Konoha: Starting with Sage Mode

After Kirito successfully mastered the Byakugan, he opened the attribute template and pondered how to maximize the benefits of his accumulated enhancement points.

If we're talking about the skill Kirito most wants to strengthen right now, it has to be Sage Mode. However, even after Sage Mode has been strengthened twice, and he has accumulated 5 strengthening points, there are still no suffixes that can be strengthened after it.

Kirito could only sigh in despair. If he could, he actually planned to wait until Madara Uchiha killed the Third Hokage, and then use the points he gained to see if he could further enhance Sage Mode.

However, he had promised Tsunade to save the Third Hokage, so he had to postpone its enhancement for the time being.

You must do what you promise with your heart, and not be perfunctory.

Kirito always keeps his word. Even if it means the Third Hokage's death, it's something he's done after making an effort.

Since he can't enhance Sage Mode, the few skills Kirito can currently upgrade are Adamantine Lock, Level 4 Wind Release, Impure World Reincarnation, Spirit Transformation, and Flying Thunder God Formation.

Kirito chose the Adamantine Sealing Technique because it is an extremely powerful sealing technique. It is highly effective in countering Susanoo created from the Sharingan. He used it to successfully shatter Uchiha Homura's third-form Susanoo and easily captured the impure Uchiha Homura.

However, while his Adamantine Sealing Chains could shatter Uchiha Homura's Susanoo, whether he could shatter Uchiha Madara's Susanoo remains to be seen.

After all, Madara Uchiha's Susanoo was far superior to that of Homura Uchiha.

In terms of power, physical strength, and the upper limit of form, Madara Uchiha's Susanoo far surpasses Homura Uchiha's Susanoo.

"Forget it, I never really thought I could kill this old schemer. Whether the Vajra Sealing Barrier can shatter his Susanoo is not important. As long as I can control it a little, his Susanoo will be basically useless."

Furthermore, now that I possess the Byakugan, I might be able to see through his Susanoo's weakness with Gentle Fist and shatter it with a single punch. The White Zetsu clone was able to do just that back then.

After a moment's hesitation, Kirito rejected the option of the Adamantine Lockdown.

Next up is level 4 Wind Release.

跟之前的雷遁从4级晋升为5级一样，4级风遁需要3个强化点才能达到5级。

Kirito undoubtedly had high expectations for level 5 Wind Release, because Madara Uchiha's specialty was Fire Release. If his Wind Release reached level 5, he could basically ignore Madara Uchiha's Fire Release, and even use Madara's Fire Release ninjutsu to his advantage.

Furthermore, he was eager to see if advancing his Wind Release to level 5 would grant him some special ability, similar to Lightning Release.

After much deliberation, Kirito temporarily set aside Level 4 Wind Release as an option and instead considered Impure World Reincarnation and Spirit Transformation techniques.

The power of the Impure World Reincarnation technique is self-evident; once this ninjutsu is perfected, one can control a powerful army of undead.

Therefore, strengthening the Impure World Reincarnation technique is definitely a shortcut for Kirito to quickly complete the Impure World Reincarnation technique.

As a ninjutsu that can manipulate life and death, the Impure World Reincarnation technique is indeed very valuable, requiring 4 enhancement points for its first upgrade.

"It's really tempting. I almost couldn't resist ordering it right away, but I can't do it in the end. If I use this forbidden ninjutsu that manipulates the dead, the side effects on me will be too great, and it will be detrimental to my future control of Konoha."

Kirito's gaze lingered on the Impure World Reincarnation Jutsu, an option that could be enhanced, for a long time. After a fierce internal struggle, he finally gave up on it.

This ninjutsu is indeed very powerful, but it is a double-edged sword. Once he uses it, those around him will inevitably be wary of him, and even the entire ninja world will be wary of him and regard him as an enemy.

Human hearts are the most unreliable thing.

Even if he initially used this ninjutsu to fight against the villain Uchiha Madara, someone will definitely jump out and use it to attack him in the future.

Therefore, this Pandora's box should never have been opened in the first place.

"Now it seems that the Spirit Transformation Technique is the best choice, and my Spirit Transformation Technique seems to be close to a breakthrough. This enhancement only requires one enhancement point."

Kirito finally focused his gaze on the Spirit Transformation Technique and said with great surprise.

More than three years have passed since he began learning the Spirit Transformation Technique. The level of this ninjutsu is still at level 3 after the last enhancement using enhancement points. However, after a long period of self-training, this ninjutsu is about to break through again.

He remembered clearly that when this ninjutsu was first upgraded, it required 3 points to strengthen it again, but now it only requires 1 point.

