After asking Sara a bit more about the surrounding countries and villages, the last glimmer of hope in Li Fusheng's heart was thoroughly extinguished.
He had truly arrived in the world of Naruto.
Since he was already here, his primary goal had to be finding a way to survive in this conflict-ridden place.
As for Naruto, although he had only watched the original anime up to the Chunin Exams, he was not entirely ignorant of subsequent developments and major characters.
His source of information came from the fact that while reading books and novels related to cultivation, he had also browsed through some Naruto derivative and fan-fiction works.
For one thing, the themes of Naruto had intricate connections to certain Daoist concepts. Besides, both the original work and the fan-fictions were quite entertaining.
Reading them was a decent choice for passing the time outside of cultivation practice.
This was a world driven by ocular legends and bloodline supremacy, a fiercely dangerous land of perpetual warfare.
At the same time, because he had only read fan-fictions, Li Fusheng didn't dare rely on those alternate plots to judge the true storyline of the original world.
After all, in some novels, Naruto ended up becoming the Hokage and maintained a close friendship with the protagonist.
In other novels, the protagonist married Naruto's mother, rendering Naruto entirely irrelevant.
There were even drastically divergent plots where Naruto turned dark at the very start and became a public enemy of the Shinobi World.
If he truly believed the plots of the fan-fictions, which one was he supposed to trust?
Therefore, Li Fusheng made the resolute decision to treat those contents as mere reference points. Besides, he was currently located in the Kingdom of Loulan, where the chaotic affairs of the Shinobi World wouldn't affect him in the short term.
After all, Loulan basically never appeared in those fan-fictions—or perhaps he simply hadn't read enough of them. But regardless of the situation, it at least showed that Loulan was an expendable existence in the development of the Shinobi World.
Otherwise, the authors surely would have spent plenty of ink on it.
However, how was he to answer Sara's question now? He couldn't possibly say that he was from neither the Land of Wind nor any other country in this world, could he?
Aliens did exist here, but practically no one knew about them. Still, that was hardly a reason for Li Fusheng to expose himself.
Not to mention the deeply hidden Otsutsuki aliens in the Shinobi World, even Madara Uchiha, the Dance King next door, and Black Zetsu, that ultimate filial son, were currently lurking somewhere unknown.
And so, following Sara's train of thought, Li Fusheng claimed to be a foreigner traveling with a caravan who had encountered robbers while passing by Sunagakure and thus got separated from his group.
This story was half-true and half-false, but Sara didn't probe any further. To her, it didn't matter much where Li Fusheng came from.
In the blink of an eye, another week passed. Li Fusheng, meditating in his room, suddenly wore a look of joy on his face. His cultivation had made progress, and he had finally crossed the threshold.
By the standards of the Great Qin period, he could now be considered an Qi Condensation practitioner. In terms of the realm divisions in novels, he had successfully refined Spiritual Energy, transforming from a mere mortal into a rookie in the Qi Condensation Stage.
Now that he possessed a certain amount of Dharma Power, he could begin attempting to practice some of the ancestral spells.
During these past few days, although Sara interrupted his cultivation more than half the time, Li Fusheng didn't show any resistance.
It wasn't simply because Sara was technically his savior.
He had discovered that while the spiritual power in this place was even denser than what he had sensed in the desert earlier, it was also several times more volatile.
The difficulty of absorbing it spiked straight upward. Yet, strangely enough, every time Sara drew near, the surrounding restless Spiritual Energy would calm down significantly.
The closer he was to her, the more peaceful the spiritual power became, and the smoother his absorption.
Without Sara, forget officially entering the Qi Condensation Stage in two weeks; giving him another month would have been a stretch.
"Which spell should I practice first?" Li Fusheng muttered to himself, recalling the spells in his memory.
Considering that this was a desert environment and his current self-preservation abilities were somewhat lacking, it was best to prioritize saving his life and fleeing above all else.
If this were just an ordinary world, a Qi Condensation practitioner like him wouldn't need too many worries. But this was the Shinobi World, home to ruthless individuals capable of summoning meteors—feats equivalent to Grand Cultivators who could alter the heavens and earth. He couldn't afford to be reckless.
Consequently, Li Fusheng decided to start by learning the Earth Release Technique among the Five Elements Escape Techniques.
The Earth Release Technique was entirely different from the Earth Release: Subterranean Voyage Technique.
Any spell related to the earth attribute fell under the scope of the Earth Release Technique. Moreover, once he mastered it, the effect of moving underground was merely a passive ability of the Earth Release Technique.
It would allow him to move through the earth at high speeds quite freely.
When cultivated to a profound level, wondrous movement techniques like shrinking the ground to an inch or traveling a thousand miles in a single breath would be a breeze. As long as his feet touched the ground, he could turn and leave whenever he faced an enemy, maximizing his safety.
Following the mnemonic chant in his memory, Li Fusheng directed the spiritual power refined within his body, starting from his spleen, circulating along a specific route, and finally returning to the spleen.
However, once he actually began practicing the Earth Release Technique, Li Fusheng realized that the circulation of spiritual power within his body was quite sluggish and stiff.
"Is it because my meridians are blocked and narrow, or is there some other reason?"
Li Fusheng carefully sensed the condition inside his body and quickly discovered that it wasn't a meridian issue.
If his meridians were blocked or narrow, circulating spiritual power would cause swelling, pain, or even tearing sensations in the meridians.
Yet currently, he didn't feel the slightest bit of discomfort.
Instead, there was a sense of powerlessness, like a child trying to push a heavy cart. In other words, there was simply not enough driving force. The driving force that controlled and influenced Dharma Power generally came from willpower and mental strength.
This meant his mental strength was too weak; even though he had spiritual power in his body, he had no way to manipulate it easily.
There was truly nothing he could do about this. According to his memory, the ancestral secret manual was supposed to come with a matching God-Refining Technique. Unfortunately, all that remained now was the Qi Condensation Formula for absorbing spiritual energy and strengthening the physical body. The God-Refining Technique had been lost long ago during the process of the inheritance.
As the spiritual energy of heaven and earth faded away, bodies that no longer received the refinement of spiritual energy also lost the ability to look inward and sense their own mental strength.
Without the ability to perceive mental strength, the all-important God-Refining Technique gradually fell out of favor. Coupled with factors like warfare and family migrations, only the Qi Condensation Formula—which could strengthen the body and prolong life—was preserved in the records.
"Ah, what is this nonsense? The ancestors are way too unreliable!" Li Fusheng cursed impotently. "Could it be that I have to create my own God-Refining Technique?"
It wasn't entirely impossible, but the probability of success was extremely low.
First of all, he needed to reach a certain stage in Qi Condensation to make himself perceive the existence of mental strength.
Only then would it be possible to temper his mental strength. Otherwise, if he couldn't even perceive it, what was he going to refine?
Furthermore, compared to Qi Condensation, the dangers of God-Refining were even higher.
If a Qi Condensation practitioner took a wrong turn in their meridians, the worst that would happen was coughing up a few mouthfuls of blood. After all, his current cultivation was low, his spiritual power was scarce, and injuries wouldn't be fatal.
But if something went wrong during God-Refining, the mildest outcome would be a nervous breakdown turning him mentally ill, while the severe outcome would be the annihilation of his consciousness, leaving him in a vegetative state. There was simply no room for trial and error.