Chapter 210: Another Group of Divine Beings in the Ninja World, Daring to Cultivate With This?
Kenichi was absolutely certain of one thing.
Even if the people of the ninja world were special, to the point that some jokingly called them "vegetative people," their bones did not glow. He knew that better than anyone.
Which meant the guy in front of him was clearly not normal.
"It feels a little hot when I hold it," Kenichi murmured, staring at the bone in his hand. "It's faint, but it's there."
Then a memory surfaced, something he had complained about before.
Back when radium was first discovered, people had actually used it as a cosmetic.
And later, those same people experienced the "miracle" of seeing their bones glow.
Kenichi's scalp tingled.
He tossed the bone away on instinct.
This might be radiation.
After the bone hit the ground, it continued to glow faintly in the dark, like a firefly. The sight alone was enough to make the back of his neck go cold.
"Is this just one person, or is it something bigger?" Kenichi quickly rinsed his hands with water.
He didn't feel any discomfort yet, but he knew what radiation could do. Even without symptoms, the knowledge itself made his skin crawl.
He formed a hand sign and summoned a shadow clone.
"You're really cautious, Main Body," the clone muttered, sounding annoyed.
Kenichi smiled. Being cautious was a good habit. He had no interest in earning some lifelong, permanent VIP user skin.
The clone understood the risk too. It was dangerous for the real body to go in.
But for shadow clones?
If the radiation was too strong, they could just disperse and send the memories back. No long term consequences.
Kenichi watched as the clone walked into the still burning Hidden Star Village.
Then he glanced at the glowing femur nearby and couldn't help licking his lips.
He really hadn't expected this kind of harvest from a small Hidden Star Village.
"Radiation… accidental exposure wouldn't do this," Kenichi thought, finding a relatively safe spot and sitting down. "So this person must have been in long term contact with a radiation source."
Right then, the airship began descending from the sky.
Kenichi moved quickly, climbed the rope hanging beneath it, and pulled himself up. He hadn't climbed earlier because the rope hadn't been low enough, but now it was within reach.
"Amemiya senpai! That explosion just now was truly spectacular!" Deidara said, practically glowing with excitement.
Kenichi smiled. The cluster bombs really did have a dense, brutal kind of beauty.
"Don't rush in yet. We wait," Kenichi said, parking the airship and stopping Deidara before he could jump down to loot the battlefield.
His shadow clone hadn't dispersed yet.
Until Kenichi knew exactly what was going on inside, he wasn't stepping into that village himself.
Deidara was curious, but he sat down obediently beside Kenichi anyway. In his mind, whatever Amemiya senpai said was correct.
After a while, Kenichi felt a brief dizzy pull in his head.
Then the clone's memories flowed into him.
Bones were glowing.
In the remains of some people, their bones had the same faint glow. Others were completely normal. Not everyone had it.
But that wasn't the biggest gain.
The clone had caught a survivor.
"He actually grabbed a live one?" Kenichi raised an eyebrow. "Could it be that person from earlier?"
He hadn't expected that.
The captive's strength was frankly an eyesore, but the technique she used was undeniably striking. The strange thing Kenichi had seen floating over the ruins earlier had been her ninjutsu.
"Let's go, Deidara," Kenichi said, shaking his head. "But be careful. We're not going into the village yet."
He planned to interrogate the captive first.
A living mouth meant secrets.
And considering what he had just discovered, that captive was probably connected to the test subject he had been thinking about before leaving.
"Okay, senpai!" Deidara followed excitedly.
Soon, they reached a woman tied to a tree. Her head hung low, and blood stained the corner of her mouth.
But what caught Deidara's attention most was her arm.
Was it glowing?
Kenichi narrowed his eyes.
Sure enough.
Her bones glowed too.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
Combined with her identity and the village itself, Kenichi's suspicion sharpened. Hidden Star Village likely held a secret, and that secret was tied to radiation.
It was possible that the ones with glowing bones were all ninjas.
"What's your name?" Kenichi lifted her chin with one hand.
The three tomoe in his eyes spun, and he planted a genjutsu directly into her mind.
