Naruto: I, Shikotsumyaku, Byakugan Princess

Chapter 145 Practice (Part 2)

time flies.

The Five Elements Seal is indeed very difficult. Under Hiruzen Sarutobi's guidance, Hairi can barely use it, but it is still far from being able to be used in tense and intense high-speed battles.

As the mini-lesson ended, watching his hunched back disappear quickly, Hui Li rolled her eyes at everyone before turning and returning to her bedroom.

The room was quite crowded.

A set of tables and chairs, a bed, and a floor covered in gray glass.

Several people, dressed and looking alike, sat cross-legged in a circle, flipping through different types of books.

Yin, Yang, sealing, barriers, curse seals, medical ninjutsu... all are obscure and difficult to understand tomes, each one as thick as Gray Glass's palm. Even with the clones reading together, it would still take quite a while.

This knowledge about seals and curse marks was borrowed from Hiruzen Sarutobi.

There is no free lunch in the world.

Even though he is a disciple, the valuable knowledge of ninjutsu must be clearly accounted for.

Ninjutsu knowledge is a valuable resource of Konoha, not just for Hiruzen Sarutobi. Therefore, any new ninjutsu developed using this knowledge should be submitted to the Konoha Ninjutsu Library.

The reason for saying "as much as possible" is that ninjas are very sensitive about this issue, and the Konoha authorities do not make it mandatory.

You don't have to hand it over; it's a one-off deal. The knowledge will remain in your mind, and Konoha won't take it back, but it will be extremely difficult to acquire more knowledge and ninjutsu. If you choose to hand over your ninjutsu, a secret technique of the same level will be selected as your reward, based on the strength of your ninjutsu.

They can continue to borrow knowledge books, which is equivalent to the village investing in talented ninjas and then making follow-up investments after receiving feedback.

Developing the secret technique of ninjutsu substitution, purchasing it at a high price from ninja tool shops, and learning it from a master are considered three subsequent advancement paths opened up by Konoha for commoner ninjas, in addition to the ninja academy.

Those capable of developing ninjutsu take the first path, those with money take the second, and those with connections or exceptional talent take the third. The endless stream of commoner geniuses and various strange and unusual secret techniques emerging in Konoha are the result of these rules working together.

It is said that these rules were personally established by the Second Hokage, who used the Senju clan's ninjutsu and knowledge to fill Konoha's knowledge base.

While admiring Tobirama Senju's brilliant decision, Hairi readily agreed.

It's perfectly fine to hand over the secret techniques developed using other people's knowledge, especially since it's a gentleman's agreement with no mandatory requirements, which is basically no different from giving them away for free.

Compared to Hiruzen Sarutobi, Danzo was more 'generous'.

Without any cost, she simply obtained authorization from Danzo under the pretext of needing it for experiments, and then freely took and looked at whatever she wanted from Root's secret treasury.

When she got there, she discovered that the books in the Root were more numerous and complete than those in Konoha, and they were also much newer, probably all hand-copied new editions from Konoha's library.

She found a lot of valuable information inside, such as:

"An Explanation of the Principles of Medical Ninjutsu" - Tsunade, "A Study of Yin and Yang Power" - Orochimaru, and "Basic Methods of Ninjutsu Development" by the Second Hokage, Tobirama Senju.

She couldn't even find many books bearing the name of the Uchiha clan. These were quite old and conspicuous, with yellowed pages and many creases, clearly spoils of war seized after the Uchiha clan was wiped out.

Since it was free, Hui Li, who was eager to develop ninjutsu, naturally packed up and took these valuable materials with her.

The free ones are the most expensive.

She knew perfectly well what Danzo was up to.

They simply relied on the fact that she was brainwashed by another god and had leverage over her participation in human experiments, thinking they could easily control her with these things. Little did they know that Hui Li didn't care about any of that at all.

All she cared about was her own life.

Everything must give way to this.

Squeak!
Hui Li grabbed the bed leg and dragged it to the other side of the room, revealing the flat ground below.

Roll your eyes!

open!

Pupil power activated.

A pale red sealing barrier quickly appeared on the ground. Gray Glass swiftly formed hand seals, and a purple halo emanated from his palms. The surface of the hand seals immediately revealed a strange pattern of an unclosed semicircle.

This is one of her recent achievements.

A sealing barrier that combines concealment, protection from prying eyes, and deterring enemies.

It works really well.

When she has the chance in the future, she will use the principle of sealing barriers to make a set of clothes that can prevent the eyes from seeing through, specifically targeting the Byakugan. It can restrain everyone from the Hyuga main family to the Otsutsuki clan.

