Kiyohara and the others continued moving forward.
At the end of the passage stood a massive palace.
No, rather than calling it a palace, it would be more accurate to describe it as a gigantic stone temple.
Its flying eaves curved upward elegantly, red tiles covering the roof, while the corners of the eaves were decorated with exquisite dragon carvings.
The great doors of the hall stood wide open, and above them hung a plaque with three bold characters written upon it.
Ryuchi Cave.
This was the residence of the White Snake Sage. Ordinary snakes did not even possess the qualifications to meet her here.
Without question, the White Snake Sage was the supreme being standing at the pinnacle of all serpents.
"How strong is she exactly?"
Kiyohara wondered inwardly.
After all, none of the sages from the Three Great Sacred Lands had ever truly fought on screen.
Even the background description of the White Snake Sage was merely a single sentence:
"The leader of Ryuchi Cave, radiating mystical divine majesty."
Since she might have survived all the way from Kaguya's era until now, she definitely could not be simple.
"Do you know how strong the White Snake Sage is?"
Kiyohara asked the White Snake Kiyohara inside the urn.
The spiritual form of White Snake Kiyohara floated out. At this moment, he transformed into the shape of a gigantic serpent.
It seemed that this form allowed him to feel far more unrestricted.
"That is something even I do not know. Even I have never seen her fight."
White Snake Kiyohara shook his head.
He truly had no idea how powerful the White Snake Sage was.
"But one thing is certain. She is absolutely not as simple as she appears on the surface."
White Snake Kiyohara spoke slowly.
The White Snake Sage possessed the ability to glimpse fate itself. She had once said things similar to what Ōtsutsuki Momoshiki said.
Both of them claimed that Boruto's destiny was extraordinarily unusual and that he could never escape the arrangements of fate.
"Anyway, when she pours natural energy into you later, remember to accept it. While she is infusing the natural energy, I can help siphon part of it over to you."
"You can actually do that?"
Kiyohara raised an eyebrow.
"Of course."
The enormous serpent head of White Snake Kiyohara nodded.
"If that happens, not only will you master Snake Sage Mode, but you may even go one step further."
Kiyohara's heart stirred.
Go one step further?
"There are actually two types of Snake Sage Mode."
White Snake Kiyohara continued.
"One is the kind Kabuto used. The other…"
He paused briefly.
"…is the kind Mitsuki possesses."
"Mitsuki…"
Kiyohara murmured thoughtfully.
Mitsuki was one of the artificial humans created by Orochimaru through the combination of multiple superior genetic materials.
In truth, Mitsuki was a clone of Mitsuki Prime. In order to successfully allow him to "sage-transform," Orochimaru repeatedly erased his memories with drugs five consecutive times, yet every attempt failed.
Only after the sixth memory wipe did an accidental opportunity finally allow him to awaken an innate Sage Mode, after which he was given the name Mitsuki.
His Sage Mode was completely different from Kabuto's Snake Sage Mode.
Green senjutsu chakra would swirl around his body, similar to Naruto's tailed beast chakra. It could freely materialize and even change shape at will.
Just from appearance alone, it undoubtedly looked far stronger than Kabuto's version.
After all, much of the leaking chakra seen externally existed because the chakra was too immense for the body's internal chakra pathway system to fully withstand, forcing it into an external circulation form.
That was why only the Complete Tailed Beast Mode could truly unleash the full power of a tailed beast. At other times, the tailed beasts merely functioned like giant battery packs that amplified the jinchūriki's capabilities.
"You possess my bloodline within your body, as well as my experience."
White Snake Kiyohara's voice carried a faint smile.
"If I help you, you may have a chance of reaching that level."
"You could even say this is another one of my wishes. Honestly, I am curious whether it can succeed."
White Snake Kiyohara admitted openly.
Even he himself had never successfully cultivated that type of Sage Mode.
