Daimyo Wu, as Daimyo, had many wives and consorts, but his favourite was the beautiful Consort Li.
But, as all things seem to go, Consort Li inexplicably died in the prime of her life and beauty due to some sudden and undoubtedly elegant illness. Daimyo Wu completely lost his mind to sorrow, taking no joy in his hobbies, ruling the country, his wife, or any of his other consorts. He was completely overtaken by the loss of the beautiful Li.
One day, he woke up and began demanding that his servants locate for him a parcel of the legendary incense he had heard was able to bring the dead back to life, known as hangonkō. His counsellors, knowing he was in the throes of madness, begged him to reconsider. They knew that even a glimpse of Li would rekindle Daimyo Wu's grief all over again, but the Daimyo insisted. A search was conducted, and a single portion of hangonkō was found remaining in the imperial stock. Daimyo Wu snatched up the hangonkō and retreated to his chambers, desperate to see his beloved just one more time.
Daimyo Wu pored over the incense, heating it with the utmost of care, and thought only of Consort Li, talking to himself like a madman.
The smoke began to pour from the incense, a wispy and curious blue, which gradually formed the vague outline of a woman. The Daimyo watched, captivated, as the shape became clearer and clearer, until there was no doubt that it was that of Consort Li.
Daimyo Wu called out to her, weeping with joy, repeating her name, and declarations of love. However, the figure simply floated there, oblivious to the Daimyo's presence, though she became more and more beautiful with each passing second. Unable to take any more, the Daimyo ran to Li and embraced her, but the instant his fingers touched her shimmering form, the image disappeared into the air.
Daimyo Wu's sad spiral returned stronger than ever before, and he pined for Li as the incense died down, and then he passed away with it.
...
A wonderful tale of love and loss if one disregarded the reports spread in front of Lin Feng detailing how the wife of the Daimyo, Lady Shin had been the one to poison both Consort Li, with a quick acting poison, and Daimyo Wu with a chronic one which led to his insanity.
The hangonkō was basically the catalyst that set off the accumulated poison in his blood and killed him.
Her son with him was slated for coronation as the next Daimyo.
Now this son had invited Lin Feng along with several of the higher-ranking samurai under the Daimyo's jurisdiction to an incense appreciation party.
Nope… not suspicious at all.
Why Lin Feng? Because the Suna council of elders had been won over by him through a series of threats and inducements and had agreed to collaborate to impeach Rasa and nominate him as the Fifth Kazekage.
This needed the approval of the Daimyo.
Although the hidden villages were independent territories, they were still subordinate to the Countries they belonged to.
More importantly, the hidden villages occupied only a small defensible area and were completely dependent on the country they belonged to for their agricultural produce.
For example, only a quarter of the Land of Wind was covered by the desert. The rest was arable farmland. Storage scrolls were expensive as only expert sealers could make them and the amount needed for grain transport was unrealistic. Thus, the camel trains running to and fro between the Wind Country and Suna, in the middle of the desert, were established.
Several squads of ninja were on permanent postings to escort these merchants as they were the true lifeline of Suna… a lifeline that was held by the Daimyo.
Thus, the Daimyo had a veto power in the Kage selection to give him some sense of control over the village. This let the suspicious psychology of the Daimyo relax and prevented incidents such as him enforcing a trade blockade to try and starve the ninja to death.
So, if he was to take up the post, he had to have the approval of the Daimyo, or in this case as the seat was vacant, the Daimyo candidate and the majority of the samurai lords of the Land of Wind.
It was due to these circumstances that Lin Feng found himself housed in a villa in the capital of Wind country with Pakura, preparing for the party he was supposed to attend that day.
Pakura was there as his bodyguard rather than his attendant as her skills in interacting with nobles was non-existent. So, she wouldn't be accompanying him to the party and as he didn't trust anyone else enough, he would go alone.
Not an uncommon choice as most Samurai believed that only they or their successors were worthy of laying eyes on their liege lord and bringing bodyguards to a banquet would show suspicion towards the host.
The fact that they were powerful warriors in their own right didn't hurt.
He adjusted his clothing, a navy-blue kimono with a light mauve haori on top.
The Kimono had the symbol for Kazekage embroidered onto its sleeves while the same was printed on the front of the haori and thrice on the leggings.
Temperature regulating seals were printed onto the shoulder pads, catering to both form and function due to their artistic depiction.
Seals were this world's version of runes… basically symbols imbued with intent that told biological energy what to do.
The seals that had been developed here had the ability to affect world vitality. It was one field in which this world was almost equivalent in development to Lin Feng's home world.
As he smoothened out the creases on his clothes, his eyes lost their focus as he remembered his words with the seal masters who had been responsible for maintaining the seal on Shukaku.
…
"What is a seal? It is a trace, a line.
"A snake crosses the sand, in its passing, it leaves a seal. The vein on a leaf is a seal. The wheel rut left on a muddy road by a carriage is a seal. The blood vessel in the body of a wild animal is a seal. The path of flowing water is a seal. The lines scored by the wind on the dunes are seals. The fissures in the dry earth after a drought are seals. The clouds in the sky are also seals."
Lin Feng had asked, "Grandmaster, is the seal a simulation of all traces in nature?"
He had shaken his head, "That is an artist not a seal master.
"The blood vessel within the body of a wild animal is a seal, this seal can only maintain their survival. The trace of flowing water is a seal, this seal can only make the water flow from high ground to low according to the rule of nature. The vein of a leaf is a seal, this seal can only let it deliver the moisture absorbed by the roots to the leaf blade.
"These seals are born in nature, survive in nature and walk arm in arm with the vitality of this stretch of the world.
