Ask Someone Named Gamamaru

Don't rush to take in energy, especially high-heat energy. If you didn't exercise much, it was easy to gain weight.

Kitahara's body rapidly swelled due to the imbalance between natural energy and Yin–Yang Release, becoming round and plump in a rather festive-looking way...

Before long, it had grown taller than Jiraiya. Uchiha Itachi helplessly stroked the crow's feathers, only to find that with the slightest pressure, they felt soft and fleshy...

"Kitahara..." Feeling the rolling ball of flesh beneath his hand, the little boy looked at the two toads in panic. "Hurry and take a look! What's happening?"

The old toad had never seen anything like this either and could only speculate based on years of experience. "...Perhaps it absorbed too much natural energy..."

"There's another possibility..." Sage Shima suddenly took over. "Yin–Yang attribute Chakra fuses most easily with natural energy. Perhaps Great Sage Kitahara absorbed too little natural energy, causing the enormous Chakra within its body to become unstable..."

Uchiha Itachi looked completely bewildered... He didn't understand.

Jiraiya understood, though. The problem was that Kitahara had extracted and absorbed a massive amount of natural energy almost instantly. Sage Shima's explanation did not seem quite right either...

"Caw..."

A Tailed Beast Ball shot from Kitahara's mouth...

Boom!

Yellow sand billowed into the sky in the distance...

Kitahara simply condensed the natural energy within its body together with the Tailed Beast Ball and expelled them. Its swollen body finally shrank back to its original size.

"What a simple and brutal way to use it..." Seeing the crow's scarlet eyes, Sage Fukasaku hastily changed his tune. "No, that should be the fastest and most correct way to handle it..."

Natural energy was inherently violent and could easily cause mutations within the body. Yet this crow had resolved the problem with ease...

The Great Toad Sage's prophecies had never been wrong. Fukasaku and Shima had believed that this so-called future sage would still need to grow or be guided...

Who would have thought that it already possessed such tremendous strength! The ones who could stir up the ninja world's storms while hiding in their dens were truly terrifying!

"It seems Lord Kitahara has no need for our guidance at all..." Sensing the senjutsu Chakra inside Kitahara, Sage Fukasaku bowed. "May all things go well for you!"

"...Caw?"

Kitahara watched in confusion as the two elderly toads released their Summoning Technique and vanished from the spot. It still had plenty of questions!

Uchiha Itachi was equally full of questions. "Jiraiya-sensei! Were those... your summoned beasts?"

"...No... I wouldn't put it that way?" Jiraiya shook his head awkwardly. Though among the toads of Mount Myōboku, aside from the Great Toad Sage, he could summon every single one of them...

That was because he had signed a Summoning Contract with Mount Myōboku.

"They belong to Mount Myōboku, a land of sages..." Jiraiya thought for a while and decided he could tell Itachi more about the unknown lands.

He had originally planned to find an opportunity to ask Mount Myōboku whether Uchiha Itachi could learn Sage Mode or sign a Summoning Contract...

The problem was that this disciple was unusually fond of his own crow. There was nothing wrong with that... Kitahara could neither sign a Summoning Contract nor possessed the talent for the ninjutsu of summoned beasts...

Jiraiya had thought Itachi was raising a pet...

Who knew the kid had actually raised a Great Sage!

"Itachi, it seems you truly have no fate with Mount Myōboku..." Looking at his bewildered disciple, Jiraiya could not help sighing. "...I'd better tell you about the lands of sages instead!"

"Lands of sages?"

"That's right!" Jiraiya nodded and glanced at the crow on his disciple's shoulder. "It's refining senjutsu Chakra and is about to become the ninja world's fourth Great Sage!"

The little boy remained clueless. "Senjutsu Chakra? Great Sage? Fourth?"

"You..." Jiraiya realized his disciple knew almost nothing about this. Rubbing his forehead, he said, "Forget it. Let me first tell you about the lands of sages in the ninja world! Well... I suppose this crow... this Crow Sage cannot tell you these secrets either..."

