Takigakure The morning mist is wrapped in water vapor and sticks to the skin with a cool feeling.
Rinto followed Grand Elder Ishikawa as he walked deeper into the village. Without looking at the road, his fingertips repeatedly drew circles on his backpack, and his mind was still stuck with the deadlock of Yang Release's cell threshold. When he reached the corner of the stone steps, his foot slipped and he almost fell into the stream next to it. Ishikawa hurriedly reached out and grabbed him.
"Hey - be careful!" Ishikawa breathed a sigh of relief and patted his arm, "It's a deep pool down here, and falling down is no joke. By the way... you, have you had breakfast? I asked my men to steam potato cakes for you, warm, to cushion your stomach?"
"Ah?" Rinto looked up blankly and was stunned for two seconds before shaking his head, "No, let's go to the ancestral hall first."
His mind was full of unfinished logic, and it didn't enter his mind at all. Ishikawa looked at his distracted look, and could only sigh helplessly and continue to lead the way.
The ninjas along the way gathered together and whispered, their voices floating over and intermittently:
"That's him? The one who beat Kakuzu away..."
"Why did the Great Elder bring outsiders in? The secret..."
"Keep your voice down, don't be heard..."
Rinto turned a deaf ear and did not stop stroking his fingertips until a group of black-robed elders blocked the stone platform in front of the ancestral hall.
The one-armed elder Matsushita, the leader, immediately took a step forward when he saw the two of them, and slapped his wooden staff hard. "Ishikawa! You, are you crazy?!"
"Matsushita, please listen to my explanation--"
"Explain what kind of explanation!" Matsushita interrupted directly, his one-armed sleeves shaking violently, and his face turned red. "Secret inheritance is the destiny of our ancestors! Yes, it is the root of the whole village! If you bring a Konoha traitor in, do you, do you want to destroy Takigakure!"
"He can cure the backlash!" Ishikawa said urgently.
"Relieve backlash? Who believes it!" The pudgy elder next to him answered immediately, his hands shaking, "A few years ago, the caravan stole half a page of the fragment and killed three disciples! You, you forgot?!"
"That's right! Who doesn't know how to talk nonsense!"
"The rules cannot be broken! You must not enter the ancestral hall!"
A few people quarreled, each saying something to me, often being interrupted before finishing a sentence. Matsushita was so angry that his beard was shaking, and he shouted "ancestral rules" repeatedly, but the words became more and more chaotic, and he got stuck several times. "You, what do you know! That, that is... that is what we are guarding with our lives!"
Rinto squatted on the stone steps next to him, took out his notebook and corrected the wrong formula. He frowned and frowned due to the noise, but did not raise his head.
After arguing for almost a quarter of an hour, Matsushita noticed him and came over with anger. "Boy! You, stop pretending there! Now, leave the village now! Otherwise, otherwise we--"
"Your secret technique will kill people." Rinto interrupted him, his tone was calm, but it hit the painful spot accurately.
Matsushita choked for a moment, then got even angrier. "That, that's the price of cultivation! It's none of your business!"
"The price is not to die." Rinto raised his eyes, scanned the crowd, and finally landed on the scar-faced ninja, "Come here."
The scar-faced ninja shrank in fright, looked at the elder helplessly, then at Ishikawa, and after a long while, he moved over. "I, I... I didn't offend you, right?"
"Can't you lift your arm on a rainy day?" Rinto reached out and touched his bandage, "It hurts when you exert force. You got it from practicing secret techniques."
"Yes, yes!" The ninja nodded repeatedly, but couldn't speak clearly. "The medicine and ointment can only last for a while. Master, master said that it will be fine if you get through it, but, I am in so much pain that I can't sleep..."
Rinto said nothing and gently pressed his fingertips on his arm.
After half a minute, he took back his hand and said, "Move."
The ninja tentatively raised his arm, his eyes suddenly widened, he waved his fist, and stuttered with excitement, "No, it doesn't hurt anymore! It really doesn't hurt anymore! This, this..."
Shiping was instantly quiet.
Matsushita's face turned blue and white, and veins popped out in the hand holding the wooden stick. He held it in for a long time before he finally managed to say, "It's just treating the skin injury! The backlash is, it's the root problem! You, you don't understand at all!"
He insisted, but he didn't move back. The suspicion in his eyes had begun to waver.
Rinto looked at his empty left sleeve. "Here, I feel so distressed on a rainy day, and I can't sleep at night."
Matsushita stiffened suddenly, neither admitting nor denying.
"I can relieve pain." Rinto said, "It's not relief, it's removal."
Matsushita was silent for a long time, and his lips trembled several times before he squeezed out a sentence from his throat. "... You, don't lie to me. I, I have been hurt for decades!"