"However, mankind, regardless of Cultivation or the study of Fuinjutsu, has exceeded the need of survival. Therefore although Fuinjutsu originates from nature, it is actually higher than nature."
Lin Feng had asked again, "What is a seal."
"An instruction."
"To whom?"
"To biological energy… world vitality or chakra, each has its own consciousness. A seal or a hand sign, all methods of human cultivation cannot leave the manipulation of energy. Taijutsu manipulates yang chakra to strengthen the body. Ninjutsu manipulates chakra to achieve all kinds of effects. Genjutsu directly attacks the opponent's mind by manipulating yin chakra. Only Fuinjutsu is at a higher boundary than the others… it allows you to instruct the world vitality to do anything you can comprehend and infuse into the symbols you draw."
Lin Feng had questioned, "World Vitality does not have eyes, it does not have an ear, it has no way to know what strange idea you might have in your mind, it is more unlikely that it will know that you want to guide the sandstorms around Suna and transform it into a protective barrier, how then can you make it know your meaning?"
He had replied, "A seal is the bridge between man's mind and world vitality. A seal master congeals a seal by infusing it with his yin chakra and his intent. When it is stimulated, it can have an induction with the wold vitality around it and create water or fire. It can gather clouds to call rain, it can scatter clouds to turn the weather dry.
"Actually, it is very similar to your cultivation method. You take your body as the bridge between your mind and the world vitality. Your body is like a musical instrument and the world vitality like the air. Once it insufflates this musical instrument it can create a wonderful music. The world vitality can listen to this music and create a resonance. You open and close your tenketsu to alter the melody. Thus, your body is like a mutable seal which you can change at will."
He sighed, "Your talent in sealing is unprecedented. You probably call them runes but I can feel that the operating principles between both are roughly the same. What is most shocking is your cultivation method. You directly use world vitality without using chakra and the way you use it is more advanced than the highest levels of seal masters in this world.
"But such a method requires absurd levels of sensitivity towards world vitality. I am one of the rare few people who can sense world vitality, hence, I am able to understand its trend during various phenomenon. Thus, I can record this trend in a seal, causing resonance with the world vitality, thereby recreating the phenomenon."
Lin Feng asked, "For thousands of years Seal Masters have been studying and recording the symbols of nature, aren't there ready-made seals? If there are, then doesn't that mean that even without the need for the sensation of world vitality fluctuation one can cultivate Fuinjutsu?"
"Can there be two exactly same leaves in the world?"
"No."
"Can there be two completely same people?"
"Obviously not."
"That being the case, you are not I, your yin chakra and intent is impossible to be the same as my yin chakra and intent. Why then do you feel that if we write the completely same symbol, world vitality will interpret it similarly?
"Each Seal Master's yin chakra and intent is a completely different language. If I write a seal, the world vitality can comprehend my meaning. If you write a seal similarly, the world vitality will look at it frustratedly, wondering: why does this person write so incoherently, actually what does he want to say?"
Lin Feng had carefully analysed his words. "Your meaning is that Fuinjutsu can only be sensed by the practitioner and cannot be passed on from generation to generation."
"Um. It can't be inherited. For the same effect, the seal for each seal master is different. The teacher's seal can only serve as a reference for the student.
"Actually, if you talk about the Uzumaki clan, they became famous as the best sealers as every member of their clan had extremely similar yin chakra and a great affinity towards world vitality. Thus, in their case, a teacher could teach his student a seal directly. After learning how to perfectly copy the seal, the student could sense what it represented via multiple trials.
"Thus, the difference between an Uzumaki sealer and a non-Uzumaki sealer is that while a non-Uzumaki has to research every seal that he grasps from scratch with the boost of having his master's seals as reference, an Uzumaki just has to study his master's seals and slightly alter them to make them more suited for him.
"It is no wonder that the Uzumaki rose as one of the most powerful clans in the world. Their alliance with Konoha threatened the balance of power and thus, they were attacked by a coalition of Kiri, Iwa and Kumo. The members of their clan are now scattered all over the nations, their seal repository put to flames."
…
He snapped out of his recollections as Pakura entered the room carrying a cloth wrapped package.
She unwrapped it revealing Inlustris and Solis, resplendent in their newly acquired fittings.
Inlustris, the shorter of the two blades, was fitted with a black scabbard created from the leather of a mutated chakra beast.
Its hilt was crafted from ironwood which was known to be one of the toughest wooden materials in the world and wrapped in a decorative pattern with a long strip of leather.
Lin Feng had used his sand to carve it into a three-dimensional formation attuned to Pakura's tenketsu arrangement.
Although she was aiming for the Demonic path of cultivation and thus, generally speaking, would have to seal off her tenketsu to begin cultivation, they were trying to merge the benefits of cultivating chakra as well as world vitality by experimenting with the ratio in which they could mix the two. After all, discarding a fully formed chakra cultivation base was wasteful to say the least.
Their experiments had proven very dangerous.
People who cultivated the demonic path with only world vitality ran the risk of absorbing too much of the energy for their meridians to withstand, resulting in their meridians rupturing. That was the worst that could happen.
But during their experiments, when Pakura had tried to mix world vitality and her chakra, beyond a certain point, the world vitality had started to invade her cells via her chakra and started petrifying her. If not for Lin Feng's prompt intervention, she would have died.
They had decided to take it slow with the experimentation after that.
The fittings for Solis, the katana, were the same, except in white. The formation in its hilt was attuned to Lin Feng.
He attached the katana to his belt.
He would probably have to deposit it within a seal once he reached the venue as a sign of respect to his host but until then it was considered a part of samurai culture to always be close to one's sword.
He checked his appearance one last time in the mirror and teleported to a point near the venue.