Chapter 304: Departure
A ninjutsu that directly operates on brain cells is, naturally, an even more death-courting matter than the Yin Seal.
Although the position of the Yin Seal is on the forehead, only a few millimeters away from the brain, at least it doesn't mess around inside the fragile brain. If the former was a nine-deaths-one-life situation, the latter is a "ten-deaths-no-life" major act of courting death!
This is different from Phase Two, which only requires operating on a small number of nerve cells. The brain cells involved in Phase Three are measured in the tens of billions! The difficulty is naturally much higher than Phase Two.
A tiny flaw would be magnified by this huge number and become a serious problem.
Haruno Sakura had previously considered some less efficient but much safer methods.
For example, raising the temperature.
The activity rate of nerve cells doubles for every 10-degree Celsius increase in temperature. So, using ninjutsu to slightly raise the brain's temperature, causing a localized "fever," can indeed increase the brain's response speed. However, the upper limit of this method is very low. Once the temperature rises above 42 degrees, proteins begin to hydrolyze, and brain tissue suffers damage. And after rising above 50 degrees, proteins begin to denature on a large scale, and the brain suffers permanent damage.
So the effect of this "brain overclocking" method can only be said to be better than nothing. It's a small trick, which can be called Phase Three (Pseudo).
The effect of this jutsu is too weak; it won't bring about a fundamental change in high-end combat. Even if one risks raising the temperature to around 46 degrees, doubling the nerve conduction speed, it only shortens the reaction time by one or two hundred milliseconds, which is still not fast enough.
Sakura Rush Phase Three (Pseudo), although safe, was inefficient, and was developed quickly. A high fever for a short period of time will not "burn out the brain."
The real Phase Three, however, is extremely difficult to develop.
But she could only brace herself and carry on.
In her original conception, after Sakura Rush Phase Two was completed, it should have allowed her to gain the advantage of having much faster reactions than others in battle, thus seizing the initiative at every turn.
But the result was not so.
From the results of her previous battles, none of the Kage-level ninja had slow reactions.
The only battle she truly won by being faster was the instant-kill on Deidara. However, Deidara was the type who was strong in offense and weak in defense, extremely specialized, so this example was not very convincing.
Last time.
When Sakura traveled through time to the night of the Uchiha massacre and fought that masked strange man who called himself Madara, his space-time ninjutsu had almost killed her instantly. It was only after the fact that Haruno Sakura realized that if the opponent had gone all out and activated his jutsu faster, she might not have just lost a layer of skin, but an arm, or even her life.
After returning, thinking of this, she broke out in a cold sweat from lingering fear.
The thought of having to fight such an elusive enemy in the future made Sakura's scalp tingle. Without super-fast reaction speed, she was afraid she would be instantly killed in a single exchange!
Therefore, developing a higher level of Sakura Rush was already a matter of pressing urgency.
Haruno Sakura looked at Kazahana Koyuki and explained these things.
Sakura had really taken a liking to giving such explanations recently. She found that after explaining it once, it was equivalent to summarizing and generalizing the thoughts in her mind, and her thoughts would become much clearer. Especially since her current conversation partner was an ordinary person who didn't understand ninjutsu, when talking about her own jutsu, Sakura had to concentrate her mind, carefully think about the logic, and explain it in simple terms. This practice was also of great benefit to herself. If even Koyuki could understand it, then it meant that Sakura had truly and thoroughly researched this ninjutsu.
Moreover, sometimes others would ask questions or make suggestions from unexpected angles. One can learn from others' mistakes. Sometimes these questions and suggestions could bring her good inspiration.
Communicating was always much better than working hard alone.
On the way back.
"'Sakura Rush Phase Three (Pseudo)' is such a long name. But speaking of which, ninja are really amazing, to be able to modify even the brain and nerves!" Kazahana Koyuki said with a smile.
"No, those who can do this are few and far between, just like you, Koyuki-san, who is already at the pinnacle of acting," Haruno Sakura said faintly. "Theoretically, everyone can act, but there are only a few people in the world who can act so well."
"I'm still very envious! If only I were a ninja..." Koyuki said, shaking her head and looking at Sakura with envy.
"At your age, it's already too late to learn to master chakra..." the girl pouted and said with disdain. "And what's so good about being a ninja? Fighting and killing, having to risk your life every day. There's no guarantee you won't die a nameless death somewhere."
Apart from a few people, who would like this kind of precarious life?
To be honest, sometimes Sakura also envied the quiet and peaceful life of ordinary people. But she knew, in the end, that without power, that kind of peaceful life in the ninja world was just a beautiful bubble, which could burst at any time in the face of war or disaster.
"But ninja can use chakra to maintain their skin!" Her Excellency the Daimyo did not understand this danger of swords and shadows, but instead said with longing, "The Fifth Hokage, your master, she's already over fifty, right? But she still looks like a beautiful young woman in her twenties! Heavens, and she barely wears any makeup! If I had known that being a ninja could keep you forever young, I would have gone to your Konoha to study long ago..."
Haruno Sakura gave a dry laugh... As expected of women, that's all they focus on.
"You can just give up on that idea. We generally don't accept foreign civilians as students," she said. "And being a ninja is not as easy and happy as being a daimyo here in the Land of Snow... Speaking of which, how is the Land of Snow now?"
"It's alright. Unlike your Land of Fire, our Land of Snow is in the middle of nowhere," Koyuki said self-deprecatingly, waving her hand. "There's nothing major worth mentioning. I've been away from the Land of Snow for half a year this time, and when I came back, the number of documents on my desk that needed to be handled was less than the number of things I had to deal with on Asama-oji's film set!"
