Naruto: Passerby and Returnee

Chapter 260 A Duet of Doubting Life

The spaceship development is in full swing, but Jiraiya's infiltration is repeatedly thwarted.

It wasn't that he was discovered, but rather... he couldn't find the key point at all; the entire operation in southern Sichuan was basically something he couldn't understand.

The fruit grower was buying ripe mangoes from a juice factory. From selecting the raw materials to production and finally the finished product, the entire process was an assembly line operation with strict hygiene standards. After seeing it, he even wanted to buy some to try. However! This product had absolutely nothing to do with the ninja stronghold he was looking for, and the guy at the gate seemed to be just a responsible and kind-hearted security guard.

If this approach didn't work, he wanted to try another. He tried following the security guard, but this guy was even more important; he ate and slept at the factory. Only one day did he follow a delivery cart into the city, where he ended up in the city's office. Right, since entering southern Sichuan, he hadn't even seen anyone collecting tolls. It was only after following the cart into the city that he discovered they didn't even have bodyguards or form escort teams when delivering goods. Were they really that confident? Even the Land of Fire has bandits and outlaws!

Based on the current situation, the force capable of wiping out all the bandits could not possibly be from a single organization; it must be supported by state power. However, the situation in the Kingdom of River is... very abstract. Their ruler is a hands-off individual who only collects taxes annually, and the various regions are basically autonomous, making it impossible for them to unite and form an army to eliminate the bandits.

To ensure the thoroughness of his investigation, Jiraiya first passed through northern Sichuan to ascertain the situation there before making a detour through the Land of Wind to southern Sichuan, in order to avoid easily exposing his identity. The result? Border crossing procedures in southern Sichuan were far stricter than in northern Sichuan. Fortunately, his false identity had been cultivated for many years, preventing him from being discovered. Once inside, Jiraiya clearly felt that the atmosphere here was far, far better than in northern Sichuan; it was practically like two different countries!

My first impression was that the roads were much easier to travel on, and there were more horse-drawn carriages and handcarts on the road. People were often seen chatting and laughing, unlike on the other side where most people had expressionless faces. In addition, the policy of changing from city to city was no longer the case; the situation in northern Sichuan where you had to pay entry fees five times for passing through five cities was completely different here. Once you passed through the checkpoints in southern Sichuan, you only needed to show the certificate issued at the checkpoint to enter any subsequent city.

To achieve such unity, the true ruler of southern Sichuan must have been far more powerful than the current ruler of the Kingdom of Sichuan; it was practically a state within a state.

Even more abstractly, people in northern Sichuan generally believed that the south was rife with miasma and completely unsuitable for living, so they assumed the area must be impoverished and struggling to survive. However, upon arrival, they discovered that the buildings here were generally better than those in northern Sichuan, and even in villages, there were always schools and clinics within ten miles. Jiraiya even went to check out a clinic and found that the medicinal herbs here were generally much cheaper than in northern Sichuan, and the doctors' skills weren't bad either. They immediately noticed that he was faking illness and promptly threw him out on the grounds that he shouldn't interfere with normal medical treatment.

Having witnessed the price of medicinal herbs firsthand, Jiraiya became even more concerned about the prices of other things, ultimately discovering that the prices here... seemed even more honest than in Konoha. In larger towns, the variety of goods was quite complete, with many new items. Medical care and schooling were convenient here, and the environment was quite livable; it felt even better than living in Konoha!

Jiraiya is questioning the meaning of life, and so are the R&D staff at Hui's company.

The spaceship's database was far too vast, requiring them to sift through it bit by bit. The first batch selected for the spaceship consisted of top-tier executives who each had their own dedicated sections within the R&D department and led their own teams. However, even they were bewildered by the advanced alien technology.

Expecting them to understand the principles of electric motors in an era still reliant on steam engines is indeed asking too much, especially since the spaceship didn't provide ordinary electric motors, but rather... miniature source-driven electric motors? I think that's what they were called. In short, each word was understandable, but put together, they were truly incomprehensible.

"That won't work. Why don't we just search for steam engines?"

Why learn that stuff when there's something better?

"Even the best ones need to be understandable and achievable!"

"Huh? They actually managed to find it!"

What did you search for?

"The history of the steam engine. Oh my god, there were so many iterations before we got that electric motor! Isn't that ridiculous?!"

When people discovered that directly entering their industry would only yield the latest technological achievements, they started using a bug-like method: adding the word "history" after the results. Finally, they found what they were researching now, and that despairing history of technological iteration was indeed quite shocking.

"Can we really study all this data?" someone couldn't help but ask.

An old man, who was so old he had to get very close to see things, got annoyed and slammed his fist on the table, saying, "How can you not finish studying this? This stuff wasn't researched by our predecessors! If we can't finish reading it, we should try to lighten the burden on the next generation! There's already something readily available, why don't we hurry up and read a few more pages instead of rambling on and on?"

After slamming his hand on the table, the old man hunched over and pressed himself close to the character for "light," leaving the researcher who had been lectured awkwardly shrinking back.

Tobirama, who was overseeing the project, glanced down twice and then ignored it. The data he pulled up had absolutely nothing to do with the project he was in charge of; it was all research on the soul and human energy.

The database did not find the term "chakra," indicating that this substance may not have existed or may not have been called that ten thousand years ago. His profound understanding of ninjutsu development was entirely based on his research into chakra. The more he researched, the more curious he became about the origin of chakra, but unfortunately, current technology could not provide a conclusion.

But now, he has a super cheat code, so he has to take a good look at it.

"Indeed, the soul is the key to controlling human energy. Theoretically, the growth potential of the soul is limitless, which means that even if the body is completely unable to draw energy from the environment, as long as the soul is strong enough, it can manipulate the energy in the environment. But this usually does not happen, because groups that cannot interact with the energy of the environment usually do not have a long enough lifespan for the soul to grow."

"But this is not absolute; there are very few exceptions. These exceptions are powerful because they are based on the soul rather than the body, and will eventually undergo physiological...disintegration due to the extreme mismatch between the body and the soul?"

Upon reading this, Tobirama fell into a long silence.