Chapter 218: Puppet Brigade
It was now time for him to acquire the thing he had initially come here for. As such, he ventured toward the one place he knew he would find it: the Kazekage's manor.
Almost every village had forbidden scrolls that were said to hold secret techniques. Most villages, like the Leaf, had their own secrets, but the Kazekage's manor was particularly intriguing, housing valuable scrolls rarely seen by the eyes of common shinobi.
As he approached the manor, he secretly transformed himself into smoke again and glided through the cracks in the manor's façade, slipping past the guards who stood watch, unaware.
Once inside, he made his way down their grand hallway and navigated through the corridors until he found a room marked by an ornate door that was slightly ajar.
As he snuck inside, he could already smell dust and neglect. Nobody had been here for what looked like years—evidenced by the thick layer of dust covering the shelves.
This was good, as it would help him continue his infiltration; fewer eyes meant fewer risks.
Careful not to disturb the layers of dust, he reverted to his physical form and scanned the room. Various scrolls and books were neatly arranged, but the years had weathered them poorly.
A quick glance showed that the contents had likely remained unstudied for too long. Using his Tamashii, he read the information contained within the scrolls without physically handling them. Most of what he saw was either useless or not jutsu-related. If they were, they mainly dealt with how to create puppets.
Things like that wouldn't serve Arthur well in the long run. The art of puppetry was easy to learn and also easy to defeat.
He sifted through topics ranging from the acquisition of the One-Tails, Shukaku, to techniques once wielded by past Kazekages. Gold dust manipulation, magnetic jutsu—there were myriad skills detailed in those dusty scrolls.
Some were tantalizingly close to the power he sought, but to even gain such abilities would take years, even decades, of training.