Keeping track of the fleeing swordsmen, Lin Feng opened his mouth, “There is a popular anecdote about a Young Master born without meridians that has been circulating for a long time back in my world.

"His clan ostracized him, the masses ridiculed him, his fiancé decided at birth due to an agreement between their grandfathers chose to break their engagement in favour of another and shame him publicly.

"Driven beyond the limits of forbearance, the boy left home with an ultimatum of returning three years later to retrieve his honour.

"Irked by his audacity, the prince who had settled upon his fiancé’s beauty set the date of their marriage on the date of his proposed return.”

Pakura, who had recovered from her shock at the display of power by the supposed genin, asked curiously, “Did he return in time?”

“Oh yes. He returned just as they were getting married. We have a custom where just before the final nuptial vows, the male has to challenge the gathering for opposition to the marriage.

"If no one challenges him, then it is implied that they approve of it and thus are obligated to protect its integrity from encroachment in the future.

"It is basically a formality as all the attendees are invited by the ones getting married.

"Yet, this time there was an objection raised. The Young Master, after gruelling training under a mysterious faction for three whole years, had returned to reclaim his dignity and cut the emotional knot in his heart.

"Dismissive of his prowess, convinced of his status as a ‘waste’, and filled with murderous intention due to his interruption of the wedding, the prince acceded to this challenge.

"As a Communing with the Heavens realm cultivator, everyone was confident of his victory. So, their shock could be imagined when he was knocked unconscious with a single strike within moments of his putting his foot on the stage.”

“He must have trained his internal energy for such an intrepid rate of growth… moreover, to overcome the sensation of you mages and breaking through the passive barriers of world vitality you have… it had to be some sort of taijutsu practise… most likely some eruption class skill. Right?” analysed Pakura.

"Probably." He shrugged noncommittally. “It’s just an anecdote… I have no idea of its authenticity, let alone the fine details. But, what is more impressive is what happened later.

"The fathers of the marital couple weren’t happy at this event and as peak Essence qi realm demonic cultivators with liquefied world vitality filling their meridians, they took matters into their own hands.”

“Did the mysterious organization behind him act to safeguard him?”

“Hah. Wishful thinking. They had trained him in an experimental technique much like the one used by that Konoha genin. He used up his life force resisting the attacks of both of them, heavily injuring them in the process.

"Their enemies, including the boy’s clan quickly stepped into the power vacuum and within days, they had to flee their holdings which were carved up by the invading forces.

"So, in the end, the boy did get his vengeance, albeit at the cost of his life.”

“What happened to the girl?”

Lin Feng shrugged, “Who knows? The story ends here. The reason I brought it up was to illustrate how similar the technique used by the Konoha genin was to the Body Tempering Sect’s experimental technique.”

“Wait… the boy in the story didn’t have meridians but his acupoints were still there… so, why didn’t he just cultivate into a Mage?”

“Only those with the highest sensitivity to world vitality make any significant progress down the path of Heavenly Communion. The Demonic Path is more mainstream.

"In return, the Demonic Path warriors consume their painstakingly collected world vitality during each fight, backing up their cultivation unlike Mages who have unlimited supplies of ammunition at their fingertips.”

“What’s this about Body Tempering then? How does that help him? Wasn’t it a technique for Demonic cultivators to increase the tenacity of their bodies to hold more qi without exploding.”

“Demonic cultivators temper their meridians and dantian rather than their body. Their bodies are stronger than that of a Mage due to this but only marginally, given that Mages too are tempered by the constant flow of energy through them.

"You have to understand that internal energy practice in my homeland isn’t as developed as the system of chakra. There people only practise the physical portion of it… in your words the yang chakra, while the spiritual portion is locked away in the soul during soul cultivation.

"This leads to an unbalanced energy which is only good for physical enhancement and has none of the bells and whistles of chakra or world vitality.

"Body Tempering is what the path of internal energy cultivation is called in our world.

"It involves using the yang chakra to refine and strengthen one’s body, while using the strengthened body to perform exercises beyond its current limits, hence improving the body and by extension the quantity of yang chakra, setting up a positive cycle.

"Due to a lack of spiritual energy, techniques such as ninjutsu or genjutsu would be impossible to perform with this energy. Thus, skill in feat of arms and martial techniques become important.

"Chakra is yin-yang balanced, bringing it up to par with world vitality. It benefits in that it is a personal energy, thus, much easier to control than world vitality.

"It falls leeward in that it has a much lower effect on the world than world vitality, which logically has more influence on the fabric of reality due to their common origin from the Will of the World.

"Basically, techniques using world vitality are stronger than those released employing chakra while the latter is easier to control.

"The intruder, by burying all records of soul cultivation and removing the sensitivity to world vitality, forced your people to walk down the path of internal cultivation much farther than anyone believes possible in my home world.

"Initially, I thought that your souls were weak due to a lack of focus on cultivating it… upon further investigation, I realized it was just a misconception… they are just diffuse.

"Without a mindscape or a nascent divinity, you cannot leverage the yin chakra inherent within you for soul combat or for gaining a sensibility of principles.”

