Konoha: Superman template, the spoiled brat becomes strong.

At this moment, Chiyo was standing in Ebizo's study at the Sunagakure ancestral home.

The candlelight on the desk flickered, illuminating the incense ash accumulated in the incense burner—the incense she had lit herself three days ago to invoke the spirits was now only half-burnt.

She reached out and poked at the incense ash, her fingertips suddenly touching something hard.

When the incense ash was removed, half a bronze tenon was revealed, its pattern identical to that on the bronze box of Guiyuan Shrine.

Chiyo's fingers trembled slightly as she looked out the window. The moonlight was climbing the walls of Sunagakure, casting long shadows—just like the boy in her memory who buried the First Hokage's notes in the desert.

Chiyo's fingernails dug deeply into the grooves of the bronze tenon, and the candlelight flickered in her pupils, creating tiny golden spots.

Three days ago, she lit the incense for the sage herself, and now, hidden beneath the ash were patterns that were the same as those in the bronze box of the Guiyuan Shrine—the mortise and tenon technique unique to the first generation of the Senju clan, patterns that even the puppeteers of Sunagakure had only seen in ancient books.

“Ebizo…” she whispered her colleague’s name, her voice trembling at the end.

The moonlight outside the window spilled over the desk, stretching the shadow of the tenon in the incense ash into a long, thin line, much like the image of the young Bai Ye kneeling in the desert on that snowy night twenty years ago, burying the first generation of manuscripts with his blood-stained hands.

At the time, she thought he was just an orphan crushed by war, but now it seems that what those hands buried was not a notebook, but a nail driven into time.

She turned and walked to the third shelf of the bookshelf, gently pushing the spine of "The Daily Records of the Emperors and the Ministers" with her fingertips.

The moment the hidden compartment popped open, a damp, musty smell mixed with Chen Moxiang's fragrance wafted out—it was her privately hidden file.

The topmost parchment scroll is inscribed with "Shige's Record of Sand Infiltration," the ink of which has turned brownish-red with age.

As her gaze swept over the "Shadow Puppet Experiment Subject Number," a chill suddenly ran down the back of her neck: the tenon in Ebi's library overlapped to a third with the illustration of the "First Generation Bloodline Resonance Device" recorded in the scroll.

"So he's been looking for this all along." Chiyo slammed the secret file down on the table, the sandalwood incense wafting around her nose like thorns.

She untied the puppet thread from her waist and plucked a rice-sized spore from the finest silver thread—it was the "True Word Seed" that Byakuya had given her the day before, a living creature mixed with the First Generation Chakra, capable of tracking anyone who had come into contact with the bloodline resonance device.

When scattering spores, her hands were as steady as an instinct honed through thirty years of puppetry.

She brushed the incense ash from the edge of the cushion with her fingertips, creating shallow grooves, and spores fell into the crevices along the grooves. "If he touched this stuff..." she stared at the spores gradually being covered by incense ash, "by this time tomorrow, the incense ash will draw his footprints."

The next day at dawn, Chiyo pushed open the half-closed study door.

The morning mist seeped in through the window lattice and condensed into fine beads on the futon.

She held her breath and squatted down—a very faint blue shadow floated on the surface of the incense ash, like ink stains blown away by the wind, but it clearly outlined half a shoe print: the toe was slightly upturned, and the sole had the clover pattern unique to the sand-hidden craftsmen—those were the wooden clogs that Ebizo often wore.

"The secret passage beneath the Wind Shadow Tower." She murmured the direction the shoe prints pointed to, a metallic taste rising in her throat.

Twenty years ago, she had gone down that secret passage with the third generation of the Wind Shadow. At the end of the passage was a stone chamber engraved with forbidden techniques, and the two characters "Shi Ge" on the lintel were painted with seven layers of gold paint.

That night, the moon hid behind the clouds.

Chiyo, dressed in the cloak of an ANBU member, crouched in the hollow of an old locust tree outside the Kazekage Tower.

The "sound-listening puppet" in her arms had shrunk into a withered branch, its bark covered with living moss. Chakra threads emerged from the puppet's ear canals and wrapped around her knuckles.

"Ding--"

A faint metallic scraping sound came from along the chakra threads.

Chiyo's pupils suddenly contracted—it was the sound of the secret passage's stone door opening.

