With his official Root status, the best thing for Uchiha Feiyu was that he could now come and go from the Hidden Leaf as he pleased. As long as he reported it to Danzō as "going out on a mission," he was free to leave the village.
As for whether he did some "private work" along the way—Danzō didn't care in the slightest, so long as Feiyu eventually came back with the target's head. This privilege existed for one simple reason: Feiyu was strong.
Plenty of missions that were extremely troublesome for Root were effortless for him. Root had a big, scary reputation, but in terms of actual top-tier combat power, there weren't many standouts.
Take Hattori Ichirō from that first mission, for example. Across all of Root, besides Danzō and Orochimaru, there were very few "elites" who could have beaten that spy.
And there was no way the Root commander himself or a collaborator like Orochimaru would personally go hunt down a small-time spy. An elite squad risked getting wiped out, while sending a large force would only spook the prey.
Previously, facing this kind of hard target, Root would have had to sacrifice a lot of personnel just to maybe bring him down. If the spy didn't carry important intel, they often wouldn't even bother. At best, they'd keep an eye on his movements.
But now, with Uchiha Feiyu—this sharp, clean "fast blade"—Root finally had capital to cut down those tough enemies.
Even if Feiyu only went out once every ten days or half a month, it was enough to clear out a large chunk of Root's backlog. So, even if he was hard to control, Danzō still treated this "good weapon" quite politely on the surface.
Use power while you've got it, or it rots. During this period, Feiyu basically left the village every ten days or so "on a mission." In reality, he wasn't just working for Root—he was also building his blood pool.
Two thousand shinobi corpses needed all sorts of processing before they could be refined into a proper blood pool using the auxiliary methods of the Soul-Devouring Blood Refinement secret art.
Thankfully, this world had a cheat called the Shadow Clone Technique, which let Feiyu complete the blood pool in just four months.
In a forest roughly twenty kilometers from Konoha, Feiyu had dug over a hundred meters straight down before he started constructing.
The initial basin for the pool had been about thirty meters across, but once the entire refining process was complete, the final result was only a pool five to six meters in diameter—about the size of a small bathhouse.
"It's finally done… Just looking at this thing, you can tell it's not anything wholesome. As expected of a demonic path inheritance."
Feiyu sighed, gazing at the small pool before him.
The pool's edge was wrapped in a material that looked like white jade, but as the person who'd refined it himself, Feiyu knew very well it was actually made of human bone.
The pale red liquid inside, with a faintly sweet scent like wine, was nothing more than purified blood. The essence of over two thousand people's blood had eventually yielded only a shallow layer at the bottom.
"In theory, even before any sacrifices, a newly formed blood pool should already have a basic bloodline-enhancing effect. Perfect chance to test it."
Feiyu stripped off his clothes and sat cross-legged in the pool. Activating the Soul-Devouring Blood Refinement technique, the thin layer of red liquid that barely covered his thighs began to roil violently, surging up and wrapping around his entire body, forming a large blood-red cocoon.
The fleshy cocoon pulsed like a beating heart. Inside, Feiyu felt as if he were a fetus curled in amniotic fluid, slowly sinking into deep stillness.
The sun slid toward the west, and when the moon had climbed high into the sky, the once-throbbing cocoon finally quieted. The vivid bloody flesh dried and shriveled like dead skin.
Then—rip.
A white, jade-like arm punched through the dried shell, tearing it open.
Feiyu stepped out of the broken husk. His skin was smooth and pale like that of a newborn. In his eye sockets, a pair of blood-red Sharingan with three tomoe slowly spun.
Inside his body, chakra surged wildly, overflowing to the point of leaking out uncontrollably for several minutes before finally calming.
"This feels… insanely strong. It's practically a full rebirth. Even stronger than when my eyes first awakened or when I formed Magnet Release."
Originally, the Uchiha blood in Feiyu's body had only barely counted as acceptable. After all, he was only one-quarter Uchiha. Under normal circumstances, he never would've awakened the Sharingan in his entire life.
Even with cheats, once he had awakened it, further evolution was extremely difficult.
If it had been an ordinary Uchiha with Soul-Devouring Blood Refinement Art, devouring so many animal souls and malice, hitting three-tomoe max level was a given, and even Mangekyō wouldn't be out of reach.
But Feiyu's thin bloodline had been holding him back all this time, leaving him stuck at two tomoe.
It was only now, after his Uchiha bloodline had been fully "completed," that his Sharingan finally advanced to the three-tomoe stage.
"Still… the eyes are just one part. My reflexes, Yin Release aptitude, chakra density, chakra control—and even that vague 'talent for jutsu'—all got a massive boost."
"No wonder the Uchiha clan is so stuck-up. Even without awakening the Sharingan, just inheriting the blood of the Ōtsutsuki line means their physical ability, chakra reserves, and jutsu talent are miles above your average civilian shinobi."
"Add the Sharingan cheat on top, and every evolution isn't just new abilities—it's deeper bloodline development. Nerves, chakra, everything gets stronger."
"With a gap like this, unless a 'normal ninja' has some top-tier inheritance and monstrous talent, they could train to death and still never catch up."
Feiyu centered himself, and without even forming a seal, a faint coat of lightning started crackling across his body.
In the past, he'd needed Sakumo's spirit to possess him to pull this off. Now, he could do it as easily as breathing.
"White Fang Sword Style… purely in terms of skill now, there's no fundamental difference between me and Sakumo anymore. The only gap left is in experience."
In other words, Sakumo's spirit didn't add much to Feiyu anymore. Through repeated "borrowing the false to refine the real," he'd completely digested everything Sakumo had to offer.
At this point, Uchiha Feiyu's true body had finally stepped into the Kage tier—for real.
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