Although this secret chamber was located beneath the Kazekage Building, under the white lights it appeared clean and tidy.
All four walls were lined with bookshelves filled with ninja technique scrolls, while at the center stood a scroll taller than a person—essentially serving as both a catalog and an index with brief descriptions.
After receiving approval from the ANBU guard, Hardy stepped forward and began to browse through it.
Everything inside was categorized into ninjutsu, genjutsu, taijutsu, and sealing techniques. Ninjutsu was further divided into five elemental ninjutsu, combination ninjutsu, puppet techniques, Magnet Release kekkei genkai, and sensory ninjutsu.
Hardy merely glanced at the puppet techniques section before moving on.
After all, everything here could also be found within the Puppet Corps, and there were even techniques not present here that Chiyo and Ebizō possessed.
Time was not abundant, so Hardy skipped the other sections and focused directly on sensory ninjutsu and taijutsu.
Although Sunagakure did not have the deep foundations of the mightiest village, Konoha, as one of the Five Great Shinobi Villages, its resources were not to be underestimated. In the Secret Scrolls of Sand alone, there were no fewer than ten high-level sensory ninjutsu, each one a masterpiece.
What caught Hardy's attention most was a sensory ninjutsu personally developed and documented by the Third Kazekage.
"Shinzō no Jutsu… Developed for the purpose of learning Ryūchidō's Sage Art?"
Ryūchidō?
So, besides Orochimaru, the Third Kazekage of Sunagakure also had some connection to Ryūchidō?
However, Hardy had never heard of any information regarding the Third Kazekage's summoning beasts.
Reading further, he found the introduction and related materials for the Shinzō no Jutsu.
Its development dated back over thirty years. At that time, Sunagakure was still under the rule of the First Kazekage, Reto. The Second Kazekage, Shamon, had not yet taken power, and the Third Kazekage was just a young jōnin under twenty.
He had not yet developed Magnet Release, relying mainly on Wind, Lightning, and Earth Release in battle, and had, by chance, signed a contract with Shin'ya, a giant serpent from Ryūchidō.
The reason for his later falling out with this powerful serpent was not recorded here. Hardy suspected that the Third Kazekage might have played an inglorious role in that affair, but out of respect, Sunagakure chose not to document it.
According to the materials, the Third Kazekage learned that Ryūchidō possessed a method to greatly enhance a ninja's power—the same Sage Mode once wielded by the First Hokage, who had dominated the ninja world. Naturally, he wanted to learn it.
But the method of learning Sage Mode in Ryūchidō was the most brutal: the White Snake Sage would inject venom containing natural energy into the ninja's body with its fangs. If one survived, they could master Sage Mode; if not, they would be eaten by snakes before turning to stone.
The Third Kazekage was unwilling to take such a risk, so after learning about Sage Mode and natural energy from Shin'ya, he decided to develop his own ninjutsu to sense and absorb natural energy.
This technique was the Shinzō no Jutsu. Although it did not fulfill the Third Kazekage's original expectations, it did have some other effects.
For example, it allowed one to use mental energy to meticulously sense every muscle and every bit of flowing chakra in their body, making it easier to learn taijutsu and temporarily extract more chakra during battle.
It sounded good, but was actually rather impractical—there were very few situations where it could be applied, the strong had no use for it, and the weak couldn't learn it due to its high mental energy requirements.
But for Hardy, it was just right.
If the sensory ninjutsu section of the Secret Scrolls of Sand had surprised him, the taijutsu section was rather unremarkable.
It contained only standard taijutsu techniques and training methods, nothing as extraordinary as the Eight Gates or the Seven-Day Breathing Method.
After carefully selecting, Hardy finally chose a taijutsu training method passed down from the First Kazekage.
It was called Retsusa Body. Its principle was somewhat similar to Iron Sand Palm but with many differences. First, one selected hard sand of appropriate size, then cleaned and disinfected it, soaked it in a solution made from specific medicinal herbs, filtered it out, placed it in water, added more herbs, and continued the medicinal bath. The sand, now infused with medicine, was then used to rub and temper the body.
At the same time, chakra inside the body had to be circulated along specific meridians to strengthen the flesh and prevent injury during training.
Once mastered, the body's defense and strength would see significant improvement.
Though its upper limit was certainly not as high as the Eight Gates or the Lightning Release Chakra Mode, it was still possible to become a taijutsu-specialized jōnin.
"These two, then."
Hardy patiently finished reading the rest of the taijutsu section, finding nothing better than Retsusa Body, so he closed the scroll and told the ANBU guard his choices.
The guard immediately fetched the corresponding scrolls from two nearby shelves, removed their seals, and let Hardy study them at his leisure.
…
…
DC Universe.
It had been a month since the last trip to Central City to treat Nora.
The headquarters of Hogg's Auto Shop had moved again, this time to a skyscraper.
Since taking over the League of Assassins' operations in Gotham, Hardy's legitimate assets now exceeded one billion dollars.
Although this wasn't enough to rank among Gotham's top tycoons, it was still mid-level wealth, and Hardy's hidden assets were more than three times his public ones.
This building was acquired at a low price through Chameleon, a League of Assassins plant in Gotham's city hall, from a tycoon on the verge of bankruptcy.
Even so, it had cost Hardy nearly three hundred million dollars.
The advantage was that the building was large enough, and part of its underground floors had been converted by Hardy and Victor Fries into laboratories.
Hardy needed a lab, and so did Victor. In order to purchase experimental equipment,
Spent nearly another hundred million dollars.
But Hardy felt it was worth every penny. Compared to the old lab that had been converted from a garage inside the former Hogg's Auto Shop, this place finally had the feel of a real high-tech laboratory.
"Next is separation. Pour the produced mixture into the high-pressure ultra-speed centrifuge to separate out… Finally, under high pressure and low temperature, mix it with the previously prepared solution at a 1:1.53 ratio, and let it react with the help of a catalyst."
Mr. Freeze stood in front of several interconnected machines, explaining to Hardy the process for preparing a certain ultra-low temperature coolant.
This ultra-low temperature condensate was the core material for manufacturing the freeze gun.
...
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