Ryosuke stood before Shinnō's corpse.
It was hard to imagine that the shriveled old man before his eyes was, not long ago, as burly as a silverback gorilla, Shinnō himself.
'Killing Shinnō, 700. Zero-Tail Void, 1200. Sky Ninja Corps, 1500.'
Ryosuke tallied up this harvest.
Looking at Shinnō's price tag, he felt a little speechless. 'Isn't this way too cheap?'
Not being worth as much as the Zero-Tail Void was one thing.
But Ryosuke clearly remembered that the Ryuchi Cave's Manda, whom he killed with three punches, had given 800 soul fragments.
"A Shinnō without the Zero-Tail Void… just how weak was he supposed to be?"
Ryosuke shook his head.
This time, he had harvested 3400 soul fragments. Converted into normal draws, that was 340 pulls, definitely a full harvest.
But more important than soul fragments, through this battle Ryosuke had gained two much more critical things,
First, Shinnō's memory disc.
This old man, active since the time of the Second Shinobi World War, had in his head far too much key intel and technology.
Ryosuke flipped through the memory disc.
"Body Activation, Body Regeneration, all forbidden techniques that burn lifespan."
"The Eight Gates don't burn lifespan, but instead burn the upper limit of the health bar, and demand extremely high natural talent from the practitioner."
"What's left is a Zero-Tail Jutsu. As long as there's enough negative energy, Body Activation, Body Regeneration, and the Eight Gates won't deduct health, they'll first deduct Dark Chakra instead."
This Zero-Tail Jutsu was what Ryosuke found most interesting.
Negative emotions could be converted into Dark Chakra. This power could even become the core energy source of the Sky Fortress No. 2.
If that could truly be achieved, round up a batch of heinous criminals, have White Snake extract their discs, trap their emotions forever in despair and sorrow, throw them into prison as power generators, wouldn't that be energy freedom?
But when Ryosuke looked deeper into the memories, he realized things weren't that simple.
The so-called "negative emotions" were a person's "mental energy."
Many people work all day without much physical labor, yet when they get home at night, they feel utterly exhausted.
That is mental energy depletion.
Severe depletion of mental energy brings many illnesses, affecting one's life force itself.
What the Zero-Tail Void absorbed was precisely the spirit and life force within mental energy.
"This thing's efficiency is too low. Maybe thrown into a war-torn region it's somewhat useful, but its existence will backfire on the outside world."
"It'll make the cruel more cruel, the wicked more evil, until the world falls into utter chaos."
What looked like four powerful forbidden techniques, when examined carefully, turned out not one of them was any good.
No wonder they were forbidden.
It made sense, if they really worked, even if the Third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, didn't want them, Danzo would have dug them out, shouting 'Make Konoha great again!' while forcing them on Root operatives.
If even Danzo wouldn't use them, they were probably truly useless.
Ryosuke glanced at Shinnō.
"Relying on four unreliable forbidden techniques to muddle through until today… that was bold. But if the Zero-Tail Jutsu misfired even slightly during operation, his life energy would rapidly empty, until old age and death."
For the sake of those powerful muscles, Shinnō had paid with his life…
"Tragic news from the bodybuilding world, Shinnō has returned to Steroid Star?"
Recklessness has downsides, but naturally also upsides.
If not for Shinnō's adventurous nature, he wouldn't have acted in the Second Shinobi World War, wouldn't have later met Orochimaru, wouldn't have infiltrated Konoha to steal forbidden arts, and wouldn't have chosen to shoulder this collaboration with the Syndicate, knowing Ryosuke's strength.
Because of that same adventurous nature, Shinnō fell to rock bottom, then climbed back to the peak.
It could only be said, this was his fate.
Ryosuke continued flipping through Shinnō's memory disc and found the part he was most interested in.
The manufacturing technology for Sky Fortresses and flying ninja tools.
"Once the research institute masters the technology, paired with Cloud's anti-air weapons, it might not be long before we have a real space-class warship that can leave the planet and explore the moon."
Compared to the Syndicate or Shinnō, the moon looming overhead was far more dangerous. That was also Ryosuke's driving force in forming the research institute and relentlessly cultivating to grow stronger.
The Awakening Movement was important, defeating the Syndicate and bureaucrats was important.
But all of it hinged on humanity remaining at the top of the food chain.
If humans were defeated and enslaved by aliens, or worse, exterminated, then so-called "awakening" would be nothing but meaningless chatter.
Ryosuke sighed lightly. "A long road ahead."
Kakashi, Sasuke, and Rei walked over.
On the other side, just finished with another round of rescue work, came Iwamine and others.
They gathered by Ryosuke's side.
"Brother Ryosuke, is there anything we can do to help?" Sasuke asked.
The war was over, but the collapse of rules and the chaos triggered by the war would not end so easily.
Ryosuke swept his gaze around and fixed on Iwamine.
"With your familiarity with this city, without the Wind Country's funding, can it sustain itself? Can it feed the millions living here?"
The few gathered all looked confused, not understanding why Ryosuke would ask such a thing.
The city's blind elder, who had lived through most of a lifetime and seen and heard too much, trembled suddenly, hand shaking, he was the first to react.
Right after him were Kakashi, Sasuke, and Iwamine.
Their expressions shifted from bewilderment, to shock, then to heavy contemplation.
Ryosuke didn't rush them. He simply waited quietly.
After a long silence, Iwamine slowly nodded.
"It can."
She pointed upward. "On the condition that, we reform the distribution rules."
Ryosuke nodded. "Then that's it."
Kakashi swallowed hard and grabbed Ryosuke's arm.
"What do you mean, 'then that's it'?"
It wasn't that he didn't understand.
What shocked Kakashi was that Ryosuke would make such an overwhelming decision so decisively, one that even imagining it made his head spin, "I want to seize the city."
Ryosuke spoke softly, "From tonight onward, Gorin City is severed from the Wind Country. Later I'll contact Amber. The Destruction Legion will arrive in Gorin City within a week."
This was Ryosuke's second great harvest.
If Ryosuke's battle with the old world was a boxing match, then Shinnō was the punch the old world threw at him.
Anyone who understands boxing knows, when the opponent throws a punch, that's when his defense is weakest.
Ryosuke had crushed the fist called Shinnō. Seizing ownership of Gorin City was his counterpunch.
In the past, Ryosuke lacked the ability to seize a city.
Because killing was easy, but finding a group of officials capable of managing and developing a city peacefully was hard.
Now it was different.
One of Oda Ieyasu's tasks was exactly personnel selection and training.
Gorin City, this little matcha cake the enemy had delivered right to his mouth, Ryosuke had no reason to refuse. He would seize it, remake it, and let Gorin City become a thorn driven deep into the Wind Country.
Little by little, he would shake the desert nation's foundations.
Kakashi's hand clutched Ryosuke's arm, his knuckles pale from force.
In that moment, he knew, he had become a witness to history.
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