Konoha: Offer your heart to the Hokage!

All eligible school-age children must receive compulsory education before January 15th of the sixth year of Konoha.

The admission standards for the Ninja Academy are very simple:

Those who can extract chakra and unleash any one of ninjutsu, genjutsu, or taijutsu; even those who do not meet the standard but demonstrate corresponding potential can still be included in the candidate list.

The common people of Konoha reacted enthusiastically to the establishment of the Ninja Academy, and many reported the names of their children.

It needs to be made clear that

Although being a ninja is a high-risk profession, it also offers extremely high income.

Before this, it was incredibly difficult for ordinary people to become ninjas. For them, this was both an opportunity to change their fate and a way to gain the power to protect themselves in a chaotic world.

But for the ninja clan, this was an unprecedented shock.

"If we send our children to ninja academies, will the ninjas trained belong to the village or the clan? Isn't it a waste of time to raise them?"

Such doubts lingered in my mind.

but……

When Hashirama once again displayed his unusual toughness, the various ninja clans yielded again, all expressing their commitment to strictly carry out the village's orders.

Only one ninja clan remained silent.

Uchiha.

...

The underground secret room of Nanga Shrine.

The stone tablet, covered with mysterious characters, stands there silently, and the walls are engraved with murals of celestial dogs.

An elderly clan elder stood before the stone tablet.

The burning brazier illuminated the figures of the two people in front of it.

Standing to his right was Uchiha Chiri, a beautiful female ninja with cascading purple hair and a princess-cut hairstyle.

On the left is the unruly male ninja, Uchiha Bin.

To put it simply, the former represents the moderate faction of the Uchiha clan, while the latter represents the radical faction.

Uchiha Bin's face darkened: "Sending clansmen to some ninja academy for training is clearly a tactic used by the Senju to target us Uchiha."

"If I had known the Senju were this shameless, I should have taken my clan and followed Lord Madara back then."

After listening to his complaints, Uchiha Chiri frowned and said, "Bin, you're going too far."

"Since the clan has chosen to stay in the village, they should support the village's arrangements and not think so badly of the Hokage. When Lord Madara was still in the village, he never questioned the Hokage's character."

"Moreover... the family has indeed benefited from the Gospel Hospital."

Uchiha Bin's expression turned icy: "How can this be the same? In short, I absolutely disagree!"

When the soft approach failed, Uchiha Chiri's attitude hardened:

“Uchiha Bin, I am the acting clan leader.”

"Uchiha Chiri, you'll regret this!"

Uchiha Bin gritted his teeth and turned to leave the shrine.

Bang!

The loud slamming of the door was an expression of his rage.

The clan elder watched this scene with concern: "Zhili, this..."

Uchiha Osamu said expressionlessly:

"Ever since Lord Ban left, the clansmen, led by Bin, have been filled with resentment. But since everyone made their choice back then, what's the point of regretting it now?"

"Family matters should be resolved internally by the family. Don't involve the village; they'll just make a fool of themselves."

...

April 1, Konoha Year 6.

The beginning of the new year.

At dawn, the sun slowly rises on the horizon, its golden rays bathing every corner of Konoha.

The villagers put on their new clothes and took to the streets, their laughter and joy filling the air. As they celebrated the arrival of the New Year, they silently prayed that this hard-won peace would last until the sixth year of Konoha's reign, or even longer.

Shen Er finally got a long-awaited vacation.

Dressed in a pure white haori, he walked the streets, exchanging New Year's greetings with the villagers. After strolling through the streets, he went to visit the Senju clan.

By the time the process was completed, it was already evening.

Shen Er returned to his Zen monastery.

In stark contrast to the hustle and bustle of the outside world, the ancestral home of the Zen clan remains quiet and secluded.

They even transplanted a whole patch of ten-year-old bamboo into the clan's territory.

Passing through the secluded bamboo forest and walking along the stone path to the end, you will reach the main house.

After pushing open the door, Shen Er skillfully opened the hidden door in the corner of the wall, and with a flash, walked into the basement that even Bai Yan could not see in the slightest. The hidden door then quietly closed, shutting out all the noise from the outside world.

