One month later.
Life after killing that ninja became quite mundane. I expanded the shrine a little bit, but that seemed to do nothing. But hey, it looks better now. I still have no idea how to build good, but I'm getting somewhere.
Maybe I should hire a craftsman character from this world. Oh, speaking of that, I had a sudden random idea the other day.
What if more characters knew about the shrine?
Maybe that will trigger some change. I was thinking of a reputation value, since aren't "gods" supposed to be worshipped by many?
And so, after upgrading the shrine, I… went and expanded my house. Now, it was two stories tall, with a basement for all my chests. Mind you, I only had two double chests, and neither were close to half-full.
They only had some basic building blocks, mainly logs, planks, dirt, cobblestone, you get the idea.
I tried stripmining underground, but… maybe this world didn't have ores? No, that's stupid. Of course it did. But in the Minecraft world, you'd at least see a vein of iron ore after stripmining for a while.
But nope.
There went one of my plans.
In the end, I blocked off the tunnels I dug out and turned the basement into a chicken area. I got the hen and rooster from a random monk travelling the area—I learned a few Japanese words from him, which was nice. Still, using gestures to communicate is tiring.
As for the basement idea... Was it the wisest choice? Nope, not at all. For normal chickens, at least.
Get this. I can breed them into Minecraft chickens.
I brought half a stack of Minecraft seeds with me before crossing the portal. I had planned on farming here, but… while the seeds grew fast like they would in the Minecraft world, I realized I brought too little to make it a reliable food source.
For the inventory to recognize the seeds as the "wheat seeds" item, I need more than just one singular seed. Not just that, the "wheat" item requires more grains than the "wheat seeds" item to be recognized by the system. It's a headache. In simpler terms, the yield isn't high.
Thankfully, after the seeds are fully grown, I'll always gain one or two "wheat seeds" per crop, so I'm not worried about it running out. Yes, I could grind for a while and eventually amass a large number of Minecraft seeds—and in turn, wheat, but that'd take too long.
Instead, I tried using it to breed chickens. Ordinary chickens hatch from eggs. But with the "wheat seeds" item, the hen laid a whole baby chicken, no hatching required… though, the "breeding animation" isn't quite the same as in the Minecraft world.
Aside from that, the hen became weak, and after a couple more baby cickens, the hen died. The problem now was, I only have one rooster, and all the baby chickens grew up to be hens (after speeding their growth via wheat seeds). The rooster can, of course, be used to breed them but…
That just felt wrong. Not saying I didn't try. It worked, but not all the time. Sometimes, the hen would only lay an egg, and not give birth to a baby chicken. I'm guessing it has to do with DNA and all that wacky big brain stuff—not my territory.
That's why I'm gearing up now. I need more roosters. Oh, and to invite people to worship the shrine...
Am I raising a cult?
***
Thunder shook the Nether ceiling. The air, hot enough to cook eggs, swirled like a tornado, heading to the depths of the lava pools.
Hashirama sat on netherrack, his face lined with black markings, steam rising from his skin as they worked to heal him from the constant burning from the air.
Beside him, Madara was doing the same—though his skin seemed to be turning red as if roasted. They had been trapped here for eight months now.
As soon as Madara learned that the portal vanished, he and Hashirama tried all the space-time ninjutsu they knew. They weren't the best at it, for sure, and maybe that's why they failed to succeed.
In the end, using Hashirama's sense of time since entering the Nether, Madara made a makeshift clock with glowstone powder and an hourglass of quartz glass (fused quartz) and Hashirama's fuinjutsu (sealing jutsu).
At first, both conserved their use of chakra, only using taijutsu to fight and flee. But it wasn't enough. When encountered with a large army of the piglins, they'd be forced to use a jutsu with a large area of effect. On this end, it was Hashirama's job.
Madara's fire jutsu, which required the least chakra, were greatly countered by the piglins' adaptation to high temperatures. Thankfully, they weren't immune to fire.
Unlike the strange creatures that could walk on lava without chakra (Striders). They used those whenever they found a large lava ocean.
Just like that, months passed in constant battle. It came to the point that even if both men didn't like to admit it, mostly Madara, they relied on each other more and more that if one of them were in danger, the other would risk themselves.
Madara found it ironic. Like fate was forcing them to let go of their stubborn grudges and become like brothers again.
But sentimentality wasn't in their minds now. Hashirama found something game changing. He sensed natural energy. In front of them was a large wasteland—a soul sand valley, and they could already hear dozens of ghasts wailing in distress. Hashirama felt conflicted about these creatures.
For now, however, he was focusing on extracting natural energy from the soul soil—where he sensed the energy.
Just to barely enter his sage mode, he sat for a day and a half without stop. The only solace was that no piglins attacked them here—even Madara tried his shot at sage mode.
He was failing—but not without result. His changed skin was proof of it. He was, Madara Uchiha, after all.
Opening his eyes, Hashirama sighed.
"Senjutsu in this place is really hard to achieve. We still must take caution with every step, Madara," he said.
Madara didn't even open his eyes. "You don't need to tell me. Enough of that. When are you going to—"
Hashirama smiled. "I'm done. My sage mode can last for half a day if we only use taijutsu. If only I can constantly recover sage chakra," he shook his head.
"Let's go, I want to explore that abandoned fortress. Maybe it can solve our problems," he said.
Madara scoffed. "We already made a portal frame before, it didn't work."
Yes. Using jutsu, they cooled lava down enough that it became obsidian. Imitating the portal frame, they tried activating it. Unfortunately, they only wasted their chakra. Hashirama suggested that the portal needed a special requirement, like how fuinjutsu worked.
Just because you drew the exact same pattern doesn't mean it's going to work.
Seeing Hashirama standing up, Madara clicked his tongue. Standing up, the natural energy he managed to grasp vanished without a trace, leaving his skin a bit wrinkled. But after a tap from Hashirama, his skin returned to normal.
Madara paused—and so did Hashirama.
"Was… was your senjutsu always this potent?" Madara all but whispered.
Hashirama looked at his own hand. He couldn't feel it, but it seemed like his sage mode was different than usual.
Before they could ponder for a while, though, a ghast spotted them. Unmanned, the ghast were only territorial, not overly aggressive. Both men agreed to simply flee.
Unbeknownst to them, a pair of piglin eyes were stealthily watching them flee.