She pushed the puppet forward a little, and fine water droplets seeped from the surface of the moss, which was the chakra fluctuation of the puppet when it was capturing sound waves.

"The ceremony of Fengying's abdication will be held on the night of the full moon."

Ebizo's voice was like damp cotton wool, deliberately lowered and hoarse: "Shige's new saga is already waiting outside Sunagakure Castle. That old hag Chiyo... if she dares to stop us..."

The "Inspector's" response, mixed with static like electricity, sounded like a voice altered by some kind of mechanism: "Ignore her."

Once the consciousness calibration is activated, even her memories will be transformed into the form we desire.

Chiyo's fingernails pierced her palm.

Chakra threads left red marks on her knuckles, and she could hear her heart pounding like a drum—"Consciousness calibration," a term she had seen in the secret files of the Shige, a forbidden technique that combined puppetry and illusion, capable of altering memories on a large scale.

Ebizo, her colleague who had shared the advisory position with her for thirty years, became Shige's dagger.

In the ruins of Guiyuan Shrine, blood seeped from Baiye's fingertips.

He knelt in the center of the Silent Forest, his Wood Release chakra flowing into the earth's veins along his wounds, the roots weaving into a spiderweb underground.

The remnant core of the Shadow Needle, which he had planted three days ago, was still burning hot in his palm. It was a weapon forged by the First Hokage using the essence of Wood Release, capable of turning living things into sound transmission arrays.

"The Grand Secretary will announce the abdication of the Five Kage in three days at the Spring Festival."

The whispers emanating from the tremors of the earth made him sneer.

The roots of the Silent Forest suddenly stood up, like countless erect ears—he had intercepted the communications of the Scottish envoy.

As I pressed my fingertip against the broken needle, a thin crack appeared in the remaining core, and a stream of green light spread along the roots. Wherever it passed, every leaf became a breathing megaphone.

"When all shadows are false, the people shall stand on their own feet."

On the eve of the spring festival, the main altar suddenly burst open with a burst of green light.

As the festival musicians of the Land of Fire were tuning their taiko drums, vines began to rise around the bronze altar, their patterns gleaming with a golden sheen—the last line of the first edict.

All the historians stood frozen in place. They hadn't touched the vines, but the four words "the people should stand on their own" seemed to be etched into their bones, and even the most uneducated servants could recite them perfectly.

In the dark alleys of Konoha, the "Inspector" tugged at his sleeve.

His movements suddenly became mechanical; the sound of his fingernails digging into his skin startled the crows on the eaves.

Beneath the rolled-up skin of the arm, countless metal tubes were exposed, with dark red liquid flowing within them, resembling human blood.

“The plan is ahead of schedule.” He gazed at the green light rising in the direction of the Land of Fire, a sound like gears turning in his Adam’s apple. “Initiate a nationwide consciousness calibration.”

The Quiet Forest of Guiyuan Shrine suddenly trembled violently.

Bai Ye suddenly looked up, and the vibrations from his roots were mixed with countless faint screams—the sound of the consciousness of the civilians of the Land of Fire being torn apart.

He gripped the broken core of the Shadow Needle tightly; green blood seeped from the cracks in the core, branding the first generation's totem onto his palm.

"It's not just the people who need to wake up," he said softly, gazing at the churning clouds in the direction of the Land of Fire.

Beneath the clouds, along the well in a certain village, the newly sprouted Mantra Vines suddenly all turned eastward, their veins glowing with a blood-red light, as if writing some kind of prophecy that would soon tear the night apart.

Chapter 948 The Night of Abdication

Wang Boru, the old scholar from the East Market of the Land of Fire, pressed his brush into the inkstone, and ink splattered onto Volume Three of "The History of Fire".

He stared at the record that "the First Hokage sealed the altar to suppress the earth's veins," and his Adam's apple suddenly bobbed up and down like a puppet on a string.

His withered fingers gripped the knife, and when the tip touched the words "Self-Sealing," his wrist bones made a soft clicking sound—this wasn't his strength, but some kind of power that crawled out from his very marrow.

“It should be ‘sublimation’.” He heard himself recite it in an unfamiliar, hoarse voice. The knife precisely removed the word “self-sealing” and filled it with gold powder to make “sublimation”.

