bandage around his shoulder again. His tone left no room for argument. "In my current condition, I can't handle village affairs. I'm going into seclusion for a while. I don't know how long it will take—ten days or two weeks at the least, several months at the most."

He looked around at the three of them, meeting each person's eyes.

"Listening Yulong, you're in charge of the village's defenses. Double the patrol shifts and extend the outer perimeter to five li. Question any stranger who approaches. If you find any trace of Orochimaru, don't fight him head-on. Send someone to notify me immediately."

Listening Yulong nodded. "Understood."

"Tsukizaki Yuki, keep managing the supplies and food stores. Maintain the village's usual income and expenses while I'm in seclusion. Expand the medicine factory and the herb-growing area, and keep a close eye on our dealings with Shinbu."

Tsukizaki Yuki rose respectfully and hurried to agree.

Finally, Lu Zeming turned to Kumi Uzumaki.

"You'll oversee everything. Make the decisions on day-to-day matters. If you're unsure, discuss it among yourselves. If something comes up that none of you three can decide, come find me outside the Training Room. I may not answer, but I will when I can."

Kumi Uzumaki opened her mouth as if she wanted to say something, but in the end she only nodded.

"All right."

After the others left, Lu Zeming went straight to the Training Room.

He set his long blade in the corner, sat cross-legged on the straw mat, and unwound the bandage again.

The seal on his right shoulder looked even more sinister in the dim light. Its black markings lay beneath his skin like living things. Along their edges, he could make out the faintest trace of purple—the seal's own color showing through the dark pattern.

Lu Zeming closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

In his Dantian, his Spiritual Power was still circulating, but more slowly than before.

The seal's cold power continued to eat away at him, slow as poison.

I can't put this off any longer!

Lu Zeming drove his Spiritual Power toward the seal, and a silent battle began inside his body.

Time passed, second by second. The seal on his shoulder burned through his nerves like a branding iron.

He forced his Spiritual Power straight at it. The moment it touched the seal's core, it felt as though ten thousand icy needles had pierced the meridians of his right arm. His whole body convulsed with pain, and blood spilled from the corner of his mouth.

He tried surrounding it with Spiritual Power and wearing it down slowly, but the seal's power behaved as though it were alive. However much Spiritual Power he used, it struck back with equal force. The two powers struggled back and forth through his meridians, neither able to overcome the other.

On his third attempt, he changed tactics. He started at the seal's edge and tried peeling away its markings bit by bit. But after he had removed a patch the size of a fingernail, the seal grew back from its center like a healing wound—faster than he could strip it away.

"Brute force won't work!"

Lu Zeming opened his eyes. Fine beads of sweat covered his forehead. He wiped his face, closed his eyes again, and sent his senses deep into the seal on his right shoulder.

This time, he did not try to fight it. He simply observed.

His Spiritual Power became a thread-fine tendril that carefully probed the seal's inner structure.

To defeat an enemy, he first had to understand it. Know yourself and know your enemy, and you would win every battle.

As he examined it closely, he discovered that the seal's power was no tangled mess. It followed an extraordinarily precise network of pathways, much like meridians.

The more Lu Zeming saw, the more alarmed he became.

The shapes of the black markings on his skin and the paths they traced beneath it formed an immensely complex Rune Structure.

Every turn, every node, every branch worked together like parts of an intricate machine. Disturb one, and the whole structure would respond.

Orochimaru's soul power was the seal's "core," but what truly anchored the seal inside Lu Zeming's body was its Rune Structure.

Like a net, it held Orochimaru's soul fragment firmly within Lu Zeming's meridians while drawing a steady stream of energy from his body to feed the seal.

"Runes..."

Lu Zeming's eyes flew open. He had thought of Explosive Tags.

He searched the pile of scrolls in the corner of the Training Room, pulled out an Explosive Tag, and spread it in front of him for a closer look.

Just as he thought! Among the densely packed runes and lines on the Explosive Tag, several matched parts of the seal's Rune Structure.

More precisely, the runes on the Explosive Tag and those in the seal belonged to the same system. The seal was simply far more intricate and complex.

Lu Zeming's breathing quickened. If I figure out what each rune means, could I alter the seal and break it that way?

The more Lu Zeming considered it, the more promising the idea seemed.

"Knowledge is the greatest productive force. Nobody's stopping me from studying!"

If he wanted to learn, he needed textbooks.

Lu Zeming remembered that among the books Shinbu had given him during their first trade, there had been some on runes.

He rummaged through the scroll pile for a long while before finding three yellowed old books at the very bottom.

Common Runes Explained, Runes in Sealing Techniques, and The Relationship Between Runes and Formation Techniques.

In his previous life, Lu Zeming had survived nine years of compulsory education, three years of high-school hell, and fierce competition to earn a place at a top university.

In this life, his Consciousness Sea had opened, giving him a photographic memory. Studying would be a breeze.

Lu Zeming summoned the same drive that had carried him through high school—If studying won't kill me, I'll study like hell—put his head down, and got to work!