Chapter 54: Concocting the Toxin

Chapter 54: Chapter 54: Concocting the Toxin

After snorting around Hyuga Kagami a few times, the scruffy little boar that had swallowed the venom sac staggered off into the undergrowth. In the blink of an eye, it vanished without a trace.

"Could this little guy have developed a resistance to poison?"

The moment that thought occurred to him, Hyuga Kagami suddenly came up with a new experimental plan.

There was one problem that had been troubling him these past two days—he lacked a suitable living subject for testing his poisons.

Using laboratory mice as test subjects was obviously inadequate. Their constitutions were simply too weak. Even relatively ordinary toxins could prove fatal to them, making it difficult to accurately gauge the potency of a poison through experiments on mice.

The sudden appearance of this little boar solved that problem perfectly.

Having made up his mind, Hyuga Kagami didn’t linger in the Forest of Death and quickly returned home.

There were two main types of compound toxins Hyuga Kagami had designed.

The first was a paralytic toxin.

The main ingredients consisted of the poisonous powder from the wings of the Spotted Venom Moth and venom from the stinger of the Red-Tailed Scorpion, with the saliva of the Giant-Jawed Ant serving as a supplementary ingredient.

The poisonous powder of the Spotted Venom Moth possessed an extremely powerful paralyzing effect, while the venom of the Red-Tailed Scorpion, aside from being poisonous itself, had the additional effect of accelerating blood circulation.

By combining the two, the paralytic toxin could rapidly spread throughout the victim’s entire body through their bloodstream, rendering them incapable of movement within just a few breaths.

As for the saliva of the Giant-Jawed Ant, once solidified, it formed an extremely rare type of protective membrane. Mixing it into a compound toxin could extend the toxin’s active lifespan by four or five times.

The second type of compound toxin was a lethal toxin.

Its main ingredients consisted of venom from the One-Eyed Viper, two species of venomous spiders, and one species of venomous centipede. The supplementary ingredient was likewise the saliva of the Giant-Jawed Ant.

The One-Eyed Viper that had accompanied Hyuga Kagami for so long already possessed extremely potent venom in its own right. If its venom was combined with other poisonous substances to create a compound toxin, then as long as its toxicity wasn’t diminished in the process, the standard-issue antidotes distributed by the major shinobi villages should be completely ineffective against it.

Of course, for now, all of this remained nothing more than plans and theories.

Turning those ideas into reality would require Hyuga Kagami to conduct experiment after experiment.

After working throughout the entire afternoon, Hyuga Kagami concocted a total of ten bottles of toxin—five bottles of paralytic toxin and five bottles of lethal toxin.

The reason he had prepared so many was to determine the optimal proportions for combining the various poisonous ingredients. After all, even when using exactly the same ingredients, changing their proportions could result in toxins whose potency differed by an enormous margin.

Seeing that it was already getting late, Hyuga Kagami packed away all the toxins and decided to return to the Forest of Death tomorrow to test them on that scruffy little boar.

As for the evening, however, he had other plans...

Uchiha Clan Compound

Returning home from the Academy, Itachi noticed groups of clan members gathered here and there throughout the compound, seemingly discussing something.

Curious, he stopped in his tracks and perked up his ears to listen.

"Shinichi actually lost?"

"Yeah. I heard he lost pretty badly, too. Shisui had to carry him back..."

"How useless! Why would the clan let someone that incompetent issue the challenge? Isn’t that just tarnishing the Uchiha’s reputation?"

"Logically speaking, Shinichi isn’t weak. He’s been a Special Jōnin for two years now, hasn’t he? How could he have lost so badly? Is that Hyuga brat really that strong?"

"Hmph! That Hyuga brat was still just a chūnin a few months ago. How strong could he possibly be?!"

"You can say Shisui wasn’t taking it seriously, but Shinichi genuinely lost. If we lose again next time..."

"We absolutely cannot let that happen!"

"Next time, we need to send someone strong!"

After listening for a while, Itachi revealed a helpless expression and thought to himself, "Just as I expected..."

The just as I expected in Itachi’s mind carried two meanings.

First, as expected, his clansmen had been unable to restrain themselves from challenging Hyuga Kagami.

And second, as expected, they had lost.

With his mind weighed down by these thoughts, Itachi slowly made his way home.

As he passed through the corridor, Itachi noticed his father sitting in the courtyard before the tsukubai, seemingly lost in thought. Not wanting to disturb him, Itachi instinctively lightened his footsteps.

Just then, Uchiha Fugaku suddenly spoke.

"Is that you, Itachi?"

Itachi immediately straightened himself. "Father, I’m home."

Uchiha Fugaku did not turn around. His gaze remained fixed on the tsukubai before him as he calmly said, "You’ve heard the rumors outside, haven’t you?"

"Yes. I just heard about them."

Uchiha Fugaku asked, "What do you think about this matter?"

Itachi’s talent was evident to everyone, so Uchiha Fugaku had long since begun grooming him to become the next head of the Uchiha Clan.

Because of this, Fugaku would occasionally ask Itachi for his thoughts on various matters in order to train his ability to handle clan affairs.

After thinking for a moment, Itachi replied, "For the Uchiha, this might actually be a good thing."

Uchiha Fugaku neither agreed nor disagreed. He merely waved a hand and said, "You may go."

Itachi bowed to his father, then quietly left the courtyard.

That night.

After confirming that no one was spying on him, Hyuga Kagami carefully shut all the doors and windows.

He intended to spend the evening practicing the various formulas recorded in the artificial tailed beast research materials.

Creating an artificial tailed beast required not only a large number of sealing formulas, but also various shaping formulas and ninjutsu formulas.

Moreover, during the process of creating the artificial tailed beast’s body, none of the formulas could contain even the slightest mistake or omission. Once an error was made, there would be no opportunity to correct it, and the entire plan would end in failure.

Therefore, before officially beginning the artificial tailed beast project, Hyuga Kagami had to thoroughly master every single formula and achieve one hundred percent accuracy.

And there was no shortcut to accomplishing that other than relentless practice. So, taking advantage of the long vacation the Third Hokage had given him, he decided to devote his evenings to practicing them properly.

As the saying went, practice makes perfect. As long as he practiced enough, achieving one hundred percent accuracy wouldn’t be particularly difficult.

Somewhere along the border between the Land of Fire and the Land of Hot Water

After crushing the throat of the Konoha shinobi in his hand, a Kumogakure jōnin turned to Yugito Nii, the Two-Tails’ jinchūriki, beside him.

"Looks like Konoha still hasn’t noticed us."

Yugito, crouching beside a map spread out on the ground, examined it and said, "Our group seems to be moving a little slower than expected."

The Kumogakure jōnin came over and studied the map as well. Frowning, he said, "The intelligence gathered by the Intelligence Division is riddled with inaccuracies. At the pace we’re advancing, we’re already moving pretty fast."

"It probably isn’t the Intelligence Division’s fault. Konoha most likely made some last-minute adjustments to the defenses along this section of the border." After a brief pause, Yugito continued, "Forget it. Keep advancing. We have to rendezvous with Killer B within two days!"

At Yugito’s command, the more than twenty Kumogakure shinobi behind her immediately resumed their advance deeper into the Land of Fire...