“Hmm… so that was why my chakra was getting weaker after cultivating according to the soul sutra you gave me. It was separating out and condensing my yin chakra into a nascent divinity?” asked Pakura.

“Yes. That’s why I told you to stop after creating your mindscape… the contradiction between the two systems needs to be solved.”

“Okay. How is any of this useful to us and how was the genin able to obtain such powerful strength?”

“I’m coming to that. When I was the hegemon of my sect, the leader of a Body Tempering Sect came to us to commission a building.

"Generally speaking, I wouldn’t bother with a second-grade sect like his, letting a subordinate deal with him… but, that day I was free so I met with him.

"The final price was more than he could afford so he bartered in a secret technique of his sect. An eruption class skill called Berserk technique.

"Now that I have a clear reference, I know that it was just a method to open the Gate of Life and the Gate of Pain using the yang chakra.

"It increased the blood flow, turning the skin red and numbed the sensation of pain, multiplying the physical strength of the user.

"From what I have conjectured, the eruption class techniques of the body tempering school all involve opening the Gates but lacking the yin chakra to open the two gates in the brain, the Gate of Opening and the Gate of Healing, they aren’t able to extract the same amount of power as the genin did.”

Pakura frowned, “That’s all fine… but there is a limit to the energy in the human body… even if we consider that the entirety of the body’s potential is being released at once, it doesn’t explain the inhuman leap in power from the seventh gate to the eighth gate.”

“Even I was shocked by his eruption until he used Void Force and I figured out what was going on.

"He basically used the strength of his mortal body to fracture space and enter the Shattered Void realm.

"As inconceivable as that is, what he did next was even more incredible… he sacrificed the nascent Void Force he got from his breakthrough for a temporary boost in power.”

“You’ve mentioned this nascent Void Force before… what exactly is it?” asked Pakura.

“Well, whenever anyone breaks through to the Shattered Void realm, they contact the Void for the first time.

"Our minds aren’t prepared for the total Nothingness that is the Void and as such, we are much closer to its source and can draw upon the purest of energies that lie within it.

"This energy is the nascent Void Force.

"Our minds then start analogizing the Void to some sort of imagery it can comprehend… say, for example an extremely dark cave.

"But that, becomes a hindrance between us and the source of the Void, reducing the purity of the Void Force that we can draw upon.

"The final goal of all Shattered Void cultivators is to reach a deep enough understanding of the Void to regain access to the nascent Void Force.”

“Then do the planes and World Wills attach so much importance to it because it helps them promote the purity of the Void Force they can absorb?”

“Intelligent!” Lin Feng acclaimed.

“The stability of a plane is directly proportional to the quality of the Void Force generated by the governing Will. The process is similar to seeding used in hydrometallurgy… high purity Void Force samples cause the Void Force to separate out from the impurities present in the low-quality energy absorbed by the Will, speeding up its progression to the next stage as well as providing a reference for it to better understand the mysteries of the Void, hence improving the purity of the energy absorbed.”

Pakura was suddenly enlightened, “So that’s why the genin was able to use the Void Force so much better than you and use it to attack directly, he was using a higher purity of it.”

“Yeah… also… just like world vitality nourishes our body as we use it, Void Force too baptizes our body, making it more… real… for the lack of a better term.

"Our body becomes harder to destroy and gains a resistance to principle class attacks.

"Do you know why our lifespans are fixed at birth?

"Its because cell replication isn’t perfect… every time a cell divides, there is some loss in the genetic code due to inaccurate replication.

"If these inaccuracies occurred in important genes, we would mutate or suffer from genetic diseases. So, there are stretches of useless genetic material attached to the DNA called telomeres which are sacrificed instead.

"They act like a buffer and when the number of cell divisions are enough to deplete the entirety of the telomeres, the important genes start getting affected and cause cell mutation or failure… leading to death.

"The length of these telomeres, the accuracy of DNA replication and the frequency of cell division give us the lifespan.

"Chakra increases the rate of replication as it overdraws the potential of cells… this reduces lifespan.

"World Vitality reduces the rate of replication as it is an external energy, thus, reducing the body’s energy demand from its own cells.

"Void Force makes each cell more real… it works almost like a principle and improves the accuracy of DNA replication, thus, extending the lifespan by several times. The higher the purity, the better the effect.

"Thus, he had several times more lifeforce to burn after his baptism with the nascent Void Force.

"That’s the secret to this Eight Gates Released Formation technique.”

…

While they were talking, Lin Feng hadn’t forgotten to keep tabs on the situation on the ground.

The Konoha ninja had caught up and were inspecting the scene of carnage with great shock while the accomplished trackers among them were pursuing the two swordsmen who had run off in separate directions, true to the Kiri ideology of mistrusting one’s allies.

Judging that it was the time to act, Lin Feng turned to Pakura, “You know what to do, don’t you?”

She grinned while pulling on a Konoha forehead protector around her neck like a choker. “Leave it to me.”

He wrapped her in Void Force and with a slight pop, she was gone.

Finally, alone on the platform, he focused fully on the task he had been struggling with during their talk.

Samehada was being difficult. It was time to show the naughty little shark who was the boss.