Konoha: Offer your heart to the Hokage!

Sun Wukong's pupils involuntarily dilated.

It wasn't just this one; in fact, all nine tailed beasts shared this hobby. It was a daily ritual of the Hagoromo Sage when they were still young. Every evening, he would gather them around and tell them stories of the human world.

Some stories are incredibly interesting, while others are bland and uninteresting, but all the tailed beasts seem to have a particular fondness for this one.

As the tailed beasts grew up, the Sage of Six Paths distributed them to various parts of the ninja world, and their stories were never heard again. It was only on his deathbed that the Sage gathered them together one last time to tell them the story of the prophesied child.

"so what?"

"This story is something I prepared especially for you."

"You can even make up stories?" Sun Wukong was immediately intrigued: "Tell me one."

The story is called "Journey to the West".

"At the summit of Flower Fruit Mountain stood a celestial stone, which absorbed the spiritual energy of heaven and earth and the essence of the sun and moon year after year. Over time, it became sentient and nurtured a celestial embryo within its belly. One day, the stone cracked open, producing a perfectly round stone egg, which transformed into a fire monkey in the wind..."

Even the final killing move prepared for Sun Wukong was none other than "Journey to the West".

As both characters feature monkeys as protagonists, this story is the most suitable for it to fit the bill. However, many details need to be slightly modified. For example, change Tang Sanzang to Hagoromo Otsutsuki, Zhu Bajie to Shukaku, Sha Wujing to Ox-Demon, and the White Dragon Horse to Chongming...

Some plot points were also replaced with concepts that Sun Wukong could accept.

Sun Wukong was immediately absorbed in the story, exclaiming, "What are you talking about, born from a stone? I am a creation of immortals!"

Seeing its reaction, one knows that everything is in order.

The worldview of Journey to the West far surpasses the understanding of the ninja world, and is especially impactful to the tailed beasts. By showing his sincerity in this way, he was certain that Sun Wukong would soon be deeply immersed in it.

The simple and easy-to-understand storylines, these stories that take place in another world, are fascinating and novel to Sun Wukong, and he quickly becomes immersed in the stories told by Shen'er.

Shen Er patiently recounted the story, speaking for a full half hour in the spiritual realm, recounting the entire content of the first chapter.

The Monkey King exclaimed "Good!" three times, and from then on, he was named Sun Wukong. What kind of wisdom would he gain in the future? Let's find out in the next chapter.

The words stopped abruptly at that point.

"What happens next?" Sun Wukong asked instinctively.

It looked up and saw that Shen was smiling at it.

"The rest can only be discussed another day, depending on when I'm free. Sun Wukong, what do you think of this story?"

"It's nothing special, nothing particularly exciting."

Sun Wukong said stubbornly, but his expression betrayed his true thoughts.

It could tell that this story was new and better than anything the Feathered Immortal had ever told before. Before it knew it, it had become addicted to reading it—truly a cunning and despicable human.

“Then see you another day.” Shen said with a smile. “This is my gift. I hope you like it. I also hope you understand that I am different from other Jinchūriki.”

As soon as he finished speaking, Shen'er's figure vanished like smoke beneath the tree.

Sun Wukong lay prone on the ground again, recalling his encounters that day: the Mangekyou Sharingan, the Wood Release: Divine Tree, the towering giant palm, Journey to the West, and this benevolent human.

The experiences of this day were more complex than all the things it had seen and heard in its thousand-year history.

This human named Zen-in Jinji was indeed the most sincere and friendly human it had ever seen in the past thousand years, apart from the Sage of Six Paths.

Of course, except for that slap.

However, this cannot be entirely blamed on Zenji. After all, it was Zenji who went berserk first, insisting on breaking free from the Jinchuriki's body. According to Zenji, if it were to truly break free, it would likely be surrounded and beaten by countless humans. Perhaps Zenji's slap was actually protecting it...

Sun Wukong shook his head.

Are you kidding me? It's actually starting to consider things from the perspective of Zen Monastery Shen'er?

Cunning humans, daring to test the tailed beasts with stories!

"I will absolutely not provide him with any chakra on my own initiative!" Sun Wukong's eyes were resolute: "As for the stories, he can tell them or not, it's up to him!"

...

The real world.

Shen Er slowly opened his eyes.

The extraordinary scene in the spiritual world has vanished, replaced by a silent stone cave.

Shen Er looked down at his body and saw that his upper clothes had been burned, and his strong muscles were exposed to the air, covered with burns of varying depths, especially his arms, which were black with a reddish tinge and were the most severely burned.

He paid a heavy price to suppress the rampaging Four-Tails.

But it was all worth it.

Moving the gaze downwards, a clear Four Symbols Seal pattern was formed on his lower abdomen.

"call……"

"The feeling of being a Jinchūriki is really great!"

Even as he clenched his fist with one hand, a strange feeling welled up inside him.

From this moment on, he officially joined the ranks of Jinchūriki.

The spiritual and physical energy of the Four-Tails has already merged with his.

Although the tsundere Son Goku is still resisting cooperation with him and his chakra cannot be used at will for the time being, Shinji believes that the story of Journey to the West has already captivated the Four-Tails, and it is only a matter of time before it becomes the perfect Jinchūriki.

This hidden strength will be his greatest asset.

With the accumulated Yin seal and the Four-Tails' chakra, he has, in a sense, become immune to pressure. When the time comes, both seals can be released simultaneously, allowing him to live as long as heaven and earth!

With Madara's Heart and Pillar's Heart activated simultaneously, he will have unlimited ninjutsu firing rights.

