Chapter Fifty-Four: The Cave

  In the nearest town at this distance, even we have to walk for more than a week in the remote mountains, there will be a fresh and strong smell of human flesh that has been out of the body for no more than one day. I think this aimless search may have reached its end!

  I won't wait until daytime to set off. I want to end this search as soon as possible, no matter what kind of ending it is, whether it's stopping his calls or stopping his life.

  In addition, for the three of us, the influence of day and night is not great. When I was at Orochimaru's place, I had an environment that targeted the loss of specific senses, and special training was conducted on the three of us.

  It is said that there are five senses, but in reality, the main targets are only visual, auditory and tactile, which also occupy the largest proportion of sensory organs in combat.

  Loss of vision, then rely on hearing as the basis, touch as auxiliary; loss of hearing, vice versa. In combat, losing touch will result in a sense of disconnection, uncertainty about one's own actions, and uncoordinated movements. Severely, even internal sensations disappear, completely unable to perceive the flow of chakras.

  In short, Hakumen's training goal is still limited to the loss of vision and hearing, which is also a more likely scenario.

  My left eye has dark vision, even if I close my eyes, as long as I want to see, I can see. Otherwise, how would I sleep? Even if I may not necessarily fall asleep, closing my eyes and resting is also good.

  This should be a basic ability, if I were to use the "Devouring Eye", not to mention darkness, air flow, water ripples, even life and chakra traces are clear at a glance, so as for visual training, I don't need it.

  As for Hakuren and Kirima, although they haven't reached the point where they can completely rely on their sense of hearing, under the faint moonlight, when running through the forest, they won't bump into obstacles and are able to do so quite early on.

  This is also one of the reasons why I can let Bai Zhixin lead the way with peace of mind.

  The white band led me and Junmaro to his water-fetching spot, and we headed upstream along the water source.

  The flavor was so obvious that it wouldn't exceed the distance of an ordinary person's journey for more than a day, so before half a month had passed, we arrived at the source of that river, a small mountain under a pool of water.

  We first walked around the small pond together, and found that near the small hill, the water in the pond was bubbling up continuously, emitting gurgling sounds.

  I crouched down again at the spot where bubbles were rising and scooped up a handful of water to taste its flavor.

  "It's even more obvious!" That flavor, but there is no other external water source here, it can only be that the water comes from underground or... seeps down from a higher water source. I lift my head and gaze towards the towering hills in front of me.

  If it's just plain groundwater coming out, it shouldn't have that smell, so the key is in that mountain!

  We discussed how to search the mountain, and on the premise that neither White nor Kuma had ever been underwater before, I got the right to dive alone, while the two of them searched around the nearby area to see if there was a path that could lead into the interior of the mountain. We agreed to meet here at dawn.

  Luckily, they were both fooled by me and didn't ask if I had ever been in the water. In my heart, I secretly stuck out my tongue - neither in the past nor now can I swim, but I can still move freely in the water. Adjusting the chakra that envelops my entire body to resonate with the surrounding environment is almost as natural as breathing for me. Not just in water, as long as the supply of chakra is enough to maintain circulation, I can even walk on air; however, if I want to perform actions above a quick pace, that's still beyond my abilities.

  I slowly stepped down into this pool of water.

  I didn't expect this pool to be only about 20 square meters, but it's actually 9 or 10 meters deep! Moreover, the underwater area feels two to three times larger than what can be seen from the outside, it's that kind of narrow-mouthed and wide-bottomed lake.

  It can transmit such a strong and distant soul call, it should be a creature with great spiritual power, and having this level of spiritual power, it should have an intelligent life close to humans, or even surpassing humans.

  So I opened the "Devouring Spirit's Eye", wanting to use the Devouring Spirit's Eye's ability to detect life to help search, and use this as a basis for searching.

  This is theoretically correct, I think so.

  However, no, as far as the eye can see, I didn't "see" any existence with particularly strong life force, except for Bai and Junmaru, there were no other large signs of life.

  Even if you use a trivial ninja technique like stealth to hide, those things won't obstruct this eye either. Is it another special Bloodline Limit like Akatsuki's?

  Bloodline limit isn't that cheap, right?! Or rather, isn't it a call to non-living beings? Such as objects with a spirit of utensils?

  Forget it, I closed the "Devouring Spirit's Eye" and headed in the direction where bubbles were emerging. It was a hole less than half a square meter in size, also the most suspicious place.

  I feel the waves of water rushing towards me, this is indeed the direction where the water flows out, unfortunately it's a bit small, I looked at my own body and came to this conclusion.

  I activated the physicalization of Chakra claws and broke through the surrounding cave entrance.

  It feels like attacking tofu, usually it's the ninja who gets attacked, probably because of the chakra defense, so it's a bit harder.

  In a moment of wild thinking, I took my own attack feedback as a benchmark and came to the strange conclusion that human flesh is harder than stone.

  I was breaking through the stone wall, slowly advancing in the water, for about half an hour or more, the terrain was winding up and down, making it impossible for me to determine my direction.

  Suddenly, Chakula's paw felt unusual.

  "Boom!"

  It seems that the back is no longer a stone wall, and I have returned to the water. The water is abnormally dark, as if there is no light source at all. I floated up to the surface of the water and found that the surroundings were still pitch black.

  Was it in some cave, fortunately the darkness had no effect on me. I went to the shore and opened "Devouring Spirit Eye" again to observe the surroundings, confirming that there was still no sign of large-scale biological life fire, but rather a lot of small-scale biological life fire.

  I had just been diving and was holding my breath until I reached the surface, but as soon as I started breathing again, a foul smell hit me.

  I couldn't help but wrinkle my brow in reflex, it smelled like a corpse or rotten food, and it had probably been that way for a few months.

  This concentration can only be caused by a certain amount of substance, but I just didn't see any large life that needs such an amount of food!

  With a sense of doubt, I walked in the direction where the smell was coming from, and unexpectedly, it was also the direction where the water flow was coming from.

  \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

  These few chapters will be a bit messy when I return to Konoha, please don't criticize too heavily, I'll get scared. After I write about returning to Konoha, I'll find another chance to come back and revise, because if I stay stuck in this part for too long, I'll get writer's block pretty badly, that's all.