28 Chapter 26

'Am I narcissistic for saying that my beauty is too dazzling?' Toneri thought.

Currently, he was hiding away as going out in public with his normal appearance may or may not have attracted attention.

To be fair, the people he met weren't normally like that. If they see a famous hunter, of course, they would try to swarm the latter. But this is Toneri we're talking about. The man that got simps on his first day of being an S-Rank with over 400k members in his fan group that is growing a bit too large nowadays and has now branched off to many groups.

Of course, he wasn't the only guy people in Japan are simping for. Some high-rank hunters here also have their respective fan groups like the good-looking hunter named Nagata Shigeo who is an A-Ranked Hunter that specializes in marksmanship. Or the cold-looking S-Rank Hunter Sano Takeshi that always seems like he has a grudge against you but stays silent.

Anyways, he learned his lesson and vows that from now on, before leaving for public places, he would change his appearance. So, finding a restroom, he changed his appearance to look like Aizen Sosuke and left.

'This should do it.' He thought

After that, he left and went to the place he wanted to go. Originally, he intended to gather some info regarding a 'thing' he wants. But he changed plans as something came to his mind.

* * *

'Is this it?' Toneri thought

Right now, he just exited a taxi and looked up at a tall mountain in the distance.

Paying the taxi driver the money, the latter nodded and drove off, leaving Toneri all by himself in some deserted forest.

That's right; he was currently away from civilization as he realize one thing. A massive flaw in his plan: Normal Clones cannot gather nature energy.

He realized that normal clones are only illusory and do not have a physical body meaning they can't absorb the nature energy around them. However, since the normal clones still contain his chakra, the memories of the normal clone made will still return to him.

(A/N: The wiki was really vague about this, ngl. It clearly said that if your chakra (from a clone) returns to you, the memories that were stored in the clone's chakra will be passed back to the main body. I don't remember if this is canon or not but I still checked many websites like Quora, Reddit, and Animo to confirm this which, strangely enough, is true. Also, yes, I was wrong with the clone gathering nature energy in the previous chapter, sorry 'bout that. I just saw some guy do this in his fanfic so I copied it.)

So now, he intends to do the gathering himself. Of course, he will not give up on his theory of whether normal clones can help him as he really needs it.

'Okay... I have one day to finish this before the mass clearing begins... I need to do this FAST.' He thought.

Luckily, it's still morning so he has lots of time. But in the Naruto series, learning Sage Mode isn't easy. You need to balance your chakra and nature chakra to form Senjutsu Chakra, which took Naruto a week to pull off.

The way Sage Mode and senjutsu work is that you gather nature energy from the outside world and combine it with your chakra, which is formed from your own physical and spiritual energies. The key is balance. You need to be able to balance the internal and external energies together harmoniously in order for it to work. If you take in too little nature energy, nothing will happen. If you take in too much, it'll overpower your chakra, and you'll turn into a toad. Go even further, and you'll turn to stone.

Not anyone can learn Sage Mode. In layman's terms, you just need a body capable of housing the additional nature chakra you absorb from around you. Orochimaru was unable to achieve Sage mode for this reason as his (host) bodies were too weak.

Thankfully, Toneri has a good amount of Chakra, a semi-otsutsuki body, and coupled with his good chakra control from the result of the chakra coil upgrade, he has confidence that he can control his chakra and harmonize it with nature chakra.

'Though, I'll try not to push my luck and try my best to not turn to a toad or stone...' Toneri thought. Then, he added 'Wait a minute. Since I'm learning Sage Mode using the toad's way, won't I manifest a toad's characteristics? Like how Naruto has those frog-slit eyes...'

He wasn't that uncomfortable with forming a toad-like appearance, but he hopes that it was something... Not too eye-catching.

He then shook his head to shake those thoughts away and head up the mountain. With his clone, of course.

* * *

"Hup..."

"Hup..."

Currently, Toneri is jumping from rocks to rocks on a steep mountainside. Below him was his clone.

"Almost there..." He muttered as he sees a clearing up ahead with trees.

Soon, he arrived at the forest above barely tired with his stamina. It was a lush forest. Toneri decided to go in deeper into the forest to find a suitable place.

