After the high-level meeting concluded, Uchiha Fugaku returned to his clan.
First, he summoned several elderly clan elders and relayed the instructions from the high-level meeting. Then, he went to see his son, Uchiha Itachi, who was less than a year old, and his wife. Only after that did he quietly make his way to the secret chamber beneath the Naka Shrine.
A pool of writhing black mud emerged from the ground, coalescing into a humanoid shape.
"Zetsu, what's the situation now?"
Uchiha Fugaku sat cross-legged on a cushion, his back to the Uchiha Stone Tablet, and looked at Black Zetsu.
"Ever since Nagato used the Rinnegan to summon the Gedo Statue, he has believed that I am a creation left by the Sage of Six Paths to guide humanity towards peace. The authority of the Land of Rain is still in Hanzo's hands, and Nagato holds Hanzo in deep reverence. Hanzo remains wary of me, but after I demonstrated the existence of the Ten-Tails using the Gedo Statue, he must have developed ambitions for it.
You can rest assured on this point; we don't need to guide him intentionally. He will spontaneously gather the Tailed Beasts."
Black Zetsu's hoarse voice entered his ears. Uchiha Fugaku pondered for a moment, saying nothing.
So Black Zetsu continued:
"Nagato is currently the Seven-Tails Jinchuriki. The Three-Tails and Six-Tails are in our hands. One-third of the Tailed Beasts have been acquired. Now, it's time to start planning for the other Tailed Beasts."
Uchiha Fugaku nodded slightly:
"Cloud Hidden Village is not a concern. With the power we currently possess, as long as we plan properly and utilize our hidden advantages, it won't be difficult to lure the Eight-Tails and Two-Tails out of Cloud Hidden, provided we can accurately obtain information on them. Conveniently, I will be serving as Konoha's envoy to Cloud Hidden Village this time, which is a good opportunity to gather intelligence."
"I will have the White Zetsu stationed there cooperate with you. However, while the Eight-Tails and Two-Tails are easy to capture, the remaining four Tailed Beasts are very difficult. The Nine-Tails is manageable; you are currently a high-ranking member of Konoha, and with the contingency Madara left behind, you can unleash the latent ocular power within the Nine-Tails. There will always be an opportunity to get it. The real trouble lies with the three in Sand Hidden."
"The Nine-Tails… Sand Hidden… both are inseparable from the Fourth Kazekage, Qingshui.
Konoha, in preparation for future confrontation with him, decided to have the First Hokage train Kushina to help her master the Nine-Tails' power. Once she can fully utilize the Nine-Tails' strength, capturing it will be even more difficult, and we will have to wait for an absolute opportunity to act.
As for the ones in Sand Hidden, we are capturing Tailed Beasts, not the Fourth Kazekage. As long as we can bypass him, there will always be an opportunity to succeed.
Of course, if we can eliminate him, all the better.
All in all, we first need to find a sufficiently powerful force to confront the Fourth Kazekage and his Sand Hidden ninja, and also retain enough strength to capture the three Tailed Beasts.
Only by combining the full might of Konoha and multiple ninja villages can this be achieved, because Sand Village's current strength is far too great.
We must make all ninja villages realize the threat of Sand Hidden and facilitate an alliance of nations to have any chance of victory."
Uchiha Fugaku said to Black Zetsu indifferently.
A thoughtful expression appeared on Black Zetsu's extremely simplistic face.
The major ninja villages had accumulated much resentment over decades, and their mutual hatred was deep. Uniting them would be quite difficult.
Unless there was an existence powerful enough to threaten all ninja villages and significantly infringe upon all their interests.
Just like Akatsuki in the original timeline.
Except for the Eight-Tails and Nine-Tails, all Tailed Beasts were captured, and in the process, they displayed immense power. Their attempt to synthesize the Ten-Tails also directly threatened the entire Ninja World.
This truly made the Five Great Ninja Villages feel fear.
Only fear and threat could make these ninja villages set aside their differences and work together.
Did Sand Village possess such power now?
Perhaps, but the most difficult part was making the other ninja villages realize it.
For Black Zetsu, who, shortly after his birth, single-handedly orchestrated the war between Indra and Asura, thereby initiating the brutally bloody Warring States Period that lasted for nearly a millennium, and had witnessed several Great Ninja Wars in the era of ninja villages, he did not believe that humanity would ever truly unite.
This wasn't some storybook protagonist's tale; Black Zetsu did not believe there would ever be a day when all humanity united.
