Starting as a pirate, he rose to become the strongest Shinigami in Soul Society.

Chapter 357 Tips for the Eight Gates Formation? The Cheater Nami! ?

Above the desolate mountains and wilderness of Longdi Cave, within the thick clouds, a gigantic figure seemed to be moving.

As if sensing something, the White Snake Sage, Princess Ichikishima, and other snake spirits came out early and stood respectfully in front of the huge cave of Ryuchi Cave, looking at the clouds in the sky.

Before long, a majestic, ferocious, and extremely domineering azure dragon head emerged from the clouds.

"Welcome back, Spirit Lord!" the White Snake Immortal and the others called out, their voices slightly excited.

Even though he had already witnessed the true form of a dragon, it seemed that no matter how many times he saw it, the White Snake Immortal could not control his excitement.

Soon, the enormous azure dragon descended slowly from the sky, riding on fiery clouds. Then, Bane and his group leaped off the dragon and landed steadily on the ground.

With horns atop his head, Bane, now a dragon, calmly shook his dark blue haori and said softly, "No need for formalities."

As soon as he finished speaking, he returned to his original form, and the Azure Dragon quickly transformed into Heart Crossing, which he grabbed and hung around his waist.

Composing himself, the White Snake Immortal stepped forward and said, "It seems you've had quite a fruitful trip, Spirit Lord?"

"Hahaha, at least I'm in a good mood." Bane laughed loudly, then asked, "How's your training going?"

"I still haven't grasped the essentials," the White Snake Immortal said quite frankly.

"Don't be impatient. You have all cultivated for nearly a thousand years. The principle that haste makes waste is something I don't need to explain further," Bane said, waving his hand.

If the seemingly plausible methods of dragon transformation he mentioned earlier could actually be mastered, then Bane would have to praise the White Snake Immortal as having "a talent beyond compare." But precisely because this matter itself sounds like it can't be accomplished in a short time, he's not afraid of any mishaps.

I've said everything I need to say. If you can't understand it, it's because you're not qualified enough. What does that have to do with me, the Spirit Lord? If all else fails, I'll just feed you dragon fruit in the future, and that'll be the end of it.

Clearly, the White Snake Immortal wasn't in a hurry. How long had it been? She had cultivated for a thousand years; how could she lack this much patience?

Without exchanging much with the White Snake Immortal, Bane and the others quickly entered the depths of Dragon Cave.

Back on his long-missed bed, Bane lay down comfortably and lazily. Dark power surged from beneath him, gradually covering the cave and shielding it from all outside exploration.

The White Snake Immortal and her companions were quite sensible and didn't bother them at all, returning to their respective residences to cultivate.

"Let's all sort out our hauls," Bane said with a smile.

Robin patted the large scroll hanging from his waist and said, "We've obtained the Book of Seals, but we can't confirm its authenticity yet."

"We're just amateurs; our knowledge of ninjutsu is completely insufficient. Even if it were real, I'm afraid we wouldn't be able to study it," Nami said with some emotion.

After a slight pause, she took out a small scroll from her Nami Valley and said, "I found this in the director's office of the Konoha Ninja Hospital. It contains some knowledge about medical ninjutsu, which can be considered a supplement."

Ain calmly raised the scroll in his hand and said, "The Nara clan's shadow technique, I've got it."

Waver shrugged with a somewhat helpless expression and said, "Not much to show for it. I wandered around Konoha, and after Orochimaru stirred up trouble, I did see a few Konoha taijutsu ninjas, but to be honest, none of them really impressed me."

"That's normal. Apart from ninjutsu and a very few powerful taijutsu, these ninjas really don't have much to offer you." Bane nodded, not surprised.

"I traveled with Robin, and apart from the Book of Seals, we didn't gain anything," Zoro said calmly.

After a slight pause, he continued, "However, Waver and I have discussed it, and we plan to go to Kumogakure together later. Perhaps we can find something there?"

"Okay, Waver, keep a close eye on the road and on Zoro too, don't let him get lost," Bane instructed.

As soon as he finished speaking, Zoro's previously calm expression turned somewhat embarrassed and annoyed as he said, "I'll cut you down sooner or later, you bastard!"

