Lin Feng sat on the roof of the highest building in the village.

Originally built as a watchtower, it had become obsolete after the outer walls had been built.

It irked him greatly. It would be one of the first to go when he started rebuilding.

Obsolete buildings were a sure way to tell if a settlement had grown organically or if it had been planned.

Sunagakure was an odd mix of both types of development.

Originally planned as a pit stop for an agglomeration of ninja clans during the nomadic period of the first shinobi world war, it had become permanent after the war had ended abruptly with the rise of Hashirama Senju.

A curious case, that one. He was capable of much more than the theoretical limits of someone who walked the path of internal refinement.

Internal refinement was the precursor of the modern cultivation techniques. Chakra, chi, od, whatever you called it was basically an energy extracted from one’s own cells.

It allowed for extremely rapid progress in power in exchange for no increase in lifespan. Actually, since it overdrew cell potential, it actually shortened lifespan.

Whatever be the case, since the body was only human, the progress plateaued out at twenty or so years of age and the maximum one could reach was quite paltry.

This Senju character on the other hand had inconceivable amounts of the stuff. From what he had gleaned from Shukaku’s memory, the tailed-beast had been subdued by him without him even resorting to his vaunted sage mode.

Lin Feng suspected that the man probably had a life principle fragment in him. The dude had freaking created a forest all on his lonesome.

No human had that much energy in their frail body.

Sage mode was basically a balanced fusion of chakra and world vitality while cultivation involved purely using world vitality.

There were two paths to be followed in that case. The path of heavenly communion and the demonic path. Both had their advantages and disadvantages. Both extended lifespan.

Lin Feng had found a curious fact. The ability to sense world vitality was strangely missing in all humans in this realm.

He remembered the toad guy. Well, almost all humans. He had checked the entire population of Sunagakure for possible cultivation talents without success.

Apparently, his predecessor had made some modifications to the inhabitants of the world.

Not that he would have taught anyone. He was just a traveller in this realm. He would prefer to not moisten Karma.

Cultivation was an interminable quest for higher tier energies.

Chakra would be a low-level energy, world vitality a mid-level one while Void Force was the highest level of energy cultivation.

Beyond that, it was all esoteric and the quantity of energy became irrelevant in the face of principle comprehension.

Right now, he was in the early stage of Shattered Void realm and could only convert world vitality to Void Force instead of directly extracting the stuff from the Void.

After assimilating Shukaku’s soul, his conjunction with world vitality had shot up.

As the tailed-beast was basically one ninth of the previous generation of the Will of the World and this generation of the Will was pretty immature, he had gained some jurisdiction over the aspect of the desert.

Thus, he could control sand even without any expenditure of energy.

This kind of operation was indicative of the Grasping Principles realm.

It was like an early access to the next realm and as such, his foundation was growing sturdier the more familiar he became with wielding this power.

This world was a treasure trove and he had been lucky to land where he had when he had.

If he had come here a millennium sooner, he would probably have had his nascent divinity concocted into a pill as nourishment for the expert.

Speaking of nascent divinities, no one here cultivated the soul. This was probably due to it being suppressed by the intruding expert.

As such, it had been very easy for him to scour the soul of that sand shinobi.

As for Shukaku, truly speaking assimilating its soul should have been extremely difficult due to it being part of the world will.

But, thanks to the Sage of the Six Paths’ shoddy operation, its soul had been in an extremely precarious state and had unravelled with a few pointed jabs of his nascent divinity.

Actually, come to think of it, the old dude’s Grand Dao of Samsara was not only fragmented, it was incomplete.

It lacked the most essential life, death and soul principles that would make it a true upper tier Divine Dao. The Grand Dao of Samsara Reincarnation.

Assuming that all the principle fragments were from the expert here, Hashirama’s fragment must have come from him/her too.

It seemed that he would have to go hunting for these fragments and soon.

Any Dao Seeking realm expert with a Dao involving reincarnation would never be truly gone. They could pop up at any time.

He had to either race against time to usurp their Dao before they could reactivate, or, he could gather the portions of the world will and assimilate them, expanding his jurisdiction to levels comparable to him/her.

Or, he could, you know, do both.

His contemplation of his plans was interrupted by a messenger hawk landing on a railing near him.

Reading the message carried by it, he couldn’t help but smile.

It was a call for reinforcement from Ebizo, Chiyo’s brother. The Earth shinobi had declared war to the Hidden Sand immediately upon hearing of the loss of their tailed beast.

To ensure victory, they had mobilized the jinchuuriki of the four-tails.

If he had its volcanic aspect, he could make a start on his grand plan for the reconstruction of Sunagakure.

It seemed like it was time to subdue a monkey.