Since Uchiha Sora's longsword had been shattered by a Tailed Beast Bomb in the previous battle, he now lacked a weapon that felt right in his hands.
After asking Zabuza and learning that a town on the coast of the Land of Water had a ninja tool shop, he headed there with Haku, whom he had just recruited.
The longsword had to be forged from metal that could channel chakra. The shop had none in stock, so he had to commission one, which would take about a week.
Thus, Uchiha Sora and his two companions temporarily settled in the town.
Since Haku was still filthy, and their trip to the Land of Water had gone fairly well, Uchiha Sora decided to find somewhere to have a proper rest.
In the end, the three decided to visit the hot springs.
Upon arriving at the Hot Spring Inn, they changed clothes, and Uchiha Sora took Haku's small hand and headed toward the Men's Hot Spring.
"Um, Lord Sora, I... I'd better go to the Women's Hot Spring!" Haku stammered, his face slightly flushed.
Uchiha Sora froze. "The Women's Hot Spring? Haku, you're a girl?"
"Yes." Haku stared at Uchiha Sora with wide, innocent eyes, not even blinking, seemingly puzzled by his question. Didn't he look like a girl?
"All right!" Uchiha Sora couldn't help slapping his forehead. The original story had really led him astray!
In the original story, Haku had repeatedly insisted that he was a boy! So Uchiha Sora had never questioned his gender.
Who would have thought Haku was actually a girl!
Was this a butterfly effect caused by his arrival in this world, or had Haku always been a girl and merely lied in the original story?
Forget it. None of that matters!
"All right, then go to the Women's Hot Spring!" Uchiha Sora released his small hand and patted his hair.
"Okay!" Haku nodded obediently.
Meanwhile, Uchiha Sora and Zabuza entered the Men's Hot Spring and began enjoying a soak.
"Leader, what are we going to do next?" Zabuza asked quietly as he soaked.
The matter of the Fourth Mizukage had been resolved successfully. Now that the Fourth Mizukage was free of outside control, conditions in the Land of Water would gradually improve under his rule. Zabuza had fulfilled his wish.
So he intended to spend the rest of his life following Uchiha Sora with unwavering loyalty.
Hearing Zabuza's question, Uchiha Sora remembered that he now had enemies everywhere. He had to speed up the process of building his own force.
After some thought, he said, "Next, we need to find somewhere to settle down and establish a base. I've chosen the Land of Grass. Once we leave here, we'll conquer it."
Conquer the Land of Grass!
Startled, Zabuza considered it before saying, "The Land of Grass has fairly good relations with the other nations. If we attack it outright, the other major ninja villages might launch a campaign against us."
Uchiha Sora shook his head. "The Land of Grass is nothing but an opportunist. The other nations let it survive because it sits between them, making it an ideal buffer zone. They don't actually care who controls it!"
"Besides, they'll have to think carefully about the consequences of making an enemy of me!"
Uchiha Sora's voice carried tremendous confidence.
His overall strength now placed him among the best at Kage level. As long as the Kage of the major ninja villages weren't fools, none would dare act rashly.
Unless they could join forces.
But unless they had no other choice, how could those major nations, each pursuing their own interests, unite so easily?
That was also the fundamental reason the Akatsuki, entrenched in Amegakure, could keep growing.
And the Land of Grass happened to border the Land of Rain.
Establishing his base in the Land of Grass would also make it easier to monitor the Akatsuki.
"Leader, what about manpower?" Zabuza asked after hearing Uchiha Sora's explanation.
Uchiha Sora smiled faintly. "Aren't the two of us enough?"
Zabuza's expression stiffened...
A week passed in the blink of an eye.
During that week, Uchiha Sora spent most of his time teaching Haku.
Haku was extremely talented. With proper training, he would definitely become a formidable fighter!
By spending time with Haku, Uchiha Sora also hoped to trigger the system and see whether he could automatically train to acquire the Ice Release kekkei genkai.
Unfortunately, Haku's abilities were still very unstable. No matter how much time they spent together, the system showed no response.
After collecting his commissioned longsword, Uchiha Sora inscribed the Flying Thunder God Formula on it again, strapped it to his waist, and left the Land of Water with Zabuza and Haku.
The three crossed the sea by boat, spending several days traveling to the Land of Fire first.
Before attacking the Land of Grass, Uchiha Sora returned to the island in the mirror space.
The various documents he had obtained from Konoha earlier had mostly been sorted out.
Uchiha Sora took out the ninjutsu materials that were useful to him and began studying them.
First came the forbidden techniques in the Scroll of Seals. Naturally, there was no need to learn sealing jutsu such as the Reaper Death Seal, but powerful taijutsu like the Eight Gates was something he absolutely couldn't pass up.
He also had to learn the Spirit Transformation Technique, and he couldn't overlook the Multiple Shadow Clone Technique either.
Unfortunately, one technique he had always wanted to learn wasn't recorded in it.
That technique was the Yin Seal.
