Chapter 51: Chakra Source

Chapter 51: Chapter 51: Chakra Source

After leaving the Hokage’s office, the four members of Team Eleven each headed home.

This S-rank mission had taken nearly two months from start to finish. After one fierce battle after another, everyone was utterly exhausted, so the Third gave Team Eleven a full half-month off.

Once he returned home, Hyuga Kagami lay on his bed and carefully thought back over the Third’s reaction.

Judging from the Third’s behavior, he could more or less conclude that the mission to the Land of Demons really had been nothing more than a coincidence. There hadn’t been any element of testing him involved.

"Looks like I was overthinking things. If the Third really suspected me of colluding with Orochimaru, he could’ve just had me arrested outright. Why bother going through such a roundabout scheme and making things unnecessarily complicated?"

With his mind finally at ease, Hyuga Kagami began taking stock of everything he had gained from this trip to the Land of Demons.

Obtaining a large quantity of Purple Clay Gel, as well as learning and mastering every sealing formula contained in the artificial tailed beast research materials, were undoubtedly his greatest gains from the journey.

Beyond that, his friendship with the Priestess of the Land of Demons was also no small gain.

One should never underestimate the Priestess of the Land of Demons.

When she called for aid, even Konoha, Iwagakure, and Sunagakure—three of the Five Great Shinobi Villages—had no choice but to respond immediately and dispatch their elites to assist her.

That fact alone was enough to show just how much prestige and influence she possessed among the surrounding nations.

Establishing a personal friendship with someone whose status in the secular world could practically rival that of a daimyō would be an enormous help to Hyuga Kagami in the future.

Putting everything else aside, when it came to the artificial tailed beast project alone, the Priestess—as a master of sealing techniques—could provide him with a great deal of assistance, offering highly specialized guidance on sealing arts as well as valuable suggestions on how to approach the project.

"The next problem is finding a chakra source for the artificial tailed beast!"

At that thought, Hyuga Kagami’s mind began to wander.

He vaguely remembered that the chakra source for Shinno’s artificial tailed beast, the Zero-Tails, had been a large number of ordinary villagers. This had directly resulted in the Zero-Tails’ chakra being both unstable and relatively poor in quality.

As a result, when the Zero-Tails attempted to devour Naruto and Sasuke’s highly concentrated chakra, the tables were easily turned on it, and unsurprisingly, it went berserk on the spot.

That lesson also confirmed Orochimaru’s earlier advice: ideally, an artificial tailed beast should have a single chakra source.

Although chakra gathered from many people could be enormous in quantity, it was far too unstable. Under external stimulation, it could easily cause the artificial tailed beast to lose control and go berserk.

But throughout the entire shinobi world, sources of chakra that were both singular and massive could be counted on one hand.

This made Hyuga Kagami think once again of the monster Moryo, which had been sealed away not long ago.

In terms of chakra quantity alone, Moryo was more than sufficient to serve as the chakra source for an artificial tailed beast.

The problem was that its chakra was far too sinister, and it possessed a powerful self-awareness comparable to that of a tailed beast.

If its chakra were used as the chakra source for the artificial tailed beast, then in essence, all he would be doing was giving Moryo a new body—replacing its original vessel with one made of Purple Clay Gel.

Fundamentally, there would be almost no difference at all.

Rather than calling such a thing an artificial tailed beast, it would be more accurate to call it another Moryo wearing a different shell. For Hyuga Kagami, that would bring nothing but harm and absolutely no benefit!

What Hyuga Kagami needed was a chakra source with no self-awareness—or at least one whose self-awareness was extremely faint.

After thinking it over again and again, there seemed to be only one thing that met those requirements: the Dragon Vein beneath the ruins of Rōran in the Land of Wind.

From what he remembered, the Dragon Vein’s chakra seemed to be relatively gentle. Even an ordinary person like the Queen of Rōran could control it through the power of her bloodline.

More importantly, the Dragon Vein did not seem to possess any strong self-awareness. As long as one knew the proper method, even someone who did not possess the bloodline of the Rōran royal family seemed capable of utilizing the Dragon Vein’s chakra.

