Xin remained completely calm in the face of Jiraiya's doubts.
He pointed at his own eyes.
"Lord Jiraiya, facts speak louder than words."
Xin's tone was certain.
"I happened to obtain this stone tablet and followed the ancient method recorded on it."
"Only by combining it with certain powers of the Senju Clan did I successfully break the Sharingan's curse."
Xin stood tall and proud.
"What I evolved was the eternal Mangekyō Sharingan-eyes that will never go blind!"
At those words,
the Third Hokage and Jiraiya were once again shocked to their cores, leaving them utterly numb.
Looking at their dumbstruck expressions, Xin secretly felt pleased with himself.
He considered himself a gifted storyteller of the Shinobi World. This bluff was nothing short of perfect.
The tablet stated that the Three-Tomoe Sharingan evolved into the Mangekyō Sharingan.
The Mangekyō Sharingan carried a tremendous risk of blindness. Only by transplanting the eyes of a close blood relative,
and evolving them into the eternal Mangekyō Sharingan, could one completely avoid blindness and regain one's sight.
Those lines stood out with particular intensity in the eerie blue glow.
The Third Hokage and Jiraiya leaned closer to the tablet and read them clearly.
Both were shocked, but the tablet's appearance was far too abrupt.
"Xin, you didn't forge this thing yourself, did you?"
Jiraiya's brows were tightly knitted, his eyes full of suspicion.
"I've traveled far and wide for so many years, and I've never heard of a stone tablet like this."
"You think you can carve a few lines onto some lousy rock and make us believe this absurd myth?"
Xin remained utterly unruffled by Jiraiya's doubts.
This tablet was a piece of extremely cold, hard stone he had dug out of Kazahana Dōtō's private warehouse, then had specially processed and reinforced by the system.
The writing would only appear when chakra was infused into it, and the tablet's material was so incredibly hard that no new marks could be left on it.
"If you don't believe me, Lord Jiraiya, you're welcome to try it yourself."
Xin folded his arms across his chest, his tone level.
"See if you can carve even a single word onto this tablet."
Jiraiya snorted coldly and looked at the Third Hokage.
The Third Hokage took a deep breath and pulled a sharp kunai from his ninja tool pouch.
He drew on the chakra in his body, coated the kunai's edge with it, and slashed hard at a blank section of the tablet.
An ear-piercing metallic scraping rang through the office.
Sparks flew everywhere.
The Third Hokage stopped and looked closely.
The tablet's surface was as smooth as before, without even the slightest scratch.
The Third Hokage's expression changed.
Although he had not used his full strength, his chakra-coated kunai
could easily cut through metal and jade, yet it had failed to leave the slightest mark on this stone.
"This material... is anything but ordinary."
The Third Hokage put away his kunai, his tone turning grave.
This instantly lent the tablet several degrees more credibility.
Jiraiya looked at the completely undamaged tablet and hesitated for a moment.
"Even if the tablet is made of a special material, that doesn't prove what's written on it is true!"
Jiraiya gritted his teeth and decided to reveal a secret he had kept buried for years.
"I'll be blunt. I've seen the Rinnegan with my own eyes!"
At those words, the Third Hokage whipped his head around and stared at his student in astonishment.
"Jiraiya, what did you say? You've seen the Rinnegan?"
Jiraiya nodded firmly.
"Back in the Land of Rain, I took three orphans as students. One of them, a child named Nagato, was born with a pair of Rinnegan!"
Jiraiya stared fixedly at Xin.
"Nagato wasn't a member of the Uchiha Clan, yet he was born with the Rinnegan."
"That proves the Rinnegan has nothing to do with the Sharingan's evolution! Everything recorded on your tablet is false!"
After hearing this, the Third Hokage was so shocked that he even forgot to smoke his pipe.
The Rinnegan really existed in this world, and it belonged to an orphan in the Land of Rain.
Yet Xin had long been prepared for Jiraiya's confident rebuttal.
He gave a soft chuckle.
"Lord Jiraiya, on what grounds do you assume that child named Nagato was born with his Rinnegan?"
Jiraiya froze.
"What do you mean?"
Xin's smile vanished, and his expression grew serious.
"Divine eyes like the Rinnegan absolutely cannot be something you're born with."
"Unless you possess the Uchiha Clan's kekkei genkai and the Senju Clan's sage body."
"Otherwise, even if an outsider obtained the Rinnegan, the inability to withstand its terrifying ocular power would make it a tremendous burden on their body."
Xin paused, then offered the most direct example.
"Just think about Kakashi-sensei, and you'll understand."
"Kakashi-sensei received a transplant of Obito's Sharingan."
"Although his genius allowed him to master that eye,"
"because he lacks Uchiha blood, he can't deactivate that Sharingan, and it consumes his chakra every moment of every day."
Xin looked at the Third Hokage.
"That eye has been dragging Kakashi-sensei down all along, turning him into a mana-starved ninja with an extreme shortage of chakra."
"Am I right, Lord Hokage?"
The Third Hokage nodded in strong agreement.
"Indeed. That Sharingan places an immense burden on Kakashi's body. After every battle, he needs to spend several days in the hospital."
Xin turned his gaze back to Jiraiya.
"If even an ordinary Three-Tomoe Sharingan can drag Kakashi-sensei down to this extent,"
"Lord Jiraiya, that student of yours named Nagato possesses the Rinnegan, which is countless times more powerful than the Sharingan."
"What is his usual condition like? Is he often physically weak, and does he even lose his memory when he unconsciously manifests the Rinnegan's power?"
Hearing this, Jiraiya felt as though he had been struck by lightning.
Scenes from when he had taught Nagato in the Land of Rain instantly surfaced in his mind.
Nagato had always looked sickly and had been physically very weak.
Once, to protect his companions, Nagato had unconsciously unleashed the Rinnegan's power and killed the enemy.
Afterward, however, Nagato had no memory of what had happened, and he had been so drained that he nearly died.
All those symptoms were exactly like the aftereffects of excessive strain that Xin had just described!
Jiraiya's defenses began to waver.
Cold sweat seeped from his forehead, and his breathing grew rapid.
"If Nagato wasn't born with his Rinnegan..."
Jiraiya pressed urgently, his voice trembling.
"Then who is the true owner of those eyes? Who transplanted the Rinnegan into an orphan from the Land of Rain?"
Looking at Jiraiya's anxious expression, Xin shook his head.
"I don't know whose eyes those really are."
Xin shifted his tone.
"However, throughout the entire history of the Shinobi World, there has only been one person with the ability, the ambition, and the greatest likelihood of evolving the Sharingan into the Rinnegan."
Xin spoke that name, stressing each word.
"Madara Uchiha!"
Boom!
The name exploded through the office like a thunderclap out of a clear sky.