Uchiha Itachi looked at Kitahara, which was converting senjutsu Chakra on his shoulder. He did not understand what Kitahara was doing, but he could tell it was training...

How rare for it to work so hard! As a Ninja Crow, it usually did nothing but eat, sleep, and bicker with Sasuke... This was truly the first time he had seen Kitahara so serious!

After finding an open area, Jiraiya closed his eyes and began to reminisce. "A very, very long time ago, I was practicing the Summoning Technique in the village..."

"Jiraiya-sensei, I remember you aren't even forty yet this year..." Uchiha Itachi suddenly interrupted him.

"...You saw through me. Actually, I'm not even twenty yet..." After a moment of silence, Jiraiya nodded solemnly and began talking nonsense. "I should be eighteen..."

"...That's way too fake. Father said you were his senior..."

"Then listen properly, Itachi!" The irritable old man wanted to hit someone... If he had not been worried that his disciple might miss a lucky opportunity due to knowing nothing about sages, he would not have wanted to bring up those matters at all!

After briefly explaining the ninja world's three great unknown lands of sages, Uchiha Itachi finally understood and softly said, "The summoned beast Orochimaru called out that day..."

"That's right. Its name is Manda, and it came from Ryūchi Cave!" Jiraiya said with a grave expression. "The White Snake Sage is the ninja world's most mysterious sage, and Ryūchi Cave is also the hardest of the unknown lands to find..."

"...It seems no one besides Jiraiya-sensei has found Mount Myōboku either, right?" Uchiha Itachi suddenly said. "By that logic, Lady Tsunade..."

"That is rather complicated."

Jiraiya raised his head. "I accidentally entered Mount Myōboku because of a mistake with the Summoning Technique. Orochimaru learned the location of Ryūchi Cave by signing a blood contract with snakes..."

"Because Tsunade likes me very much, she told me a few things about the Slug Sage... Shikkotsu Forest once had an earlier contractor: Senju Hashirama, the First Hokage who founded the village."

"The First Hokage?" Uchiha Itachi appropriately showed surprise. Senju Hashirama, who had beaten down the Uchiha... the God of Shinobi...

Jiraiya himself spoke of it with longing, paying little heed to the Uchiha beside him. "That's right! As far as I know, the First Hokage was also the first human to master Sage Mode!"

"Caw!" The crow had finished training at some point and watched Jiraiya boast... It merely refuted him: Senju Hashirama had not been the first to come into contact with sages.

Naturally, he had not been the first to master Sage Mode either.

"Jiraiya-sensei..." Uchiha Itachi dryly translated the crow's words, correcting Jiraiya's mistake. "Kitahara says the First Hokage was not the first..."

"Then who was?"

Of course, it was Uchiha Itachi's kin and ancestor, the Sage of Six Paths—the ninja world's first little-brother fanatic!

"..."

But this time, it was the crow's turn to fall silent. As far as it knew, the Sage of Six Paths' Chakra had not dissipated after his death. Perhaps he might be watching it... This was not necessarily something it could say, though it was not exactly impossible to say either...

"Caw!"

Kitahara secretly gave itself a thumbs-up. It had neither lied nor could anyone pick a fight with it over something like this. It could even take the chance to mess with Jiraiya and teach him a small lesson...

Uchiha Itachi could sense Kitahara's ill intent in providing the information and could only say weakly, "Jiraiya-sensei, Kitahara wants you to ask someone named Gamamaru... I think you'd better not ask..."

"Hahahahaha! Itachi! Don't worry!" Jiraiya patted his disciple on the shoulder. "Judging by the format of that name, he must be a junior from Mount Myōboku. When I get the chance, I'll ask Bunta!"

"..."

Tomorrow, the novel would reach one hundred thousand words! That was fast... How about celebrating with some votes?