Chapter 288: Experiment
Unlike the Akatsuki, who were so poor in their cave that they couldn't even light a candle...
Haruno Sakura's usurped underground base was brightly lit. A large number of candles had been lit by her, illuminating the entire laboratory as if it were daytime.
Although, the current time was daytime...
"Hn, it's finally complete!"
The girl carefully took the container full of nutrient solution down from the shelf. She looked at the heart that was beating vigorously in the yellow liquid and said with a smile.
A few days ago, this pink heart had still been an unknown mass of flesh, composed of a large number of embryonic stem cells. After cultivating the stem cells to a sufficient number, Sakura had begun to use medical ninjutsu to stimulate the stem cells to undergo the next step of differentiation.
Differentiating them from stem cells into heart cells, then forming myocardial tissue, and finally forming a heart.
Unlike the previous stage, where she only needed to add nutrients from time to time and let the embryonic cells grow on their own...
This process, she had to monitor it the whole time and operate it with her real body. So Sakura had not left the base much for several days.
Her mission progress had naturally fallen behind—fortunately, she still had plenty of time left.
And, her main body was mainly completing the long-distance, high-difficulty missions. Those missions that were closer and of lower difficulty could just be carried out by her ice clones.
The combat power of Haruno Sakura's ice clones depended on how much chakra her main body allocated to them. The clones couldn't use nin-taijutsu, Sakura Rush, or the Yin Seal, and their fine chakra control skills were far inferior to her main body's. However, they could use Water Style and Ice Style, and they were quite good at Ice Style. Their taijutsu also inherited her experience, so their combat power was not bad.
More importantly, she had now mastered some Yin Release techniques. Although it was just a smattering, after integrating the power of Yin Release into Ice Style, the strength of her ice ninjutsu had also improved.
Now, her ice clone, if it had enough chakra, would have no problem holding its own against an ordinary Jonin.
In short, it had switched from the previous "clone guards the base, main body goes out on missions" to "main body stays underground, clones complete the missions."
The experiment's progress was fast and smooth.
Because she had been sufficiently careful and cautious, all twenty hearts that Haruno Sakura had cultivated this time had developed perfectly.
"It's a pity. If I had enough materials, I could have cultivated another batch," Sakura said, taking all the containers from the shelf and lining them up neatly in front of her, still unsatisfied.
But there was nothing she could do. The special biological catalysts that could induce cell de-differentiation and differentiation were contraband in Konoha because they involved human experimentation. Sakura could only produce them herself in her main base in the Land of Snow. Her previous output had not been much, and this round of experiments had already used it all up.
However, twenty hearts were barely enough for an emergency.
From the battle with Sasori until now, Sakura had been quite busy. She had many missions, and she hadn't accumulated much chakra. It was about the same amount she'd had when she had fought Kakuzu.
When she had fought Sasori, she had squandered the chakra she had stored up for half a year. Having tasted the refreshing feeling of not having to constantly worry about running out of chakra, Sakura, having known the pleasure, naturally could not tolerate returning to her previous state of chakra poverty.
In the parallel world, when she had fought that strange man who called himself Uchiha Madara, she had actually been a little lacking in confidence. Fortunately, the environment at that time was special, and neither of them had used large-scale ninjutsu that consumed a lot of chakra. If they had only used those small, clever tactics, Sakura's chakra amount was more than enough.
Sakura dipped her palm into the container, her index finger lightly touching the heart. Chakra surged in her hand, and then one by one, tadpole-shaped black formulas crawled out from the girl's fingertips, spreading onto the heart. They soon covered the entire heart. The complex, dazzling formulas wrapped the heart in a tight bundle.
"Secret Technique: Yin Seal Transcription!"
A burst of ethereal blue chakra light suddenly appeared. After the dazzling blue light subsided, the formulas that had been crawling all over the heart like vines had disappeared, leaving only a gorgeous purple mark in the center.