He could even clearly perceive that his level of life had undergone a leap, which was a direct manifestation of the massive increase in chakra.

"I didn't expect you to have such a nice figure..."

At that moment, Uchiha Yan also came over.

Seeing the large burns on Shen'er's upper body, she frowned slightly and pointed at them with her index finger: "With such severe injuries, can it recover?"

Shen glanced at her, ignoring her offense, and began refining chakra to stimulate his body cells, accelerating his self-healing. The Four-Tails' Lava Release was indeed powerful, causing considerable damage to Shen. Even he couldn't immediately heal from burns of this severity.

Deep injuries take two days to heal, but superficial wounds heal quickly. Minor back wounds visibly scab over and fall off, with new skin growing rapidly.

Although his appearance has improved, the pain from the burns will persist for some time, affecting his physical strength and hand seal speed.

Seeing this, Uchiha Yan clicked his tongue in amazement: "You really are a monster."

"So, you've become the Four-Tails' Jinchūriki?"

She turned her head and asked in return, "What do you think?"

His gaze fell upon the ritual altar, where the original Four-Tails Jinchuriki, Tomoaki, had been reduced to charcoal. Touching him with a fingertip caused it to crumble like sand, clearly indicating that he was completely dead.

The relationship between the chakra of the tailed beasts and the chakra of the jinchūriki can be explained using the principle of osmotic pressure.

The chakra concentration of a Jinchuriki is lower than that of a Tailed Beast, and the seal is that semi-permeable membrane.

In order to allow the Tailed Beasts to be used by Jinchuriki, the pressure difference was modified to extract the energy, causing the high-concentration side to flow in the opposite direction to the low-concentration side.

Once the Tailed Beast is extracted from the Jinchuriki's body, it's equivalent to breaking the semi-permeable membrane. Then, according to the laws of nature, the Jinchuriki flows to the Tailed Beast to dilute the concentration, which results in the Jinchuriki being directly extracted to death.

During this process, the berserk chakra of the tailed beasts may cause various kinds of damage to the jinchūriki.

Zhi Zhao's fate was a testament to this.

Even Shen Er is no exception; to enjoy the life leap brought by the Tailed Beast, one must bear the possibility of being extracted from the Tailed Beast and dying suddenly.

He possessed five hearts thanks to the Earth Grudge Fear, which allowed him to withstand four physical attacks that could be fatal, but he could not avoid death caused by the disorder of his chakra.

The only way to survive is to either rebuild this permeation barrier or inject a large amount of chakra in reverse to balance the pressure difference.

"It seems so."

Uchiha Yan nodded, his actions still offensive. He extended his index finger and slowly traced it across Shen'er's skin, causing a slight tickle, and said, "Tell me, can my eyes control you, a Jinchuriki?"

Clearly, she also discovered that the Mangekyou Sharingan had a suppressive effect on tailed beasts and jinchūriki.

Shen Er remained unfazed: "You can give it a try."

Mangekyou genjutsu is irresistible to ordinary ninjas and is especially effective against Jinchuriki.

Even he couldn't be sure whether the cursed seal killed Uchiha Yan before the genjutsu was activated, or whether her genjutsu preemptively activated on him before the cursed seal could kill her.

Only by verifying it personally can one know the result.

But Shen Er did not panic.

No one in the ninja world is completely immune to genjutsu. The understanding that Jinchuriki are immune to genjutsu is based on the assistance of the Tailed Beast within them. If there is a rift between the Jinchuriki and the Tailed Beast, and the Tailed Beast chooses to remain indifferent, the Jinchuriki will be unable to break free from the genjutsu.

Previously, she even used the story of Journey to the West to get closer to the four-tailed Sun Wukong, and concluded that the other party would help her when she was trapped in an illusion.

However, even the Four-Tails might not be able to dispel powerful illusions of too high a level.

However, Shen Er still holds the trump card of Wood Release.

Illusion is essentially mental energy, and it achieves its effects by influencing the target's brain.

Ninjas with equally strong physical or mental energy can be immune to genjutsu. Jinji, with his Wood Release heart, possesses enough energy to make him immune to most genjutsu.

He believed that even if a regular kaleidoscope illusion were activated, it would have no effect on him, unless it was a kaleidoscope eye technique with absurd mechanics.

Even so, there is always a trump card to deal with the worst-case scenario.

Uchiha Yan could certainly try, but what awaited her after trying was death.

"Fine, you can't even crack a joke." Uchiha Yan withdrew her hand, no longer provoking him: "It's almost dawn outside. You spent the whole night sealing the Four-Tails."

Shen Er pulled out a change of clothes from the sealed scroll and put them on, while ordering, "Go and bring me a death row inmate from the Akatsuki prison. He should be as strong as possible."

"A death row inmate? You just became a Jinchūriki, what are you going to do now? Never mind, it's pointless to ask you."

Uchiha Yan, used to Shen'er's indifference, left the cave to carry out her mission, having no chance to provoke him.

Half an hour later, she returned and threw the death row inmate in front of Shen: "Only a Chunin remains."

Shen Er placed the flesh and blood of Zhi Zhao, which had been taken out in advance, on the altar and glanced at Uchiha Yan.

He's about to activate the Impure World Reincarnation technique.

Logically, this technique shouldn't be used in public, as it easily leads people to associate it with his true identity behind the mask.

But today, Shen'er is going to be a little wild.

If becoming a Jinchūriki still leaves him feeling so restricted, he feels incredibly frustrated!