To be fair though those areas also had an entire population of sage beasts living in it for hundreds if not thousands of years. It was also worth mentioning that the stretch of land I was occupying was miniscule compared to those regions so the speed at which I was "tainting" it was considerably faster. Besides these things though nothing happened during this past year. It was only after this time passed that something finally changed, my caterpillar started to break free of it's cocoon. It had been in the damn thing for nearly two years now so I was almost getting worried.-
"You said this thing had been wrapped up for how long!?" Karin exclaimed in shock after I brought her with me to watch the hatching.
"Yeah it's an incredibly long time for any butterfly or moth species to be cocooned according to all the records that we had on that type of insect." I said calmly.
"What kind of bug even is this then?" she asked curiously.
I shrugged "we have no idea, none of the records we went over that went as far back as five hundred years ago mentioned anything quite like it. As far as we know it may be unique and the only one of it's kind." I said honestly.
"And you just randomly found it in the forest of death one day?" she asked but I shook my head.
"It found me in truth, I merely chose to add it to my collection of beasts is all." I said honestly.
The cocoon started to crack at this point so we went silent and watched. At first it was a small crack but as the creature within struggled and pushed it's way out the crack grew larger and larger to the point we could make out the wet fuzzy body within that was wiggling fiercely. -
It took about an hour but eventually the thing freed itself and stood on the outside of it's cocoon with compressed wings that were expanding fully as they dried. It was about four feet long with a wide fuzzy carapaced body possessing six legs and two long antennae on it's compound eyed head. The entire body had this stunning iridescent rainbow colored "fur" on it that pulsed rhythmically like a breeze blowing through a wheat field starting at it's head.-
On it's back were two vibrantly pearlescent wings, white with black lines running through it in stunning contrast. The wings were also like normal for a moth much bigger than the rest of it's body extending up and behind it a good twelve or thirteen feet. It was also clear from the body that this was indeed a form of moth but the stunning part for me was the undeniable presence of sage chakra within it. How could I possibly miss it's presence when it was eerily similar to what constantly flowed within my self. It was so similar in fact that I for a brief moment considered if this was a mitosis clone of mine taking the form of a moth.-
"It's beautiful!" Karin said mesmerized by the creature.
"It is indeed quite the sight to behold. It's powerful too, a bit below shiro if I'm not mistaken. What a monster." I said grinning widely.
I honestly couldn't care less about whatever ability it had with this sheer quantity of chakra, SAGE chakra at that meaning it was easily S rank in power even without one. If it had a powerful ability as well then it may even replace Shiro as my most powerful beast.-
I didn't press my newly emerged beast for details as I knew from plenty of studying that it took a period of time for a newly emerged moth or butterfly to adjust to their new state. Adding conversation and detail gathering work to that would merely slow this matter down so I was satisfied waiting for it to initiate the conversation. Well I say conversation but even though my beast had clearly become a sage beast it definitely couldn't speak yet so it would be more me asking questions and translating the response via my odd sage powers.-
Katsuyu was a well of knowledge on the matter of sage beasts which was how I discovered that they were a whole hell of a lot rarer than I had originally thought. See there was two ways that a sage beast came about, the first was that a sage helped a chakra beast to learn how to utilize natural energy. The second method was for a chakra beast to either mutate in such a fashion that they could sense and thus utilize natural energy or if they were born able to sense it due to a mutation before birth rather than after.-
According to Katsuyu new sage beasts while possessing the same level of intelligence as a human had to learn how to speak over time through experimentation with each one learning how through a different method based on their biology. Katsuyu for example apparently exhaled air that she vibrated within her body to imitate speech since as a slug she obviously didn't have vocal cords. The toad sage beasts croaked to speak while the snake sage beasts hissed to do so. Obviously chakra beasts could also learn to speak if they were smart enough as well but it was different in that case as those were the exceptions rather than the rule.-
ALL sage beasts could learn to speak which was what separated them from most chakra beasts other than the natural energy use of course. Anyways it took my bug nearly three hours to adjust to it's new state and finally start moving away from it's cocoon. During that time Karin and I had been talking about what we wanted for the future and her idea was pretty standard to be honest. She wanted to become the best medical ninja in the world like my sensei, get married and have a few kids while living happily ever after.-
I wished her luck on that while sharing the fact that I didn't really have any plans for the future, not even basic ones like hers. Sure I was probably going to keep collecting chakra beasts and reaching for my full potential but I didn't really have an accomplishment I wanted to do. I already succeeded in having the most impressive collection of chakra beasts in the world so I was pretty much just living day by day doing as I pleased.
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