A new sealing formula had thus been carved into the heart in the container.
This Yin Seal Transcription Jutsu was a small ninjutsu she had specially developed for the second phase of the Yin Seal. It originated from the "Rune Shrinking Transcription Jutsu" (see Chapter 127) that came with the Yin Seal jutsu, which was originally used to shrink the runes of the Yin Seal onto the skin's surface.
However, that method could only shrink and print the runes one by one. Because the chakra produced by different users was different, the Yin Seal's formula needed to be fine-tuned, so the entire set of the Yin Seal formula could not be copied over in one go.
But for a homologous body, no such fine-tuning was needed. She could completely copy her entire Yin Seal, package it, and transfer it to her own heart. Or to her parallel-world self—before, when Haruno Sakura had been leaving the parallel-world Haruno family, because she hadn't brought a gift, she had given this move as a blessing to the original Sakura-kun.
She had been quite cute at that time.
The two Haruno Sakuras from the two worlds were, in essence, very close. The Sakura here just had the extra spiritual core of a transmigrator.
So the Yin Seal she had passed on had been easily integrated into the loli Sakura-kun's body. And then it had begun to modify her body to adapt to Ice Style.
Here, the girl performed the transcription secret technique on the hearts in front of her, one by one. Very quickly, all twenty hearts had been imprinted with the mysterious and luxurious Yin Seal. Next was to inject Sakura's extremely abundant spiritual power, make the hearts produce chakra, and then have the Yin Seal collect it and transfer it to her forehead.
Sakura took a deep breath.
"It's starting..."
Her will, that is, her spiritual power, was highly concentrated. A faint, blue, crystal-clear, slender rod suddenly appeared in Sakura's hand—this was a change that had occurred after infusing the Yin Release shape transformation, using spiritual power to create matter from nothing!
It had a certain similarity to the legendary Black Rods—the Will-Rods.
The edges of the slender rod were like smoke, and its outline could not be seen clearly. This was because Sakura's mastery of Yin-Yang Release was still far from sufficient.
In the entire ninja world, there were not many people who had researched Yin-Yang Release, and materials on it were extremely scarce.
Konoha was one of the few ninja villages that had preserved materials on Yin-Yang Release. After all, its two creators were themselves masters proficient in Yin-Yang Release: the First Hokage was skilled in Yang Release and had integrated it into his Wood Style, obtaining unbelievably powerful strength. And Uchiha Madara was skilled in Yin Release, and with the power of his Sharingan, the power of Yin Release and his Kekkei Genkai had complemented each other, which had also made him a super powerhouse second only to Hashirama Senju.
The reason Haruno Sakura had been able to learn a little bit of Yin Release recently was because Sasuke had found Uchiha Madara's training notes in their Uchiha warehouse a few days ago.
Unfortunately, this guy's writing was extremely unrestrained, full of the wild arrogance of a great hegemon—meaning, Sasuke couldn't understand it at all. In the end, he had given it to Sakura to study together.
Sakura had thus had the good fortune to see Uchiha Madara's handwritten notes: on it, apart from the purely lyrical training insights, were a jumble of incomprehensible texts piled up with various inexplicable nouns—those nouns might have been created by Madara himself. Probably at that time, Madara still had the ambition to learn from the Sage of the Six Paths and establish his own school.
In short, Sakura, a rationalist, was truly grateful that she could decline this kind of note.
However, Uchiha Madara was, after all, a peerless genius. Although the things he had written were a mess, more like the ravings of a sleep-talker than formal notes, he had, after all, written a little real insight in his bits and pieces, which Haruno Sakura had seized upon like a treasure.
Yin-Yang Release, which was independent of the five basic elemental styles, had now basically been passed down as various family secret techniques and medical ninjutsu. It was an affinity whose power far surpassed that of ordinary elemental styles and had all sorts of magical effects. It was just that since Hashirama Senju and Uchiha Madara, no one had been able to completely master this energy.
