Chapter 152: Success Is Sought Through Repeated Failed Experiments
"Looks like I'll need an Uchiha as a lucky audience member," Kenichi muttered to himself.
The human brain was a mysterious place, and also a dangerous one. Until he could guarantee absolute safety, there was no chance he would run experiments on his own mind.
These days, anyone reckless enough to experiment on their own brain often ended up dying in a particularly ugly way. The Nobel Prize in Medicine had once been awarded to a so called medical butcher who "treated" mental patients by destroying their prefrontal cortex.
In reality, what looked like a cure was often nothing more than reducing a living person into a blank shell.
So Kenichi had no intention of gambling with his own head without proper verification.
That was basically courting death.
Naturally, the best solution was to find a consumable test subject. And among the people in the shinobi world who possessed the Sharingan, the Uchiha clan was the most suitable.
Which meant he would need to think of a way to return to Konoha and get his hands on an Uchiha.
Kakashi also had a Sharingan, even a three tomoe one, but Kakashi was not an Uchiha. He could not even deactivate his eye.
It was impossible for the Sharingan to evolve simply from emotional fluctuations if the bloodline itself was not there.
"If it works, I can test it on myself afterward and complete my elective task too. That's a pretty good deal." Kenichi stroked his chin, feeling more and more satisfied with his own idea.
On one hand, it helped him clear a task. On the other, it could strengthen him.
The only problem was the Mangekyo Sharingan.
It was powerful, absurdly so, but it consumed "ocular power," an annoyingly mysterious concept.
Even a three tomoe Sharingan only consumed chakra. Yet if you used the Mangekyo too much, you went blind. It was a ridiculous price that also created endless confusion.
"Is the so called ocular power actually the retina being consumed?" Kenichi thought quietly. "It's unlikely, but…"
If you asked what part of the eye was directly tied to vision, the answer was obvious: the retina.
If someone's retina detached, they were basically blind. Nearsightedness and farsightedness were also tied to eye structure. So Kenichi could not help wondering whether the Mangekyo was, in some bizarre way, a "retina product."
Still, the probability felt too low. The retina was not that hard to examine, and there was no reason the Uchiha would never have noticed.
Then again, the shinobi world's technology tree was so twisted that Kenichi could not fully dismiss anything. This world did not even have hot air balloons. That alone told you how strange the development path was.
If he wanted to solve Mangekyo blindness once and for all, the cleanest method was obvious.
Upgrade the Mangekyo into the Eternal Mangekyo. Then there would be no need to fear blindness anymore.
But the requirements for that upgrade were brutal.
You needed a brother's Mangekyo Sharingan to evolve into the Eternal Mangekyo.
"Maybe cloning can solve this?" Kenichi considered it seriously. It was not a crazy thought.
After all, the exact mechanism of the Eternal Mangekyo had always been unclear. The only consistent successful cases suggested it required the Mangekyo of a close brother.
But Kenichi had his own observations.
Madara and Izuna's Mangekyo patterns had differences, one with a solid center and the other with a hollow center, and they fused successfully.
Itachi and Sasuke also had different Mangekyo styles, one solid, one hollow, and they merged into the Eternal Mangekyo.
So Kenichi believed the Eternal Mangekyo might require two conditions.
First, a blood relationship, which could be understood as similar DNA sequences.
Second, the difference between hollow and solid patterns, which might correspond to recessive and dominant inheritance of genetic information.
Both conditions might be necessary for the Mangekyo to become Eternal.
"We need a way to bring in an Uchiha for research, but now isn't the time," Kenichi said, shaking his head. He changed clothes and headed into the laboratory.
He had just been to Konoha and even kidnapped Anko from there. If he went again, the Third Hokage might get furious enough to do something extreme.
It was better not to poke that hornet's nest for now.
"For the time being, I'll focus on chakra and gunpowder fusion, and keep tracking the rice project too." Kenichi made the decision quickly.
He created several shadow clones to handle the rice, then entered the lab to begin mixing thermobaric explosives.
He had built a special room inside the lab, reinforced with a defensive barrier, specifically to act as a bomb shelter.
That way, he would not need to make another trip elsewhere whenever something exploded.