Fubuki watched the farce unfold and couldn't help but chuckle before saying, "I didn't gain much either, but I did see something interesting. That Fourth Kazekage's technique is quite similar to my abilities. I'm planning to go to Sunagakure later. Speaking of which, they're about to go to war with Konoha. Maybe I can gain something from the chaos."

"Speaking of this, don't be in a hurry. Although I didn't take the Nine-Tails this time, I still managed to capture the One-Tailed Shukaku. It has been sealed in Sunagakure for many years and knows a lot about the village. I'll release it later, and you can have a good chat with it. Maybe you'll get some unexpected surprises," Bane said with a smile.

Then, he spread his hands, and soon, the finger of Death appeared. Bane said excitedly, "This is my harvest this time, the right index finger of Death. It was worth chasing him to the Pure Land. With this medium, plus the mask of Death, even if that guy doesn't want to see me, I can still connect with some of his aura. Perhaps it will become the key for me to unlock the secrets of the Pure Land. I plan to specialize in this area from now on."

After showing off this thing to everyone, Bane took out the Spirit Transformation Technique and said, "This technique is a secret technique of a long-standing ninja clan in Konoha. It is related to the soul. I will study it first. If I gain any insights later, perhaps you can also benefit from it."

After discussing it for a while, Robin placed the large scroll hanging from her waist on the table and said, "Let's put that aside for now and see what powerful techniques are recorded in Konoha's Book of Seals."

Clearly, everyone was very curious about this, and they all crowded around the table.

Robin then slowly unfolded the Book of Seals, and its contents gradually became visible.

In the original story, only some of the contents of the Book of Seals were revealed, such as the Impure World Reincarnation and the Mutual Explosion Tags.

However, the Book of Seals actually contains quite a few forbidden techniques.

"Thunderfire Explosion," a B-rank forbidden technique, can be learned and used by ninjas who possess both fire and lightning chakra. It forcibly combines the two chakra natures within the body and detonates them in an extremely unstable manner, turning the user into a human bomb. Its power is decent, but only decent.

Forbidden techniques are not all extremely powerful ninjutsu. In fact, the standard for forbidden techniques refers to the concept of whether they will have adverse effects on the user.

This adverse effect generally refers to serious injury or death.

This human bomb is obviously a guaranteed way to die once it is used. Its power may not be outstanding, but in terms of side effects, it can certainly be called a "forbidden technique".

The Book of Seals records quite a few techniques that can cause serious injury or death if used.

"This is practically a ninja suicide manual. I love it." Robin smiled mischievously and teased.

"The Multiple Shadow Clone Technique seems rather interesting," Zoro said, looking at the description. "But I saw quite a few people using it during the Konoha War. Is it really banned?"

"The forbidden techniques in the so-called Book of Seals are only prohibited from being learned during peacetime. However, many ninjas in Konoha actually came from the last war, and at that time, this knowledge was not prohibited," Bane analyzed.

Then, the Impure World Reincarnation Technique that Orochimaru used earlier also appeared in the Scroll of Seals.

Bane is somewhat interested in this technique, and he currently attaches great importance to any knowledge related to Pure Land.

The others quickly looked back, while Bane carefully studied the preface to the Impure World Reincarnation technique. Judging from the signature, this preface was personally written by the Second Hokage, Tobirama Senju, who was known as the "inventor of forbidden techniques."

Not a single mistake, not a single poem, not a single post, not a single piece of content, not a single look!

Since the Impure World Reincarnation is not a complete technique, perhaps Tobirama Senju was unable to come up with any further details at the time, or perhaps he was preoccupied with something else and did not have time to delve deeper into it.

But precisely because it was incomplete, he recorded many ideas that he didn't have time to try, probably because he was afraid that if he didn't pay attention to them for a long time, he would forget them later.

These ideas contain a wealth of valuable knowledge.

For example, Tobirama Senju's research and exploration of the Pure Land. In Tobirama Senju's understanding, the Pure Land is an open, seemingly unsupervised "other world," which puzzled him greatly. However, it was precisely because there was no strong supervision that the souls of the dead slept eternally according to their instincts. Therefore, he was able to seize this gap and loophole to study the technique of summoning the souls of the dead. If the Pure Land had strict supervision and the souls of the dead could not easily return to the mortal world, then the foundation of this technique would completely disappear.