Then, something caught Toneri's attention. 'Huh? What the...'

On a side of a mountain, there was a traditional-looking Japanese structure with a stone pathway leading upwards to its stone gate.

At first, Toneri was confused as to why something like this was out here in the middle of nowhere. It was already near afternoon as the drive took 4 hours to reach this place. That alone is enough to show how far this place is.

Yet there was a structure made here.

Out of curiosity, Toneri slowly made his way up and stood in front of the gate. He picked up the round door handle and slammed it twice to inform if there was anybody inside.

But surprisingly, there was no response.

So being the curious person he is about this peculiar place, he opened the gate and entered.

What appeared in front of his eyes was a wide space with stone slabs as the floor. In the distance, there were three traditionally-style structures with the middle one being the biggest.

"Hello?" Toneri shouted, trying to confirm if there was anyone present.

But yet again, silence.

At this point, Toneri finally confirmed that no one was there so he walked over to the biggest structure out of the tree and entered.

It was windy inside as there were no doors. Only walls and some pillars inside.

Toneri activated his Byakugan for the first time since transmigrating here and inspected the place. 'There really are no people here...'

He then saw something in the distance that caught his attention. Hidden behind a wall, a secret room was present and there seems to be... Bookshelves inside?

Curious about the secret room, Toneri thought of going inside but he thought of something immediately. 'There may be traps here...'

So, he sent his clone to the wall, and surely enough, there was a trap door present that sent his clone down. Toneri approached the trap door and discovered that at the bottom, there was a deep watering hole with slithering snakes inside. 'Ew...'

He then summoned a clone again and made it his may shield. More and more traps appeared to which Toneri was lucky to not be caught in.

And now, finally, he reached the wall. He then condensed a Rasengan in his hand and blasted through the wall.

*BOOM!*

A loud sound of explosion rang out. Dust was covering Toneri's figure and debris was laying on the floor.

Toneri entered and saw rows of bookshelves containing books. It was a dark room as the only source of light was a small opening above. In the center, a pedestal was present with a letter with a leather cover on it.

Toneri approached the middle and opened the letter.

In the book, it showed:

[If you are reading this, then that means you have found our dojo. I congratulate you, traveler.]

[I do not know when a person will find this place as our tradition is to seclude ourselves from the open eye. So you either are a lost traveler or someone who has gained knowledge of this place.]

[But none of those matters. If you are reading this, then that means you did not die outside.]

When Toneri read that last part, his mouth twitched with a smile as he remember those crazy traps he saw.

He then continued reading.

[Anyways. As I mentioned before, I do not know when or how a person would find this place. But if you did, me and my brother would have already died of old age.]

[For a short summary of this dojo, we are a secretive dojo that only accepts those who are worthy of learning of our martial arts. At our peak, we had over a hundred disciples. But almost all of them failed to learn our martial arts.]

[There was only one person who managed to learn it but he ran away and decided to use it for his own benefit.]

[And as his mentor, I could only sigh in disappointment.]

[Over the years, more and more of our disciples left or did not manage to learn our martial arts and died.]

[Until finally, it was only me and my brother left. As the current dojo master, I have to uphold our tradition of secrecy and not show ourselves.]

[But... That does not mean that travelers like you could not seek us out.]

[If you are reading this, I once again congratulate you. For crossing many mountains, facing dangers in the forest, and surviving, I hereby grant you the title of the next Dojo Master and the right to learn our martial arts.]

'Crossing mountains? Facing dangers in a forest? I just climbed a random mountain though...' Toneri thought

[Our martial art is developed by my ancestors but further developed and improved by me. It is called Ryūsui Gansai-ken ('Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist')]

[And now, I hereby pass it on to you. I hope you will not end up like our disciples.]

[With the greatest regards, as the former Dojo Master, I wish you luck. —Bang]

After reading the whole letter, Toneri's mouth was left open as he slowly utter the words: "Nani?"

•—•—•—•—•

A/N: The plot armor is strong on this one...

No, this is not lazy writing. Everything is going according to Keikaku.