"Try it."
He hesitated for half a minute, then stiffly moved forward two steps, tilting his head to one side, as if he didn't want to admit that he needed help. Rinto The fingertips pressed against his broken arm scar, and the pale gold Chakra slowly seeped into it.
A minute later, Rinto took back his hand.
Matsushita touched the scar, his fingertips trembled violently, and his throat rolled a few times, but he did not immediately give in. He just snorted, "... Well, you have some ability. But, you still can't read the secret information casually! I, I have to discuss it with the other elders!"
He turned around and walked to the side, gathered with several other elders, and argued in a low voice, intermittently:
"He, he is really good at curing... but he behaves..."
"What if it's a trap?"
"Senior brother died of backlash back then! I, I don't want my disciples to..."
"Look again! Don't let go easily!"
This hesitation lasted for nearly ten minutes.
Matsushita walked back and forth repeatedly, wanting to scold you several times, but swallowed back his words, and finally stamped his feet, as if he was giving it all. "... Okay! You can watch! But, but I have to watch from the side! You, if you dare to make a random note, I, I will kick you out immediately!"
There was no instant surrender, no tears in the eyes, only face-saving compromises and uncontrollable struggles.
The light in the ancestral hall was dim and the evergreen lamps crackled.
Ishikawa opened the wooden box, took out the yellowed silk book, and carefully spread it out. "It's right here. Take your time and look at it. I-we won't disturb you."
Rinto sat down and read it quickly for the first time, memorizing it as he read it, but the further he went back, the tighter his brows became.
First's mental method of "maintaining life with water" was vague, but the changes in subsequent generations were radical. He was stuck at the cell excitation threshold for several months, and he did not suddenly have an epiphany with just one sentence.
He stared at the silk book, turned it over and over three times, scanned all the annotations and small characters in the corners, and saw in the cracks the sentence "The gate of life is the root of water and the beginning of Yang. If it is not urged, it will not be blocked. If you follow it, you will prosper."
Just a clue, not an answer.
Rinto picked up the charcoal pencil and made crazy deductions on the straw paper.
In the first version, if the parameters do not match, cross them out.
In the second version, the meridians flowed and conflicted, and they were kneaded into a ball.
The third version is incompatible with my own adaptive configuration, so I will tear it up directly.
The toilet paper was thrown all over the floor.
He muttered words in a low and intermittent voice, "No... Mingmen is the anchor... not a forced binding... water is the medium... not a thrust..."
He closed his eyes, feeling the Chakra flowing in his body, opened it again, and started drawing again. He stopped writing halfway through the drawing, scratched his hair, and showed his rare irritability.
Ishikawa brought the hot rice, let it cool down and then exchanged the heat, and asked in a low voice, "W-Would you like to take a break? Have a sip of tea?"
"Don't make any noise." Rinto didn't even raise his head.
From noon to dusk, from night to early morning, he filled up seventeen pieces of papyrus and overturned six editions of the core framework before finally putting together the "source of life" and his own system.
It's not about understanding, it's about understanding.
When the last stroke fell, he let out a long breath and his shoulders slumped. It was not the ecstasy of enlightenment, but the exhaustion of enduring to the limit.
He filled more than twenty pieces of paper with the optimized mental methods, paths, and repair plans, and handed them to Ishikawa.
Matsushita came over to look at it. The more he looked at the face, the more complicated it became. Finally, he turned away and said in a low voice, "... Forget it, you are awesome. Before, it was my fault before... but, don't spread the word!"
He was still stubborn and refused to express his gratitude. He just silently moved out of the way and stopped blocking her.
Rinto put away his things and put on his backpack. "Let's go."
"Let's go now? No rest?" Ishikawa said anxiously, "The potato cake is still hot--"
"No need."
He turned around and walked into the rainforest, his footsteps hurried, without looking back, leaving no name, and asking for no favors.
The morning fog covered Rinto's ankles. He squatted on a slippery stone, took out the straw paper and filled in two parameters. He muttered, "I need to adjust it here." He didn't notice that his trousers were soaked in muddy water.
At the entrance of the village in the distance, Matsushita was still awkwardly adjusting his black robe, muttering to Ishikawa, "I, I am not obeying him! I, I am doing it for the village!"
The short and fat elder smiled bitterly at the side without revealing it.
Deep in the rainforest, several birds were frightened by the footsteps and flew into the canopy of the trees.
Rinto stood up, stuffed the notebook back into his backpack, and continued walking forward. The goal was not to escape, not to seek revenge, but to find a place where he could finish writing the system in peace.
There is no zooming out, no hint of grandeur, no "bigger crisis is brewing".
There was only one person whose mind was occupied by research, stepping on the slippery leaves, step by step, and disappeared into the morning mist.