A Sage's Pursuit of Power

The changes weren't limited to Konoha, they extended to every individual within it.

Even Tsunade, who had always been somewhat laid-back, felt the pressure and began to push herself. Aoba knew that the era he envisioned was fast approaching.

Of course, Konoha wasn't the only one undergoing transformation. Kirigakure was quietly experiencing massive changes as well.

Taking advantage of the leadership vacuum in Kumogakure, Madara Uchiha annexed the village.

It must be said that Aoba's actions against the daimyo had set a precedent for the major ninja villages.

Although the villages had yet to openly declare independence from their daimyo, they were effectively no longer obeying their commands. The daimyo's control over the villages was now nominal at best.

Among the villages, Kirigakure was the most direct. After seizing control of Kirigakure, Madara, spurred by Konoha's example, wiped out the entire royal family of the Land of Water and forcibly assumed control of all its powers.

But this was only the beginning. Having witnessed the strength of Konoha's new generation of ninja forces, Madara, while dismissive of their conventional methods, couldn't deny the disparity between Kirigakure's forces and Konoha's.

Despite his pride, the repeated stalemates in his clashes with Aoba stirred a sense of competitiveness in Madara. He not only wanted to surpass Aoba in personal strength but also aimed to transform Kirigakure into a ninja village stronger than Konoha.

After annexing Kumogakure, Madara personally sifted through the spoils of war, meticulously selecting resources and talents.

He then spent over half a year personally training and restructuring a new elite ninja force.

However, Kirigakure's previous civil wars had left the village severely weakened. A single elite unit wasn't enough to support the village.

Madara then turned his attention to the entire Land of Water, eliminating its daimyo and mobilizing its resources. He began selecting promising young recruits and training them from the ground up.

While Madara was arrogant, he wasn't entirely impractical. He understood that talent was the key to a strong ninja village.

Recognizing Kirigakure's significant loss of talent, he focused on filling that gap.

This wasn't a simple task. Fortunately, in the world of Naruto, children matured quickly, often starting to kill by age seven or eight and gaining fame in their early teens.

Theoretically, it would take only three to five years to train a group of mid-level forces.

But even this wasn't enough to match Konoha. Training new recruits required vast resources, so Madara emulated Konoha by nationalizing all the mineral resources in Kumogakure and Kirigakure territories.

He then began large-scale mining operations to fund Kirigakure's development.

However, once this system was up and running, Madara realized a critical issue: rebuilding a major ninja village was far more challenging than fighting Hashirama.

Back then, Madara had spent an unimaginable amount of time and effort preparing for his battles with Hashirama, devising countless strategies and tactics.

Yet he found that building a ninja village was a hundred or even a thousand times more complicated than the toughest battles he had faced.

He was swamped daily with what he considered trivial matters, issues he couldn't ignore but which bogged him down.

It left him with no time to focus on his own strength.

Madara possessed other Sharingan in his collection. Though they weren't Mangekyō, they were fully developed three-tomoe Sharingan.

However, since these weren't his own eyes, reawakening them as Mangekyō was no simple task.

Sometimes, Madara couldn't help but wonder how Aoba managed to balance his personal growth with the simultaneous development of Konoha.

Meanwhile, in Konoha, Aoba faced similar challenges.

Fortunately, Konoha had a strong support system with numerous capable individuals, allowing him to delegate tasks and avoid being overwhelmed like Madara.

But Aoba wasn't without his frustrations.

His progress on the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan fusion remained painfully slow. The most baffling part was that he couldn't identify the root cause.

Despite conducting countless self-examinations, the results consistently indicated that everything was normal. The fusion process was ongoing, but at an unbearably slow pace.

Aoba knew that in the original story, Sasuke completed his Eternal Mangekyō in less than three months. Yet after six months, Aoba hadn't even reached 10% completion.

He was certain someone, likely the Sage of Six Paths, was interfering. But he couldn't figure out how this interference was happening without direct contact.

For now, Aoba had shifted his focus to mastering tailed beast chakra fusion.

He had already acquired chakra from the One-Tails and the Eight-Tails. If he wanted, he could gather chakra from other tailed beasts at any time.

However, he was holding off for the moment, as mastering tailed beast chakra was no easy feat.

After extensive training, he had managed to use the chakra of the Eight-Tails and One-Tails in battle.

But the chakra still didn't fully belong to him.

Simply put, the two types of chakra in Aoba's body were like two independent power reactors.

They were under his control, but their essence was externally sourced and not fully compatible with his body.

Aoba's ultimate goal wasn't to become a new Ten-Tails Jinchūriki but to become the Ten-Tails itself.

To achieve this, he needed to fully integrate the tailed beasts' chakra with his own. In his estimation, this process would be far more challenging than the fusion of the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan.

Yet surprisingly, while the Eternal Mangekyō fusion had hit a bottleneck, the integration of tailed beast chakra was proceeding more smoothly than expected.

The chakra of the One-Tails, which he had obtained first, had gradually begun merging with his body after an extended period of absorption and refinement.

Of course, this didn't mean Aoba would actually turn into a tailed beast. In fact, the tailed beast imprint within the chakra had long been worn away by Aoba, leaving behind pure, untainted chakra.

In theory, Aoba could shape it into any form. However, being human, he had no particular interest in transforming into a monster.

As the final traces of the One-Tails' chakra fully integrated with his body, Aoba sensed a subtle yet profound change within himself.

For now, Aoba didn't have time to delve into the specifics of these changes. All his attention was drawn to something else:

After fully integrating the One-Tails' chakra, the progress of his Eternal Mangekyō fusion seemed to have sped up slightly.

"Hmm!!"

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Currently on Chapter 309 - Hashirama Attacks Konoha