The process of sensing chakra wasn't as mystical as novels made it out to be.
There was no 'surging heat,' nor any 'warming of the core.'
At least for Sosuke, for the first three hours, he only felt hunger.
Extreme hunger.
High mental concentration accelerated his body's caloric consumption. His stomach spasmed, emitting low, rumbling protests. Sosuke was forced to stop and force down another handful of raw rice.
Raw rice was difficult to digest, but lighting a fire in the wilderness was suicide. Smoke in the damp, post-rain morning would act as a beacon, announcing to every predator in the vicinity: There is meat here.
Dawn broke.
The rain finally stopped.
The eastern sky turned a pale, sickly gray. The cloud cover remained dense, an oppressive weight that made it hard to breathe.
Sosuke stretched his stiff limbs. He had spent the entire night curled in a jagged rock crevice, and his legs were completely numb.
He tried again, following the scroll's instructions to locate that elusive energy.
First was mental energy.
This was relatively easy for Sosuke. The combined experiences of two lifetimes and the fusion of a transmigrated soul made his mental fortitude far stronger and more stable than an ordinary person's.
The bottleneck was physical energy.
This body was far too deficient. Chronic malnutrition had left every cell in a perpetual state of starvation. Trying to squeeze energy from these shriveled cells was like wringing a bone-dry sponge.
Sosuke didn't give up. He adjusted his breathing, over and over, attempting to guide the internal process.
Finally, just as the sun broke the horizon, he felt an anomaly.
Three inches below his navel, a microscopic tremor pulsed. It felt like a single strand of hair lightly scraping the inside of a blood vessel.
Pain.
It was accompanied by a numbing, prickling sensation.
That was chakra.
Though it was so weak it could almost be ignored, it unequivocally existed. In that instant, his vision sharpened fractionally. The rustle of the wind through the grass hit his eardrums with greater clarity.
'This isn't just energy. It's a sensory extension.'
Sosuke exhaled and instantly severed the refinement process. A wave of severe vertigo slammed into him.
Classic symptoms of severe hypoglycemia.
Refining that single thread of chakra had incinerated the absolute last reserves of glucose in his body.
"So this is the threshold," Sosuke muttered, leaning heavily against the damp rock. He gasped for air, his fingers white-knuckling the scroll.
Without adequate caloric intake, forced refinement was literal suicide. He needed meat. He needed high-density calories. This sack of coarse rice wouldn't keep him alive for more than a few days.
Sosuke carefully tucked the scroll into his shirt, securing it against his chest. Then, he stood up and peeked over the rocks to survey his surroundings.
The riverbank was dead quiet.
In the distance, thick black smoke billowed from the direction of Akaiwa Town. The ash cloud pierced the sky, distinctly visible even from over ten kilometers away.
The town was finished.
Abandoning any lingering thoughts, Sosuke hoisted the sack of rice onto his back and headed downstream along the riverbank. Since the Iwagakure shinobi had attacked from the north, heading south was the only statistically viable option.
To the south lay the borders of the Land of Fire. It was still an active warzone, but far preferable to colliding head-on with the main Iwagakure forces.
He walked for an entire morning.
The terrain rapidly deteriorated. The riverbank gave way to dense underbrush and muddy swamps. His straw sandals completely disintegrated. He walked barefoot through the mud, sharp stones slicing open the soles of his feet. Yet, he hardly registered the pain; his nervous system was already numb.
Around noon, Sosuke picked up a sound.
It wasn't the howl of a beast, but the rhythmic creaking of wooden wheels grinding through mud, mixed with the snorting of livestock.
People. And a large group at that.
Sosuke immediately dropped into a crouch, sliding into the roadside tall grass. Peering through the dense foliage, he spotted a convoy. This wasn't a ragged band of refugees; it was a merchant caravan.
Five wagons. They were piled high with cargo, covered tightly with oilcloth. They were pulled by angular horses with thick, muscular legs—beasts bred for endurance.
Roughly twenty armed guards flanked the wagons. They wore uniform leather armor, katana strapped to their waists, gripping long spears. While not shinobi, they moved with disciplined precision, their expressions ruthless.
Trailing behind the caravan was a massive herd of refugees. Over a hundred of them. They hung back at a distance—terrified to get too close, yet desperate enough not to fall behind.
It was a parasitic ecosystem unique to the ninja world.
