A few days after transplanting the Leyline, Zou Hyuga found an opportunity to leave on a mission.
His purpose was simple: to find a suitable earth vein node for the Ley Line Consciousness. Although absorbing his chakra allowed the consciousness to grow stronger little by little,
its recovery was still limited. Compared with the whole of nature, his chakra reserves were hardly worth mentioning.
He also wanted to test a theory, one that concerned his future plans.
After night fell, Zou Hyuga reached an uninhabited stretch of wilderness and entered Sage Mode, straining to sense the flow of the earth veins. From his vague impressions, there were not many places in the shinobi world rich in natural energy.
Most of those places already belonged to someone. Some were sacred lands of summoning beasts, while others lay directly within the territories of the Five Great Shinobi Villages, leaving him no opening.
Among them, the places Zou Hyuga had some recollection of were Mount Shūfū and the ruins of Rōran.
Only places exceptionally rich in natural energy could give birth to monsters like the Leyline and Moryo.
Aside from those, Zou Hyuga also sensed vortices scattered throughout the shinobi world's earth veins, constantly devouring natural energy. Judging by their locations, he could only conclude that these vortices corresponded to the Nine Tailed Beasts.
The tailed beasts had been split off from the God Tree and inherently possessed its ability to plunder energy.
For a thousand years, they had ceaselessly plundered the shinobi world's energy. If they themselves had not remained within it, the shinobi world would probably have developed serious problems long ago.
Reining in his wandering thoughts, Zou Hyuga headed toward the nearest node.
He needed to select a suitable location from among the many nodes and settle the Ley Line