Naruto: Forbidden Arts and an Immortal Agenda

Leaving the chief's office, Aozora walked absentmindedly toward the Uchiha Clan Vault.

As he walked, he carefully recalled every detail about Izanagi, determined not to forget a single thing.

Izanagi was an innate ability of the Sharingan, one that could be used directly without any need for practice.

In truth, practically no one could afford the resources required to train it.

In Aozora's eyes, Izanagi consisted of three stages—save, connect, and load.

The first stage was save. Using the Sharingan to record one's physical condition created the baseline state needed for activating Izanagi later—the exact condition the body would return to afterward. Of course, this "state" only referred to physical status; chakra would not regenerate.

The second stage was connect, maintaining a continuous link with the saved data through the power of the Sharingan. If the chakra supply ran out, the connection would break, permanently deleting the stored information.

The third stage was load, the final step. Activating Izanagi caused the body to instantly revert to its previously recorded state.

Among these three phases, the first and third were natural gifts granted by the Sharingan itself—no training necessary.

Only the second phase could be improved through practice. The duration of the connection mainly depended on the strength of the dōjutsu user's ocular power; stronger eyes meant longer retention times.

Aozora felt a pang of regret.

Though he'd gained a terrifyingly powerful ability without lifting a finger to learn it, it came at the cost of losing any chance to inherit techniques from the Heavenly Books.

Earlier, he had hoped to achieve supernatural powers like resurrection or time reversal through Izanagi, but now those ambitions had to wait until the inevitable day arrived when he had no choice but to use it.

He both longed for that day… and feared its arrival.

...

Originally built during the Warring States Period, the Uchiha Clan Vault served as storage for their spoils of war.

Initially containing food supplies, swords, and armor, the vault eventually overflowed as the clan captured more loot through copying enemy techniques or seizing them in battle.

Countless Ninjutsu Scrolls piled up, eventually becoming little more than dead weight—like a proverbial chicken rib.

Too bulky to store at home yet too valuable to discard, no one quite remembered who was first to toss surplus scrolls into the vault.

The Uchiha guarding the vault acknowledged their worth and officially logged the contribution. Soon, other clan members followed suit, throwing in surplus Ninjutsu Scrolls and even random books. Gradually, the Uchiha Clan Vault amassed thousands upon thousands of volumes.

After Konoha's founding, the Uchiha relocated the vault inside the village. Following recent relocations, it now stood proudly along the Nanaha River's bank.

Let's be real—most Uchiha found little use in all those hundreds of jutsu stored inside. After all, they already possessed superior family techniques passed down through generations.

To them, the true value of the vault wasn't practicality, but proof of the Uchiha's overwhelming historical depth and might.

Clutching his Access Token, Aozora felt a surge of excitement and instinctively leaned forward, peering inside.

To other Uchiha, the vault was nothing more than a chicken rib, but to him, it was a treasure waiting to be unearthed.

The guard watching over the vault sneered contemptuously at Aozora, assuming him to be some forgotten branch member who had lost his heritage.

Aozora sensed the disdain but merely shook his head inwardly.

One rice feeds a hundred different kinds of people—even within the Uchiha, there were gentle and kind-hearted souls alongside arrogant ones who looked down on others.

He had no interest in further entanglement with this person but made a mental note of him, already considering how to deal with such clan members in the future.

Before entering the clan vault, Uchiha Mujin specifically instructed Aozora: "This access token allows you to look around the first floor freely, but the second floor's treasure house is off-limits to you."

Stepping inside, Aozora glanced around. The spacious and brightly lit first floor was filled with dense rows of bookshelves, yet not a single soul walked among them.

Sighing, Aozora slowly began wandering through the shelves on his own.

After randomly flipping through several books and looking at some scrolls, he quickly figured out the layout: the left side held mostly miscellaneous books, while the right was dedicated entirely to ninjutsu scrolls.

Aozora headed toward the right side. Facing the mountain of scrolls stacked there, his eyes widened in amazement.