The caravan possessed the martial power to deter beasts and rogue stragglers. The refugees tailed them for psychological safety, praying to scavenge whatever scraps the merchants discarded.
Sosuke's eyes flickered.
'Join them? It's an optimal variable.'
The probability of encountering wolves or stray shinobi while traveling solo was too high. Blending into the herd would exponentially increase his survival rate.
But he couldn't just walk out there. Right now, he looked like prime livestock.
Despite his rags, he was carrying a sack of rice. To those starving, red-eyed refugees, that grain was worth more than its weight in gold. If he stepped out as he was, the guards wouldn't even need to draw their blades; the mob would tear him apart.
Sosuke slinked deeper into the brush. He untied his sack.
With calculated reluctance, he scooped out half of his rice. He stripped off his tattered outer tunic, wrapped the grains inside, and tied it in a dead knot. Finding a hollow at the base of a nearby tree, he jammed the makeshift bundle inside, sealing the gap tightly with mud and dead leaves.
An insurance policy. A cunning rabbit always leaves three exits.
The remaining half stayed in the original cloth sack. Then, he executed a far more ruthless measure. He grabbed a handful of wet muck from the ground and smeared it directly into the rice.
Perfectly good coarse rice instantly turned into a filthy, muddy slurry.
This drastically plummeted its perceived value. Even if targeted, thieves would hesitate in disgust.
Tasks complete, Sosuke emerged from the brush. Feigning exhaustion from a long trek, he seamlessly merged into the rear of the refugee herd.
No one paid him any mind. The crowd was completely numb, heads bowed as they dragged their feet forward. Occasionally, a pair of eyes would catch sight of his sack and gleam with predatory hunger, but upon seeing the blackened, mud-stained slop inside, they would look away in revulsion.
"Where are we heading?" Sosuke sidled up to an old man leaning on a walking stick, keeping his voice low.
The old man shot him a sidelong glance but said nothing.
Sosuke reached into his shirt and retrieved his half-eaten block of salted meat. He tore off a strip the size of a fingernail and offered it.
The old man's eyes ignited. He snatched the meat with terrifying speed, shoving it into his mouth and swallowing it whole without chewing.
"To Konohagakure," the old man rasped, dropping his voice to a whisper. "Word is, this caravan is hauling supplies for Konoha. As long as we follow them, we can cross into the Land of Fire."
Konohagakure.
In this world, that name represented the apex of order, a beacon of relative peace. And naturally, it meant extreme exclusivity and xenophobia.
"Who runs the caravan?" Sosuke asked.
"The Takaya Merchant Guild," the old man said, licking his lips as if trying to savor the phantom taste of the salt. "The boss leading the pack is Takaya Jiro. I hear he's a ruthless bastard."
Sosuke shifted his gaze to the front of the convoy. Sitting atop the lead wagon was a fat man.
A monumentally fat man.
In an era plagued by widespread malnutrition, the man was a literal mountain of flesh. He wore finely woven silk and furiously fanned himself with a folding fan, despite the ambient temperature being quite cool. His eyes, however, were sharp and restless. They constantly swept the surroundings, radiating the shrewd, calculating glint of a hardened merchant.
Sosuke narrowed his eyes.
'Hauling supplies for Konoha? If true, their backing is substantial. Any merchant securing transit permits through an active warzone has deep roots in both the legitimate and underworld markets.'
The convoy pressed on.
By dusk, they ground to a halt in a clearing to make camp. The guards operated with practiced efficiency, circling the wagons into a defensive perimeter and igniting a large bonfire in the center. The refugees were relegated to the outer fringes, finding patches of dirt to curl up on.
The scent drifted outward.
The rich aroma of meat stew. The merchants were cooking.
A desperate ripple tore through the refugee camp, accompanied by the collective sound of frantic swallowing. A few of the bolder ones edged toward the wagon circle, thrusting cracked bowls forward, begging for a single mouthful of broth.
"Back the f*ck up!" A guard drew his blade, slashing it violently through the air. "Cross the ten-step line, and I'll butcher you where you stand!"
Terrified, the refugees recoiled into the shadows.
Sosuke sat on a distant rock, his cold gaze tracking the exchange.
He was analyzing.
He needed a vector to connect with the fat man. Simply tagging along was statistically fatal. If a genuine threat appeared—like an Iwagakure pursuit squad—the caravan would unconditionally sacrifice the refugees as bait to secure their escape.
He had to breach that inner circle. He had to cross into the wagon perimeter.
