Mitsuo was as usual, spending his time in the inventory.
It was his home. The safe place where he spent years learning under his sensei Mikitaka.
He was even there for the construction of the Inventory Space Station. His earliest memories were of watching the rockets that carried parts of the Inventory to space.
After that he dedicated his childhood and teenage life towards space technology. He remembered how he spent years of his life barely living on 5 hours of sleep. Just because he couldn't stop reading Mikitaka's books on science. He would obsessively read and reread those books every night.
In his late 20s he even got to participate in the construction of the first space elevator built.
That was where he met Mikitaka for the first time.
After that he somehow ended up as Mikitaka's subordinate, and became the defacto leader of Kagaku. At the time it was a psuedo religion that worshiped Mikitaka. Which is natural because of how he changed the world so fast and improved so many lives. All he ever did was direct Kagaku into a more scientific direction.
It became so popular over the years that the land of Ancestors was renamed and people just referred to the nation as Kagaku.
The inventory itself was massive. It was the all purpose laboratory of Mikitaka. It stored everything he ever made and it was constantly expanded and upgraded by him throughout the years. After he added portal technology to it, it became his personal pocket.
It was one of Mikitaka's greatest creations. The perfect warehouse. His personal garage. The ultimate hidden station.
The palace of the Future King.
But it nowadays it was just Mitsuo's glorified house and office. Mitsuo was far from qualified to handle many of the things that Mikitaka left in the Inventory. Mainly it was the 'immortality' projects that Mikitaka had left behind.
Mikitaka had many attempts at becoming 'immortal.' But he discarded every attempt. Mitsuo remembered it clearly. When he had confronted his sensei on the matter.
"Mikitaka, why are you discarding this? According to the data here it should halt senescence."
Mitsuo was dumbfounded. Mikitaka always spoke of achieving immortality but here he was throwing it away!
In response Mikitaka just smirked.
"You're focusing too hard on the future. You should focus on the present you know."
"But what about project anti-human?"
"You are thinking in binaries, what I seek is not a binary of aging or no aging. These are all just steps towards my greater goal of immortality!"
Mikitaka swayed his arm up and around him. As if showcasing the grandeur of everything around him.
"Tell me, what is your definition of immortality?"
"Isn't it to halt aging?"
"You're thinking too rigidly Mitsuo. When I speak of immortality what I truly mean is becoming something engraved into the fabric of reality. It is one of many steps for not just reaching ,but thriving in the grandest frontier."
"The universe?"
"I have glimpsed the path beyond that."
"The multiverse?"
"Yes"
Even Mitsuo was skeptical at this point.
"How will you do that?"
"Well like I said. Many steps. I can't afford to go speaking of greater things all willy nilly."
"But if you keep discarding these projects. Will you die of age?"
"...If it comes to that. I have a last resort project you can use."
"What is it?"
"It's called Project Sanabi. Although I have not invested myself into understanding how well it could go. It could be quite dangerous, even disastrous. But as long as the conditions are controlled. Feel free to try it out in the future."
Indeed Mitsuo had many conversations with Mikitaka. But he had always enjoyed being vague and rarely explained himself or his advanced sciences. He always said something along the lines of 'I cannot speak recklessly' and 'secrets should be kept in places forever undiscovered.' But other than those infuriating traits Mikitaka really did live up to the hype of the Future King with his prowess.
'The conditions are set. I can finally activate project Sanabi.'
Mitsuo was now holding onto a small metal sphere on the 2nd of the two moons orbiting Ambus. He was completely isolated. No technology, no infrastructure, and no people. Just him, the sphere, and the vastness of the moon.
"Temporarily activate project Sanabi."
'I need information. And only he has it.'
Mitsuo was tense. The ball began glowing. It levitated off of his hand and moved away from Mitsuo by a meter or two.
And then a full 3 dimensional holographic projection of Mikita's appearance appeared with that ball as the center.
"It's been 20 years since you last did this Mitsuo. What's happening now?"
Project Sanabi was an ai recreation of Mitsuo's personality and mind. Unless it were to suddenly display endless genius it was most certainly not Mikitaka in soul.
It was still incredibly risky. Mikitaka didn't like making truly intelligent ai's. He even reserved the name ai for those truly intelligent ones. Calling everything else algorithms. Language data algorithms, dynamic algorithms, etc.
Most importantly Mikitaka did not want his ai recreation to mess around with his stuff because he knew he would not resist the temptation to. So he gave instructions to Mitsuo to only use project Sanabi in the most isolated of places and rarely as well. So that his AI hologram replica wouldn't connect to anything.
"Here, I uploaded everything about now."
"Ask away."
"Why are the sages going mad and killing everything and waging war?"
"Mind control."
Mitsuo was taken a little exasperated at how little information he was getting for his questions.
"Anything else?"
"Not really, but keep on asking."
"Then why did the inventory shoot one of your nuclear weapons at 2 random heat signatures."
"You didn't upload anything about that. But if it's what I think it is. Then the entire planet is in great danger. Those heat signatures were probably aliens."
"Do you know anything of these aliens?"
Mitsuo had decided to upload his sighting of the extremely small humanoid figure he had managed to sight. He also put in everything on the box of ultimate bliss and how it had been used against Kagaku.
Mikitaka suddenly made an expression. It was a mix of seriousness, shock, and determination. He started speaking in a much more serious tone than before.
"They aliens known as the Otsutsuki. They are masters of a special supernatural energy unique to them that they call chakra. They use a technique with their chakra called the Yomotsu Hirasaka to travel between dimensions and planets."
"How are they a great danger?"
"First they are masters of chakra. Do not underestimate their master of this energy, they can wield this power on a planetary level at an individual scale. Second they plant seeds that grow a world tree. It is a massive tree whose sole purpose is to drain an entire planet of its natural energy. The energy of sages. And convert it into a single chakra fruit. They consume these fruits to gain enormous power. It usually comes at the expense of the entire biosphere of the planet.
"Then what do I do? We can't face against a planetary level enemy."
"We? I could handle something like that just fine. But for now it's clear that my nuke has massively weakened that particular alien you witnessed. So you should be able to handle it.
"Is there anything else you can tell me?"
"Well, the Otsutsuki you saw is Isshiki Otsutsuki. He can shrink things, summon big cubes, and fights good."
"Anything else?"
"No that's all I know. Good luck!"
The holographic image of Mikitaka flickered and disappeared and the ball at the core fell on the ground.
"..."
"You always leave too soon. I had a lot more questions sensei."
Mitsuo was processing all of this information.
He was thinking many thoughts like how many more space lasers he could construct in a short span. If he should nuke this Isshiki the moment his nanomachines find him. Or how to continue the war effort bu...
'Wait a second. Otsutsuki...'
'Otsutsuki...'
'Something about Otsutsuki'
'What is it about Otsutsuki?'
'I'm missing something'
'Otsuts-'
"TENJI OTSUTSUKI!!!"