After the intense meeting, Ron and Ed made their way back to Ron's office. As they sank into their seats, a heavy silence filled the room, not from tension but from sheer exhaustion. The past two weeks had been relentless, with neither of them taking a moment's rest, even with their complex schedule. Yet, despite the grueling pace, their progress was undeniable.
Over the last fourteen days, Ron had personally taken over the research into space-sealing techniques and the stabilization of spatial constructs. Kumogakure was in a state of rapid transformation, and with the upcoming shifts in policy and expansion, Ron saw the necessity of refining space-sealing technology to its utmost potential. His ultimate goal was ambitious; he wanted to create vast independent spaces, akin to the legendary Three Holy Lands.
Unlike conventional storage seals, which stretched a point in space and preserved objects within a confined spatial pocket, the Holy Lands, Mount Myoboku, Ryuchi Cave, and Shikkotsu Forest, also known as the land of toad, snake and slugs were fundamentally different.
These realms were not mere sealed spaces; they were entire landscapes carved out from reality and restructured into semi-independent dimensions. Their foundation lay in the planet's largest concentrations of natural energy veins, similar to massive crossroads where multiple highways intersect, only in this case, these highways were the powerful, unseen currents of the planet's natural energy.
Ron speculated that in ancient times, before the emergence of the God Tree, such energy-rich hotspots were likely even more abundant, and these sacred lands had been built upon them. The Land of Wind's Dragon vein was probably where the God tree was planted and was probably the strongest natural energy vein at some point in the history of the Naruto World, thus at some point being even more prosperous than the current land of Fire. Even now, only the Dragon vein in Rouran has some of its former glory, aside from the 3 holy lands.
Unlike storage scrolls, which merely stretched a pinpoint of space into a contained pocket, the Holy Lands had enveloped the land around these energy veins, effectively sequestering/separating them into self-contained dimensions disconnected from the physical world. This wasn't a simple manipulation of space; it was a selective transfer, pulling an entire region into its own stabilized domain, almost like making a balloon out of a sheet of paper without deforming the sheet of paper.
The unique nature of these dimensions allowed the creatures residing within them to dictate who could enter and leave. While it wasn't a complete severance from reality, it granted them near-total control over their domain's access points or entrance where the real world and the summoning space connected. Summoners, through space-time ninjutsu, could teleport directly into these lands, while others had to physically locate and traverse the hidden entrances that existed as thin, permeable thresholds between the real world and the summoning realms.
A true master of space-time abilities could potentially force their way into these realms if they wanted, but the entrances themselves remained stable and ever-present, of course could be hidden or more effectively controlled by the holy lands.
If these entrances were entirely severed by cutting off the space and truly creating an independent space, then these Holy Lands would lose their primary advantage, the steady influx of concentrated natural energy that was sustained as it gathered in these veins. Instead, being connected to the space of the Naruto world allowed Natural energy to gather in these holy lands like they would, allowing them to use as they liked.
Of course, the natural energy will be extracted and utilized by these summoning places, just by its users using them, mainly with the Great Toad Sage, White Snake Sage and Katuya being the core of these holy land, their utilization of natural energy from these veins mainly formed the unique natural energy rich and unique habitats of these holy land's and probaly was the reason, users of the sage modes of these holy land's had unique markings representing them, thus, and these utilization would lead to some leaking into the real world through their entrances.
Ron had been analyzing these dynamics extensively. One particular observation stood out, which was the existence of Jugo's clan in the Naruto world discovered by Orochimaru in the Anime. They were not ninjas, yet through generations of exposure to natural energy, they had evolved a unique ability to absorb and utilize it instinctively. The only drawback was their inability to control the excess energy, which led to their infamous berserk states. This, to Ron, was a revelation. It meant that prolonged habitation in a naturally energy-rich environment could alter human physiology, potentially granting the benefits of a sage-like body without formal training.
Even the giant toads of Mount Myoboku were proof of this principle. Their sheer size and strength were unnatural by normal standards, even for a Summoning beast, likely a direct result of prolonged exposure to natural energy over generations. Their strong physique and longer lifespan compared to normal animals, even without mastering sage mode, could be explained by their habitat.
As of course even these beasts still failed in mastering sage mode, and turned to stone as seen by Mount Myoboku's Frog statues, but when they succeeded, they became sages with longer lifespans, beings of immense power like sage Fakasuku and Shima.
Jugo's bloodline was further evidence that humans, too, could achieve similar results. In fact, given a ninja's or human's superior chakra control and mental discipline, they might even surpass these creatures. A high-level ninja, especially one at the shadow level, possessed the ability to regulate physical and spiritual energy intake far better than a civilian like from Jugo's clan, overwhelmed by natural energy; as even without long time exposures, ninjas with strong physique and chakras in the shadow level could master sage mode, like Jiraiya.
Out of the San-nin's, Jiraiya had the most chakra and the best overall natural physique, not counting Orochimaru's modified body or Tsuande's Yin-seal; thus, Jiraiya as a civilian possessed even more chakra than Tsunade. Ron attributed this to Jiraiya's healthy body, full of testosterone from a young age, always being a pervert. Ron thinks even his father can learn sage mode, as he definitely has a better physique and chakra than all the ninjas in the current 5 major ninja villages, but too bad the 3 holy lands contracted to Konoha.
It was this realization that fueled Ron's long-term vision for Kumogakure. If the village could harness and condense natural energy into its environment, or even make it so Natural energy forms on its own more, just like how the concentration of the natural energy increased as the land of lightning became more prosperous and lively, it could achieve something unprecedented, an entire village where natural energy flowed freely, enhancing the potential of every ninja born within its borders. Of course, Ron was pretty sure it wasn't just an increase in the concentration of the natural energy in the land of lightning, but the overall energy of the planet increased due to living things and prosperity.
Ron believed, If even a single village's shinobis evolved to master natural energy naturally, as Jugo's clan had, they would become an unrivaled force in the ninja world.
Of course even if Ron had a natural energy vein, which was probably all over the world in every country, albeit not as good as Rouran's or the 3 holy land's due to the God tree's afteraffect of exhausting the planet's natural energy reserves, and almost turning all life to white zetsu, Ron still had to figure out how to gather massive amount of natural energy, and attract it to Kumogakure, unlike the holy land's where the Great sages acted as cores, thus in their natural energy absorption process, draw immense amount of natural energy from the veins making the environment rich in the process. Just like it wasn't enough to just have a pond of water, you would need a pump to draw it out and use it, and only these 1000-year old sages could act as such, creating their own holy lands.
This was the future Ron sought to build. And his research into space-time sealing was only the first step.