He needed to prove his utility.
But he couldn't display martial force, because he lacked it. Nor could he blindly produce a chunk of solid gold; that was guaranteed suicide.
'I need to provide something critically scarce in this environment, yet entirely un-plunderable.'
He continued to calculate.
Suddenly, chaos erupted from the merchant camp.
"Boss! Boss, what's wrong?!"
"Hurry! Get some water!"
Takaya Jiro tumbled out of his wagon. He clutched his chest, his face rapidly turning a dark, bruised purple. His mouth hung open in a desperate, silent scream, completely unable to draw breath.
'Asthma? Cardiac arrest?'
The guards fell into absolute disarray. The caravan doctor—a frail, middle-aged man—sprinted over, drenched in sweat. He frantically pinched the philtrum and slapped the merchant's back, but the fat man's complexion only worsened. He was seconds away from dying of asphyxiation.
'Tracheal obstruction?'
Sosuke stood up. The variable had presented itself.
It was a high-risk gamble. If he saved the man, he became a VIP. If the man died, he'd be hacked to pieces. But extreme leverage required extreme risk.
Sosuke slipped his hand into his pocket. His mind engaged.
[Precious Metal Generation].
He synthesized a small shard of pure silver—razor-thin, perfectly molded into a scalpel. Next, he generated a hollow, microscopic silver tube.
He smoothed out his tattered rags, burying his racing pulse beneath a mask of absolute calm. Then, he strode directly toward the merchant perimeter.
"Halt!" Two spears crossed seamlessly in front of him.
"I am a healer," Sosuke projected, his voice carrying an unquestionable, icy authority. "Unless you want him to die, let me through."
The guards faltered. By now, the fat man's eyes had rolled back into his skull.
The caravan doctor was hyperventilating. "I can't... this is sudden trauma... his vital breath is sealed..."
"Let him through!" roared a man who looked like the captain of the guard. It was a desperate gamble on a dead man.
Sosuke shoved the spears aside and knelt beside Takaya Jiro. A single glance confirmed the pathology.
'Airway obstruction. Potential anaphylaxis or heavy mucus impaction.'
In this primitive era, there was no concept of a tracheotomy. Civilian doctors still relied on mystical jargon like 'vital breath.'
Sosuke wasted no words. He drew the silver shard from his pocket.
"Hold him down," he ordered.
Out of sheer instinct, the captain pinned the merchant's limbs. Sosuke clamped his fingers just below the man's Adam's apple, locating the cricothyroid membrane.
No anesthesia. No antiseptics. Only the natural, weak antimicrobial properties of pure silver.
Schllk.
The silver scalpel severed the flesh. Dark blood welled to the surface. Gasps ripped through the onlookers.
"Are you trying to assassinate him?!" the doctor shrieked.
Sosuke's eyes were lethal. "Shut up."
With clinical precision, he punctured the trachea and smoothly inserted the hollow silver tube into the incision.
Whoosh. A sharp hiss of rushing air.
The fat man's chest heaved violently. Oxygen bypassed the blockage, flowing directly through the silver conduit into his lungs.
Instantly, the horrifying purple hue drained from his face. The suffocating grip of death released him. He dragged in oxygen like a drowning man, ignoring the searing agony in his throat.
He was alive.
Deathly silence swallowed the camp. Everyone stared at Sosuke as if they were looking at a demon.
It was pure witchcraft to them. In an era where Medical Ninjutsu was strictly monopolized by the Great Ninja Villages, civilian medicine hadn't evolved past dried herbs and archaic bloodletting. A tracheotomy was entirely unheard of.
Sosuke pulled his hands back, his fingers coated in warm blood. He looked up at the guard captain and spoke with eerie composure.
"I require a bowl of hot stew. And a clean set of clothes."
The captain's Adam's apple bobbed. The way he looked at Sosuke fundamentally shifted. He was no longer looking at a refugee insect. He was looking at something to be feared.
A man who could snatch souls back from the Reaper's scythe was worth more than a warlord in this chaotic age.
"Give it... to him."
On the dirt, the gasping merchant still couldn't speak properly, but he weakly raised a trembling hand, pointing first at Sosuke, then toward his personal wagon.
It was an invitation.
A faint curve touched the corner of Sosuke's mouth.
The first threshold was crossed. He was no longer a refugee. He was now the Takaya Merchant Guild's 'miracle doctor.'
And this entire transaction had cost him less than a single gram of silver.