"Explosives are basically made of tiny particles and grains," Kenichi thought as he stared at the material in front of him. "If chakra is infused, it could disrupt that stable structure and trigger detonation."
The amount in each test was not large. For safety, he used only five grams of thermobaric explosive each time.
The advantage was obvious: it was safer and would not blow the whole laboratory apart.
The downside was also obvious: the sample size was so small that the amount of chakra had to be controlled with extreme precision.
"If only I had a proper optical microscope. Even an electron microscope would do," Kenichi muttered, feeling a headache coming on.
Every time he did serious research in the shinobi world, he could not help lamenting the environment.
There was nothing here.
The microscopes were still at the level of junior high school lab equipment. Nothing more advanced. At times, Kenichi even wanted to develop a microscope himself.
"Fortunately, I have the Sharingan. I can see more clearly with it," Kenichi said, rubbing his eyes. "If I had the Mangekyo, I might be able to see even more."
If the Uchiha heard how he was using a three tomoe Sharingan, they would probably explode on the spot.
Three tomoe users were rare even among the Uchiha, and reaching that stage carried enormous combat value.
Yet Kenichi was using it to study explosives.
After injecting a small amount of fire attribute chakra, Kenichi saw the thermobaric explosive display a faint trajectory for an instant.
Before he could observe it properly, the thermobaric explosive detonated.
Fortunately, the blast room held.
Nothing went wrong.
Kenichi was very satisfied. Every ryo spent on this room felt worth it.
"Did I just see a change in the thermobaric explosive?" Kenichi did not waste time admiring the shelter. He grabbed pen and paper and quickly sketched what he remembered.
It looked like an ice flower, but not a snowflake. The shape was rougher, more jagged, less elegant.
"Coincidence, or the result of fire chakra?" Kenichi's interest flared.
He infused a small amount again, and the thermobaric explosive reacted once more.
This time, the pattern was slightly different from the previous one.
"No… even with identical proportions, there are subtle differences inside the explosive," Kenichi murmured. He recorded the second pattern, then performed two more tests.
The patterns differed, but the overall structure stayed similar.
At that point, Kenichi was certain. Infusing fire attribute chakra did cause some kind of internal response in thermobaric explosives.
And it produced a consistent style of change within the material.
Could this be interpreted as a possible trajectory of fire chakra moving through the thermobaric explosive?
"So what does this mean?" Kenichi asked himself, frowning.
The pattern was fascinating. It probably contained a lot of information.
The problem was learning how to decipher it.
Kenichi then tried other chakra attributes.
He discovered that every chakra nature produced different patterns.
Earth attribute chakra produced the smallest pattern, but it was extremely dense.
"Interesting," Kenichi muttered, writing it all down.
He tried other materials too, but nothing showed the same behavior. Only thermobaric explosives caused chakra to reveal these patterns.
Kenichi did not yet understand why.
He kept testing. Again and again.
He even found himself thinking about chakra integration while eating, as if he could chew the answer out of the meat.
But every attempt failed.
Eventually, the failures made him numb.
Was it truly impossible to fuse chakra directly into thermobaric explosives?
Was the only viable method to use superconducting metal as a carrier?
And what happened when that metal ran out?
After all, that metal came from a meteorite. It would eventually be used up. And there was no guarantee another material like it existed anywhere in the shinobi world.
"This is getting troublesome," Kenichi said, rubbing his hands together.
More than three months had passed inside the lab.
During that time, Orochimaru came by a few times, then vanished again. He likely went out on a mission.
Kenichi temporarily stopped chasing him down, partly because the experiments had burned through his remaining resources.
He needed new raw materials to make more thermobaric explosives.
Kenichi stepped into the rice lab next.
Four shadow clones were still stationed there, handling the crops.
"These rice plants look the same as always," Kenichi said, studying them.
"Not entirely," one of the clones added. "Sample 23 C is more vigorous. It's noticeably coarser than the other samples."
"Oh?" Kenichi leaned in, curiosity sharpening as he moved closer to inspect what was different.
<><><><><>
[Check Out My Patreon For +40 Advance Chapters On All My Fanfics!]
[[email protected]/FanficLord03]
[Join Our Discord Community For Updates & Events]
[https://discord.gg/MntqcdpRZ9]