Daimyo Wu, as Daimyo, had many wives and consorts, but his favourite was the beautiful Consort Li.

But, as all things seem to go, Consort Li inexplicably died in the prime of her life and beauty due to some sudden and undoubtedly elegant illness. Daimyo Wu completely lost his mind to sorrow, taking no joy in his hobbies, ruling the country, his wife, or any of his other consorts. He was completely overtaken by the loss of the beautiful Li.

One day, he woke up and began demanding that his servants locate for him a parcel of the legendary incense he had heard was able to bring the dead back to life, known as hangonkō. His counsellors, knowing he was in the throes of madness, begged him to reconsider. They knew that even a glimpse of Li would rekindle Daimyo Wu's grief all over again, but the Daimyo insisted. A search was conducted, and a single portion of hangonkō was found remaining in the imperial stock. Daimyo Wu snatched up the hangonkō and retreated to his chambers, desperate to see his beloved just one more time.

Daimyo Wu pored over the incense, heating it with the utmost of care, and thought only of Consort Li, talking to himself like a madman.

The smoke began to pour from the incense, a wispy and curious blue, which gradually formed the vague outline of a woman. The Daimyo watched, captivated, as the shape became clearer and clearer, until there was no doubt that it was that of Consort Li.

Daimyo Wu called out to her, weeping with joy, repeating her name, and declarations of love. However, the figure simply floated there, oblivious to the Daimyo's presence, though she became more and more beautiful with each passing second. Unable to take any more, the Daimyo ran to Li and embraced her, but the instant his fingers touched her shimmering form, the image disappeared into the air.

Daimyo Wu's sad spiral returned stronger than ever before, and he pined for Li as the incense died down, and then he passed away with it.

...

A wonderful tale of love and loss if one disregarded the reports spread in front of Lin Feng detailing how the wife of the Daimyo, Lady Shin had been the one to poison both Consort Li, with a quick acting poison, and Daimyo Wu with a chronic one which led to his insanity.

The hangonkō was basically the catalyst that set off the accumulated poison in his blood and killed him.

Her son with him was slated for coronation as the next Daimyo.

Now this son had invited Lin Feng along with several of the higher-ranking samurai under the Daimyo’s jurisdiction to an incense appreciation party.

Nope… not suspicious at all.

Why Lin Feng? Because the Suna council of elders had been won over by him through a series of threats and inducements and had agreed to collaborate to impeach Rasa and nominate him as the Fifth Kazekage.

This needed the approval of the Daimyo.

Although the hidden villages were independent territories, they were still subordinate to the Countries they belonged to.

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More importantly, the hidden villages occupied only a small defensible area and were completely dependent on the country they belonged to for their agricultural produce.

For example, only a quarter of the Land of Wind was covered by the desert. The rest was arable farmland. Storage scrolls were expensive as only expert sealers could make them and the amount needed for grain transport was unrealistic. Thus, the camel trains running to and fro between the Wind Country and Suna, in the middle of the desert, were established.

Several squads of ninja were on permanent postings to escort these merchants as they were the true lifeline of Suna… a lifeline that was held by the Daimyo.

Thus, the Daimyo had a veto power in the Kage selection to give him some sense of control over the village. This let the suspicious psychology of the Daimyo relax and prevented incidents such as him enforcing a trade blockade to try and starve the ninja to death.

So, if he was to take up the post, he had to have the approval of the Daimyo, or in this case as the seat was vacant, the Daimyo candidate and the majority of the samurai lords of the Land of Wind.

It was due to these circumstances that Lin Feng found himself housed in a villa in the capital of Wind country with Pakura, preparing for the party he was supposed to attend that day.

Pakura was there as his bodyguard rather than his attendant as her skills in interacting with nobles was non-existent. So, she wouldn’t be accompanying him to the party and as he didn’t trust anyone else enough, he would go alone.

Not an uncommon choice as most Samurai believed that only they or their successors were worthy of laying eyes on their liege lord and bringing bodyguards to a banquet would show suspicion towards the host.

The fact that they were powerful warriors in their own right didn’t hurt.

He adjusted his clothing, a navy-blue kimono with a light mauve haori on top.

The Kimono had the symbol for Kazekage embroidered onto its sleeves while the same was printed on the front of the haori and thrice on the leggings.

Temperature regulating seals were printed onto the shoulder pads, catering to both form and function due to their artistic depiction.

Seals were this world’s version of runes… basically symbols imbued with intent that told biological energy what to do.

The seals that had been developed here had the ability to affect world vitality. It was one field in which this world was almost equivalent in development to Lin Feng’s home world.

As he smoothened out the creases on his clothes, Pakura entered the room carrying a cloth wrapped package.

She unwrapped it revealing Inlustris and Solis, resplendent in their newly acquired fittings.

Inlustris, the shorter of the two blades, was fitted with a black scabbard created from the leather of a mutated chakra beast.

Its hilt was crafted from ironwood which was known to be one of the toughest wooden materials in the world and wrapped in a decorative pattern with a long strip of leather.

Lin Feng had used his sand to carve it into a three-dimensional formation attuned to Pakura’s tenketsu arrangement.

Although she was aiming for the Demonic path of cultivation and thus, generally speaking, would have to seal off her tenketsu to begin cultivation, they were trying to merge the benefits of cultivating chakra as well as world vitality by experimenting with the ratio in which they could mix the two. After all, discarding a fully formed chakra cultivation base was wasteful to say the least.

Their experiments had proven very dangerous.

People who cultivated the demonic path with only world vitality ran the risk of absorbing too much of the energy for their meridians to withstand, resulting in their meridians rupturing. That was the worst that could happen.

But during their experiments, when Pakura had tried to mix world vitality and her chakra, beyond a certain point, the world vitality had started to invade her cells via her chakra and started petrifying her. If not for Lin Feng’s prompt intervention, she would have died.

They had decided to take it slow with the experimentation after that.

The fittings for Solis, the katana, were the same, except in white. The formation in its hilt was attuned to Lin Feng.

He attached the katana to his belt.

He would probably have to deposit it within a seal once he reached the venue as a sign of respect to his host but until then it was considered a part of samurai culture to always be close to one’s sword.

He checked his appearance one last time in the mirror and teleported to a point near the venue.