She sighed. "As long as I don't make a fuss, the Land of Snow will be very peaceful. The next step is to slowly promote and perfect the geothermal system, and the geothermal power plant is also under construction. We're still short of money! My savings, and the funds you sponsored before, are almost used up now. It all depends on whether this film can be a big hit this year. After the film's pay and the return on investment come in, it will be another small income."
For a poor country like the Land of Snow, Koyuki's income could also be of great use. This was also a kind of tragedy.
Speaking of this topic, Sakura didn't offer too many opinions.
As for politics, she and Koyuki were actually both amateurs. Koyuki had her own ideas, so she didn't interfere.
Haruno Sakura had been to the grassroots level in the Land of Snow many times and had done a lot of things, but Sakura herself had just copied the practices mentioned in the history books of her previous life and did not fully understand what these things she had done meant for the Land of Snow. Of course, it wasn't a complete copy-paste; the Land of Snow had its own national conditions. This small country, to support the Snow Ninja following Kazahana Dotō and his batch of civil officials, was already at its limit. The people, apart from them, were all objects of harsh exploitation. After getting rid of Kazahana Dotō and his party, the Land of Snow was completely liberated.
In short, seeing the color gradually return to everyone's faces, and even their shouts becoming stronger; seeing the Land of Snow developing in a good direction, Haruno Sakura, while gratified, was also completely baffled. What exactly was it that she had done that had worked?
After escorting Koyuki back to the Daimyo's office and casting the genjutsu to block her memory, Sakura directly took her leave and left.
The Land of Snow has no distinction between summer and winter.
The difference between July and January was just that one was very cold, and the other was even colder.
After the coldest month of December had passed, Haruno Sakura had quietly spent the past four or so months in the Land of Snow.
More than four months had not changed Haruno Sakura much, other than her hair growing a little longer. As for her temperament, when she had arrived, there was still a trace of killing intent hidden deep in her eyes. Four months of a peaceful life had already worn away this sharp edge, and what was left was the desolation that came from living in seclusion for four months.
If it had been her in her previous life, being a shut-in for more than four months without going out, she would probably have been bearded and looking like a savage. But in this life, she was fine. She had gotten rid of her bad habit of being sloppy. And when she encountered a difficult problem in her training, she would go out to relax, or find Kazahana Koyuki to chat, which could always relieve some of her lonely feelings.
Come to think of it, those novels she had read in her previous life, where the protagonist would go into seclusion for months, or even years or decades, were simply amazing.
She had been cooped up in the base, training in seclusion. After a few weeks of not talking to anyone, she had felt so bored that she couldn't continue her training. She had to go out for a walk and get some human contact. This was the first time in her life that Haruno Sakura had tried this kind of closed-door training. She felt it was extremely stupid. A life of solitude was too lonely.
The progress of her experiments was not as fast as she had hoped.
Sakura Rush Phase Three (Pseudo) had been developed, but its effect was weak. Then she had completed Phase Two of the Yin Seal.
After "dying" hundreds of times, she had piled up the "corpses" to complete Phase Two of the Yin Seal. When she had finished, she was simply in tears. She had never heard of any transmigrator who was as miserable as her. It was one thing to "die" during the transmigration, but after coming here, she had to keep "dying"...
The Sakura Rush Phase Three she wanted to develop, by the time the Yin Seal was completed, it was finally its turn—its turn to pile up the "corpses." It was just that it was already the end of January by then, and the date of her return to the village was just around the corner. There was not much time left.
So she had simply given up.
The difficulty of Phase Two of the Yin Seal had exceeded her expectations, and it had also exposed her weakness in sealing jutsu. It was just that Konoha's inheritance of sealing jutsu had already been broken. Even if she wanted to make up for this shortcoming, she had no way to start.
What about the development of Phase Three's Yang God Mode? It was hard to say, but she might have to go and "find" Naruto's mom, Kushina, to ask for advice.
Was it the Reanimation Jutsu, or a trip to the Rouran ruins? She was still hesitating.
Koyuki's new film was a big hit. The novel concept had also stirred up a wave of enthusiasm among the ordinary people of the Naruto world. Her Excellency the Daimyo, who had brought her own funding to the group, had made a small fortune. The geothermal power plant, which had received sufficient funding, was completely built before Sakura left the Land of Snow.
Its first user was Haruno Sakura, who had come to freeload on the electricity.
Sakura had unscrupulously used public funds for her private benefit, freeloading on the electricity for several days—she had contributed a part of the money for the plant's construction, so it could also be considered Sakura's property—and had charged her energy up to the limit of the Lightning Sealing Method.
In mid-January, she had completed the development of the Yin Seal.
Next was the charging, which occupied public property. In her spare time, she also practiced other skills, such as the fusion of Ice Style and Yin Release, as well as genjutsu. Haruno Sakura, this delayed genjutsu seedling, had so far only used genjutsu on ordinary people.
Time passed quickly.
Another page was torn off the calendar. The two large red characters for "February" appeared on the calendar.
"It's time to go back," she muttered to herself.
In the hidden and empty base, Sakura had already packed and sealed the things she needed to take with her into a scroll.
The girl stretched out her hand. The chakra at her fingertips quickly turned into a chill. Ice, along with a water-mist-like cold, spread, and in just a few short seconds, it had filled the entire base.
Then she blocked the door with a giant rock.
The wind in February was still cold, but no longer biting. In the gentle breeze, the girl took one last look at the base, and then left with a Body Flicker.
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