Yet, Sand Hidden's strength was indeed too great and would affect his plans.
Black Zetsu continued:
"I will also try my best to facilitate this matter. However, if possible, I hope you can master the Impure World Reincarnation Jutsu. This jutsu, improved by Orochimaru and Tobirama Senju, should be able to revive Madara with most of his full strength from his prime, provided a relatively powerful White Zetsu individual is used as the sacrifice.
At that time, with Madara's power, it will be enough to settle everything."
"The Impure World Reincarnation Jutsu? The difficulty of that jutsu is very high; I may not be able to master it. But I can look for an opportunity to try and get my hands on it first. It's just that Tobirama Senju, Shimura Danzō, and some other high-ranking members of the Hokage faction are still wary of the Uchiha. With them around, it will be difficult for me to succeed; I'll have to eliminate them first."
"Just keep it as a backup plan. As for the details of the subsequent plan, I'll leave them to you. I need to go back and continue monitoring Nagato."
Black Zetsu's figure transformed into black mud, slowly sinking into the ground and disappearing.
Uchiha Fugaku sighed softly, opening a pair of Mangekyo Sharingan with peculiar patterns, staring blankly at the Uchiha Stone Tablet, lost in thought.
He felt so tired now.
With his talent, planning such a massive project as the Infinite Tsukuyomi in a Ninja World far more complex than it was ten years ago was incredibly difficult.
...
...
One-Punch Man World.
Backyard of a suburban villa.
"It's worth noting that in this period's Hero Association popularity ranking, the S-Class Hero Black Lightning, who debuted two months ago, has further climbed in rank. Compared to the previous period, he has surpassed Tatsumaki the Terrible Tornado and Dogman, leaping to third place on the overall hero popularity list, with a popularity score of 9.8, second only to Sweet Mask's 10 points and the surface's strongest man, King's 9.9 points..."
"At the same time, we've noticed that Mr. Black Lightning's Lightning Entertainment Group has achieved remarkable success recently. According to public financial reports, his novel and comic websites earned over two billion Japanese Yen in recent monthly financial statements, and several variety shows he invested in and developed have also become hits across the entire internet. Perhaps in the near future, Black Lightning will, like Sweet Mask, establish his own commercial entertainment empire..."
In the holographic projection, a pretty host with a sweet voice held a topic in one hand and pointed at a large data screen behind her with the other, broadcasting the news.
Qingshui dropped the heavy barbell he was holding, took off his Magic Tool training suit, and then picked up the medicinal tea beside him, guzzling it down to replenish nutrients and water.
He has now broken through the third Limiter, and his pure physical strength exceeds one hundred tons.
If he uses Breathing Style and Chakra to enhance himself, he can increase it several more times.
However, after he was able to cultivate Sage Mode, this method was already obsolete.
When using Sage Art Chakra to activate Reverse Growth, his strength approaches a thousand tons. In terms of pure physical destructive power, he is stronger than high-level Demon-level physical Monsters.
Coupled with his fully Magic Tool Transformed and nanotech-enhanced armor, the boost from his mental aura, and the various skills and techniques he has mastered, Qingshui believes this Avatar absolutely possesses the combat power to kill most Dragon-level Monsters. Even when facing God-level threats above Dragon-level, Qingshui is confident he can protect himself using his spatial and temporal abilities.
"But there's still room for improvement!"
Qingshui clenched his fist and swiped his hand across the holographic projection in front of him.
The news program immediately switched to other text and image data.
A month ago, he visited Bomb at the Whirlwind Dojo in City F, bringing a letter of recommendation from Bang, and learned Bomb's unique technique, Whirlwind Iron Cutting Fist.
Compared to Fist of Flowing Water, Crushing Rock, Whirlwind Iron Cutting Fist was clearly more suitable for him, as its attributes aligned better with his own.
Combined with abilities like Transparent World that could be used for Taijutsu learning, his speed in learning the martial art even astonished Bomb, who believed Qingshui's compatibility with this martial art was no less than his own.
Within a few days, Qingshui had fully mastered Whirlwind Iron Cutting Fist, cultivating it to a proficient level and grasping its Whirlwind Fist Intent.
Then, Qingshui quickly discovered that Whirlwind Fist Intent and Flowing Water Fist Intent were extremely complementary, even capable of merging into a new, unified Fist Intent. A rough estimate suggested its power was several times greater than either Whirlwind Iron Cutting Fist or Fist of Flowing Water, Crushing Rock alone.
