As night gave way to dawn, Uchiha Gen returned to the apartment with Tsunade.
After a quick breakfast, Tsunade, completely exhausted, headed straight for bed. Gen didn't leave either. He climbed in beside her and wrapped an arm around her as she slept.
In the days that followed, Gen arranged his life and duties with meticulous precision. He never slacked off in cultivation; each day, he entered the Pure Land to devour souls, steadily pushing his power to greater heights.
----
Time passed swiftly. In the blink of an eye, five years went by, from Konoha Year 58 to Konoha Year 63.
Now, Uchiha Gen was twenty-six. Yuhi Kurenai was twenty-seven, Anko twenty-three, and Yūgao twenty-two.
Itachi was sixteen. Gen's disciple, Neji, was thirteen, he had graduated from the Ninja Academy the previous year alongside Tenten and Lee.
Sasuke, Naruto, and the rest of their generation were twelve this year, ready to graduate.
It was worth noting that four years earlier, Kurenai, Anko, and Yūgao had grown bored of their steady work in the Police Force. After consulting with Gen, they resumed active fieldwork as mission ninja.
However, their arrangement was unusual. They retained their Police Force leadership titles while serving as active ninja, a dual identity that would've been impossible for the Uchiha Clan in the past. But under Gen's administration, such things became reality.
All three had already reached the rank of Jōnin within the Police Force and continued to hold that rank as field ninja. While their mission experience lagged behind traditional Jōnin, their raw strength far surpassed most of them, even without relying on their summoned beasts.
With no need to worry about money or authority, and with Gen's full backing, the three women treated missions half as work and half as travel. They accepted only what interested them, using assignments as excuses to roam the world.
When Kurenai heard that the new generation of students would soon graduate, she became enthusiastic about taking on apprentices and even asked Gen to help arrange it.
Anko and Yūgao, on the other hand, had no interest in mentoring anyone. They preferred to spend their spare time either pestering Gen or indulging in hobbies they enjoyed.
Over those five peaceful years, the shinobi world remained remarkably calm. No major wars or disasters occurred.
The only organization drawing attention from the Five Great Nations was Akatsuki, which had, in just five years, monopolized nearly all mercenary and war-related commissions from smaller countries.
Even so, the level of concern varied among the nations. Outwardly, the Hidden Sand Village appeared to pay Akatsuki the most attention.
Meanwhile, deep in the mountains of the Land of Fire, a secret chamber lay hidden beneath layers of sealing runes.
Inside, Uchiha Gen sat cross-legged on a black cushion patterned with flame motifs. His eyes were closed, his hands resting on his abdomen as he formed the Tai Chi Seal. A faint white glow emanated from his entire body.
The Tai Chi Seal was formed by linking the hands so that the base of each thumb, the tiger's mouth, encircled the other hand's fingers, with the tips of both thumbs meeting at the Rōkyū acupoint, the hollow center of the palm. The gesture formed a miniature Taiji diagram: the two thumbs represented Yin and Yang, while the surrounding fingers symbolized the Eight Trigrams.
For men, the left hand was Yang and the right Yin. For women, the opposite.
If a Byakugan user were watching, they would witness a strange and wondrous sight within his body.
Inside Gen's Dantian floated a white, miniature infant, an exact likeness of himself, sitting in the same meditative posture. Resting across the infant's knees was a sword: a small version of Shizukamaru.
After an unknown span of time, the tiny infant's eyes opened, revealing the pattern of the Mangekyō Sharingan. Then, the infant ascended through the meridians of Gen's body, rising to the Upper Tanden at his forehead before emerging and floating above his head.
"Giggle… giggle…"
Soft, innocent laughter echoed faintly through the chamber, a sound that filled the air with pure joy.
Moments later, Gen's eyes opened. His hand seals shifted, and countless points of white light appeared throughout the chamber, swirling like fireflies.
The lights streamed into his body in four converging currents. Outside the mountain, the phenomenon was even more dramatic, vast flows of natural energy gathered into white spirals, flooding toward the sealed chamber. Wild beasts in the forest fled in panic as the energy storm surged.
Within the chamber, five colors of light, white, green, black, red, and yellow, flashed across Gen's chest. The streams of natural energy shimmered like celestial rivers, glowing with multicolored brilliance that filled the space like an earthly paradise.
The five lights soon merged into one and began to flow upward, entering the Upper Tanden.
The small infant, his soul manifestation, had already returned there. As the five-colored lights merged, they surrounded it like a vibrant, luminous river.
The infant floated serenely, eyes closed, its face peaceful. A blissful smile crossed Gen's own lips, as if he were listening to celestial music.
Within that five-colored river, the small infant slowly dissolved. The miniature sword returned to the Dantian, and in the infant's place, three flower buds bloomed above Gen's body, one lead-gray over his left shoulder, one silver over his right, and one golden above his head.
As he continued to absorb natural energy, the three buds opened into three radiant lotuses.
From the air above them, a soul-like figure materialized, a Nascent Soul, solid and lifelike.
The lead lotus shimmered and merged into the silver one. The silver lotus then glowed again and merged into the golden one. Finally, the golden lotus exhaled a faint mist before fading from view.
All of that golden mist flowed into the Nascent Soul, which absorbed it greedily.
When the process ended, the Nascent Soul that resembled Uchiha Gen now shone with a faint golden radiance. The former coldness of spirit was gone, replaced by warmth and serenity, like the gentle sun of winter.
Then, the golden Nascent Soul returned, merging seamlessly into Gen's body. The storm of natural energy, inside and outside, faded away, leaving stillness once more.
"Phew…" Gen exhaled softly, a satisfied smile touching his lips. "Five years well spent."
He murmured to himself, "I've finally reached the realm of Five Qi Returning to Origin, Three Flowers Gathering at the Peak, and achieved the first stage of Pure Yang Nascent Soul."
"This marks the final layer of Refining Spirit into Void. From here, if I keep cultivating, I'll eventually reach Refining Void into Dao."
He smiled faintly. "The Soul-Soul Fruit suits me perfectly."
"If not for that fruit and the countless souls within the Pure Land, and the shortcut it provided without side effects, I would never have touched the threshold of Refining Spirit into Void, let alone reached this level in only five years."
"Without that foundation, creating the Refining Spirit into Void scroll of the Origin Initial Sutra would have been impossible. The method itself wouldn't even exist."
"With my current soul strength," he mused, "I'm already no weaker than Ōtsutsuki Hamura as I saw him in the Pure Land five years ago. Perhaps… I've even surpassed him."
"With that strength and my other techniques, even facing Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo is no longer a concern."
A small, satisfied smile crossed his face. "From now on, the sky is vast for birds to soar, and the sea boundless for fish to leap."
Having spoken, Uchiha Gen slowly rose from the cushion. He extended his right hand and made a grasping motion. A pure white flame ignited in his palm. The moment it appeared, the air twisted, and the temperature skyrocketed.
With a light flick of his wrist, he vanished from the spot. A heartbeat later, the white fireball struck the ground.
BOOM!
The entire secret chamber collapsed in on itself, reduced to rubble in an instant.