Konoha, reported by the Fourth Hokage at the start.

Chapter 186 The Hope Brought by the Rinnegan

"Forget it, why think so much about it now?"

"Just keep an eye out for intelligence information in this area in the future."

Li Yao shook his head inwardly, pulling himself back to reality, and asked Bai Jue, "So, what's the mission this time? You can't expect me to be a babysitter again, can you?"

Bai Jue nodded calmly, and Li Yao's expression immediately lit up.

"That's really true!"

Li Yao was upset. He would rather hide away and study the perfect transformation technique by himself than continue to be Nagato's babysitter for the past three years, where he had to worry about being discovered even if he wanted to eat something good. He was very unhappy about it.

However, Ban's orders obviously could not be disobeyed.

This killing of the daimyo may have really touched upon some of the Sage of Six Paths' plans. Li Yao has not yet avenged his great grudge, so he should bear with it for now.

"How long?" Li Yao asked.

"Until a successor to Madara is found," White Zetsu replied.

"Still the same as before, keeping an eye on Nagato from a distance?" Li Yao continued to ask.

"No." White Zetsu shook his head and said, "Lord Madara asked you to secretly infiltrate Nagato's side and protect his Rinnegan in secret."

"Remember, it's the Rinnegan, not Nagato."

White Zetsu reminded him, "As long as the Rinnegan is safe, you don't need to interfere with Nagato's life or death."

White Zetsu and Madara were afraid that someone would destroy the Rinnegan. As for Nagato's life or death, they might have been a little worried before.

Now, that's no longer necessary. After three years of ninjutsu training with Jiraiya, Nagato's Uzumaki clan bloodline was fully activated, giving him an extraordinary amount of chakra.

When faced with danger, the Rinnegan will automatically activate its abilities. In the current ninja world, no one can rival the Rinnegan.

Even Li Yao is the same.

Bai Jue was confident about this.

"Infiltrate?"

Li Yao pondered for a moment, then his eyes lit up. If he remembered correctly, this period should be the early stage of Akatsuki's founding, and the Land of Rain was a place of war among the three hidden villages.

Even though the war has stopped, the chaos in the Rain Country has not ended. The country is still in an extreme post-apocalyptic state where everyone is fighting each other for survival.

It was during this period that Nagato, Yahiko, and others gathered the first group of Akatsuki followers.

Presumably, he will be fighting alongside Nagato during this period, allowing his experiments with mental energy fluctuations to continue.

The key is to avoid letting Nagato and the others find out.

This isn't really a problem.

With his advantage of flying and his ability to perceive souls, it would be easy for him to deceive Nagato and the others.

"Can she infiltrate Nagato's inner circle with me?" Li Yao glanced at Xiao Yezi, then turned to ask Bai Jue.

"Okay." Bai Jue nodded. From the moment Li Yao brought the girl to see him, it was impossible for this girl to remain uninvolved.

"That's good." Li Yao said with a smile, then turned around and told Xiao Yezi about the mission to protect Nagato, emphasizing that Nagato was also a member of the Uzumaki clan.

When Xiao Yezi heard that one of her clansmen was still alive, her eyes lit up, but after glancing at Li Yao, her expression calmed down.

The Uzumaki clan has been wiped out, the Land of Whirlpools is gone, and my parents are gone too.

The person she is closest to now is the older man, and what she wants to do most is to rescue her mother who is sealed away.

She no longer cared about anything else.

She wouldn't hesitate to attack an older man, even if he were from the Uzumaki clan.

……

Because of the detour, it took the three of them a week to fly to the Land of Rain.

Now that we've arrived, Bai Jue can go down, but before he leaves, he still wants to remind Li Yao.

"Let me remind you, don't use the Spirit Transformation Technique in front of Nagato, because the Rinnegan can see your soul directly."

Bai Zetsu knew from the beginning that Li Yao could use the Spirit Transformation Technique. Li Yao thought he was using it very discreetly, but little did he know that Bai Zetsu could sense his chakra.

So he wanted to remind Li Yao to avoid him accidentally getting hurt by Nagato when he used the Spirit Transformation Technique in front of Nagato, which would be embarrassing.

"You mean, the Rinnegan can directly see souls!"

Suddenly, Li Yao snapped to attention and looked excitedly at White Zetsu. The burning desire in his eyes made White Zetsu's heart tremble. He thought Li Yao had developed a desire for the Rinnegan, so he quickly and seriously reminded him, "Li Yao, I solemnly advise you not to even think about getting your hands on the Rinnegan. Putting aside the fact that your life is still in Madara's hands, the Rinnegan's power is to control life and death. If you dare to use the Spirit Transformation Technique to test Nagato, you will definitely be the one who dies."