The underground space covers a vast area.

It serves as both a laboratory and a training ground for Zen monks.

The room was filled with all sorts of bottles and jars, creating a gloomy and oppressive atmosphere.

He then clasped his hands together and uttered a low shout: "Earthly Grief - Release!"

The skin along his spine cracked inch by inch, and several twisted, ominous tentacles of the Earthly Wraith slowly emerged, extended, and waved in the confined underground space.

Terrifying, eerie, and chilling.

If the villagers, who were already used to his gentle and kind demeanor, were to witness this scene, they would probably faint on the spot.

However, unlike Kakuzu's Jigen-gyu, Shinji's Jigen-gyu has been carefully crafted in appearance.

He not only pursued practicality, but also valued elegance and aesthetics.

When the tentacles spread out, they resemble the freedom of a stone; when they gather together, they resemble a seed of khat.

"Earthly Grudge - Clone!"

A portion of the Earthly Wraith detached from his body in response, and after a series of twists and wriggles, it transformed into four beings similar in size to him, each with a plague bird beak mask covering its face.

The Earth Grudge Demon clone acted on its own, serving as the excavator and continuing to delve deeper into the earth, expanding this underground space.

After a year of dedicated practice.

She has even mastered various uses of the Earthly Grudge, one of which is creating clones.

Unlike traditional clone techniques, the core of the Earth Grudge Fear clone is a heart within his body, which carries the corresponding chakra attribute and part of the original body's chakra. It can be controlled to fight or act autonomously according to commands, making it extremely practical.

Bang bang bang!

The tentacles of the clone twitched, tearing through the hard rock and soil layers as if they were thin paper, with soil rolling down and the underground space continuously expanding. The earth clone formed hand seals, gathering and shaping the soil to build steps and walls.

Shen Er glanced at the clone and then focused on the further development of the Earthly Grudge.

He raised his hand and shot out a tentacle of earth-wraith, which burrowed into the body of a white mouse on the operating table.

After a violent convulsion, the mouse suddenly calmed down and then crawled stiffly as instructed.

Experiments have shown that the Earth-Ghost can manipulate an animal's body to some extent, but it reduces the animal's agility.

Shen Er expressionlessly took out his notebook and wrote down his conclusion.

"Animal testing is nearing its end. To achieve a breakthrough, I need to conduct human trials."

Earth Grudge Fear allows Shen to obtain different chakra attributes, but he needs to learn the corresponding techniques himself.

Even though he knew his talent for ninjutsu was mediocre, learning ninjutsu by spending time gaining experience would not only be slow, but he might not even be able to learn it.

Next.

He needs to try using Earth Grudge Fear to control living ninjas as his puppets, to test whether he can extract the "ninjutsu and secret techniques" experience of the targets through manipulation, thus saving training time.

In life, one is one's own puppet; in death, one is one's own heart.

"But in Konoha, experimental subjects are hard to find..."

He was extremely cautious.

He did not intend to conduct human experiments while Hashirama and Tobirama were still alive.

The former would not tolerate taboo methods such as human experimentation and the harvesting of hearts; the latter, being suspicious by nature, would not allow anyone other than himself to conduct taboo research.

This is an irreconcilable contradiction.

After those two ninjas, whose strength was at the pinnacle, left.

Using ninjas from other villages as experimental subjects would be best, but Konoha ninjas are the easiest choice to cause trouble, and I don't want to become a precedent for Orochimaru.

Even so, he thought.

Suddenly, Shen Er sensed dozens of chakra auras appearing in the distance.

Although faint.

However, Shen'er, with her powerful senses, still managed to detect it.

He looked up in that direction:

"That place is..."

"Naga Shrine?"

Chapter 12 I'll Bring You Back to Reality

He even put his hands together in prayer position.

The Earthly Grudge Yu clone twisted and turned, its originally solid form transforming back into fine black lines, which he then retracted into his body.

"Calming Immortal Technique!"

The torn flesh on his body healed rapidly at a speed visible to the naked eye, leaving only a very faint mark, almost undetectable as to the fact that he had been injured.