Chapter 1

The sound of footsteps broke the silence of the dark and dilapidated hall, but the young man sitting cross-legged in the center of the vast hall, with his eyes closed, remained as motionless as a statue.

Until two blurry figures appeared at the entrance of the hall, the desolate hall once again returned to its former tranquility.

"Shall we... go over?"

After a long silence, a somewhat trembling male voice broke the silence of the desolate hall, causing the other figure to tremble slightly.

Then, the figure cast an annoyed glance at his speaking companion, nervously surveyed the still silent figure in the center of the hall, and let out a long breath before cautiously asking, "Gaara, you..."

Before she could finish her sentence, the scene before her eyes changed. What she saw was now an endless desert, where a towering Thousand-Armed Kannon was facing off against a massive sand beast.

The sudden change in the scene made the girl look around in panic, and the large iron fan she had been carrying on her back was now in her hands. Her companion, too, had taken off the mummy-like equipment on his back and was holding a kunai, alertly surveying the surroundings.

"Temari, what's going on? Is... is that a mongoose? Has Gaara lost control again?"

After confirming that they were temporarily safe, the figure with the painted face on her face relaxed her grip on the kunai slightly. She then looked at the massive creatures facing off in the distance, her gaze finally settling on the sand monster that had ravaged the village a few years ago, her voice rising sharply.

The girl, who also recognized the familiar monster, furrowed her brow, slightly grinding her feet into the ground, and after forming a hand seal and shaking her chakra, she asked uncertainly without answering her companion's question.

"Kankuro, do you feel anything wrong? Is this really not an illusion?"

Hearing the girl's question, the boy named Kankuro also twisted his body.

"There's no falseness in my five senses, and my chakra is completely normal. Could we have been hit by a space-time jutsu? Were we teleported here? It's like the Yellow Flash of Konoha, who could travel a thousand miles in a single breath!"

"Space-time..."

"Don't be nervous."

Before the girl could finish her sentence, a familiar voice accompanied by a gentle breeze carrying fine sand sounded in their ears.

The sand, lifted by the wind, quickly formed a young man standing with his eyes closed.

Seeing the young man appear beside them, the two, who had been on guard, were startled and hastily and nervously put away their weapons. Noticing that the young man seemed unaware of their presence, the two of them breathed a sigh of relief, and the girl cautiously spoke up.

"Gaara, Fa... Ah! The Kazekage ordered us to accompany you to the Chunin Exams."

Hearing the girl's words, Gaara slightly curled his lips, seemingly unaware, and explained the duo's earlier confusion on his own.

"This is a space I created or discovered by chance while researching the dragon veins. Chakra and this world are truly amazing, aren't they?"

Without waiting for a response from the two, the young man named Gaara raised an eyebrow, his gentle tone tinged with a hint of reproach.

"It seems you haven't practiced the taijutsu I gave you, or perhaps you haven't taken my words to heart. Do you look down on taijutsu? What about the situation in the village?"

Hearing Gaara's question, the two shuddered. Temari, with a dry and somewhat pitiful tone, replied, "No, no! I... We carefully studied the training methods of the great one, but sensing the small universe within our bodies is too difficult. Perhaps... perhaps we are not talented enough, and we already have our own styles... so..."

Gaara snorted, interrupting the girl's explanation, and repeated his last question without any concern.

"What about the situation in the village?"

"Um..."

Hearing Gaara's somewhat dissatisfied snort, the two visitors were startled again. They secretly glanced at the questioner's expression, and Temari nudged the mummy-like figure on the ground with her foot. Glancing at her companion, who had been like a puppet since Gaara's appearance, she explained carefully with a mix of annoyance and helplessness.

"Because... because it is the great Gaara's work, the Kazekage must have assigned the Anbu to study it."

Recalling the past deception, the countless assassination attempts, and the recent Chunin Exams, Gaara shook his head in exasperation at the nominal father, Sabaku no Kankuro.

Why a nominal father? Because the soul of the young man was not, or rather, not entirely, the son of Rasa.

Rasa, who sacrificed his own son to become the jinchuriki for the village, but in doing so caused his wife to die in childbirth. The weak infant, combined with the leaky seal of the Sand Village, often caused the One-Tail to go berserk, making the Kazekage view Gaara as a failure. He then continuously sent people to assassinate his own son, and finally had his brother-in-law, who had been taking care of his son, stab him. He even deceived Gaara into believing that his mother also hated her son...

It was during that time that the soul sleeping within Gaara merged with the collapsing young man, allowing the soul from another world to be reborn in this one.

Reborn into the anime world he had once watched, after gaining the acceptance or, rather, the sacrifice and fusion of Gaara's collapsing soul, life did not improve much.

The reborn soul had no time to lament before dealing with the original owner's despair and hatred, the terrors of the tailed beast, and Rasa's seemingly brain-dead assassination attempts.

From panic to numbness, to annoyance, it took almost two years for the reborn soul to clear his thoughts and become numb to the deaths of countless lives in his hands. At the same time, he planned his future in this world of bloodlines.

To obtain bloodline limits like the Sharingan or Byakugan? There was no technology, time, or resources for that. To develop jutsu? Thinking about Gaara's peak moments in the anime, it seemed he could only play a minor role in the battles of the gods.

After much consideration, the only feasible path for a穿越者 without divine bloodlines or time and resources was taijutsu.

In martial arts worlds, it's about fortuitous encounters and hard training. In One Piece, it's hard training. In Dragon Ball, it's hard training! In Saint Seiya, it's hard training!

So, train!

Continuously training the body and comparing the systems in his mind with the systems in the Naruto world, he found that weighted training was consistently recognized in all systems, so that was a given.

Internal cultivation? Feeling the chakra within his body... the Byakugan can block chakra flow by striking pressure points, so does that mean those with chakra have all their meridians open? Does it mean they can harness the energy of heaven and earth for immortality? Hmm, this is similar to divine techniques, worth researching. After all, this world has Buddhism but not Daoism, so perhaps some sutras contain methods of cultivating qi.

Then, in Dragon Ball and One Piece, it's mainly about hard training the body and the use of energy... Train!

In Saint Seiya, Gaara hadn't considered this mysterious power much. After all, without gods, how could there be a small universe? And a few Saint Seiya who could fight at the speed of light, even using forbidden techniques, only managed to destroy a temple, which seemed a bit ridiculous.

But just as he was about to discard it, he suddenly realized that the Buddhist esoteric sect also mentioned chakra, and the small universe in Saint Seiya could be translated as chakra, both extracting and developing the cosmic energy within the body.

So, even without gods, could he not cultivate the small universe? Both worlds could produce attacks at the speed of sound. Even the man who claimed to kick the final blow distorted space. That kick must have reached or exceeded the speed of light. Reaching the sixth sense and becoming a Gold Saint means being able to produce attacks faster than light. The similarity in possibilities made Gaara reconsider his initially discarded goal.

Without gods, can one not cultivate the small universe?

Recalling the Twelve Gold Saints, Gaara immediately thought of the successive Virgo Saints. In every version of the Gold Saints, Virgo is either the reincarnation of Buddha or Buddha himself. Gods and Buddhas, seemingly the same, but gods are not Buddhas!

Virgo's other name has always been the one closest to the gods. Buddhism teaches that everyone has Buddha nature, and Buddha represents the perfect enlightenment in Buddhism. So, why can't he cultivate the small universe in this world?

He may not reach the enlightenment of Buddha, but he has a vague path ahead. Having died once, why not see the scenery from the peak?