Kenichi had no interest in playing slow interrogation games. Controlling her with genjutsu was cleaner.
"M… my name is Natsuhi," the woman answered blankly.
"Natsuhi?" Kenichi's brow lifted. The name felt familiar for some reason, but he shoved that thought aside. The village's secret mattered more right now.
"What ninjutsu did you use earlier?" Kenichi asked.
Her eyes struggled for a moment, resisting, but the genjutsu tightened like a noose.
"Peacock… Peacock Mysterious Method…" she forced out.
Kenichi's gaze sharpened.
Peacock Mysterious Method?
It sounded wrong.
Not wrong as in impossible, but wrong as in out of place.
If someone in the world of Journey to the West claimed they cultivated a "Peacock Mysterious Method," it would sound natural.
But hearing it in the ninja world made it feel disconnected, like a technique from another story forced into this one.
Deidara blinked. He had studied under the old man for years and had never heard of anything like it.
"So how do you train it?" Kenichi pressed. "Do you have scrolls?"
His curiosity only grew.
This mission really was worth it.
Money on one side, and on the other, something new. Something even his teacher probably didn't know.
If Kenichi brought this back for his teacher to study, Orochimaru would absolutely be interested.
"We… we have to train around the Star…" Natsuhi's expression twisted as she fought the genjutsu. "Scroll… secret technique scroll…"
Kenichi watched her carefully, unmoving.
"In… in the room where the Star is kept," she finally said.
Kenichi nodded.
The scroll was likely the Peacock Mysterious Method itself.
But the "Star" she kept mentioning?
Star Ninja Village.
Star.
The connection made Kenichi's sense of déjà vu spike.
He remembered it now. Hidden Star Village had risen because of a meteorite impact. Not in the sense that a meteor fell and the village magically appeared, because if that were the case, they would have been dead, not weak.
It was that the village's name and existence were tied to a "Star."
A meteorite.
A meteorite said to contain some mysterious power that helped people train chakra and become ninjas.
But if their bones were glowing, then the truth was uglier.
That meteorite wasn't some blessing.
It might be carrying lethal radiation.
Kenichi asked the location of the room, then sent a shadow clone to check it.
Meanwhile, he extended a hand and treated Natsuhi, using medical techniques to ease her injuries greatly.
"Senpai, are you planning to…?" Deidara rubbed his hands, smiling in a way that looked a little too excited for the situation.
"I'm taking her back as a test subject," Kenichi said, wiping his hands.
Natsuhi had high research value.
When Kenichi treated her just now, he used Yang Release chakra to sense her body.
Multiple cancerous lesions.
The cancer cells were developing slowly, but normal cells were also being damaged.
This woman wasn't going to have a good end.
Even if she didn't die by an enemy's hand, her body would destroy itself sooner or later.
And long term irradiated, living samples were rare.
Kenichi wanted to see what she would become.
Soon, Kenichi saw his clone returning. The other clones around the area remained still, showing no abnormalities.
That confirmed it.
No survivors remained in the Hidden Star Village.
"It really is this place," Kenichi said, staring at what the clone held, then nodding. "The village built around a meteorite."
In his clone's hand was the "Star."
A meteorite.
The clone seemed fine holding it, but Kenichi felt uncomfortable all over the moment he looked at it.
That was almost certainly the source.
The root cause of the glowing bones.
The reason these ninjas developed cancer.
A large radioactive object.
And radioactive materials were not something you casually picked up.
Old generations used to warn their children not to grab random things off the street because you never knew if what you picked up carried terrifying radiation.
There had been painful lessons like that before, the kind that turned into lifelong suffering.
"I need a lead box," Kenichi muttered, a headache forming.
To block radiation, he needed the right material.
Alloys were out. He couldn't make them.
But other options existed.
A lead box was ideal for shielding radioactive substances.
The problem was that lead might be hard to find in the ninja world.
Still, Kenichi knew of a very special metal material in this world.
That material would also work well for blocking radiation, and it shouldn't be particularly hard to obtain.
Kenichi stared at the meteorite, eyes narrowing.
And a final question surfaced, cold and sharp.
Why would a meteorite like this release chakra in the first place?
.....
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