Naruto: Forbidden Arts and an Immortal Agenda

After a long time had passed, the Golden Droplets on the Heavenly Book had all disappeared.

Staring at the now-empty Heavenly Book, Aozora couldn't help but wonder if his name had brought bad luck—why else could he never retain any of those Golden Droplets?

Letting out a quiet sigh, Aozora shifted his gaze toward the four Ancient Characters inscribed on the Heavenly Book.

"Shrink Step" had already fully transformed into gilded gold, while "Earth Release" had only reached the pure gold stage.

Aozora's eyes lingered between the two techniques before finally choosing to accept the inheritance of "Earth Release" first.

A torrent of knowledge suddenly surged into his mind like a cascade of wisdom pouring directly into his skull.

"Earth Release," also called the earth movement technique, was an art of traversing through soil and rock. In its early stages, it closely resembled other earth-burrowing ninjutsu like the Iwagakure Technique. However, if cultivated to extreme mastery, one could transform their own body into earth itself, fusing with the land and freely moving deep within it. At that level, traveling thousands of miles in the blink of an eye would be no problem at all.

"No wonder the Golden Droplets couldn't complete the more advanced parts of Earth Release—it actually involved elemental body transformation."

"If so, acquiring the Hozuki Clan's Water Transformation Secret Jutsu might allow me to unlock 'Water Release' as well."

Because the most refined portion of "Earth Release" remained incomplete, Aozora didn't experience the usual splitting headache caused by absorbing new technique knowledge.

He memorized the Hozuki Clan's Water Transformation Secret Jutsu and took a short rest before proceeding with the second inheritance.

[Shrink Step]—literally shrinking vast distances down to inches—was a divine footwork technique. It did not target people but affected the landscape itself, transforming endless journeys into mere steps across inches of space.

Seeing the introduction, Aozora initially thought he'd acquired a spatial-folding ability. Yet once he truly inherited it, he realized how naive he'd been.

The "Shrink Step" was still rooted in Earth Release techniques—by mastering Earth Release, one could reduce the resistance of the ground beneath them while walking, allowing the earth itself to assist movement. Though the physical scale of the land did not change, a practitioner no longer experienced friction or gravitational pull, enabling each step to carry them tens of feet forward effortlessly.

"I guess I was asking for too much. How could a simple Earth Release jutsu ever evolve into true spatial folding?"

After finishing the inheritance, Aozora felt completely exhausted.

He curled up like a resting beast facing eastward, breath gradually steadying.

Over the following days, Aozora rarely left his home, instead staying indoors to cultivate further.

Primarily, he trained in Izanagi and practiced "Earth Release."

With all Golden Droplets consumed, Reverse Summoning was once again set aside. These two techniques would become his life-saving safeguards.

Practicing Izanagi was both smooth—and frustratingly difficult.

The first step—"save"—came naturally; Aozora mastered it easily once he activated his Three Tomoe Sharingan.

But the second step—"connect"—proved far more challenging.

After spending considerable effort searching, he eventually found the hidden gap described in the Secret Jutsu's records.

Once he sent the saved state into that unknown gap, he instantly sensed an invisible connection forming between his Sharingan and the saved data.

At that moment, he knew he had succeeded. All he needed to do was activate Izanagi, and his body would instantly revert to its saved state.

Yet he chose not to activate it—he simply maintained that delicate link carefully.

That thread was extremely fragile. The slightest drop in chakra supply could sever it entirely.

Yet paradoxically, it also felt incredibly resilient, as if nothing could ever truly harm it.

As time passed, Aozora felt the spatial pressure on that thread increasing dramatically. He was forced to channel more chakra just to maintain its existence.

However, this spatial pressure grew exponentially. Before long, Aozora realized he couldn't keep up with the demand.

Aozora deliberately severed his connection with the save point.

He silently counted the time and realized it had only been 40 seconds—so little for all that chakra.

Was spending all his chakra for 40 seconds of invincibility really worth it?

Furthermore, this 40-second invincibility came with clear restrictions. During the connected period, since he constantly had to maintain his chakra flow, Aozora couldn't use other ninjutsu—only taijutsu remained an option.

While this still seemed overpowered, Aozora wasn't fully satisfied.

He knew Izanagi wasn't unbeatable—besides Izanami, there were probably other ways to counter it.

Therefore unwilling to accept being unable to use any jutsu while using Izanagi, Aozora considered multitasking mentally.

In fact, Aozora had previously thought about doing this. Back then, he considered casting a genjutsu for control while simultaneously manipulating throwing knives for attack. Combining control with assault would definitely double its effectiveness.

But due to constant mission pressures, Aozora never had time to practice this technique before.

Now having both time and necessity, Aozora began formulating a plan to develop dual mental focus.

In the ordinary world, true multitasking was extremely difficult because the mind represented a state of full focus—one could only concentrate on a single event at once, just like how a single chess game can only follow one strategy at a time.

Thus in the normal world, multitasking actually referred to distributing attention, usually relying on body instincts after becoming familiar with two simultaneous tasks, switching focus between them.

However, in the Ninja World, through cultivation, the human spirit became stronger, enabling genuine dual-task mental capability.

Yet lacking specific cultivation methods, Aozora had no choice but to adopt ordinary-world approaches.

After consideration, Aozora decided to first master Earth Release and Izanagi thoroughly, then practice Izanagi while maintaining an Earth Release state.

Having formulated his plan, Aozora immediately resorted to using Kage Bunshin to cheat the process.

Still, his progress was slow because Izanagi used up too much energy—he was completely drained in under a minute.

The days passed—sunrise, sunset, clouds rolling in and out.

Like a lone monk training for enlightenment, Aozora secluded himself in the courtyard, practicing relentlessly.

Even though things seemed stagnant, Aozora made sure not to waste any time.

By practicing three earth release techniques simultaneously, Aozora quickly mastered Earth Release, enabling swift movement underground.

Through repeated training, he gradually grew more comfortable with Izanagi, extending his maintenance time from 40 seconds to 53 seconds.

But after some progress, both Earth Release and Izanagi became difficult to improve further.

Mastering Earth Release required more practice and deeper understanding of advanced earth chakra transformations.

Improving Izanagi further no longer depended on skill, but on boosting his eye technique power and chakra capacity.

Aozora started integrated training early, unfortunately dual-task operations proved extremely difficult, making progress painfully slow.

That day, Aozora was still at home practicing ninjutsu.

Out of the blue, he heard faint footsteps outside the door and remembered he had a meeting with Itachi today.

The footsteps stopped right in front of the door, but Aozora didn't hear a knock or the sound of someone pushing the door open.

Itachi stood motionless in front of Aozora's house.

His young face betrayed inner turmoil. In his hand, he tightly gripped a Small Notebook containing his answers to last week's question from Aozora.

There was only one question, yet Itachi had barely managed to answer half of it.

He'd written his response to just one assumption, yet that alone filled most of the Small Notebook.

As for the other assumption, Itachi didn't even want to start writing.

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