Uchiha Sora found no relevant information in the other ninjutsu scrolls either.
It seemed this technique was far from simple.
The Yin Seal was a technique passed down by the Uzumaki Clan, and at present, Tsunade seemed to be its only practitioner.
If he wanted to learn it, he would have to approach Tsunade in the future.
After he carefully studied these available techniques over and over for a while, the system notifications soon arrived.
"Ding! Your Multiple Shadow Clone Technique has entered automatic training. Since you have already mastered the Shadow Clone Technique, the Multiple Shadow Clone Technique felt this was too easy and immediately completed its training." "Ding! Your Eight Gates has entered automatic training. Thanks to your excellent physical foundation, automatic training has progressed to the Third Gate!" "Ding! Your Spirit Transformation Technique has entered automatic training. Progress is slow..."
Automatic training had always been slow for a forbidden jutsu like the Spirit Transformation Technique, which involved the soul.
But just then, the system displayed another notification:
"Ding! Thanks to the automatic training of the Spirit Transformation Technique, your Impure World Reincarnation Jutsu suddenly gained insight from a related field. Automatic training complete!"
The Impure World Reincarnation Jutsu, which had been progressing slowly all this time, had actually completed its automatic training!
Uchiha Sora was overjoyed!
"Excellent! Impure World Reincarnation is practically a game-breaking exploit! With it, I'll never have to worry about lacking manpower again!"
"Hmm, it looks like the trip to the Land of Grass will have to wait. My top priority now is collecting DNA from a few powerful shinobi! Then I won't even need to attack the Land of Grass myself," Uchiha Sora murmured.
Having learned Impure World Reincarnation, Uchiha Sora naturally wanted to experience the pleasure of resurrecting the dead.
As for moral qualms?
Hadn't anyone heard of a master who made dreams come true?
Who could say for certain that those dead people didn't want to be resurrected? Even through Impure World Reincarnation!
However, he wouldn't resurrect Shisui for now.
For one thing, the eye with Kotoamatsukami that Shisui had left him had yet to be used. He couldn't bear to expend it just to summon Shisui.
For another, the Impure World Reincarnation he had learned from the Scroll of Seals was still imperfect. The sacrifice had a major influence on the resurrected person's strength.
If the sacrifice was weak, the resurrected person's strength would also be limited.
Thus, the stronger the deceased, the more easily the sacrifice would restrict them.
Someone like Shisui would probably have his strength severely suppressed by the sacrifice.
Even using White Zetsu as a sacrifice wouldn't make up for that flaw.
He could only remedy the shortcomings of Impure World Reincarnation by spending time researching it.
Perhaps he could even trigger the system's automatic training function to help perfect it?
But Uchiha Sora currently had neither the time nor the leisure.
After mastering these forbidden techniques, Uchiha Sora left the mirror space.
Next, Uchiha Sora and Zabuza began digging up graves throughout the shinobi world.
As a member of Kirigakure's ANBU, Zabuza knew exactly where the bodies of the previous Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist were.
Meanwhile, Uchiha Sora secretly slipped back into Konoha and conducted an extensive search of its cemetery.
He had come looking for the remains of the previous Hokage, but unfortunately, he found none. Even Konoha's White Fang's body was missing.
All he could find were the bodies of ordinary Ninja.
Uchiha Sora could more or less guess why. Orochimaru had probably already dug through Konoha's graves.
With no other choice, he had to search elsewhere in the shinobi world for the graves of powerful shinobi from other villages.
After three months of effort, he actually found three powerful shinobi from other villages.
One was Pakura, the Scorch Release Ninja from Sunagakure.
Another was Toroi, the Magnet Release Ninja from Kumogakure.
The third was Hunt, the Explosion Release Ninja from Iwagakure.
These three were roughly at the level of elite jonin, but they weren't exceptionally powerful figures, so finding information on them wasn't difficult.
As for the Kage-level fighters and former Kage of the various villages, Uchiha Sora had no way of getting his hands on them at present.
After all, that would require exceptional espionage skills, as well as experience working undercover within every faction.
It required intelligence accumulated over many years of espionage.
Even Orochimaru could only find some deceased shinobi from Konoha to resurrect. For now, he had no energy to search for information on powerful shinobi from other villages.
Only Kabuto Yakushi, who had worked as a spy in the major factions since childhood in the original story, possessed such formidable grave-robbing skills.
However, although Uchiha Sora had only found information on three powerful shinobi, Zabuza had already obtained information on three former members of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist.
Jinin Akebino, wielder of the Bluntsword.
Kushimaru Kuriarare, wielder of the Longsword.
Munashi Jinpachi, wielder of the Explosionsword.
"All right, now it's time to find some sacrifices!" Uchiha Sora told Zabuza after collecting the information on these deceased shinobi.
"Yes, Leader!" Zabuza nodded, anticipation showing on his face.
He already knew that his leader intended to resurrect these dead shinobi, and he was filled with anticipation for such an extraordinary feat.
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