Before Obito proved himself capable of acting as the agent for the Eye of the Moon Project, White Zetsu truly did not want Li Yao to die because of his arrogance.

Indeed, Li Yao's terrifying talent of easily replicating other people's bloodline limit ninjutsu is truly frightening.

With this terrifying talent, Li Yao rose to the top of the ninja world in just a few years. Even if the First Hokage, Hashirama Senju, were alive today, it would be hard to say whether he could defeat Li Yao now.

But that only applies to ordinary people.

No matter how good Li Yao's ninjutsu talent is, it is limited by his bloodline, and he can only copy some bloodline limits that combine chakra attributes.

Li Yao couldn't replicate the Sharingan, Byakugan, or other special bloodline limits.

Especially the Rinnegan, which is the eye of a sage that controls life and death.

Li Yao is absolutely impossible to replicate.

This is why, even knowing that Li Yao's talent was terrifying, Madara and White Zetsu never worried that Li Yao would grow to the point of threatening them.

No matter how strong Li Yao is, he is only at the limit of a mortal, and there is an insurmountable gap between him and an immortal.

Bai Jue was afraid that Li Yao would be too confident and lose his life, thus affecting his plans.

"rest assured."

Li Yao patted White Zetsu on the shoulder and laughed, "I haven't sought revenge against the Third Hokage and Konoha yet. I'm terrified of dying, and I won't have any bad thoughts about Nagato and the Rinnegan."

He only tries to replicate the eye power chakra of the Rinnegan to find out the differences in spiritual energy between people.

The Rinnegan's ability to directly see souls made Li Yao realize that the Rinnegan was special, and its ocular chakra was also special. Perhaps the Rinnegan could see the differences in spiritual energy between people.

"Why didn't he think of that before?"

Li Yao was somewhat annoyed, but thankfully, the opportunity had arrived.

If he could replicate the eye power chakra of the Rinnegan, Li Yao felt that he would have a high chance of directly sensing the difference in spiritual energy and completing the perfect transformation technique he had always longed for.

In this way, what Li Yao actually needs is someone who stays close to Nagato and maintains long-term contact with him.

Before he mastered the Spirit Transformation Technique, Li Yao needed physical contact to perceive the specific changes in the nature of other people's ninjutsu chakra when copying them.

Now that he can use the Spirit Transformation Technique, Li Yao's chakra perception ability is such that, given enough time, he can clearly sense all the changes in the nature of a person's chakra within a range of 100 meters.

The only problem now is that the Rinnegan's ocular power and chakra nature are at a very high level, and it may take a long time for him to clearly perceive all the nature changes within it.

But it doesn't matter, as long as it can be copied.

Fortunately, the Rinnegan's ocular power and chakra did not reach the Six Paths level, otherwise Li Yao would not have been able to sense the existence of the chakra, and there would have been no way to copy it.

Li Yao guessed that the Rinnegan only allowed Madara to summon the Gedo Mazo and use the Six Paths-level chakra on the Gedo Mazo to perform some simple Six Paths-level ninjutsu; Madara's own eye power chakra did not reach the Six Paths level.

Only when the Rinnegan evolves into the Tomoe Rinnegan can the intensity of the ocular chakra be considered to reach the Six Paths level.

Regardless of the reason or situation.

The reality is that Li Yao can sense the presence of the Rinnegan's ocular power chakra in Nagato's eyes. Given time, he will definitely be able to replicate the same Rinnegan ocular power chakra.

Then, just like he copied Wood Release chakra, he could use some of the Rinnegan's abilities.

For example, seeing a soul.

In this way, he would definitely be able to sense the difference in spiritual energy.

"You... I'll be watching you!"

Bai Jue was somewhat skeptical of Li Yao's words, but considering that he could control the forbidden spell in Li Yao's heart, he felt a little relieved. He just needed to keep a close eye on Li Yao.

That's not difficult, since he'll be keeping an eye on Nagato all the time anyway.

"Haha, okay," Li Yao laughed.

Afterwards, White Zetsu jumped off the clay bird and merged into the earth, while Li Yao and Xiao Yezi continued flying to find Nagato, and also to think about how to naturally encounter Nagato and the others and join them.

(End of this chapter)