Chapter 351: What's in the Pure Land?
Kenichi touched his nose, a little hesitant, but since Orochimaru said there was no problem, then there probably wasn't.
And up to now, there had indeed never been a case where the Sage of Six Paths emerged through Edo Tensei.
So Kenichi completed the final step of the jutsu.
The coffin opened, and Amado stepped out.
He slowly opened his eyes.
"Mr. Amado?" Kenichi asked in a low voice, while inwardly tensing himself. If Amado showed even the slightest abnormality, he would immediately release Edo Tensei and send him back.
Even if Orochimaru said it was fine, caution was never wrong.
Kenichi himself felt that if the Sage of Six Paths really did appear, stopping him would not be easy.
"...Sorry, I was a little slow on the way." Amado smiled faintly at Kenichi.
Beside them, Orochimaru thoughtfully recorded that piece of information.
He had discovered a problem during his earlier research on Edo Tensei. The farther the place of death was from the place of reincarnation, the more likely there would be a delay in the summoning.
At the time, however, ge had not paid much attention to it.
His research had focused more on how to maximize Edo Tensei's efficiency, not on what exactly existed inside the Pure Land.
"You mean souls also need to travel?" Kenichi asked in surprise.
He had no real research foundation regarding the nature of souls, so this was the first time he had heard such a statement.
"Mm, I suppose you could put it that way." Amado nodded. "After you released Edo Tensei earlier, I found my wife under a very strange sensation."
A trace of discomfort appeared in his eyes.
The moment he had returned to the living world, that strange feeling had come over him again. It was like being forced back into a set of heavy, soaked clothing, making his entire body feel unbearably uncomfortable.
Kenichi immediately began recording everything with his pen. This was all precious research material regarding the Pure Land.
"Then my wife and I were able to communicate very quickly. How should I put it..." Amado picked up an experimental logbook from nearby. It was not very thick, only a little over twenty pages.
"In the time it took me to pick this up, I could have already read through half of it together with my wife. By now, we would have finished discussing everything."
"Could it be that soul bodies have no concept of time?" Kenichi raised a new question.
He had just watched Amado pick up the logbook. It had taken, at most, three seconds. Finishing half the contents of that book in three seconds was absurdly fast.
It reminded him of those ridiculous scams from his previous life, the ones about quantum speed reading. Kenichi had always felt that anyone who believed in that kind of nonsense probably wasn't very bright.
"That's also possible," Amado said without denying it. He had never seen anything in the Pure Land that could measure time. There were no clocks, no changing skies, nothing of the sort.
Still, when he had asked his wife, she said she felt as though she had been waiting for him for a very long time.
As for how long exactly, she could not say.
"In the Pure Land, souls cannot perceive the flow of time, nor can they effectively observe it," Kenichi wrote in his notes.
But time itself was already just a concept.
In his previous life, there had once been a very interesting experiment. A researcher voluntarily sealed herself inside a cave. It was completely dark, and she had no access to sunlight or any timekeeping devices. She only brought basic living supplies, lighting, and equipment for monitoring her vital signs.
No watch. No phone. Nothing that could tell time.
She stayed there for fifteen days.
From the outside, her physical condition was fine, though slightly weak.
But when she came out after those fifteen days, she insisted that she had spent over twenty days inside.
The Pure Land seemed somewhat similar.
Souls had no way to observe time. They could not see the cycle of day and night. Under such conditions, it was only natural to gradually lose any sense of how much time had passed.
"Mr. Amado, did you meet any other souls in the Pure Land? For example, the First Hokage?" Orochimaru leaned forward, clearly intrigued.
Although he had researched souls before, he knew very little about the Pure Land itself.
That was exactly why he had been willing to stop his work and come here.
"I did meet other souls along the way, but I didn't run into the First Hokage you mentioned. Most of the ones I saw were all from our town." Amado shook his head and scratched his arm uncomfortably.
Orochimaru nodded.
Then it seemed that when souls entered the Pure Land, their destination was tied to the people they knew and the place where they had lived in life.
But if that were true, then even more questions emerged.
For example, if someone from Konoha married someone from the Hidden Sand and then moved to Konoha to live, where would the two of them go after death?
"First, let me tell you what my life in the Pure Land was like during this period," Amado said as he found a seat and sat down.
He then began to carefully recount his experiences there.
Kenichi recorded everything diligently, but as he wrote, he noticed that Amado's eyes gradually became unfocused, and his words began to sound increasingly strange.
"I love life in the Pure Land. That is where I can truly find peace..."
"Everything in the Pure Land is so beautiful. I don't even want to leave..."
Kenichi glanced at Orochimaru.
At the same moment, Orochimaru also looked at him.
Master and disciple silently came to the same conclusion.
Amado had become abnormal.
And as he continued reminiscing about the wonderful life of the Pure Land, his Edo Tensei body also began to destabilize. Bits of dust started flaking away from him, showing clear signs of impending collapse.
