Konoha: Starting with Sage Mode

Meanwhile, on the ground...

"It was so close."

A young ninja covered in crimson chakra feathers stood atop a tower made of sand, gazing up at the blue sky. He watched the messenger hawk fleeing in panic and sighed.

After saying that, he once again unleashed a Wind Release ninjutsu without using any hand seals.

Wind Release: Vacuum Wave!

A sudden gust of wind was released from his mouth, and a large number of vacuum slashes with a diameter of more than ten meters also appeared with the wind.

Almost simultaneously, on the sand ahead, four giant sandmen formed from a large amount of sand quickly merged into a huge sand wall hundreds of meters long, blocking all the incoming vacuum slashing waves.

Then, the giant sand wall quickly separated back into four giant sand men.

A few seconds later, the young ninja once again used Wind Release ninjutsu to attack the four giant sand men.

The four giant sand men then merged together again, forming a massive sand wall to block the way.

So again and again.

The young ninja stopped to rest after more than an hour, and his red chakra robe disappeared.

The young ninja who is constantly practicing Wind Release ninjutsu is none other than Kirito himself.

In fact, he was not only practicing Wind Release ninjutsu, but also controlling the four giant sand men with one mind and four actions.

That's right, Kirito is doing this to digest the power he gained from obtaining the One-Tailed Shukaku, and then adapt to the changes in strength that Shukaku's power brings him as soon as possible.

Shukaku brought Kirito many benefits, far beyond just seemingly inexhaustible chakra. It also gave Kirito outstanding talent in Wind Release, powerful sand manipulation ability, and talent in Magnet Release.

As a chakra being, Shukaku's talent for Wind Release training is undoubtedly among the best in the ninja world.

After Kirito obtained the power of the One-Tailed Beast, his originally mediocre talent in Wind Release was forcibly enhanced. In just a few days, his understanding of Wind Release surpassed his gains in Wind Release training since mastering Wind Release Chakra Nature Transformation.

Looking at the attribute panel, he clearly saw that his Wind Release skill had reached level 3.

He had a premonition that if he continued to cultivate Wind Release at his current speed, he would reach level 4 in another month.

If he were to temporarily possess Shukaku's soul after his Wind Release level reaches level 4, becoming a Wind Release chakra creature, he might be able to quickly break through to level 5.

However, compared to his talent for Wind Release training, Kirito is now more interested in the sand manipulation ability that Shukaku gave him.

This ability is similar to the Blood Dragon Eye's ability to manipulate blood, but the difference is that this ability can unleash unimaginable destructive power in the desert.

Especially after gaining the support of Shukaku's massive chakra, he can not only continue to control four giant sand men that are hundreds of meters tall, but he can also quickly create a sand tsunami that is hundreds of meters high.

Faced with such a cataclysmic power, ordinary ninjas had no chance of resistance and could only wait to die.

It was precisely because he revealed this skill in the desert that all the Sand Ninja who had sneaked in to secretly monitor or assassinate him retreated several kilometers in fear, only daring to monitor his actions in the desert from a distance using binoculars.

Meanwhile, the Sand Village's ninja forces retreated again and again.

It can be said that Kirito is now single-handedly forcing thousands of Sand Ninja to continuously abandon their defensive lines.

Kirito has decided that once he has fully adapted to using the sand manipulation abilities brought by Shukaku, he will take a stroll around Sunagakure.

"Hey kid, are you planning to continue cultivating?"

Suddenly, a somewhat noisy voice appeared in Kirito's mind.

Upon hearing this voice, Kirito smiled and replied, "You couldn't hold back so quickly? I thought you were going to ignore me forever."

Since he successfully sealed Shukaku into his body, Shukaku, having learned that Bunpuku was not dead, has ignored him, as if resigned to its fate, and obediently stayed in the chakra pool space formed by the Yin Seal, ignoring him, the Jinchūriki.

Instead of making a fool of himself by communicating with this tailed beast that clearly harbored great hostility towards him, he simply treated it as a large chakra battery, constantly draining chakra from it.

Thanks to this giant chakra battery, he has now successfully replaced all the chakra in the Yin Seal between his eyebrows with Sage Chakra, and also replaced the chakra in the Yin Seal chakra pool on the White Zetsu clone with Sage Chakra.