Tobirama Senju described Pure Land as follows: "Open and free, as if one could take whatever one wanted, like an unsupervised treasure trove containing endless secrets. If one could study and utilize it in depth, it would trigger unpredictable changes, even affecting the relationship between life and death."

Soon, Bane saw the Reaper Death Seal technique again. This technique was not developed by Konoha, but by the Uzumaki clan. However, Konoha later mastered it as well.

In the description of the Reaper Death Seal, the Uzumaki clan also recorded in detail their understanding of the Grim Reaper.

Like Bane, the Uzumaki clan, after countless studies and verifications, believes that Shinigami do not have self-awareness. Perhaps in the distant past, in an era that cannot be traced back, Shinigami were the guardians of the Pure Land. But at some point, for some unknown reason, they lost their self-awareness. As a result, the Pure Land began to become "open and free" as described by Tobirama Senju.

"Could it be the effect of Kaguya Otsutsuki planting the seed of the Divine Tree?" Bane wondered to himself.

It can be said that Kaguya brought the knowledge system of "chakra". And obviously, chakra also has some interference with Pure Land, souls and the like. For example, Ashura and Indra are dead, but their spirits are still lingering and they are doing things like chakra reincarnation.

Needless to say, the Sage of Six Paths, after his death, entrusted his soul to chakra and has been wandering around for thousands of years.

He can even use psychic abilities to summon the souls in the Pure Land, which is quite outrageous.

Perhaps it was these disturbances that caused a bug in the Pure Land managed by the Grim Reaper, which then slowly accumulated and collapsed over the course of a thousand years, eventually losing its will and becoming a hands-off manager, allowing people to come and go as they pleased.

Just as Bane was pondering these things, Waver and Nami excitedly cheered, "It's the Eight Gates!"

Waver and Nami's expectation for the Book of Seals was precisely this Eight Gates technique.

The Eight Gates technique, being an ultra-powerful taijutsu that would kill the user once fully unleashed, clearly meets the criteria for a "forbidden technique." It is understandable that Konoha included it in the Scroll of Seals.

In the Book of Seals, the full name of the Eight Gates Formation is "The Formation of the Eight Gates," which describes in detail the restrictions on the flow of chakra within the human body and divides it into eight acupoints: Open, Rest, Life, Injury, Block, View, Shock, and Death, collectively known as the "Eight Gates." Once these eight gates are opened, the flow of chakra within the body will be unrestricted, and the body's chakra potential will be unleashed, becoming incredibly vast and frenzied. As a result, it will powerfully backfire on the user, which is why this technique is listed as a forbidden technique.

As for the methods of cultivation, they are incredibly simple. Even those who are dull-witted can get started as long as they are willing to learn.

However, it becomes increasingly difficult as you progress, because each time you reach the standard for opening a door, it means that your body has to repeatedly open the previous "door" countless times, causing countless injuries to your body.

If you get injured, you need to rest, right? Once you've recovered, you can start again, get injured again, rest again, and then continue.

This is a repetitive, cyclical process. The more progress you make, the greater the damage, and the longer the recovery period. This long period of cultivation is the threshold for this technique.

Many people, in their eagerness to achieve quick results, end up killing themselves through excessive practice.

From this perspective, Might Guy is indeed very impressive; at such a young age, he has already reached the level of opening all eight gates.

"The faster you train, the faster you die—what a terrifying training method!" Weber exclaimed in surprise.

He looked surprised, while Nami became quite excited, saying happily, "There's no such thing as a barrier. As long as you're willing to train, you can reap the rewards. The only disadvantage is the constant damage to the body, requiring time to recover, so the training speed can't be guaranteed. But for me, the phoenix, it's practically without side effects. Others need to heal, but I don't! If I specialized in the Eight Gates, how fast would my training be? I can't even imagine!"

As soon as she finished speaking, Bane was also taken aback. Hmm? That makes a lot of sense!

The only thing that can slow down the training speed of the Eight Gates Formation is whether the body can keep up with the standard. Nami, as an immortal phoenix, obviously doesn't have these constraints. She can train like crazy and then rest for a day when she runs out of energy. After a good night's sleep, she'll be full of energy again!

Nami might be able to achieve the Eight Gates in no time, something that took Might Guy twenty or thirty years of training!

(End of this chapter)