"As expected of the ultimate dōjutsu that can control planetary orbits in its final form. Even during its first awakening, it could pull a meteor from outer space using gravity."
"Even though that technique isn't in its complete form yet, I already have a trump card for strategic deterrence."
After flying a certain distance, Izayoi landed from midair and dashed forward in a series of flickering movements, thinking to himself.
The power of the Tenseigan far exceeded Izayoi's imagination.
Unlike the Rinnegan, which possessed unique ocular techniques that governed the rules of life and death, the strength of the Tenseigan was more inclined toward destruction.
Both its attractive and repulsive forces were already this powerful. He was truly looking forward to unlocking the Tenseigan Chakra Mode.
Since his shadow clone currently had no proper excuse to leave, Izayoi wasn't in a rush to rejoin the group. After returning within a certain range, he pulled out a scroll gifted by a good friend and began reading it.
Earlier, he had only skimmed through it to confirm its authenticity before storing it away.
Now, Izayoi carefully read through it.
The scroll he was reading wasn't about puppet techniques—that kind of stuff was trash to Izayoi, who could control puppets wirelessly.
What Izayoi was reading was the method of creating human puppets.
"So this is how bloodline limits and ninjutsu are preserved… This guy's a genius."
After reading for a bit, Izayoi couldn't help but exclaim in awe, "No wonder his trait is 'Puppet Master (Purple).' This kind of chakra core has already surpassed his predecessors. Even the puppetry of the Ōtsutsuki clan on the moon can't compare."
After saying that, Izayoi unrolled another scroll, which recorded the method for creating chakra cores for human puppets.
The chakra core was the most vital part of a puppet.
Controlling puppets with only chakra threads was no different than playing with glove puppets.
Advanced puppets had all kinds of hidden mechanisms and traps inside, and some could even use the five elemental forces—features that couldn't be activated by chakra threads alone.
You had to install a chakra core into the puppet and inject chakra through the threads to freely activate all kinds of abilities.
A puppet's strength entirely depended on what the creator had installed inside it.
And Sasori of the Red Sand had carved out a path of his own.
He didn't use materials to make puppets—instead, he injected materials into the human body, turning corpses into puppets.
Then he modified the puppet's heart—the chakra core—allowing the human puppet to use its bloodline limit and ninjutsu from when it was alive.
This was essentially a new branch of puppetry.
As the founder of this path, Sasori truly lived up to the system's evaluation of him—Puppet Master (Purple).
In Izayoi's eyes, Sasori's human puppets were far more suited to him than the puppets of the moon's Ōtsutsuki clan.
"Wait a second..."
Suddenly, inspiration struck Izayoi. His eyes lit up with excitement as he said, "Maybe I can upgrade the human puppets even further."
Sasori's human puppets had an uncanny resemblance to Nagato's Six Paths of Pain.
In the Fourth Great Ninja War, Uchiha Obito also turned the tailed beasts' jinchūriki into six path clones. Each of them could use tailed beast chakra and their original abilities from when they were alive.
That meant Six Paths clones and human puppets shared the same trait: they could preserve their pre-death abilities.
The only difference was that human puppets required chakra threads to control, and the Six Paths of Pain couldn't stray too far from the Gedo Statue or they'd lose signal.
However, both of these weaknesses could be resolved by the Tenseigan.
With the Tenseigan's wireless puppetry, as long as the puppet stayed within his long-range vision and its chakra core still held chakra, it could be controlled freely.
Even in the space channel connecting the moon and Earth, the puppets could still receive signals.
If these puppets could also use bloodline limits and ninjutsu, and could be supplied with chakra remotely—wouldn't that be the equivalent of an immortal Edo Tensei army, or a legion-sized Pain army?
The more Izayoi thought about it, the more feasible it seemed.
Although he hadn't unlocked Yin-Yang Release yet and couldn't fuse all three techniques, he could still begin mass-producing puppets. Once he unlocked Yin-Yang Release, he could simply stick a Yin-Yang Release black rod into them for an instant upgrade.
That evening, Izayoi smoothly returned to the team.
Aside from Hinata, no one in Team 8 or the caravan realized that the giant meteor had actually been summoned by Izayoi.
Taking a detour to avoid the "Art Duo," Team 8 and the caravan took three more days to reach their destination.
Along the way, they also avoided a mountain village that harbored a chakra even stronger than Kurenai's.
Mr. Nishimura's residence was a secluded mountain village—such villages were quite common in the Land of Rivers.
But finding a village that had discovered a mineral deposit and knew how to mine and sell it was extremely rare in the Land of Rivers.
That made Mr. Nishimura especially valuable.
Due to the harsh conditions of the mountain village and the fact they arrived at noon, Kurenai declined Mr. Nishimura's hospitality. She pulled out the mission scroll, had him sign it and leave a good review, then led Team 8 on the return trip.
Unlike the way there, where they traveled on foot, the return trip was full of high-speed flickering. Each flicker covered several meters, sometimes even over ten meters.
At this speed, they'd be back in Konoha within two days at most.
This was the difference between ordinary people and shinobi.
In this strangely abstract technological world, ninjas were still the most versatile tools—the best beasts of burden.
"Your first C-rank mission—how do you all feel?"
When they were too tired to keep flickering and began walking again, Kurenai looked at the three and asked.
"Exhausted," Izayoi replied honestly. "At first it was a little exciting, but afterward it was just physical and mental torture."
Hinata and Shino nodded in agreement.
"Escort missions are always like that—boring, time-consuming, and with terrible pay," Kurenai laughed. "Although ours was a bit special. The Land of Rivers is full of forests and treacherous terrain. We nearly ran into an S-class rogue ninja and a mysterious powerhouse. Very few C-rank missions are as unlucky as ours."
"Good thing we had Hinata's Byakugan. Otherwise, this trip would've ended in disaster."
As she said this, Kurenai reached out and patted Hinata's head.
Hinata softly said, "It was my duty."
"So sweet. Lucky Izayoi, huh?" Kurenai decided to give Hinata a little push.
Unbeknownst to her, both Hinata and Izayoi had their own thoughts.
The two simply smiled without saying anything, ignoring Kurenai's attempt at matchmaking.
Two days later in the afternoon, Team 8 finally returned to Konoha.
This C-rank mission had taken them exactly half a month.
For all that hard work, each of them received a super-high reward... 23,000 ryō.
For a C-rank mission, that was indeed quite high.
Since the village took a cut, and the jonin instructor took another cut, splitting the remainder three ways and still getting 23,000 ryō meant the mission reward was probably over 100,000.
C-rank mission rewards usually ranged from 30,000 to 100,000.
So having a payout in the six-figure range made the duration feel somewhat reasonable.
But if they had a choice, Team 8 honestly wouldn't want to do another C-rank like this.
Noticing their exhaustion, Kurenai smiled and said, "You've got three days off. Go home and get some rest."
"Yes!"
Team 8 disbanded on the spot.
"See you tomorrow, Izayoi-kun."
Even Hinata, who looked a bit worn out, didn't go to Izayoi's house for once.
After only bathing a few times in the wild, she just wanted to go home, soak in a hot bath, get a good night's sleep, and then present her best self to Izayoi.
Since physical healing wouldn't help here, Izayoi had to rely on special methods to heal Hinata.
He suddenly lowered his head and kissed her on the forehead. Waving, he said with a smile, "Go home, get a good night's rest. See you tomorrow."
After saying that, Izayoi disappeared in a flash.
Hinata stood frozen for a few seconds, then quickly looked around. When she met the amused gaze of a passing woman, her face and neck turned bright red, as if steaming, and she fled in a puff of embarrassment.