The reactions of the outside world didn’t matter much to Uchiha Mu for the moment.
At least everyone now knew the Nation of a Hundred Clans existed.
His first real challenge was surviving the initial wave of attacks.
If he could do that, wandering ninja and merchants would finally have the confidence to settle here.
After all, nobody willingly moved into an unstable country.
Merchants especially needed a safe environment before they would risk doing business.
Mu couldn’t control when his enemies would come.
Honestly, he hoped they would all attack together.
Then he could do something spectacular, crush them in one go, and shock the entire ninja world.
Before, having no reputation hadn’t mattered.
Now that he needed to attract people, fame was extremely important.
Especially during the early construction phase.
He desperately needed Earth Release and Water Release users.
Ninja with those affinities were practically born for civil engineering.
But there was nothing he could do except wait for the enemy to arrive.
For now, he would focus on teaching the children and finally look at the system reward he had received.
[You have established the Nation of a Hundred Clans.
Beginner reward obtained.]
[Chakra greatly increased.
Foreign cells within your body have perfectly integrated.
Ocular power increased.]
The reward was substantial.
But somehow, Mu didn’t feel that it was overwhelming.
So his body had still been rejecting Hashirama’s cells to some degree before this?
Now that the cells had fully integrated, Wood Release flowed much more smoothly.
His Mangekyo’s ocular power had deepened as well.
Most importantly, his Mangekyo abilities already consumed relatively little chakra.
Combined with Hashirama’s cells, there was practically no difference between his eyes and an Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan anymore.
“The better I develop the country, the stronger I become.”
Mu clenched his fist.
“Then I’m going all in.”
This was the ninja world.
Ninja efficiency was absurd.
Mu had created most of the current village in a single day with his Three-Bedroom-One-Living-Room Jutsu.
Add in everything he remembered from his previous life, and before Hashirama died, Mu was confident he could turn this place into the flashiest settlement in the ninja world.
No.
The flashiest country.
…
“Children, class begins today.
Before we start learning ninjutsu, we’re going to learn something more important: how to think, and what it means to be a ninja.”
One of Mu’s shadow clones stood at the front of the classroom.
Ideological education came first.
“How to think?
Aren’t ninja just tools?” one young Uzumaki asked.
He hadn’t been born an orphan.
His parents had died in the wars, and everything he knew about ninja came from that era.
“That was the Warring States Period,” Mu said.
“To preserve each clan’s stability, the clans taught their people to think of themselves as tools.
It made the family easier to control.”
“But things are different now.”
“Now we have a country.”
“The country comes before the clan.
The country needs ninja to build and protect it, and in return the country provides for its ninja.
That’s what a country is supposed to mean.”
“If we build a new ninja village using the same old way of thinking, then what actually changed from the Warring States Period?
Nothing.
We’d only make the wars larger and even more chaotic…”
Mu spoke at length.
The orphans were shaken.
For the first time, someone was telling them that from this moment onward, they were not tools.
They were people first.
Ninja second.
By the end, their blood was boiling.
“From now on, your surname doesn’t matter here.
Only your contributions do.
I hope that one day, every one of you can stand proudly in front of me as a ninja of this country.”
“Yes, Teacher!”
The children shouted in unison.
Something inside them had quietly begun to change.
Mu was extremely satisfied.
Ideological education was essential.
It was no different from Konoha’s Will of Fire.
It gave ninja a reason to fight and something to believe in.
If this continued for years, these children would eventually be proud of their country first and their clans second.
Of course, that only worked if Mu gave them a country worth being proud of and made sure they had no reason to fear for their future.
Hyuga Ryono watched with shining eyes, practically worshipping him.
As a member of the main family, she understood the meaning of the word “tool” better than most.
The Hyuga even had an entire branch-family system built around it.
As expected, Mu was handsome and talented.
Of course he was.
He was the man she had chosen.
There was just one irritating problem.
Mu was obsessed with building his country.
Every day, he worked like a man possessed.
Women barely seemed to exist in his mind.
She had thrown herself at him this blatantly, and he still hadn’t eaten her up.
What was wrong with him?
That, however, was exactly the appeal of kingdom-building to Mu.
He could personally watch a village and a country emerge from nothing, then guide it all the way into prosperity.
The process was addictive.
Maybe that was why kingdom-building novels had enjoyed such a huge audience in his previous life.
At first, Mu had plotted to obtain Hashirama’s cells for only one reason: become stronger and survive.
Now those same cells had become his greatest construction tool.
Hashirama really didn’t understand how to use Wood Release properly.
Mu used Earth Release to pave roads.
The ninja world still viewed ninjutsu through a Warring States mindset, while he had already started using it to build houses, roads, and infrastructure.
And with his Mangekyo amplifying the scale of his techniques, could ordinary ninja even compete with his construction speed?
Once the ideological lesson ended, Mu moved on to the basic Three Basic Techniques and chakra refinement.
Naturally, he taught them the Uchiha Clan’s chakra-refinement method.
A clan with more than a thousand years of history had refined its methods for a reason.
Many of the Uzumaki children grasped it quickly.
The others were discouraged, but after some encouragement from Mu, their motivation returned.
At the same time, the real Mu was working at a construction site.
Using Earth Release, he ripped trees out of the ground by their roots and continued expanding the settlement.
The country lay around the central region between the former Lands of Waterfalls and Frost.
It bordered the Lands of Earth and Fire, while only one small country separated it from the Land of Lightning.
“Lord Mu’s Earth Release is incredible.”
One of the wandering ninja who had joined him watched the technique with awe and suddenly felt far more hopeful about the future.
“Quit staring and work.
We have our own job to do.”
Another ninja snapped him out of it.
The group returned to their task, combining ninjutsu to build roads.
This was their job now.
They recognized Mu as their leader for several reasons.
First, he was overwhelmingly strong.
One look from him had subdued all of them.
Second, despite that strength, he treated them as equals.
And unlike Hashirama, Mu didn’t rely on idealistic fantasies.
After the Five Kage Summit, the other villages had been careful not to say anything in front of Hashirama because of his overwhelming strength, but privately, many ninja scoffed at his idealism.
Mu’s approach felt much more grounded.
He understood what a village needed at every stage of development.
Wanting peace wasn’t enough.
Mu often used Konoha itself as an example when explaining his ideas.
Konoha had been created by ninja clans joining together.
That meant the clans remained concentrated, each with its own territory, identity, and interests.
As time passed, those divisions would only become more entrenched.
Of course, Hashirama was strong enough to force reforms if he truly wanted to.
His personality simply wouldn’t allow him to do it.
Mu had established a different foundation from the very beginning.
Ninja clans would never be allowed to gather together and form states within the state.
Large clan blocs had to be broken apart, and everyone had to be taught to think of themselves as members of the Hundred Clans first.
Everyone here was family.
Those with less chakra could work in civilian industries.
Those with more could join the military and protect the country.
Mu believed in using every resource rationally.
As for foreign policy, trade would be the priority.
The First Shinobi World War was still several years away.
Mu absolutely intended to profit from it.
America had done the same thing in his previous life.
And while the rest of the ninja world tore itself apart, he could also absorb large numbers of people with valuable bloodlines.
Was that moral?
Of course not.
But once he displayed enough strength, morality suddenly became far less important to the people criticizing him.
More importantly, war was the fastest way for a nation to accumulate wealth.
With the ninja world’s number-one filial son, Black Zetsu, stirring things up from the shadows, a world war was inevitable anyway.
If Mu didn’t make that money, wouldn’t it simply flow back into the pockets of nobles and ninja clans?
Better that it enter his treasury.
At least he actually intended to bring peace.