With Uchiha Madara's notes, with Haruno Sakura's comprehension, with her superb spiritual power and chakra control, in the end, she had obtained such a result—to be able to condense her own spiritual power into a visible substance, that is, a blue, slender rod.
Sakura was also a little surprised that her spiritual power could be condensed into this form. Yin Release was indeed magical.
In Uchiha Madara's notes, it was mentioned that the legendary Rinnegan could transform spiritual power into a black, slender rod. Unlike Sakura's, that thing was unbelievably hard, had all sorts of magical functions, and could even be used in battle. In contrast, the blue, slender rod that Sakura had condensed was as brittle as a biscuit—so much so that she had never even thought that this thing could be used in battle. Its only function was to conduct chakra.
The two could not be mentioned in the same breath.
It seemed that without the so-called Rinnegan or other bloodlines passed down from the Sage of the Six Paths, it was impossible to master this technique. One could only create this kind of counterfeit product. This world had once again mocked a civilian ninja like Sakura.
The difference in their colors was probably because its external form was related to the user's inner spirit—"I am indeed a very pure person," Sakura had thought, the first time she had seen its crystal-clear, shining form.
Whether it was a counterfeit or a knock-off, at least it was very useful in terms of support.
For example, using it to channel spiritual power into the heart in front of her was extremely efficient.
The ice-like, crystal-clear, brilliant blue rod split into branches, spreading out like a tree trunk, inserting into the heart, and emitting a gentle and bright fluorescent light. As Sakura injected her spiritual power, the slender rod shone brightly. The spiritual power was transmitted over and merged with the physical power in the heart. A large amount of chakra then gushed out from the heart in front of her and was collected by the Yin Seal.
The spiritual power injected in this form was highly condensed, into a solid-like state, and would not easily dissipate. Therefore, it could remain in the heart for a long time, like a fuel rod, without the trouble of her having to re-inject it every time she formed chakra.
Among the human body's physical powers, the one that contributed the most to chakra was the heart's. That was why Sasori and Kakuzu had valued the heart so much: by preserving the heart, they could preserve most of a ninja's chakra.
"In total, it's about the amount of chakra I would store in ten days of full effort. But usually, I'm on missions and consume a lot of stamina. It's impossible to store chakra at full power. So this one time has at least saved me ten or twenty days of effort."
Sakura looked at the somewhat wilted heart in front of her and thought to herself.
She broke off the blue, slender rod, activated her Yang Release medical ninjutsu, and began to promote the wilted heart's absorption of nutrients, helping it to recover its vitality.
"Let them rest for a bit, absorb nutrients, and recover their strength. Tomorrow, I'll continue to squeeze them once more. If I persist for two weeks, I'll be able to store about half a year's worth. Then I'll transfer them all to my Yin Seal in one go. Hn, half a year's worth should be enough!"
Sakura's temporary idea seemed to have succeeded.
But unfortunately, a heart was just a heart. If it were a physical body with a complete circulation, that is, a clone, the effect would be much better. At least she wouldn't have to go through so much trouble to use medical ninjutsu to help the heart recover its vitality.
While the experiment was in progress here...
On the clone's side, a mission was being carried out.
On a small mountain, one or two hundred kilometers away from the laboratory.
This location, for Haruno Sakura, was already quite close. Even at the speed of an ice clone, she could reach it in a very short time.
On the small mountain was the stronghold of a group of wandering ninja. Because it was located on the border of the Land of Fire, was remote, and no one cared, this group of people had recruited some wandering samurai, escaped criminals, and vagrants, and had become a cancer in the border area.
They had become a gang of what was commonly known as mountain bandits.
And Haruno Sakura, who had appeared here, her purpose was to take them out, to become the king of the mountain bandits... ahem, no, it was to accept a mission commissioned by the Land of Fire's border government, to take them out and clean up this social menace.
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