Fortunately, he knew exactly what he wanted. Without carefully reading them, he simply returned any scroll not marked as Earth Release directly to its original place.

Quickly sorting through them, Aozora soon selected three techniques that matched his needs from among thousands of scrolls: [Iwagakure Technique], [Shinchū Zan'nin Jutsu (Mental Decapitation Technique)], and [Doton: Tsuchi no Mesukingu (Earth Element: Subterranean Navigation)]. Though these three earth release techniques weren't highly ranked, they all involved earth nature transformation.

After copying them onto blank scrolls, Aozora began browsing through other scrolls casually.

Since his chakra leaned toward fire, lightning, and earth attributes, he completely ignored wind and water natured techniques.

Even so, there remained an enormous pile of scrolls.

He flipped through these scrolls quickly, growing increasingly disappointed with every page. Now he understood why no other clan members were willing to come here.

The ninjutsu stored within the clan vault varied in age—newer ones still had some reference value, while most older ones were outdated. For example, various fireball techniques recorded there paled in comparison to the Uchiha's Great Fireball Technique regarding both power and casting speed.

Nevertheless, Aozora patiently selected several decent scrolls and copied them down.

Two of these scrolls covered fundamental sealing techniques. Although basic with relatively weak sealing formulas applicable only to nonresisting objects, these scrolls contained a comprehensive overview of almost all foundational sealing techniques.

Sealing techniques in the ninja world are extremely overpowered. Nothing is beyond their capability—from swords and spears to Kaguya Ōtsutsuki herself. Besides being overpowered, sealing techniques also involve spatial concepts, souls, and other fields. This really fascinated Aozora.

Besides sealing techniques, Aozora originally hoped to find barrier ninjutsu, but unfortunately, despite the clan vault's vast size, it didn't contain a single barrier ninjutsu. Whether this reflected genuine absence within the Uchiha or simply that such valuable techniques were hidden away by the clan leader remained unknown.

Unable to locate barrier techniques, Aozora copied two decent lightning release techniques before heading back home.

Returning home, Aozora kept the three earth element scrolls while placing all other scrolls into a small wooden box.

He understood that concentrating fully on one task at a time brought twice the result with half the effort.

With the three earth release scrolls laid before him, Aozora carefully studied them one by one. Eventually, he decided to learn [Shinchū Zan'nin Jutsu (Mental Decapitation Technique)] first.

All three techniques shared the ability to submerge into earth, but among them, [Shinchū Zan'nin Jutsu] was the lowest-ranked—yet most pure, relying entirely on earth nature transformation capabilities.

Mastering the Shinchū Zan'nin Jutsu made it much easier for Aozora to learn other ninjutsu.

After selecting Iwagakure's technique, Aozora repeatedly studied and contemplated the Shinchū Zan'nin Jutsu. Then, based on the seals, he began deducing the method of chakra circulation used in the Iwagakure Technique.

Once he got the hang of the chakra flow for the Shinchū Zan'nin Jutsu, Aozora stepped outside to begin practicing.

"Earth Release - Shinchū Zan'nin Jutsu!"

The chakra in his body followed the scroll's guidance, flowing through him before merging into the earth.

In an instant, the ground beneath his feet suddenly collapsed.

Feeling the earth collapse beneath him, Aozora quickly steadied himself and stood firm. Looking around, he realized he had landed in a deep hole.

"This is the Shinchū Zan'nin Jutsu? Did I just dig my own grave?"

As soon as this complaint escaped his lips, Aozora felt a familiar suction force emanating from the Heavenly Book.

Aozora leaped out of the pit, filled it in within moments, and went back inside to await the Heavenly Book's inheritance.

Soon, the characters "Earth Release" appeared in gray ancient script on the Heavenly Book, followed by "Shrink Step" displayed in pale golden ancient characters.

The golden droplet, unable to resist, surged forward and instantly consumed the ancient characters.

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