Due to the structural limitations of a serpent's body, the flow pattern of senjutsu chakra within him was the same as that of the Three Great Snake Princesses.
But Kiyohara's case was different.
It would be built upon the foundation of a human body while simultaneously layered with his bloodline.
To be honest, White Snake Kiyohara was genuinely curious about what such a result would become.
"There won't be any danger, right?"
Kiyohara frowned slightly.
"It will be fine. Any excess natural energy can simply be consumed."
White Snake Kiyohara replied calmly.
He explained that Kiyohara had already entered Snake Sage Mode before. Even if the attempt ultimately failed, he could simply activate that mode directly afterward and use several senjutsu techniques to expend the surplus natural energy.
After hearing this, Kiyohara carefully considered it for a while and realized it was indeed feasible.
If he could truly master a Sage Mode like Mitsuki's, then it would almost be equivalent to obtaining a pseudo-Susanoo.
He could use it similarly to the skeletal stage of Susanoo, materializing chakra externally to strengthen defense or expand destructive power.
Snake Susanoo?
The thought suddenly surfaced in Kiyohara's mind.
"Why did you slow down?"
At this moment, Anko noticed Kiyohara's pace decreasing and looked at him curiously.
Kiyohara shook his head and casually said it was nothing, merely that he was appreciating the scenery, before continuing onward.
This temple leaned against jagged mountain rocks deep within the pitch-black cavern.
The interior lighting was dim, with only several candle lamps flickering quietly in the corners.
At the deepest part of the hall stood an enormous throne.
Coiled atop the throne was a snake.
A gigantic snake.
No one could tell how long her body truly was as it coiled endlessly around the throne.
Her head was raised high, orange-yellow vertical pupils gazing down upon the people below.
A smoking pipe rested in her mouth as thin wisps of smoke drifted upward before slowly dispersing into the air.
The White Snake Sage.
Tsunade lifted her head and stared at the massive body that occupied nearly half the entire hall, a trace of seriousness flashing through her eyes.
So this was the sage of Ryuchi Cave.
A being that had lived for over a thousand years.
Orochimaru bent slightly and gave a respectful salute.
"White Snake Sage, I have brought the person here."
The White Snake Sage's gaze swept across him before settling on Kiyohara behind him.
Those orange-yellow vertical pupils stared at Kiyohara motionlessly.
The hall became so silent that even a falling pin could have been heard.
Only the smoke continued rising slowly before dispersing again.
After a long while—
"Little brat of the Uchiha clan."
The White Snake Sage finally spoke.
"I have been watching you for a very long time."
Kiyohara's eyebrows twitched faintly.
Why were all these old monsters in the shinobi world the same?
The Great Toad Sage loved spying on the shinobi world with his Telescope Technique, and this White Snake Sage clearly did not seem like an easy character either.
However, none of this showed on his face. He merely nodded slightly.
"I am honored to receive the Sage's attention."
"Hehehe…"
The White Snake Sage laughed.
The low laughter echoed throughout the empty hall.
She then turned her head toward Tsunade.
"You are the little girl who signed a summoning contract with Katsuyu, correct?"
Tsunade raised an eyebrow.
The White Snake Sage actually referred to the Slug Sage directly by name.
But considering the White Snake Sage's age, Tsunade truly could only be considered a little girl before her.
"Yes."
Tsunade nodded.
The White Snake Sage nodded as well.
"And also the granddaughter of Senju Hashirama."
Her gaze shifted away before returning to Kiyohara once more.
"You wish to learn Ryuchi Cave Senjutsu?"
The White Snake Sage asked.
The reason she had first taken notice of Kiyohara was because he had been teaching himself Ryuchi Cave Senjutsu.
A human, yet he had somehow comprehended the serpents' senjutsu completely on his own without a teacher. It was truly something astonishing.
In the end, the White Snake Sage could only attribute it to the White Snake cells within Kiyohara's body.
She knew at least a little about the various outrageous experiments Orochimaru had been carrying out.