"Hmph, you keep consuming my chakra like this. Do you really think my chakra is inexhaustible? Can't you see that the chakra liquid in this chakra pool is almost depleted? That's all for today. If you use it all up, I'd rather lose weight and become a tiny little guy than gather any more chakra today."

Inside the chakra pool space, Shukaku, whose figure and physique had become much thinner, couldn't help but loudly complain when he heard Kirito's words, his voice revealing deep resentment.

It does have a lot of chakra, but it doesn't come from thin air. It needs to constantly absorb natural energy from the outside world and then transform it, and this transformation process is very time-consuming and laborious.

It thought that no matter how much Kirito, this human, consumed its chakra, it would only use up a tiny fraction of its chakra. But it turned out that this stinky human was a chakra hog and a training maniac. These past few days, he had almost drained its chakra dry every day.

What's even more infuriating is that this thing can actually share its chakra with other humans, allowing weaker humans to freely use its chakra for training.

This human is truly inhuman; they treat it like a donkey in a production team, not letting it rest during the day and showing it absolutely no respect.

Although it would be a simple matter to restore its chakra, the fact that this human was constantly forcibly extracting its chakra and taking advantage of all the chakra it had worked so hard to create made it feel very unhappy.

It decided that it could no longer indulge this human like this, and it had to make this human understand that even it, the guardian crane, had a temper.

Chapter 198: Kirito's New Battle System: Using Madara Uchiha as the Hypothetical Enemy

Upon hearing Shukaku's annoyed words, Kirito immediately smiled.

Preferring to greatly diminish his own power rather than provide chakra, this must be Shukaku's last act of stubbornness.

Kirito was somewhat troubled by this.

Just like humans, if these tailed beasts choose to completely give up, he really has no way to control them.

However, he now quite likes Shukaku's nonchalant attitude. He's not afraid that the tailed beasts have no temper; he's just afraid that they'll ignore him.

A perfect Jinchuriki is not only someone who defeats the Tailed Beast physically, but also someone who wins the Tailed Beast's heart and mind. Only in this way can the Jinchuriki truly connect with the Tailed Beast and completely master its power.

Moreover, in this way, the tailed beasts will become a great helper to the Jinchuriki, allowing the Jinchuriki to be more relaxed and at ease during battle.

"Your request puts me in a difficult position. You know I need your chakra to train right now, and many Konoha ninjas are looking forward to my training sessions in the evening. What do you want? I'll try my best to fulfill your request if I can do it."

Kirito's spirit appeared in the mental space, frowning slightly, and said somewhat angrily.

"Hmph, I don't care. I only have this much chakra for today. Don't disturb my sleep. I need to rest now."

Seeing that Kirito had been thwarted, Shukaku felt much better, realizing that his strategy had worked. He then decisively refused to continue communicating with Kirito.

In the ninja world, aside from Bunpuku, he would never show any kindness to other humans.

This human named Kirito Tohsaka, like other humans he had seen who wanted to control the tailed beasts, was a greedy fellow, and his heart was far less pure than Bunpuku's. After being sealed inside this human and forced to form a connection with him, he was able to clearly sense the darkness in this human's heart.

Although this human was not old, the darkness in his heart was no less than that of those who had sealed him into their bodies, and was even greater and deeper.

Judging from the personality reflected in this human's dark side, this human is undoubtedly someone with an almost obsessive pursuit of power; in short, he is extremely greedy for power, and he wants anything good.

Shukaku has encountered many such people, and without exception, they have all been destroyed by their own greed.

However, this human is somewhat special in that his greed is extremely pure.

The reason for this is that this human has long understood that he is a greedy person, has a very clear understanding of his dark side, does not hate it, and has already accepted this fact.

Shukaku was very troubled by this result.

It originally planned to secretly contact Kirito's dark side, join forces with him, and then secretly help Dark Kirito grow stronger, eventually allowing Dark Kirito to replace the original Kirito, so that it could break free from the seal.

Unfortunately, its plan failed before it even began.

The dark side of this human named Kirito Tohsaka completely ignored him, and even mocked him, saying that this tailed beast, who had been defeated head-on by the main body, was overestimating himself and had no right to cooperate with him.