"If nothing unexpected happens, as long as I have a little more time, the Spirit Transformation Technique can reach level 4 naturally without any enhancement points. However, time waits for no one, and it's time to complete the upgrade."

Kirito said with a hint of regret.

There's no way around it; his next opponent will be Madara Uchiha, which will inevitably involve Hashirama Senju and Tobirama Senju, both Edo Tensei puppets, and perhaps even more powerful Edo Tensei puppets.

Therefore, he must master ninjutsu to counter these impure earth puppets.

The Spirit Transformation Technique is undoubtedly a ninjutsu that can counter the Impure World Reincarnation Technique. Ultimately, the Impure World Reincarnation Technique is a blood sacrifice that temporarily summons the souls of the dead from the Pure Land to the human world. As long as the souls within are destroyed, the ninjutsu will naturally come into contact with it.

At the Konoha camp in the Land of Wind, Kirito almost managed to extract Hyuga Tennin's soul from the impure body when dealing with the reanimated puppet.

The reason he wasn't fully exposed was clearly because his soul cultivation wasn't strong enough.

Now that he has completed the breakthrough in the Spirit Transformation Technique, he can definitely use the Spirit Transformation Technique: Soul Hand to directly pull the soul out of the Impure Earth Puppet's body.

At that time, we can definitely catch Madara Uchiha off guard.

Chapter 296: Mastering Wood Release on My Own

The moment Kirito broke through the Spirit Transformation Technique, a vast amount of soul power burst forth from his body, causing a great deal of damage to many items in the operating room. Glass shattered, but the glass shards, spilled liquids, and heavy iron objects all floated up.

At the same time, pale white flames ignited in Kirito's eyes, and one after another, white, transparent tentacles grew from his body until there were six. The tips of these tentacles also ignited pale white flames and frantically tried to pull him from behind.

At this moment, Kirito looked terrifying, like a demon.

"Is this what it looks like when the Spirit Transformation Technique reaches level 3? This soul power is really too great, and my body can hardly take it."

Kirito slowly closed his eyes, carefully experiencing the soul power surging within his body, and sighed.

The last time I felt this way, that my body couldn't withstand my soul, was when I broke through to level 2 in the Spirit Transformation Technique.

At that time, in order to prevent his body from being unable to withstand his own powerful soul, he chose to create a soul clone to divide the soul power within his body.

This time, Kirito was no exception. A transparent Kirito slowly walked out of his body. He once again successfully created a brand new soul clone with his own soul fragments.

The newly born soul clones initially had numb and dull expressions, lacking vitality, and were extremely transparent, so much so that they could become blurry, as if a gust of wind could blow them away.

But as one of the transparent tentacles on Kirito's body pierced into his body, a large amount of soul power was injected into it, and his eyes immediately became lively, and his newly formed soul body quickly stabilized and solidified.

"This soul tentacle looks strange, but it is quite useful. It can completely replace the Soul Hand, a soul ninjutsu derived from the Spirit Transformation Technique, and it also has many of the abilities of the Spirit Transformation Technique. It's really good."

The new soul clone looked at the transparent tentacle inserted into its body and smiled.

Soul tentacles are abilities that automatically emerge after the Spirit Transformation Technique reaches level 4. They are new hands and feet that passively evolve due to the excessive power of the main body's soul, and can help stabilize the excessive soul power within the main body's soul.

They have many functions, among which the core ability of soul-stealing is that it can ignore the physical defense of living beings and directly act on their souls, then pull their souls out of their bodies.

Besides its ability to steal souls, it also possesses the ability to devour souls. Any soul that is struck by it will have its soul power absorbed and then transformed into pure soul power to nourish Kirito's original soul.

There are also soul flames at the tips of the soul tentacles, which can burn souls and even ignite weak or severely damaged souls.

These soul tentacles are the natural enemy of souls and will inevitably pose a serious threat to the impure world puppets created by the Impure World Reincarnation technique.

"Go, the new body is ready."

Kirito's main body opened his eyes and looked at the new soul clone with eyes burning with soul flames.

"No way, are we really going to use that body?"

The new soul clone is one with the original body, he joked.

Then, both of them showed a playful expression.

A moment later, a middle-aged man with black hair who looked nine-tenths like Madara Uchiha appeared in front of Kirito. He was shirtless, and there was a sleeping face on his chest.

After the White Zetsu clone's first encounter with Madara Uchiha, he successfully obtained Madara Uchiha's blood.

In order to obtain Indra's power, Kirito used it to complete the cloning of Madara Uchiha, creating a large number of Madara Uchiha clones.

