"Is this the Toad Oil Waterfall?"
Mineko Yuki and the others who had crossed from Yoyogi Park to Mount Myōboku stood beside Jiraiya, gazing into the distance.
Green lichens and all kinds of enormous taro leaves covered a sheer cliff that looked as though it had been hewn with blades and axes. A yellow, oily waterfall cascaded down into a pool, where a giant stone frog held up a leaf and spouted a smaller waterfall from its mouth.
On the flat ground before the waterfall, blue-black stone toad statues of various sizes stood silently.
"Mount Myōboku is a renowned sacred training ground even in the Inner World. Countless people come here to train in seclusion. But the spiritual energy of heaven and earth here is very peculiar. If you can't regulate it properly and breathe in too much, you'll turn into a toad. Once you become a toad, you'll become part of nature..." Jiraiya gazed at the stone toad statues and sighed, a complicated expression on his face.
"Those who failed in their training became the stone toad statues you see before you."
Mineko Yuki couldn't help swallowing as she looked out over them again.
"These were all..."
Hundreds of stone toad statues filled the mountains and valleys.
Had they actually once been living people too?
The statues had toad heads and human bodies, with serene expressions. They sat on the ground with their hands forming ritual seals.
Looking at them this way, they did indeed retain some traces of humanity.
"Then was that change in Miss Kiritani's hand earlier a sign that she was turning into a toad?" the blond young man blurted out.
"That's right. Mortals like you, with almost no spiritual power, will gradually turn into toads after just two or three days on Mount Myōboku. A