Especially for the Hinata Eight Trigrams, which specializes in striking acupoints, their acupoint striking skills are basically useless in situations where they cannot see through objects.

Buzz!

Once the pattern was fully formed and perfectly matched the expected chakra diagram, the barrier's color quickly dimmed, revealing a square underground cavity.

The hollow room was a basement of about nine square meters, with walls solidified by Earth Release chakra and covered in densely packed incantations. Inside, besides a stone table, a glass rod, and a few bottles and jars, there was nothing else, not even a candle.

She dug this basement herself using earth magic to store things that couldn't be seen in the light of day.

She was a pragmatist; her white eyes had such powerful vision that she didn't need any light source, so she simply didn't prepare any lighting equipment.

He made a hand gesture.

One of the shadow clones, who was reciting his lessons, put down his book and activated his Byakugan, enveloping the entire space.

Once she was sure there were no mistakes, Hui Li turned and jumped into the hole.

boom!
Boom boom~
The sound of their feet landing was extremely heavy, echoing continuously in the empty room. Although there was no light source, the hole above their heads was not sealed, and wisps of light still shone down from above, illuminating the wildly flying dust particles in the air.

With a wave of her hand, she dispersed the rising dust and picked up a large glass bottle from the table.

There are two pieces of meat inside, both soaking in a milky white nutrient solution.

The blood-red piece of flesh was already losing its vitality; it was only the size of a fingernail, shimmering with a faint purple light.

Roots extending from the pale white flesh took root in the flesh and blood, constantly drawing on the purple power. Then, the white flesh grew at a visible speed, and the emerald green chakra light completely covered the purple.

The red flesh was cut from her own arm, while the white was interstitial cells taken from the laboratory.

Cells are just too easy to steal.

She casually scraped the transplanted flesh on the experimental subject with her fingernail, letting the fingernail fall off naturally before the interstitial cells could absorb the energy, and then sealed it with a tissue.

Interstitial cells have a strong survival ability, so they are easy to cultivate. Just give them some minced meat or something similar, and in a few days they will grow from a state that is barely visible to the naked eye into a large piece of meat.

If Hashirama cells accumulate enough power, they will automatically begin to condense a chakra core, absorbing energy and converting it into chakra. If they run out of energy, they will choose to burn their own life force to forcibly convert it. In the end, the chakra will go berserk and turn into a small sapling full of vitality. Then, this Hashirama cell can no longer be used.

Therefore, the most difficult part of culturing intercolumnar cells is actually controlling their activity level.

Over the years of cell transplantation experiments, this problem has long been solved by wise predecessors. I wonder which genius came up with the brilliant idea: to add a specially prepared acidic venom to the nutrient solution.

The absorption of nutrients leads to the continuous killing of cells by the venom, while the energy in the nutrient solution causes the interstitial cells to multiply and divide rapidly. The dead cells are also engulfed by the new cells that lack energy, eventually achieving a delicate balance.

I've heard that some of the interstitial cells evolved antibodies to fight the venom, so the researchers remixed the venom and gave it different numbers.

The type of venom is changed every three days to prevent targeted cell mutation.

As she raised the glass bottle into the air, the veins at the corners of her eyes swelled and soon spread across half of her face like a spider web.

With the purple chakra flowing at any cost, his eye power increased, and the chunk of meat in the glass bottle suddenly magnified infinitely.

boom!
A miniature world quickly appeared in Gray Glass's mind.

In stark contrast to the seemingly peaceful and serene environment on a macro scale, in the microscopic world, countless cells are engaged in a life-or-death struggle far more brutal than war.

It's more accurate to describe it as an encirclement and annihilation than a fight.

The abnormally active, even frenzied, pale cells surrounded and intercepted the gray glass cells with a purple halo.

Soon, the frenzied columnar cells surrounded the gray glass cells, which outnumbered them by a large margin.

It was impossible to tell whether it was the outer layer of the cell membrane or the cell wall; countless tentacles extended out and plunged deep into the gray glass cell, sucking up the energy inside.

The once ferocious and evil purple chakra, mixed with the power of the tailed beasts, was now like a mouse encountering a cat, utterly powerless to resist. It offered only token resistance before being completely sucked dry by the Hashirama cells. The Gray Glass Cells, which had previously relied on the purple chakra to grow and reproduce, had also completely lost their ability to resist and were quickly and cruelly decomposed.

Sure enough, it doesn’t work.

Hui Li frowned.

