The Earth Release Resurrection Technique: Corpse Soil, or just Earth Release: Corpse Soil, could be used in one of two ways.
With a large amount of earth as a catalyst, one can rapidly summon an endless flow of undead corpses.
However, these risen dead were weak, having no intelligence nor any of the skills and physical prowess they had in life, not to mention they could be easily destroyed with regular attacks.
The fearsome part was that you could just keep on summoning more and resummoning the destroyed dead as well, eventually wearing down your opponents through attrition.
A second way to use the jutsu required a large source of energy, in the series electricity was used but Shiki had no doubts that chakra would do just fine.
With that extra energy, the resurrected corpses would be given intelligence as well as all the abilities they had in life but they had to follow the implanted directives of the jutsu caster until the jutsu was undone or they were destroyed.
The series kept the mechanics of the jutsu a bit vague but the Second Hokage's research contained his conclusions as to how it worked.
The earth used as a catalyst to summon the dead needed to contain the human remains of the summoned dead. So long as the soil containing the remains of the summoned dead remained in the jutsu user's vicinity, they could endlessly resummon the vanquished dead.
In other words, unless in well prepared ground, the jutsu required the ability to summon large pieces of prepared earth in order to be effective outside of literal graveyards.
It was not a problem for Shiki though. Such a flawed jutsu, the boy never meant to use it as is, he merely wanted to learn its principles and see if he could integrate it into his arsenal through his own original jutsu.
'There were two users of this jutsu in the series' filler arc, Fudo and Kazuma. The latter did not know it originally and was mainly and Wind Release specialist but the former was completely honed in on Earth Release, maybe even a member of the clan that holds the jutsu.' The mentally theorized.
*
A few days passed and the pair made their way to the clan's territory, the Dojou clan it was called.
Their location was not a secret but their possession of their hidden forbidden jutsu certainly was, if they did indeed possess it that is.
"Hopefully they keep the jutsu in written format and near their clan's living space. If not, we expand the search area to their entire territory. If we still can't find it, we'll need to capture someone suitably important and try and get the info we need out of them." Shiki laid out the plan.
"And if we still come up empty?" Beni asked, just to be sure.
"Then this side mission will be a bust and we move onto the critical matter." The boy shrugged as he replied.
"Having this jutsu is not an absolute necessity for me, not like the main goal of this outing, so we don't have to take that many risks but if we're lucky, none of these considerations will be needed and we'll find what we want in our initial search." Shiki added.
Benihime nodded.
The girl absolutely loved it when he referred to his wants and his goals as theirs. It made them seem more like a single unit. Though Beni was aware that this made her seem a little bit too obsessed.
What followed was the pair's full use of their respective sensory abilities.
The Dojou clan's occupied area of their territory was actually small so they could both cover the entirety of it but no matter how much they searched, the desired result was not achieved.
Shiki did find the records kept by the clan, their history, various earth release jutsu, etc.
But the key item was nowhere to be found.
'They did really lose the jutsu and that Fudo and Kazuma just happened to discover it in the future?' The boy wondered.
'Or maybe such restricted knowledge is passed down through oral tradition . . .' He theorized.
Shiki did not believe they hid their secrets far out of sight so he thought that widening the area of search like he planned would be a waste of time.
He would still do it if nothing could be found but . . .
'I must be missing something . . .' The boy mused.
But suddenly, Beni shook him out of his thoughts with a shoulder tap.
"Beni-chan?" He inquisitively turned to her.
"I think I found what we're looking for." The girl claimed.
"What!? Where!?" Shiki was sincerely shocked.
He looked everywhere and there was no area where his senses felt restricted so what could he have missed?
"Downwards, underground." Benihime pointed out.
"I didn't see any underground passage." He responded but the girl shook her head.
"There is no passage, just a large underground chamber, deep beneath the surface, one must be able to travel underground to reach and open in, probably through the clan's Earth Release." Beni explained.
Shiki immediately focused his Kukyo - Seven Senses to scan the deep underground and finally detected what Beni mentioned.
"Nicely done! I completely missed it." The boy praised.
'I must remember for posterity that sealed rooms don't necessarily need passages to access them, underground or otherwise.' He thought to himself while the girl merely smiled with hidden delight at his praise.
With a deeper analysis, Shiki quickly discovered the nature of this underground chamber.
It was a natural cavern, reinforced with Earth Release and Sealing Arrays.
To make sure it was undetectable, there is not even a ventilation system so a shinobi simply had to hold their breath and supplement their body with chakra to go all the way down there without suffocating.
With his perverse sensory abilities however, the boy would be able to read whatever secrets were hidden there from the safety and comfort of the surface.
And after a thorough scan, there were three things of note.
The Dojou clan's secret plans for the future, the Earth Release: Corpse Soil that Shiki coveted and a jutsu that the clan developed since their move to the Land of Fire in order to make up for the weakness of Corpse Soil, its requirement of burial grounds to function.
This jutsu, also shown in the filler arc of the original series, was called Earth Release: Mutability, it combined Summoning Techniques and Earth Release to bring terrain from another location to the user's position while allowing some alterations to its shape.
With it, one could summon the dead remain filled grave soil required for Earth Release: Corpse Soil, whenever and wherever it was required.
It was an interesting jutsu and though he did not see much immediate use for it, Shiki decided to memorize it nonetheless.
And, with far less trouble than in the Fire Temple, the second minor objective of the outing was completed, thanks in large part due to Benihime's thoroughness in scanning the deep underground with her Shuigan, thus noticing what the boy had missed.
Now, only the main goal remained.
It was time to hunt for the Gelel Ore Vein.
+++++
Hey, Author here!
To promote the novel I will be releasing BONUS CHAPTERS on SUNDAYS based on the previous week's power stone count.
100 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter
500 Power Stones = 2 Bonus Chapters
1000 Power Stones = 3 Bonus Chapters
Every earned BONUS CHAPTER on Webnovel will also be posted on Scribble.
Just a reminder that you can read up to a FULL MONTH ahead of this site on pa-treon.
I'm trying to become a full time Author now and I'm not going to be starting any new novels just so I can make sure this one is properly completed.
Find those sweet advanced chapters on pa-treon.com/lusoba without the -