Rashta
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9. The Secrets of the Shinobi World
🕑 Added 2025-05-07 07:01:37 +0000 UTC
Though Hidan had reluctantly submitted, Shiki had still overestimated him.
"I haven't read a single book in over a decade, and I can't even recognize a single character. How the hell would I know where the archives are?" Hidan grumbled, his face bruised from being beaten.
"Honestly, instead of staring at those squiggly lines, you'd be better off killing a few more people as tribute to Lord Jashin!"
"Shut up."
Shiki had nothing left to say to this illiterate musclehead.
Fortunately, while none of the Jashin cultists were fond of reading, they at least knew where the archives were.
Soon, a cultist led Shiki and Hidan to the archives.
"Um, Lord Shiki, Lord Hidan... this is the archives," the guide said with extreme deference.
This wasn’t because he wanted to curry favor with the two "Chosen Ones"—he was just afraid of having his head chopped off for no reason.
Though only a day had passed, Shiki and Hidan’s infamy had already spread throughout the entire Jashin cult.
Shiki was known as the Head-Slicing Demon, while Hidan was called the Undying Fiend.
Truthfully, people would’ve preferred to call Hidan the Undying Idiot, but no one dared. Even if Hidan got his head cut off by Shiki on a regular basis, his strength was still far beyond what they could challenge.
"Thanks."
Shiki gave the cultist a slight nod before carrying Hidan’s head into the archives.
The cultist exhaled heavily, relieved to have survived another day.
When Shiki entered the archives, he realized he hadn’t just overestimated Hidan—he’d overestimated the entire Jashin cult.
Good grief. The Jashin cult’s archives were practically a ruin.
Bookshelves lay haphazardly on the floor, covered in cobwebs. Piles of books were stacked randomly, clearly untouched for who knew how long.
Shiki rubbed his temples and sighed. "Truly a place worthy of producing a talented individual like you, Hidan. A land of heroes and legends."
Hearing Shiki call him a "hero," Hidan immediately puffed up with pride. "Damn right—"
Of course, given Hidan’s stellar IQ, he completely missed the sarcasm.
Shiki looked at Hidan’s smug face and sighed.
This idiot actually managed to receive such a broken ability from Jashin. I guess fools really do have fortune on their side.
Using his [Kagune: Spider] ability, Shiki spat out silk and hung Hidan’s head from the ceiling.
Naturally, Hidan wasn’t about to accept this humiliation, but the moment he tried to protest, Shiki gagged him with a thick wad of webbing, reducing him to muffled "Mmph! Mmph!" sounds.
With Hidan’s interference eliminated, Shiki could finally focus on studying the books.
To his surprise, while the Jashin cultists were a bunch of uneducated thugs, their long history meant they’d collected quite a few valuable old books.
"Seems like the Jashin cult actually had some sane ancestors," Shiki mused.
Otherwise, the cult wouldn’t have lasted this long.
Soon, one book in particular caught his attention—"The Ancient Gods."
It was less of a historical record and more of a collection of myths.
It documented the many deities that had once existed in the shinobi world.
The first—and, according to the author, the strongest—was naturally the Lord Jashin worshipped by the cult. This god of immortality and curses was lavishly praised in the book.
Other deities included the Shinigami, who ruled over death and the Pure Land, as well as the Nature Deities and various Sage Creatures from folklore.
Shiki slowly closed the book, a question forming in his mind.
"If there were so many gods... why did they all disappear?"
The book described countless deities, and Shiki had personally met Jashin and experienced his power firsthand.
Even if Jashin wasn’t as overwhelmingly powerful as the book claimed, his existence alone was undeniable.
And if Jashin was real, Shiki could reasonably assume that the Shinigami, the Sage Creatures, and the other gods mentioned in the book had also existed.
So why did they vanish?
Moreover, none of the descriptions of these gods ever mentioned chakra as a power system.
Puzzled, Shiki continued flipping through the books.
He read for an entire day, not stopping until the sun had set and darkness enveloped the world. By then, he’d finally gained a rough understanding of this world.
First, this world was called the shinobi world.
It was a land of many nations.
Much like Shiki’s previous life, it was dominated by five great powers:
The Land of Fire
The Land of Lightning
The Land of Water
The Land of Earth
The Land of Wind
These were the Five Great Nations.
Each nation had a powerful military organization known as a Hidden Village.
The Hidden Villages were the strongest armed forces of their respective countries, constantly producing elite weapons of war—shinobi.
The nominal strongest shinobi of each village held the title of Kage.
For example:
The Hokage of the Land of Fire
The Mizukage of the Land of Water
And so on.
In theory, the Kage stood as equals to their nation’s political leader—the Daimyō.
The Kage controlled the nation’s military power, while the Daimyō held political and economic authority.
To Shiki, this system made no sense. "Political power grows from the barrel of a gun." He couldn’t understand how the Daimyō, who lacked direct control over the military, could remain in power.
Then again, considering that this world had only transitioned from a chaotic tribal society to a formal nation-state a few decades ago, such institutional flaws were understandable.
They were still figuring things out as they went, with no existing models to follow.
Unfortunately, Shiki couldn’t find any records bridging the Age of Gods and the Warring States Period.
Not just the transition—even information on the Warring States Period itself was scarce.
Given how much time had passed, records being lost or never written in the first place wasn’t surprising.
Most books only vaguely mentioned that "The Sage of Six Paths created chakra" before moving on.
Far more space was devoted to statements like: "The God of Shinobi, Hashirama Senju, ended the Warring States Period and founded the first Hidden Village."
Only about fifty or sixty years had passed since Hashirama’s era, and tales of the God of Shinobi’s dominance were still widely told.
Setting the book down, Shiki tapped his fingers against his thigh.
"Jashin, Shinigami, Ōtsutsuki, the Sage of Six Paths, the God of Shinobi, the Senju clan, the Uchiha clan..."
"The secrets hidden here... are truly tantalizing."
At this moment, Shiki was like a player obsessed with a mystery game, utterly fascinated by the hidden truths of the shinobi world.