Using it as the chakra source for the artificial tailed beast would undoubtedly greatly improve the artificial tailed beast’s stability.

The only problem at present was that the Dragon Vein beneath the ruins of Rōran had been sealed by the Fourth Hokage several years ago. If Hyuga Kagami wanted to make use of the Dragon Vein’s power, he would first have to break the Fourth’s seal.

"The Fourth probably used one of the Uzumaki Clan’s sealing techniques. I wonder which one it was exactly..."

Hyuga Kagami frowned as he pondered the matter.

Although, under the Priestess’s guidance, he had mastered the Uzumaki Clan sealing formulas contained in the artificial tailed beast research materials, that did not mean he had mastered the Uzumaki Clan’s sealing arts as a whole.

Quite the opposite.

At present, he was incapable of actually using any of the Uzumaki Clan’s sealing techniques himself, let alone forbidden techniques such as the Reaper Death Seal.

What he had learned was merely how to follow the instructions in the artificial tailed beast research materials and reproduce, step by step, the sealing formulas that the Uzumaki Clan had already designed.

As for the chakra-control techniques and hand seals required to actually perform the Uzumaki Clan’s sealing techniques, he knew none of them.

The artificial tailed beast research materials contained no relevant records either. Whether they had never been included in the first place or had been deliberately removed by Orochimaru, Hyuga Kagami had no way of knowing.

"Looks like I’ll have to make a trip to the ruins of Rōran."

Only by personally visiting the site could he accurately determine exactly what kind of sealing technique the Fourth Hokage had used back then. Once he knew that, he could devise an appropriate method to break it.

After giving the matter some more thought, he also felt that the bloodline of the Queen of Rōran seemed to have considerable influence over the Dragon Vein.

When the time came to break the Fourth’s seal, it might be best to bring her along, just in case something unexpected happened.

After sleeping soundly through the night, Hyuga Kagami was already busy again early the next morning. He gathered a few tools and headed straight for the Forest of Death on the outskirts of the village.

His battle with Iwamata had made him realize just how important poison could be.

He deeply regretted not following Sasori’s example and continuously coating the Iron Sand controlled by the Third Kazekage human puppet with poison. Because of that, even when he severely wounded an enemy, they would often survive their injuries.

Sasori was different.

As long as he managed to injure his opponent—even if it was nothing more than an insignificant scratch—it could still cost them their life.

In truth, Hyuga Kagami was no stranger to using poison.

His summon, the One-Eyed Viper, possessed extremely potent venom. However, after several wars—and especially after the poison expert known as the "Demigod," Hanzo, rose to fame—the major shinobi villages had all begun extensively researching both poisons and countermeasures against them.

As a result, a single type of snake venom was now unlikely to produce any miraculous results on the battlefield.

That was why Hyuga Kagami had no choice but to venture into the Forest of Death and collect other poisonous creatures and substances, intending to use them to create a compound poison.

The moment Hyuga Kagami entered the Forest of Death, countless memories flashed through his mind.

He was no stranger to this place.

Before graduation, the Ninja Academy had organized several practical training exercises in the Forest of Death for students who were about to become genin. So while he couldn’t claim to know every tree and blade of grass here, he still had a fairly good understanding of the area.

There were plenty of poisonous creatures in the Forest of Death, primarily snakes, scorpions, spiders, centipedes, moths, and rats.

His purpose for coming here was to collect the venom sacs and poison glands from these creatures.

After searching for nearly an hour, Hyuga Kagami, who had been leaping through the treetops, finally spotted something.

Beside a small pond, a cobra was locked in a standoff with a scruffy little wild boar.

Hyuga Kagami smiled at the little boar.

"Looks like it’s your lucky day!"

With that, he flicked out a shuriken, accurately pinning the cobra’s head to the ground.

After landing, he skillfully cut open the snake’s corpse and removed the larger of its two venom sacs. He then casually tossed the carcass aside.

Just then, the scruffy little wild boar that had fled moments earlier came charging back. It grabbed the snake’s corpse in its mouth and immediately tried to run off with it.

Hyuga Kagami froze for a moment before shouting,

"Hey! That thing’s poisonous! What are you, a pig!?"