This was Sky-Rending Air-Splitting Fist!
Bomb told him that the two Fist Intents were actually originally one, two sides of the same coin.
Just as the Breathing Styles in the Demon Slayer World were created as simplifications because the first swordsmen couldn't learn Sun Breathing, Fist of Flowing Water, Crushing Rock and Whirlwind Iron Cutting Fist also originated from the same martial art. However, even Bang and Bomb, two grandmasters of the martial arts world, couldn't fully perform it even at their peak when they were young.
They could only barely perform it by relying on their profound martial arts mastery and the telepathic understanding between the two brothers, working in tandem.
It had a long wind-up, consumed immense stamina, and due to their age, Bang would experience back pain after using it, while Bomb would have knee pain.
If even these two, whose physical conditioning in their youth was comparable to peak Dragon-level Monsters, couldn't perform it, then it likely required at least Dragon-level physical strength to fully unleash this martial art.
That was the power of a fully Monster-transformed Garou, virtually unrivaled below God-level.
Qingshui's overall strength might have reached high Dragon-level, but in terms of physical domain, he was still far behind.
Forget about above Dragon-level; even the now eighty-something-year-old Bang and Bomb brothers had physical strength superior to his.
Fortunately, Qingshui had a cheat.
Although it was just Medical Ninjutsu, in Qingshui's hands, it allowed for almost infinite recovery.
This meant that as long as he had sufficient nutrition, he could train and strengthen his body without limit, reaching the Limiter as quickly as possible.
However, the further along the Limiters were, the harder they became to break through.
But with his powerful mental energy, strong enough to affect reality, he faced almost no obstacles when breaking through the earlier Limiters.
As for how many Limiters his mental energy could sustain, Qingshui didn't know himself.
But he could at least be certain that with the Marvel Universe Avatar's research into the Mind Stone and the Yi Ren World Avatar's opportunities in the Twenty-Four Solar Terms Valley, his current mental energy had reached an extremely profound level.
His Transparent World, which previously had a range of just over two thousand meters, had now more than doubled in size.
Within a ten-mile radius around him, any subtle movement, even as tiny as a cell-sized dust particle, could be clearly perceived in his mind.
Up to the third Limiter, Qingshui felt no significant pressure and easily broke through it.
Now, with the diminishing returns of his training, it indicated that the fourth Limiter was not far off.
"Phew..."
After leaving the private training room, Qingshui took a quick shower. Just as he was about to go out for a meal, a luxury car pulled up on the street outside his home.
Fubuki, dressed in a dark green dress, stepped out of the car.
Immediately after, more cars of the same brand pulled up.
Members of the Blizzard Group, all dressed in suits and holding gift boxes, stood in neat rows outside his door.
Qingshui, wearing a bathrobe, poked his head out the window, looking speechless.
This was the eleventh gift Fubuki had sent him in the past two months.
The whole world was now spreading rumors that Hellish Blizzard, ranked first in B-Class, was pursuing Black Lightning, ranked twelfth in S-Class.
Due to his greater strength and higher mobility, Qingshui had been dealing with the Demon-level and above Monsters appearing in City D and surrounding cities recently, except for those in Z-City where Saitama resided. Therefore, his current ranking had surpassed Puri-Puri Prisoner and Metal Bat, who had been promoted before him, reaching twelfth place.
"I told you, I'm not interested in your little play-pretend association," Qingshui said, lounging on the sofa in the living room, addressing Fubuki, who sat opposite him with a dignified and elegant demeanor.
He was beginning to suspect if Fubuki had a crush on him.
No, what was more suspicious was whether Fubuki wanted to take half of his assets.
"I know you're not interested in the Blizzard Group itself, but I believe you'll be very interested in the industries under the Blizzard Group's umbrella," Fubuki said, pushing a thick document towards Qingshui with a smile.
"As long as you agree to become the leader of the Blizzard Group, all of this will be yours."
"They're all pretty average... wait, these shares in the Grow Tall Milk Brand company..."
"My sister gave it to me," Fubuki said with a smile.
Actually, this brand of milk had hired Tatsumaki as their spokesperson for three years through a combination of shares and payment. Later, when Tatsumaki found out this milk couldn't actually make her grow taller, she lost interest in the company.
However, due to Tatsumaki's popularity and the milk's good taste, the brand's shares soared after it went public, benefiting from three years of accumulated promotion.
If these shares were cashed out, they would be worth tens of billions of Japanese Yen.
But Qingshui didn't lack money at the moment.
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