This was the first time Shukaku had ever been mocked by a human, especially by a human's dark side. It was furious.

The fact that it chose to threaten Kirito by playing dumb today, and was mocked and insulted by Kirito's dark personality, is also a very important reason.

"No way! Just tell me what you want. Besides, you're a tailed beast, so rest isn't an option for you. Don't try to fool me with that excuse."

Seeing that Shukaku refused to communicate, Kirito immediately went up to him with a smile and pestered him.

Shukaku ignored him completely, and no matter how Kirito tried to communicate with him, it was no use. He even chose to completely transform into chakra and merge into the chakra pool, expressing his unwillingness to communicate with Kirito in this non-violent non-cooperation way.

"Forget it, no rush. Training a hawk takes time. The fact that it spoke to me today is a good start, even though it's a bad start. But it's better than nothing. There's plenty of time."

In reality, Kirito opened his eyes and smiled bitterly.

Shukaku's stubbornness was greater than he had imagined; it seemed he had been suppressing Shukaku's chakra quite harshly these past few days.

This is understandable. Shukaku is a chakra being with its own will, not a large, tireless chakra power bank. Its chakra has been forcibly taken advantage of by Shukaku, and it has been working for free all this time. It would be strange if it didn't have a temper.

If it were him, he would have quit long ago.

Shukaku refused to continue providing chakra through non-violent non-cooperation, leaving Kirito with no other option but to stop his current high-intensity training.

However, he did not completely stop training, and still devoted some of his attention to manipulating sand in order to improve his sand manipulation skills.

He can now use Shukaku's massive chakra to create a huge sand tsunami, but each use consumes nearly half of Shukaku's chakra, and he cannot fully control it, so he can only let it crash on its own.

While sand tsunamis are indeed impossible to completely control and can be devastating, this despair only reaches the level of Chunin at most. Ninjas of Jonin rank and above can generally avoid sand tsunamis in various ways.

The reason is that the sand tsunami attack has many flaws and its attack force is too dispersed.

This is the consequence of not being able to achieve perfect control.

Kirito personally cannot accept this. He is a perfectionist, and his goal is to make this move pose a huge threat to Kage-level powerhouses, even if he cannot perfectly control the massive sand tsunami.

After his personal strength reached the Kage level, his imagined enemies were no longer veteran Kage-level powerhouses like Ebizo, but rather super-Kage-level ninjas like Madara Uchiha.

He wondered if a sand tsunami could withstand or even defeat Madara Uchiha's complete Susanoo.

Madara Uchiha's complete Susanoo is undoubtedly capable of unleashing cataclysmic power as well.

"Compared to Madara Uchiha's complete Susanoo, the sand tsunami I created using Shukaku's chakra is still too immature. Madara Uchiha's control over this cataclysmic power is far superior to mine. Having alien blood is truly remarkable."

Kirito sighed softly, recalling the scene from the original story where Madara Uchiha beat up the Five Kage.

Then he closed his eyes again.

Since he can't use Shukaku's chakra to train for the time being, he can take this opportunity to thoroughly review the power he has mastered.

Compared to other ninjas, he does possess a lot of power, and now with the added power of the One-Tailed Shukaku, he feels it's time to rebuild a combat system that suits him.

A ninja combat system can be summarized in six aspects: attack, defense, control, movement, reconnaissance, and healing.

Kirito has many attack methods, but his best ones right now are undoubtedly his puppetry and his newly acquired sand manipulation ability.

Because he can multitask, his puppetry skills unleash astonishing power. Combined with the high-quality puppets he creates with his wealth, he is equivalent to five powerful ninjas, and they are all of one mind.

When they work together, they can definitely unleash astonishing power, making it easy to kill a Kage-level expert.

However, his puppetry currently has a major problem, which, strictly speaking, is a problem that all puppeteers face: it is difficult to improve the quality of the puppets.

The puppets he created using the Earth Grudge Fear technique are definitely not weak; they belong to the Jonin level. Among them, the Thunder God Puppet is a high-quality puppet, belonging to the elite Jonin level. When it is fully unleashed, it can even threaten veteran Kage-level powerhouses like Ebizo.

Unfortunately, this outbreak did not last long.

The reason is that the puppet will experience wear and tear when it unleashes its full power, which is normal wear and tear.