The black-haired middle-aged man who appeared in front of Kirito at this moment was the new body of his new soul clone, and also the most successful Uchiha Madara clone that Kirito created after expending a lot of resources.

The reason he is considered the most successful is because he is the only clone who survived the transplantation of interstitial cells.

Moreover, after successful transplantation of interstitial cells, their lifespan was significantly increased, and the rapid aging caused by cloning was greatly alleviated.

Finally, because he possessed the chakra of both Indra and Ashura within him, the two chakras began to merge, giving birth to a trace of the power of all things in the universe.

Although it was only a trace, it directly allowed him to awaken the Sharingan, which immediately became a three-tomoe Sharingan, and the Sharingan's power continued to grow at a relatively rapid rate.

It can be said that the most suitable tool for Kirito to control the Rinnegan is this clone of Madara Uchiha, because he is a replica of Madara Uchiha and has the power of all things in the universe within him, making him absolutely suitable to contain the Rinnegan.

The only pity is that this Uchiha clone was created too soon and has not undergone systematic training. Its chakra is insufficient. Once the Rinnegan is installed, the result will not be mastering the Rinnegan, but being directly drained into a dried-up body.

Therefore, Kirito's plan is to capture a tailed beast for the Uchiha clone, or to directly turn the Uchiha clone into a flesh puppet and remotely control it with black rods, using these two methods to make up for the lack of chakra.

However, now that his spiritual transformation technique has made a breakthrough and he has obtained a second soul clone, his desire to turn the Uchiha clone into a flesh and blood puppet has faded.

"Come on, main body, equip me with the Rinnegan. I'm sure Madara Uchiha will be quite surprised when he sees me."

The Uchiha clone said with a smile.

As soon as he finished speaking, the smile on his face disappeared, and he sighed, "However, after installing the Rinnegan, this body will soon be ruined. It's such a pity to have such a good body. I only got it by sheer luck."

"In the end, it's just an imperfect body. If it's scrapped, it's scrapped. There's nothing to regret."

Kirito muttered to himself, then took out a storage-type sealing scroll from his person and retrieved one of the Rinnegan from inside.

When his new soul clone truly took over this clone of Uchiha Madara, he truly realized how bad the body's condition was. Although the body seemed to have stopped aging significantly, its internal organs were still rapidly failing.

It's just that the vigorous vitality brought by the interstitial cells keeps these rapidly depleting organs alive, but ultimately it can't last long.

This shows how bad Madara Uchiha's physical condition was; it's a miracle he's still alive.

"No, if we infuse this body with the power of immortal arts, its lifespan can definitely be extended further. After a few years of nurturing, this body might just give me a big surprise."

"It's Uchiha clone speaking," the clone said.

For a moment, the two looked at each other and fell silent. Then, Kirito silently resealed the Rinnegan into the storage-style sealing scroll.

Kirito was ultimately reluctant to part with the power of the myriad phenomena within the Uchiha clone. The birth of this Uchiha Madara clone was a miracle in itself, and it would be a real shame to waste it in order to rescue the Third Hokage.

If his assumption is correct, he might be able to grant this body the power of the Rinnegan directly.

……

The Uchiha clone left, leaving Kirito's true form alone in the operating room once again.

He had already retracted the soul tentacles and soul flames from his body, returning to normal human form. However, one or two soul tentacles still faintly appeared behind him, baring their fangs and claws.

"I have 4 enhancement points left. It's not enough to continue upgrading the Spirit Transformation Technique, but I can use them to enhance the level 4 Wind Release."

Kirito stared at the remaining four enhancement points in the attribute template, lost in thought.

After upgrading his Spirit Transformation Technique, he gained the power he desired, enabling him to counter the Impure World Reincarnation Technique. Now, his next consideration is to try and defeat Uchiha Madara, that old schemer, head-on.

Madara Uchiha's strength was immense. He possessed the Mangekyou Sharingan of Homura Uchiha, the complete Susanoo, the Izanagi that could be used countless times, and the Wood Release power of Hashirama Senju. Any one of these abilities alone would be enough to make even the strongest Kage in the ninja world tremble with fear.

Now that all these powers are in the hands of one person, one can imagine how powerful he is.

In a one-on-one fight, Kirito has absolutely no chance of winning. But now that he has obtained a White Zetsu clone of the Five-Tails, he might be able to achieve a 30/70 split.

"It's still Izanagi. This Uchiha's ultimate eye technique is too overpowered. I wonder how many Sharingan that old guy has in stock. Although this ultimate eye technique consumes a lot of chakra, with that old guy's chakra reserves, he can probably use it three or four times in a battle without any problem."