Idealist

Having discovered chakra seeds, Xia Yan naturally would not pass up an opportunity like this.

Even if he did not intend to plant them, he could store these chakra seeds first.

Once he had enough chakra in the future, or if he temporarily decided to stop growing a particular type of seed, he could cultivate them.

Xia Yan's method of extracting seeds was actually very simple: he used the "Senju Secret Technique" that came with his bloodline development.

Honestly, he still had not figured out why his "Senju Secret Technique" was actually used to extract the life force from trees.

"What is it, Captain?" Just as Xia Yan was pondering this, Kakashi's voice suddenly came from nearby. "Have any good ideas?"

"Not at the moment." Xia Yan came back to his senses and immediately shook his head.

"But I think we should just tie him up first, especially his hands. You can break his fingers if you want.

"Next, find something to gag him with. We can't let him speak or bite off his own tongue."

Binding his hands would keep the man from finding an opening to form hand seals, while breaking his fingers would put an outright end to any such ideas.

Finding something to stuff into his mouth would do more than keep him from biting off his tongue.

It would also prevent him from using any jutsu that could be activated directly through his mouth without hand seals.

Some sealing jutsu were inscribed on the teeth or tongue. Even if this man was the Fourth Kazekage's brother-in-law, he was still a ninja at the end of the day, and an Anbu member at that.

There was never anything wrong with being careful and taking the necessary precautions, even if the resulting sight would not be very pleasant.

Kakashi did not object to Xia Yan's arrangements, since he himself had no idea what to do.

This was the first time he had realized just how important sealing jutsu could be. No wonder his captain was interested in sealing jutsu despite already being so powerful.

His teacher was the same, too. Kakashi wondered whether he should also start studying sealing jutsu.

Even if he could not master it, he could at least use it to seal some simple or special things.

There was nothing more Xia Yan needed to do. After receiving his orders, Kakashi quickly took Yashamaru away. Barring anything unexpected, he was going to put him with the Sand Ninja they had captured earlier.

Once Kakashi left, Xia Yan immediately stood up and looked at the large tree he had just been leaning against.

It was perfectly ordinary, with nothing special about it, and looked no different from the trees grown from the seeds he had obtained before.

This made Xia Yan sigh somewhat helplessly. He still had not figured out what criteria his cheat used to determine what attributes of seeds could be extracted from these plants.

He had even tried finding natural tree seeds from trees he had already extracted seeds from, then cultivating them himself.

Unfortunately, the final result was that even when he actively absorbed their life force, he obtained nothing.

"But it doesn't matter. As long as I get what I want, that's enough."

With that thought, Xia Yan began forming hand seals, and a strange chakra rapidly surged through his body.

As more and more of this chakra gathered, a faint blue film of chakra suddenly appeared over his body.

It was exactly like the scene he had watched in the anime back then, when Hashirama Senju and Tobirama Senju had been revived and Tobirama had wanted to attack Sasuke.

Reaching out with his right hand, Xia Yan pressed it directly against the large tree. Almost instantly, he felt he could clearly "see" its life force.

It was a pale green power brimming with vitality, a power that filled people with longing.

Yet under the guidance of Xia Yan's pale blue chakra, this power suddenly became extraordinarily chaotic, then surged madly into his body as though it had found its master!

The large tree before Xia Yan began to wither visibly. The green leaves on its branches slowly turned yellow, then drifted down one by one.

Before long, Xia Yan had drained every last bit of life force from the tree.

Looking at it, he could see that although it still stood there, it clearly seemed to have no vitality left.

The green life force rapidly gathered inside Xia Yan's body. Before long, under constant compression, it became a tiny point of light.

Xia Yan raised his hand, and a wisp of light soon began spinning in it. When that light fully condensed, a pale green seed appeared in his palm.

"So this is a Wind Release chakra seed?"

Xia Yan glanced at the seed and smiled as he felt the sensation it constantly gave off, like a faint, gentle breeze.

He then took a scroll out of his ninja tool pouch. This type of sealing scroll was used to store important things and could only be opened with its owner's chakra.

As he formed hand seals with one hand, his chakra flowed into the scroll. Soon, a puff of white smoke rose, and a diary appeared in his hand.

This diary recorded all of Xia Yan's memories concerning the Naruto world, along with some necessary analysis. It could be called his most important possession.

Likewise, this seed was also among Xia Yan's most important possessions. His future depended on it!

Thus, Xia Yan intended to keep them together. Only this way could he ensure that his belongings would not be lost.

Opening his diary, which already looked somewhat worn, Xia Yan placed the seed directly inside, then closed it and sealed it away again.

Only after finishing all this did Xia Yan let out a slight breath of relief. He returned the scroll to his ninja tool pouch, then walked toward Kakashi.

What he had not expected was that, when he reached Kakashi, the sight before him gave him a fright.

"What have you..." Xia Yan stared blankly at Kakashi-or, more precisely, at those Sand Ninja.

Surely Kakashi hasn't read Icha Icha Paradise yet?

Or rather, Jiraiya had not even written that sort of book yet.

He seemed to still be focused on writing inspirational biographies to promote his utterly unrealistic ideals.

To be honest, his ideals originated with the Sage of Six Paths, Hagoromo Otsutsuki. They were very naive and very simple.

But it had to be said that such a wish brought a glimmer of dawn to this utterly despairing world filled with the pursuit of self-interest.

Xia Yan shook his head. He had always held idealists like this in the highest respect, especially people like Jiraiya, who had ideals and also acted on them.

Still, great as this man is, he's also a lecher. Otherwise, he wouldn't write that sort of thing.

Xia Yan pondered this, then properly turned his gaze toward Kakashi.

And this guy is the same. Is this what they call secretly kinky?

At that moment, every one of these Stone Ninja was securely bound, but there was something rather off about the way they had been tied up.

Their mouths were also stuffed with little iron balls.

Kakashi had even specially attached strips of cloth to these iron balls and tied them behind their heads...