"I want to learn it."
Kiyohara nodded.
The White Snake Sage took another puff from her pipe, seemingly continuing to examine him carefully.
"Your body already carries traces of another form of senjutsu."
She spoke slowly.
"The toads of Mount Myoboku… correct?"
Kiyohara did not deny it.
"Yes. I have seen Lord Jiraiya use that kind of Sage Mode."
Kiyohara answered calmly.
The "Mount Myoboku Senjutsu" he had inherited from Toad Kiyohara could conveniently be explained away by using Jiraiya as a shield.
"Hehehe…"
The White Snake Sage laughed softly.
"Not bad. To possess this level of comprehension is indeed impressive."
She paused slightly.
"But do you know what senjutsu truly is?"
Kiyohara thought for a moment before replying, "Absorbing natural energy to strengthen one's ninjutsu, taijutsu, and genjutsu, multiplying their power."
The White Snake Sage slowly shook her head.
"You could say that… yet at the same time, you could also say that is not entirely correct."
Her massive body shifted faintly atop the throne. Beyond the reach of the candlelight, the darkness resembled thick black ink. Within those shadows, it seemed as though endless serpent bodies were writhing and churning, stirring the darkness itself.
"Natural energy can indeed multiply the power of your techniques. But the true meaning of senjutsu does not lie in amplification."
She paused.
"It lies in becoming a dragon."
Becoming a dragon?
Kiyohara frowned slightly.
Kabuto's famous line suddenly surfaced in his mind:
"I have shed my snake skin and ascended into a dragon."
Could it be that the phrase was not merely referring to surpassing one's former self?
"Do you know Senju Hashirama?"
The White Snake Sage suddenly asked.
Kiyohara nodded.
"The God of Shinobi."
"The God of Shinobi… heheh, that title truly is fitting."
The White Snake Sage exhaled a cloud of smoke.
The shinobi world honored the powerful shinobi who brought peace to the chaotic Warring States era with the title "God of Shinobi."
"That man is one example of becoming a dragon."
Her voice lowered.
"Even after death, his cells retained activity. His Wood Release could suppress tailed beasts and even absorb their chakra in reverse. The amount of chakra he possessed far surpassed that of ordinary shinobi."
She looked toward Kiyohara.
"Do you understand what that signifies?"
"His Sage Mode excavated the hidden potential within his body."
Kiyohara answered.
Hashirama was the reincarnation of Asura, and Asura had inherited the Sage of Six Paths' "sage body."
In the beginning, Asura could not defeat Indra. But after enduring intense training, he rapidly gained tremendous power.
That was because his path was one that required growth and development.
Of course, by the end, he still needed the Sage of Six Paths to directly bestow power upon him, along with chakra gathered from all his companions working together, before he could finally overcome Indra.
But the generation of Hashirama and Madara was simply absurd beyond reason.
Hashirama's growth was practically monstrous, as if every aspect of him had been continuously and violently strengthened. His entire existence embodied the concept of overwhelming force crushing all obstacles.
To put it simply, his cultivation of senjutsu resembled immortal cultivation more than ordinary shinobi training.
Madara's Complete Body Susanoo was roughly the same size as Hashirama's Wood Release: Wood Human Technique.
Yet that enormous Wood Human was merely like a hat resting atop the Thousand-Armed Buddha created by Sage Art: Wood Release: True Several Thousand Hands.
It was not even half the size of the Buddha's head.
With a single hand, it could grab the Nine Tails directly in its palm.
And that giant Buddha possessed one thousand such hands.
One could easily imagine the terrifying amount of chakra required to sustain such a colossal Wood Release manifestation.
It had forced even Madara into resorting to fake death and elaborate schemes.
"Correct."
The White Snake Sage nodded in satisfaction.
"Senju Hashirama used Sage Mode to dig his body's hidden potential, pushing the yang power of his physical body to its absolute limit."
