Shinichi tilted his head, his gaze slowly sweeping across the various plants around him. He did not need to touch them or even look carefully.
Every plant, whether the towering ancient trees overhead, the moss creeping close to the ground beneath his feet, or the wildflowers deep within the bushes quietly closing their petals, all the vegetation that had once been nothing more than passing scenery to him, now resembled tiny but distinct stars.
It quietly flickers within the world of his perception.
This was an experience entirely different from sensing chakra, and it felt like instinct, as though his own life and the life of the forest were gently beating in unison.
Shinichi seemed able to hear the plants themselves whispering soundlessly to him and voicing the existence of life.
He seemed able to see them transformed into countless independent and vivid living beings.
Each one is breathing, growing, struggling, and reproducing according to its own unique rhythm.
"So this is the characteristic of the Cultivation Lord talent?"
Shinichi experienced this entirely new dimension of perception while falling into deep thought.
This talent did not do much to directly enhance his combat power, at least not for now, but for his future plans, whether for the growth of his own strength or for advancing the development of this world, it was of critical importance.
Calling it revolutionary would not be an exaggeration at all.
For himself, being able to personally cultivate more high-nutrition food ingredients, or even ingredients with special enhancement effects, and then combining them with his medical knowledge and the Gourmet talent that strengthened nutrient absorption and amplified food effects.
He would be able to create more efficient dietary plans tailored specifically for himself and more precise training-supporting medicines, which would allow his body, currently in the crucial stage of adolescent development, to receive the utmost nourishment and tempering during its golden growth period.
As for this world, increased food production, crop improvement, and even cultivating special functional crops that could be planted on a large scale, these seemingly simple things were the true transformative forces capable of shaking the entire foundation of the Shinobi World.
If the overall nutritional level of the population could be universally improved, and if ordinary people could even undergo subtle changes by consuming these special crops, then the idea that everyone is a ninja, or that everyone is extraordinary, would no longer be a mere fantasy.
He could even plant trees, and if one were to ask what the most famous tree in this world was, then naturally it would be the God Tree, the Ten-Tails.
This thing, which came from the extraterrestrial Otsutsuki Clan, was difficult to define.
Was it a biological weapon, or was it a stairway to godhood?
But regardless of which it was, if he ever had the opportunity in the future to obtain a portion of the God Tree's remains and combine it with the talent in his possession, perhaps he could grow something quite different.
The Jianmu Tree, the Tree of Life, the Tree of Knowledge, the Willow Branch, the Peach of Immortality Tree, the Yggdrasil, the Ginseng Fruit Tree…
As Shinichi continued walking forward, various divine trees from the myths of his previous life, each possessing its own miraculous powers, flashed through his mind.
In the end, his thoughts settled on one particular tree, the Bodhi Tree.
Unlike those other divine trees that had no shadow of existence in this world, the Bodhi Tree actually had legends and traces here.
It had been mentioned more than once in the various Buddhist scriptures circulating throughout the Shinobi World, "The world-honored one sat beneath the Bodhi Tree for seven days and seven nights, overcoming all demonic obstacles and attaining supreme enlightenment."
Thus, the Bodhi Tree became a symbol of Buddhist wisdom and a witness to enlightenment.
Was this divine tree that accompanied the Buddha's attainment of enlightenment merely an ordinary tree in this world, or was it a divine tree possessing some inconceivable power?
No one could say for certain, but regardless of the truth, perhaps in the future he really could try growing a Bodhi Tree endowed with extraordinary power.
After all, one of his future clones would be a monk.
A monk and a Bodhi Tree were naturally a perfect pair.
'I'm not using your honored name to deceive anyone, but planting a tree and naming it the Bodhi Tree as a tribute should be fine, right?'
Thinking of this, Shinichi silently made a joke to himself.
A moment later, he arrived at an area heavily protected by layers of barriers, and after forming several simple hand seals, the barrier silently opened a gap.
Once he stepped inside, it quietly closed behind him.
The Anbu patrolling in the shadows had already seen who it was.
No one stepped forward to question him; they merely retreated silently into the darkness and returned to their respective posts.
This was the primordial forest left behind by the first Hokage's Wood Style Ninjutsu, and ever since he discovered that these trees, created through the power of Wood Style, possessed unique vitality and were a key raw material in producing Shinichi Paper, this area had been placed under strict protection by Konoha.
Not only were barriers erected, but rotating Anbu patrols were assigned as well.
If the various plants in the ordinary forest outside had felt like countless faint yet distinct stars in his perception, then the trees here were like quietly burning lamps, suddenly becoming bright and intense.
The life force emitted by every tree was far more vigorous and profound than that of their counterparts outside.
He slowly walked forward several steps and stopped before an ancient tree so large that several people would be needed to encircle it.
Placing his palm against the rough bark, he closed his eyes.
In that instant, it felt as though he could hear the tree breathing and sense the fluctuations of life within it.
A moment later, Shinichi reopened his eyes.
A glass-like clarity flashed through his pupils as Clarity and Lightning Speed Reflex activated simultaneously.
He began examining the ancient tree's texture, growth rings, and especially the remnants of Wood Style chakra left deep within its wooden fibers by the first Hokage himself.
At the same time, the life pulses previously sensed by Cultivation Lord emerged within his consciousness.
The two streams of information cross-verified one another before being fed into the supercomputer-like calculations of Seeing Through Things as Clearly as Observing a Flame.
He was analyzing one question: Could entirely new, independent plants be cultivated from the trees left behind by the first Hokage using methods such as cuttings, layering, or other techniques?
These trees, born from the Wood Style, possessed extraordinary vitality, yet fundamentally they were not naturally evolved species.
If branches were cut from them and propagated, could they take root and survive?
And if they survived, would they inherit the parent trees' unique vitality?
These were all questions worth investigating.
Shinichi's consciousness operated at high speed within the deduction space, his gaze repeatedly moving between the ancient trees and the surrounding soil.
Soil acidity, humus layer thickness, moisture content, distribution of symbiotic microbial colonies… every piece of data was rapidly combined and recombined within his mind.
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