The book "The Chapter of Fire of Youth" on the desk was blown open by the wind. In the childish doodles, the white-haired old man who was originally squatting by the altar has grown six golden wings and is looking down at the little people kneeling in a row.

Across the street, Ah Fu, who sells sugar paintings, squats against the wall, while his four-year-old daughter draws on the brick wall with charcoal.

He was about to reprimand it when he saw the distorted black mass slowly take shape: white hair, a tall crown, and robes billowing like flames.

"Lord Shenying." The little girl repeated in her childish voice, not letting go even as the charcoal left a red mark on her palm—this was the seventh drawing she had done today, and each one was exactly the same.

Before the green light from the direction of Guiyuan Shrine had faded, Baiye's figure had already blended into the eaves of the Capital Archives.

He pressed his ear against the roof tile and heard the footsteps of the ninja guarding the warehouse turn a corner in the corridor. His fingertips quickly formed a hand seal.

Wood Release chakra seeped into the gaps between the tiles, and a few strands of vines wrapped around the copper bells on the eaves, turning their crisp sound into the chirping of insects.

The musty smell mixed with the scent of pine soot and ink wafted over the Skull.

Byakuya's gaze swept across the wall of books and scrolls, finally settling on the innermost layer, "Chronicles of the Hokage."

He pulled out a scroll, and as soon as his fingertips touched the bamboo strips, his skin suddenly stung—not from chakra backlash, but from tiny gray specks, the size of pinheads, emerging from the fibers.

“Compliant bacteria.” He murmured the term from the Scott Fellowship’s secret files, his fingernail picking open the bamboo strip, and clusters of microspores rose up like mist.

These gray specks were drilling into his nasal cavity with his breath. He slapped out a wind blade to shred the spores, and the broken needle core in his sleeve suddenly became hot.

The first generation totem burned a shallow mark on his palm, and he was shocked to realize that Shige's methods were more vicious than he had expected—not replacing memories, but turning every reader into a virus carrier.

"Lord Byakuya!"

A hoarse voice came from the crack in the ground.

Qi Sui's face was pressed into the crack in the floor tiles, blood seeping from her left forehead, and her hairpin was askew behind her ear.

Her fingertips hooked into the brickwork, her knuckles turning white from the force: "The main root of the Memory Tree is blocked by black resin, and the blood crystal fragments you gave me—"

"Go to the main root area." Bai Ye grabbed her wrist, and chakra threads wrapped around the beams, swinging her to the ground.

As Qi Sui ran, her hairpin swayed slightly, and he caught a glimpse of the dark red fragment embedded in the hairpin head—it was the first generation of blood crystal, which he had dug out of a crevice in the Valley of the End three months ago.

The Memory Tree is hidden three levels underground in the archives. Its roots, as thick as a person's embrace, pierce through the dome, and the growth rings on its bark have a bronze hue.

As soon as Qi Sui touched the tree roots, her fingertips were covered with a black, sticky resin, like melted asphalt.

She gritted her teeth and tore off the hairpin. The moment the blood crystal fragments stuck to the resin, the entire tree suddenly trembled.

"Get back!" Bai Ye grabbed her and lunged at the stone pillar.

The tree roots burst forth with blinding white light, and countless points of light condensed in the void: the white-haired man knelt before the altar, pressing his palm into the earth's veins, and blood droplets flowed down the rock crevices into the brows of millions of small clay figures.

"The will is not in the shadow of one person." His voice mingled with the rumble of the earth's veins, "but in the memory of millions."

Nanaho's hands were trembling.

She took out a shard of pottery from her bosom, her fingernails digging deep into the clay to carve the image into the patterns.

When the last "million people" was settled, the pottery shard suddenly became hot. She bit her lip and threw it into the sewer at her feet.

Amidst the roar of the underground river and the splashing water from the pottery shards, a faint "ding" could be heard—the sound of one pottery shard striking another. Countless identical pottery shards were flowing down the waterway toward the five kingdoms.

Deep within the mine of Iwagakure Village, Onoki's cane struck the rock wall heavily.

He stared at the young ninja at the mine entrance—the boy was drawing the outline of "New Shadow" on the ground with gravel, his fingernails splitting and bleeding, but he didn't stop.

"The Shadow's sword?" Old Earth Shadow scoffed, his Rock Release chakra seeping into the rock wall along his cane. Amidst the flying stone chips, the patterns of the reverse resonance array snaked around.