She paused briefly.
"One could even say he surpassed that limit."
Kiyohara's brows furrowed faintly.
Yang power surpassing its limits…
Combined with the overwhelming vitality of the Hashirama cells, it indeed made sense.
Even Asura himself, the ancestor of that bloodline, might not have possessed such absurd cellular activity.
The White Snake Sage's gaze shifted away from him and toward a certain point high above the temple ceiling.
"Do you know what kind of person Senju Hashirama truly was?"
Tsunade frowned slightly.
She wanted to speak, but before she could, the White Snake Sage continued.
"He was a descendant of the Sage of Six Paths."
What?
Tsunade froze in shock.
Orochimaru's golden vertical pupils suddenly contracted sharply.
The Sage of Six Paths?
That legendary figure who created Ninshu, the near-divine being from ancient myths?
Those mythological stories… actually existed?
And Senju Hashirama was his descendant?
Kiyohara also pretended to be hearing this revelation for the first time, outwardly displaying surprise while rapidly thinking inwardly.
Of course he already knew the truth.
But hearing the White Snake Sage reveal it so directly still caught him somewhat off guard.
Anko was completely dumbfounded.
The Sage of Six Paths?
What was that supposed to be?
Her personality had always resembled that of a carefree boy, and she had been terrible at academic classes since childhood.
She looked blankly from one person to another, completely unable to follow the flow of the conversation.
"The bloodline of the Sage of Six Paths was passed down through his two sons."
The White Snake Sage spoke slowly.
"The elder son, Indra, inherited the Sage's Eyes and powerful spiritual energy. The younger son, Asura, inherited the Sage's Body and immense physical vitality."
Her gaze swept over Kiyohara.
"The Uchiha clan are descendants of Indra. The Senju clan are descendants of Asura."
Tsunade's heart suddenly trembled.
The Uchiha were descendants of Indra?
Was that the reason Kiyohara was such a genius?
She subconsciously looked toward him.
Then she thought about it again.
Within the Uchiha clan, Kiyohara was probably like her grandfather within the Senju clan, an anomaly among anomalies.
Because nobody else was this ridiculously overpowered.
"The reason Hashirama was able to surpass his limits was because of the Asura bloodline flowing within him."
The White Snake Sage continued speaking.
"He used Sage Mode to completely dig the potential hidden within that bloodline."
She turned to Tsunade.
"The same blood flows within you as well. Unfortunately…"
The White Snake Sage did not continue.
But Tsunade already understood what she meant.
Unfortunately, she had not inherited her grandfather's power.
Because her chakra reserves were too low, only at the level of "Essence: 8."
"Of course, even that was not the true limit. It still had not reached the real limit."
The White Snake Sage looked toward Kiyohara again, her eyes becoming noticeably more heated.
"The current era belongs to shinobi. But before the era of shinobi, there existed an era that belonged to demons and gods."
The White Snake Sage began narrating an even more ancient history of the shinobi world to Kiyohara.
The Earth was clearly a very special planet.
Its natural energy was incomparably rich, which had ultimately given birth to techniques such as senjutsu.
And in that era, there existed many powerful beings.
Among them, the most powerful of all was the Dragon Vein beneath the earth, possessing nearly infinite chakra.
"Because of the influence of the Rabbit Goddess and another mysterious companion beside her, the gods fell. Even the mighty Dragon Vein God was slain. After the divine war ended, they planted a gigantic tree. That tree began absorbing the planet's power, and thus the era of the demons and gods came to an end."
"And before the era of shinobi, there existed an intermediary age, the era of Ninshu established by the Sage of Six Paths. The Sage defeated the Rabbit Goddess and then began spreading chakra throughout the shinobi world. That was the true origin of humanity's ability to use chakra."
The White Snake Sage continued her story.
Kiyohara nodded slightly after hearing this.
The shinobi world truly did contain countless bizarre phenomena.
