Takara descended from the moon through the passage and emerged from the cave with a renewed look, as any character who has undergone a qualitative improvement would.
Due to the upgrades in his equipment with the fragments of natural energy gem, his appearance was slightly changed, but still recognizable.
Whether it was his mask, his new left shoulder pad, the gear on his waist, or the chest plate, all emitted subtle fluctuations of natural energy that were visible as purple lights if examined closely paying attention.
As for his Sunagakure headband?
He threw it away long ago, not even bothering to waste time cutting the metal plate...
(For those who have seen the series, it's essentially Nox's battle look prepared to face Grougaloragran.)
Getting used to the terrestrial environment again, the first thing he did was to collect most of the noxins that had been roaming the ninja world, all in pursuit of locating and tracking his interests.
"Looks like we're off to a good start on the hunt!"
His noxins had located the locations of the rebirth eggs of Isobu and Chomei, managing to know three of them if he included Shukaku's.
Should he go take them or continue with his initial intention of going after Roshi?
Naturally... He would go for the rebirth eggs first!
Putting aside that assuming control over them would allow him to unlock Nox's powers over time, he could also sustain the Tenseigan he acquired on the moon.
But his first stop would be none other than Takigakure.
With no other choice, since Chomei's egg was under the roots of the tree he felled!
It was too troublesome to uproot everything, so he left behind a stump after collecting most of the useful wood. Unexpectedly, he missed that point despite being so close.
Unlike his previous visit, this time Takara entered Takigakure's village walking on the water of the waterfall without hiding, releasing hundreds of noxins to locate all its inhabitants and making them explode to annihilate almost the entire village without leaving witnesses of what he was about to do next.
After all, the dead don't spill secrets, especially if they lack their heads due to a chakra explosion.
The waters around Takigakure turned red for the next few minutes, before the currents carried away the blood and bodies to feed the aquatic fauna, as if nothing had happened.
But the silence of the surroundings demonstrated a terrible unspoken truth.
"Indeed, there's another natural energy barrier here." Takara raised his hand and in his sage mode, he sensed the invisible evidence of another form.
It was right behind the village chief's house, which made him wonder for a moment whether the construction was deliberate or a random event.
"But it won't be like last time..." Takara used the knowledge transmitted by Katsuyu to operate the barrier and "dissolve" a permanent hole in it with the attributes of his senjutsu chakra.
As if he had opened a passage to another world, the interior of the barrier was a jungle environment full of flowers, a very pleasant environment for any kind of insectoid.
Takara didn't enter immediately and cautiously examined the nearest area.
In the Wind Country desert, where he found Shukaku's egg, there were pyramids under the sand and a logic that guaranteed the presence of traps. He wanted to discern first and foremost what kind of content was in this place before setting foot inside.
"Another pyramid?" Takara quickly received feedback from the noxins sent to explore. "Curious, this one seems to have a Mayan appearance."
He was beginning to believe that the idea that aliens liked pyramids wasn't so far-fetched...
Entering to get his first biju egg, Takara soon encountered more than fierce resistance from the local plants and insects, which soon fell under the puppets wielding flamethrowers and throwing all kinds of pyrotechnics to ravage the surroundings.
"This is absurd," Takara had both sage mode and his Byakugan activated as he advanced. "The amount of natural energy drained from the outside to this place could mutate an ordinary human in seconds, while these plants generate so much chakra under their food that the only reason no one noticed this place was because the tree must have been draining any leakage there was."
The result was nothing less than Hero's Water.
Was this a defensive measure established by the Sage of the Six Paths?
Even if an organization managed to enter this place by somehow bypassing the barrier, without mastering sage mode, they would be neutralized in seconds without knowing what happened to them.
Whether turned into something else or devoured.
Reaching the base of the Mayan pyramid, Takara sent several Surface puppets to take on his form and sent them ahead to explore.
"Indeed, traps everywhere," Takara felt several puppets being destroyed as they traversed different paths.
Crushed by shrinking rock corridors, pierced by spikes emerging between tiles, seals in discreet places that shot acid, and countless methods to kill intruders that could operate for a long time without maintenance.
Takara momentarily opened the Tenseigan despite the enormous burden it posed and quickly explored where Chomei's egg was located.
"I've got it!" He returned his eyes to the Byakugan state. "As I expected, there's a whole labyrinth in the pyramid and every single corridor is a dead end."
If someone had explored the place traditionally, it would have taken years before anyone realized they had been deceived, decades even if they were too focused on their goal to pay attention.
Chomei's egg was two kilometers deep underground, but it was five kilometers west of the temple!
It wasn't even inside!
In other words, the temple itself was a big bait and deception.
Just like some species of insects, Chomei had the egg underground and climbed out every time it rebirthed, before covering the hole again.
"I'll need some heavy puppets for the job..."
In the end, he used the Acnologia puppets to displace the earth, as due to their size and weight, even though they looked like dragons, they were actually unable to fly properly.
The earth was quite hard, but with patience, half an hour of work slowly revealed the spherical shape of an object.