Chapter 33: The Artificial Tailed Beast Concept

Chapter 33: Chapter 33: The Artificial Tailed Beast Concept

Shisui’s words left Itachi deep in thought.

He had naturally noticed the undercurrents stirring within the clan as well. Despite his young age, he could already vaguely sense the growing conflict between the clan and the village, but there was nothing he could do about it.

After thinking for a moment, Itachi hesitantly said, "Brother Shisui, if word gets out that you lost to Kagami-senpai, I’m afraid..."

The Uchiha Clan’s alienation within the village wasn’t without reason. In fact, it could be said that the vast majority of Uchiha simply weren’t very likable.

The main reason for this was that once an Uchiha awakened the Sharingan, their strength would rapidly soar alongside the awakening of their kekkei genkai. Eventually reaching the level of a jōnin was practically inevitable.

Without needing to put in nearly as much effort as others, they could obtain power that placed them above the rest.

Over time, it was only natural for a sense of superiority to take root.

Because of this, Itachi was worried that once news of Shisui’s defeat at Hyuga Kagami’s hands spread, some of the clan’s unruly experts would go looking for trouble with Hyuga Kagami.

After all, there had been precedents for exactly that sort of thing.

Shisui smiled. "I know what you’re worried about, but there’s no need. Kagami-senpai is much stronger than you imagine!"

Itachi immediately understood Shisui’s intentions. That only made him even more curious about the match between Shisui and Hyuga Kagami, and he hurriedly asked, "Tell me about your match with Kagami-senpai!"

Recalling his earlier match with Hyuga Kagami, Shisui slowly said, "I never expected Kagami-senpai, who had always kept such a low profile, to possess ocular power even greater than mine. Sigh... Whenever I think about how a genius like him keeps himself so low-key, while I’ve been hailed by the clan as its number one genius and basked in the envy and admiration of my peers in the village, I can’t help but feel a little ashamed."

Shaking his head with a sigh, Shisui proceeded to recount the entire match.

"Neither genjutsu nor taijutsu could do anything to Kagami-senpai?" Itachi lowered his head and murmured to himself for a moment before saying, "So Kagami-senpai was actually that strong. It seems I was worrying for nothing."

At that moment, Shisui seemed to recall something. "There’s something I can’t shake..."

Itachi asked, "What is it?"

"Kagami-senpai seemed to know that I wasn’t using my full strength. It was almost as if he..."

Shisui had been about to say that Hyuga Kagami seemed to have sensed that he possessed the Mangekyō Sharingan, but he quickly shook his head and dismissed the absurd thought.

At present, the only people in the entire village who knew that he had awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan were himself and Itachi.

And he trusted that Itachi would never reveal that secret.

On the second floor of an izakaya.

After they finished discussing Sasori, Hyuga Kagami thought for a moment before tentatively asking, "Lord Orochimaru, how much do you know about the Tailed Beasts?"

Orochimaru was somewhat surprised. "You’re interested in the Tailed Beasts? Is it because of the Two-Tails Jinchūriki you encountered before?"

Hyuga Kagami made no attempt to hide it and naturally nodded. "Because I lack natural talent, my chakra reserves have never been particularly abundant. To solve that problem, I’ve gone through countless books and records, but every answer I found ultimately pointed toward the Tailed Beasts."

Orochimaru chuckled softly. "You’re like me. You’ll spare no cost in pursuit of an answer. But let me give you a piece of advice—don’t meddle with the Tailed Beasts. They’re far more troublesome than you imagine."

Hyuga Kagami hurriedly said, "The Tailed Beasts are a taboo of the Five Great Shinobi Villages. Of course I wouldn’t overestimate myself enough to set my sights on them. What I was wondering is... would it be possible to artificially create a miniature Tailed Beast?"

Hyuga Kagami then laid out his entire concept for creating an artificial Tailed Beast to Orochimaru.