There was the immortal Moryo of the Land of Demons and the Zero-Tails born from the darkness in human hearts.
Placed in ancient times, especially in an age when humans could not yet refine chakra or release ninjutsu, such beings truly would have been indistinguishable from gods.
And the Dragon Vein itself still existed to this very day beneath the ancient kingdom of Roran.
Only the lineage of the Queen of Roran possessed the ability to use its power.
Anrokuzan had only managed to exploit that energy because the previous Queen of Roran cooperated with him, allowing him to construct a towering structure capable of absorbing and utilizing Dragon Vein chakra, which he then transferred into his puppets.
Thinking about the barren wastelands of the Land of Wind, if that devastation had truly been caused by a divine war, then it was not entirely impossible.
Although Kiyohara already knew most of these stories, he still listened attentively, hoping he might obtain information related to Ōtsutsuki Isshiki.
Kaguya was already sealed away.
But Isshiki was still alive and well.
The only reason he could not recklessly unleash his full power was because the quality of his vessel was too poor. If he forced too much power through it, the body's lifespan would collapse.
"So what exactly does becoming a dragon mean?"
Kiyohara already had a vague premonition.
"The so-called becoming a dragon refers to true senjutsu. It means allowing one's body to carry the power at the source itself!"
"And then fusing with that power, ascending into a dragon, surpassing the shackles of mortal flesh!"
"At that point, lifespan will no longer be a limitation. Every movement will produce heavenly phenomena, allowing one to reach the realm described in myths themselves!"
The White Snake Sage lowered her gigantic head. At some point, her towering body had already drawn extremely close to Kiyohara.
Her golden vertical pupils stared directly into his eyes.
Under the candlelight, her enormous shadow engulfed him completely.
"And in my eyes, you are the one who possesses the greatest hope!"
The White Snake Sage's gaze became increasingly fervent, almost identical to the kind of expression Orochimaru revealed whenever he looked at Kiyohara.
Meanwhile, the more Kiyohara listened, the stranger all of this sounded to him.
The realm of mythology?
To him, this simply sounded like another interpretation of Six Paths level power.
The "source" the White Snake Sage spoke of was likely referring to power similar to Dragon Vein chakra, or perhaps it was symbolic of something even greater.
The Dragon Vein itself existed everywhere. It gathered tremendous quantities of natural energy and was effectively the largest aggregate of energy on the planet.
The Dragon Vein beneath Roran was merely one outlet among countless others.
The Divine Tree's power itself came from natural energy within the earth and atmosphere, as well as the life force of living beings.
And those energies were precisely what the Ōtsutsuki clan pursued.
They refined them into Chakra Fruits and pills, consuming them to push forward their own evolution.
The White Snake Sage and her kind, however, had chosen an entirely different path.
They sought to directly seize the entirety of the Dragon Vein's power itself.
That was what she called becoming a dragon.
In her view, Hashirama had accomplished something similar by pushing the "sage body" within himself to its utmost limit and excavating the hidden power buried deep within it.
And tracing the source of that bloodline back to its origin, it ultimately came from the Divine Tree itself.
The Divine Tree, in turn, absorbed the power of the planet.
'This old monster's ambitions are enormous.'
Kiyohara thought inwardly.
All he had considered was extracting a portion of Dragon Vein chakra and becoming a Dragon Vein jinchuriki.
But this ancient monster actually wanted to directly carry all Dragon Vein chakra within a single body.
"The bloodline within you is even more complicated than I originally imagined."
The White Snake Sage continued.
"In the past thousand years, aside from Hashirama, I have never encountered a second person possessing this level of talent."
Her gaze locked firmly onto Kiyohara.
"You are standing at a major turning point in history!"
The White Snake Sage stared at him intensely.
After all, Senju Hashirama had belonged to Shikkotsu Forest.
For an entire thousand years, Ryuchi Cave had never once encountered someone possessing such qualifications.
(End of Chapter)