Summer, Year 14 of Konoha.
Cicadas shrieked themselves hoarse in Konoha's trees, and the air was so hot that ripples were visible. Yet on the third floor of the Konoha Military Police Force's East District branch-nominally independent, though its building and some of its functions remained connected to the Toyotomi Clan Grounds-the branch chief's office was so quiet that only the faint sound of ice melting in a glass could be heard.
Toyotomi Yinglang's original body finished processing the last request concerning "adjustments to East District night market stall fees"-Liuli and his subordinates handled most such trivial matters now, leaving him only to guide the overall direction-and rubbed the space between his brows.
Outside the window lay Konoha's sweltering afternoon scenery. In the distance, the Second's face on Hokage Rock was nearly complete, its cold, hard lines particularly glaring beneath the blazing sun.
He rose and walked into the secret chamber at the back of his office. He had secretly excavated this completely private space with Earth Release and layered it with multiple seals and soundproof barriers.
There were no windows, only a few ever-burning lamps providing steady, cool light. Inscribed on the floor at the chamber's center was a formula more complex than before, its lines darker and more intricate. This was the Anywhere Door formula he had personally improved and strengthened by combining the principles of the Flying Thunder God Formula, Dragon Essence's vague spatial perception, and fragments of spatial knowledge obtained from multiple lottery draws. Its stability, concealment, and especially the precision of its one-way opening were considerably better than those of the initial version he had given Yutian.
He stepped into the center of the formula and formed hand seals. There was no earthshaking burst of chakra; only the light inside the chamber seemed to ripple