With Hyuga Kagami’s current level of technical expertise, creating an artificial Tailed Beast was absolutely impossible. If he wanted an artificial Tailed Beast like the Zero-Tails to appear ahead of its time, he would have to rely on Orochimaru’s abilities.

Taken aback by Hyuga Kagami’s idea, Orochimaru froze for a moment before speaking in his hoarse voice. "Kagami, you really are different from everyone else. Your mind is always brimming with ideas."

Hyuga Kagami looked at Orochimaru expectantly. "Do you think my idea is actually possible?"

After pondering for a long while, Orochimaru said solemnly, "Actually, the village has been researching the Tailed Beasts since the First Hokage’s time. The Tailed Beast research project remained active even after the Second Hokage took power. But later, for reasons I don’t know, the project was suddenly terminated. All the research materials were sealed away, and the Tailed Beast research program was completely suspended."

Hearing this, Hyuga Kagami thought to himself, "So the village really did conduct research on the Tailed Beasts."

In fact, ever since meeting Shinno, he had been trying to figure out exactly which village Shinno had stolen the technology for creating the Zero-Tails from.

Among the Five Great Shinobi Villages, both Kirigakure and Sunagakure had always suffered from political instability, and their overall strength was comparatively weaker. Neither possessed the capability to conduct extensive research into the Tailed Beasts, so those two villages could be ruled out first.

Iwagakure and Kumogakure were certainly powerful, but Iwagakure focused primarily on research related to Earth Release, while Kumogakure concentrated on the development of Lightning Release and taijutsu. Neither seemed to have accomplished much when it came to Tailed Beast research.

After comparing them all, Konoha—the village that had once possessed the First Hokage, a man capable of completely suppressing the Tailed Beasts—seemed to be the only village truly capable of conducting in-depth research on them.

Pulling back his wandering thoughts, Hyuga Kagami asked at just the right moment, "Why was the project stopped?"

Orochimaru replied, "I don’t know the exact reason either, but if I had to guess, it was probably because of instability. I’ve gone through some of the records. Artificial Tailed Beasts have an extremely high chance of going berserk, and once that happens, the result is nothing short of a complete disaster!"

Hyuga Kagami proposed another idea. "What if we abandoned the artificial Tailed Beast’s offensive capabilities and had it serve purely as a ’battery’? Would that improve its stability?"

Orochimaru glanced at Hyuga Kagami and explained in an instructive tone, "A massive concentration of chakra is inherently destructive. There’s no such thing as simply removing its offensive power. I considered something similar years ago. If you want to improve its stability, there’s only one way—the chakra supplied to the artificial Tailed Beast must come from a single source, and the nature of that chakra cannot be too violent."

Hyuga Kagami frowned. "Aside from the Tailed Beasts themselves, who could possibly supply enough chakra to sustain an artificial Tailed Beast all on their own?"

"That’s right. In the entire shinobi world, perhaps only the First Hokage possessed enough power to supply an artificial Tailed Beast with chakra entirely on his own. Everyone else, including the Second Hokage, probably lacked that capability." After a brief pause, Orochimaru continued, "And if the violent chakra of a Tailed Beast were used as the chakra source for an artificial Tailed Beast, the artificial Tailed Beast would most likely go berserk immediately. So I suspect that was the reason the artificial Tailed Beast project was terminated."

Hyuga Kagami desperately searched through everything he could remember from his previous life, hoping to find an answer to this seemingly unsolvable problem.

In his hazy memories of his previous life, there were quite a few individuals who possessed enormous amounts of chakra. But without exception, every one of them stood among the strongest figures in the shinobi world. None of them would ever work for Hyuga Kagami as some menial laborer whose sole job was to supply chakra.

Setting those powerful individuals aside, Hyuga Kagami vaguely remembered two mysterious places that contained enormous quantities of chakra.

One was the Dragon Vein beneath the ancient city of Rōran in the Land of Wind.

The other was the demonic entity known as Mōryō, which had been sealed away by the priestess of the Land of Demons...