Kenichi immediately took out the soul restraint device Amado had previously invented and placed it over his head.
The moment it settled into place, Amado fell quiet, and the haze in his eyes vanished.
"...The Pure Land really is a terrifying place," Amado said with a sigh.
He now understood exactly what had happened to him just now. He shook his head, his expression full of helplessness.
To be honest, he had never imagined that one day this device would be used on him.
Previously, he had watched his daughter fall into that same strange state, and that was what drove him to create this miraculous device in the first place.
"The Pure Land seems to hold a special attraction for souls," Kenichi said, letting out a breath.
Earlier, Amado had sounded like someone who had been completely brainwashed by some fanatic cult, trying his best to convince others how wonderful the Pure Land was.
For a moment, Kenichi had even worried that Amado might stand up and try to drag him there too.
"It's more than that. Even with this restraint device on, I can still feel the discomfort. There's an urgent impulse in me to break free and return to the Pure Land." Amado touched the device on his head.
Only now did he fully understand why his daughter had been forcibly dragged back after being restrained for thirty days.
He even suspected that the discomfort and impulse would continue intensifying over time until he could no longer resist, forcing him to leave the living world again.
"Does the Pure Land have a concept of soul reincarnation?" Orochimaru asked.
He knew that if they wanted answers, they had to ask quickly while Amado was still lucid. Otherwise, any further responses might be distorted by the influence of the Pure Land.
"No. My wife never saw any souls leave," Amado replied seriously.
Orochimaru fell into thought.
Kenichi glanced at him.
He himself actually knew a little about this question, though not enough.
The Pure Land definitely had reincarnation.
The simplest proof was Asura and Indra.
After their deaths, they reincarnated as Hashirama and Madara, and later as Naruto and Sasuke. Sasuke's case may have happened later, perhaps only after Madara was completely dead, which awakened the reincarnation related genes in him.
But those two cases proved one thing clearly.
Reincarnation existed.
Yet that only made things even stranger.
If reincarnation existed, then why did Hashirama's soul still exist? Why did Madara's soul still exist? Why did countless ordinary souls also continue existing in the Pure Land for so long?
And if both Hashirama and Madara still existed there, how was reincarnation continuing at all?
What secret was hidden in all of this?
"However, there's one issue I discovered during this period of testing." Amado picked up his teacup, took a sip, then put it back down.
He could drink tea, but he could not taste it.
No wonder Guy disliked eating. Kenichi thought that silently.
"What is it?" Kenichi asked with interest. Amado's experiments had enormous value. Because of him, Kenichi's understanding of the Pure Land had already advanced significantly.
"It's about the person you mentioned before." Amado looked at Kenichi meaningfully.
Kenichi froze, then unconsciously clenched his hand.
Of course he knew who Amado meant.
He had spoken to Amado before about the Sage of Six Paths, and in Kenichi's view, the Sage of Six Paths was a real existence who possessed tremendous authority over the Pure Land and a frightening ability to interfere with it.
"That person's... name..." Amado frowned slightly. "I cannot say it. The moment I try, I feel an overwhelming sense of danger."
Kenichi frowned.
Even after being pulled back with Edo Tensei, Amado still could not say it aloud.
"But after testing, I discovered something interesting," Amado continued. "The energy of soul bodies in the Pure Land seems to be continuously draining away. The rate is very slow, but it is happening."
Kenichi raised an eyebrow.
What did that have to do with the Sage of Six Paths?
"And then I found..." Amado continued steadily, "that this loss seems to be caused by the Pure Land itself. The existence you mentioned doesn't appear to be able to interfere with that process."
Kenichi was stunned.
What did that mean?
Did it mean the Sage of Six Paths was not actually as capable of interfering with the Pure Land as Kenichi had believed?
Kenichi scratched his head as he looked at Amado, suddenly wanting to ask whether he was joking. It sounded like a major discovery, yet at the same time it felt maddeningly incomplete.
At that moment, Amado and Akebi finally finished their long awaited reunion, and Amado asked to be released from Edo Tensei.
He intended to return to the Pure Land and continue his research there.
He also proposed a time for the next resurrection.
Three months.
He wanted three full months to thoroughly investigate the Pure Land.
Kenichi had no objection.
Still, as he looked at Amado, the strange unease in his heart only grew stronger.
"Amamiya, my young friend, what's wrong?" Amado asked with a smile.
Orochimaru, standing nearby, narrowed his eyes.
"Nothing. I just have a question I'd like to ask you," Kenichi said after a pause.
He suddenly thought of the issue he had encountered earlier, the plant gene programming ninjutsu. Amado was also a genius scientist, and perhaps he could offer some useful ideas.
"Oh? What is it?" Amado asked curiously, while also glancing at Orochimaru.
"It's like this. Recently, I've been researching how to carry out gene level programming on plants..." Kenichi took out the ninjutsu scroll in his hand.
With both Orochimaru and Amado present, he might be able to complete the development of this technique much faster.
.....
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