Chapter 147: Clone Completed

Chapter 147: Chapter 147: Clone Completed

In Hyuga Kagami’s experimental plan, the main component of the Water Release clone would still be his own cellular tissue.

However, those cells first had to pass through several pieces of equipment to filter out their chakra nature. Afterward, one percent of Haku’s cellular tissue would be added to the mixture.

Haku possessed the Ice Release kekkei genkai, so the chakra nature within his cells was primarily Water Release, with Wind Release being secondary.

Once Haku’s cellular tissue was introduced into the clone, the high concentration of Water Release chakra nature contained within his cells could be used to shift the chakra nature of the entire clone toward Water Release.

There were two truly difficult aspects of the entire plan.

The first was figuring out how to completely filter the Yin-natured chakra out of Kagami’s own cellular tissue.

The second was figuring out how to deal with the rejection reaction that would occur after Haku’s cellular tissue was introduced into the clone.

As for the first problem, there wasn’t much Hyuga Kagami could do besides repeatedly filtering the cellular tissue through advanced equipment such as filtration centrifuges.

If he didn’t filter it enough times, traces of Yin-natured chakra would remain within the cellular tissue.

But if he filtered it too many times, the vitality of the cells would be greatly weakened.

As for exactly where the right balance lay, there was no one who could give Hyuga Kagami an answer.

He could only determine it through trial after trial.

As for the second problem, that could only be left up to luck.

After all, rejection reactions were inherently unpredictable. Sometimes they could be extremely severe, while at other times they could be surprisingly mild.

As the experimental plan was gradually perfected step by step, Hyuga Kagami immediately began the cloning process for his Water Release clone.

First, he divided his own cellular tissue among a hundred small culture dishes. Then, using centrifuges and filtration equipment, he filtered them one by one, varying both the procedure and filtration intensity.

This step was nothing but painstaking, tedious work, and it took Hyuga Kagami a full three days to complete.

In the end, out of the hundred small culture dishes, only six contained cellular tissue from which the Yin nature had been completely removed.

As for the cellular tissue in the other dishes, it either still contained traces of Yin-natured chakra or had completely lost its vitality, making it unsuitable for cloning.

After examining the six remaining culture dishes one by one under a high-precision microscope, Hyuga Kagami discovered that the cellular tissue in all six had suffered varying degrees of damage.

Fortunately, the damage was still within acceptable limits.

Next, Hyuga Kagami extracted a portion of cellular tissue from Haku.

The Ice Release kekkei genkai was the product of combining Water-natured chakra with Wind-natured chakra.

In other words, among Haku’s ancestors, there must have once been an extraordinarily powerful ninja who had developed Water Release to its absolute limit before successfully combining it with Wind Release.

That ninja had engraved the ability to fuse Water-natured chakra and Wind-natured chakra deeply into their genes. The trait was then passed down from generation to generation, eventually giving rise to Haku’s Ice Release bloodline.

Therefore, although Haku was currently nothing more than a small, skinny child, the Water-natured chakra contained within his cellular tissue was anything but ordinary.

At the very least, an average ninja with a Water chakra nature couldn’t even begin to compare with him.

After injecting equal portions of Haku’s cellular tissue into each of the six culture dishes, Hyuga Kagami quietly waited for the results.

Before long, the cellular tissue in one of the culture dishes lost its vitality due to the rejection reaction.

Hyuga Kagami remained expressionless as he removed it from the large cultivation chamber.

Rejection was something he had anticipated from the very beginning, so his emotions hardly fluctuated. He calmly continued observing the remaining five culture dishes.

Soon, rejection reactions began appearing in the other dishes as well.

One after another, the cellular tissue in two more culture dishes lost its vitality and was removed from the large cultivation chamber by Hyuga Kagami.

Yet surprisingly, the cellular tissue in all three of the remaining dishes survived.

Out of six culture dishes, three had actually managed to endure the rejection reaction.

A survival rate of nearly fifty percent was far higher than Hyuga Kagami had expected.

"Huh? Why is the survival rate so much higher than I predicted? That’s strange... Could it be that my cellular tissue is unusually compatible with Haku’s?"

There were many factors that could influence a rejection reaction, so Hyuga Kagami couldn’t immediately determine exactly what had caused this result.

Afterward, however, the cellular tissue in one of the three remaining culture dishes began to undergo an abnormal mutation.

The dominant cellular tissue, which had originally been Hyuga Kagami’s, was gradually replaced by Haku’s cellular tissue.

The reason for this was that Hyuga Kagami’s cells had been left in a damaged state after being repeatedly processed through the centrifuges and other filtration equipment. As a result, Haku’s cellular tissue had turned the tables and taken over as the dominant component.

After eliminating the culture dish that had undergone this abnormal mutation, Hyuga Kagami was left with exactly two viable culture dishes.

Coincidentally, his laboratory only had two large nutrient tanks.

So he transferred the cellular tissue from the two remaining culture dishes into the two large nutrient tanks respectively and began accelerating the growth of the clones.

Under normal cultivation conditions in the large nutrient tanks, even if he spared no expense and consumed excessive amounts of costly nutrient solution, it would still take at least three months to grow a complete clone.

Neither Danzo nor Orochimaru had any way to change that.

Hyuga Kagami, however, was different.

With the Tenseigan, he could use Tenseigan chakra in conjunction with the nutrient solution to accelerate the clones’ growth. Not only would this increase the strength of the clones, it could also greatly shorten the amount of time required for them to fully develop.

As long as Hyuga Kagami was willing to burn through enough nutrient solution, he could even complete in one month a cultivation process that would normally require three.

Time flew by, and before long, an entire month had passed.

Throughout that month, aside from occasionally visiting Haku and using his Tenseigan to record the pathways through which chakra circulated inside Haku’s body whenever he used Ice Release, Hyuga Kagami spent almost all of his time holed up in the laboratory.

As for Team 11’s ANBU missions, he left those to a shadow clone.

Fortunately, Team 11 hadn’t received many missions during this period, and most of them were nothing more than patrol assignments, so his deception was never exposed.

From the intelligence gathered by his shadow clone, Hyuga Kagami also came to a conclusion.

The village’s final negotiations with Kumogakure should be taking place sometime very soon.

After all, no matter how deep the foundations of Konoha and Kumogakure were, neither side could sustain such a prolonged military standoff indefinitely.

Whether it would be war or peace, there had to be a final outcome.

And after an entire month of accelerated cultivation, both of Hyuga Kagami’s clones were finally complete.

Through the glass of the large nutrient tanks, Hyuga Kagami stared at the two clones floating inside.

They looked almost exactly like him.

As he gazed at those two nearly identical versions of himself, his usually calm state of mind gradually began to ripple with emotion.

After composing himself, Hyuga Kagami removed the two clones from the nutrient solution and laid them on the laboratory table.

He first examined the bodily functions of both clones.

After confirming that everything was functioning normally, he gently lifted their eyelids.

Immediately, two pairs of pure white eyes were revealed before him.

Hyuga Kagami’s gaze sharpened.

"Just as I thought..."