Eighty percent of her bone marrow meridian's power is concentrated in her bones. Although her flesh and blood also have unique characteristics, it is wishful thinking to think that they can contend with the Hashirama cells, which represent the perfected Sage Body.

What's most terrifying is that her chakra, mixed with the power of the tailed beasts, is completely suppressed by Hashirama's cells. With a gentle suck from her tentacles, the chakra melts in her mouth, seemingly easier than eating a small cake.

This is not over yet.

While Hui Li was observing, after consuming the last bit of chakra from that piece of flesh, Hashirama's cells seemed to have taken a super tonic, and began to divide and expand wildly.

The tiny piece of flesh had now condensed into a very small chakra core, smaller than the tip of a needle, which, from her perspective, appeared as a small, emerald-green dot of light.

The green light spots rapidly generated chakra, stimulating the flesh to split at an even more abnormal speed.

Even the nutrient-rich venom in the bottle could no longer suppress the expansion rate of the cells. The nutrient solution was rapidly consumed until all the liquid was devoured. The frenzied cells devoured themselves, annihilating and contributing power to the chakra core.

The cells died in large numbers, unable to withstand the spread of chakra.

click!
A tender new shoot 'broke through the soil' on the pale flesh.

Squeak!
The glass bottle rattled as the struggling sapling scraped against it, its dark roots completely covering the interstitial cells.

In the blink of an eye, all the interstitial cells and glass cells disappeared, and inside the large glass bottle, a tiny sapling squeezed in, its green leaves quickly filling the space.

The emerald green light dissipated.

Hashirama and Hairi are dead!
Shaking her head, Gray Glass placed the plant bottle on the table and then picked up another piece of glass.

This pale chunk of flesh was much larger than the previous one, and a fluorescent green chakra core had condensed inside. In contrast, it was soaked in a highly concentrated cytotoxic nutrient solution, which was a brownish-yellow color like cooking wine.

This time, there were no gray glass cells containing purple chakra.

Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Gray Glass opens the bottle's seal and puts your index finger into the bottle.

Below the knuckle.

The intercolumnar cells, which are absorbing the nutrient solution, are moving rapidly.

Chakra gathers at the fingertips.

The tender fingertip slowly cracked open with a blood-red gash, and a section of grayish-white finger bone slowly grew from the flesh.

creak!

creak!

The familiar yet unfamiliar sound of bones grinding together echoed in the air.

A large amount of chakra was absorbed by the mutated Shikotsumyaku (Corpse Bone Pulse) on the hand, and the gray patterns on the bones grew more and more rampant.

Enduring the weakness caused by the frantically devoured power, Hui Li used her Byakugan to suppress the devouring speed of the Corpse Bone Meridian, successfully squeezing out a finger bone.

Snapped!
The strange skeleton, with its deathly gray speckled patterns, fell directly onto the interstitial cells below.

As he mended the torn flesh from his finger, Hui Li didn't dare look away for a moment, staring intently at the bones and flesh in the bottle that represented life and death respectively.

Lightning flashed across his body.

He stepped forward with his right foot, gripping the glass bottle tightly with his hand.

If any danger arises, given her speed, she can run from the cramped basement to outside the Hatake clan's territory in less than three seconds.

Kaka!

A layer of gray markings rapidly spread outwards from the contact point between the bone and the interstitial cells, like vines climbing on a wall, and strange patterns instantly covered the pale flesh.

Holding her breath, Hui Li's muscles tensed.

His right leg was visibly swollen, and the muscles tightened as if they were springs.

Guji!

Then, the areas on the flesh covered by the markings seemed to melt and become tender. The finger bones with gray spots sank little by little into the flesh until they were completely embedded and then stopped moving.

Ok?
Seeing the semi-evolved Gray Bone now embedded in the flesh, the two seemingly at peace, Gray Li's heart, which had been hanging in suspense for so long, finally settled down, replaced by deep confusion.

She had already considered many possibilities before the experiment.

The ash bone and interstitial cells are locked in a life-or-death struggle, or the semi-finished ash bone may devour the energy of the interstitial cells to evolve, or the interstitial cells may in turn devour her bone cells, causing unknown mutations, and so on.

All sorts of scenarios were considered, but the one thing that was unexpected was that the two did not react at all when placed together.

They were neither mortal enemies nor close confidants, but rather strangely distinct, like two lonely strangers.

Rolling your eyes will induce a reaction.

The world in Hui Li's eyes became a 360-degree transparent state, and the calm, gray-veined flesh instantly split into three layers in her eyes.

(End of this chapter)