“It’s time to let you hear what the land is saying.” He pressed the array’s core, and the memory images transmitted by Qi Sui suddenly appeared on the rock wall.

That night, the three hundred miners turned over on their straw mats and dreamed that a white-haired man squatted among them, his rough hands stroking their worn-out hands: "Your hands are closer to the earth than the shadow's blade."

Chiyo dug her fingernails into her palm again.

She stood under the veranda of the ancestral house, watching Ebizo's confidant hurry past carrying a sandalwood box.

The box lid wasn't fully closed, revealing half of a red silk robe—the auspicious robe worn during the Fengying abdication ceremony.

“Aju,” she called to her maid, “go to the storeroom and fetch that set of old roof tiles; we need to repair the roof.”

The evening breeze lifted her sleeves, revealing the faint chakra lines on her wrists.

When Ebizo's footsteps came from outside the courtyard, she was looking down at the moss on the roof tiles, as if she were looking at something insignificant.

But no one noticed that her thumb was quietly pressing on the inside of the roof tile—where a line of tiny characters was engraved: "The Night of Abdication, Chakra Threads." Chiyo's thumb gently rubbed against the engraving on the inside of the roof tile, and moss fragments fell softly onto the hem of her plain-colored kimono.

Ebizo's confidants had already rounded the screen wall, and the red silk on the sandalwood box swayed at the corner, like a drop of blood about to fall.

She looked down at the old roof tile that Aju had brought, the clay surface still covered with dust from the beams of the ancestral house—traces left by her when she was fifteen and secretly hid puppet parts in a hidden compartment in the beams while learning puppetry from Scorpion.

"Go and bring the puppet box from the north room." Her voice was like silk threads soaked in ice water. Akiku shivered, but then she saw that the old lady had already untied the chakra threads on her wrist.

The transparent silk threads shimmered with silver edges in the moonlight, each one precisely threaded through the small holes on the edge of the roof tile—they were made by her overnight with a fine needle, the holes spaced perfectly apart.

"Madam, what is this...?" Aju's hands trembled as she held the puppet box.

The moment the lid of the box was lifted, nine hundred thumb-sized ceramic figurines rolled to the ground. Each figurine had a tiny crystal cluster embedded between its eyebrows, which reflected a pale purple halo under the moonlight.

Chiyo crouched down, her fingertips tracing the nape of the nearest clay doll—where Sasori's puppet pattern was engraved, "Dream-Spitting Puppet." She remembered Sasori saying that these miniature puppets could absorb spores from the air like a sponge absorbing water, and then release memories in reverse under the user's chakra.

Chapter 949 I'll Be the Ignitioner

“Bury it into the mortise and tenon joints of every roof beam.” She wrapped the chakra thread around the waist of the clay figurine. “When the candles are lit on the night of the abdication, the spores will drift into the elders’ nostrils along with the heat.” Akiku’s nails dug into her palms as she suddenly remembered the noise she had heard in the backyard three days ago—the lady had said that the roof was being repaired, but the bricklayers had clearly only removed half a tile and spent the rest of the time attaching these cold clay figurines to the beams.

At this moment, a thousand miles away in the underground archives of the Land of Fire, black blood was seeping from Byakuya's palm.

The reverse phagocytic hyphae burrowed into the roots of the memory tree along his blood vessels, and the first-generation blood crystal burned hot in his heart, as if it would burn through his ribs.

He could hear the sound of mycelium gnawing at the submissive fungus, a soft, rustling sound, like silkworms chewing mulberry leaves. "Not enough." He gritted his teeth, pressing his other hand against the tree root, his Wood Release chakra spreading like vines. "To make the memories flow, destruction alone is not enough."

The earth's veins suddenly trembled.

Byakuya's pupils constricted sharply—he sensed that memory spores were spreading in the water source connected by the Wood Release.

Those were cultivated with his own lifeblood, each spore sealing within a scene of the first self-sealed altar: the white-haired man's blood dripping into the clay figures' brows, their eyes slowly lighting up, like countless lamps being lit. "Let it flow," he whispered, sweat dripping from his chin onto the bluestone slab, "so that in the wells, rivers, and springs of the five kingdoms, there are these lamps."