Chapter 164: Is the Evolution of the Sharingan Actually a Case of Atavism?
"Teacher, has Tadokoro Koji produced any results yet?" Kenichi suddenly remembered someone he had almost forgotten.
Ever since he brought Tadokoro back from Ancor, there had been no news at all. If Orochimaru had not said the man was still alive, Kenichi might have suspected his teacher had already turned him into expendable material.
"It's nothing." Orochimaru shook his head. "The Zero Tails you captured is still growing."
Orochimaru did remember Tadokoro. At first, he had been mildly interested, since Tadokoro had mastered the so called secret of flight.
But after some research, Orochimaru concluded there was nothing especially mysterious about it.
It was simply extracting the Zero Tails chakra, then outputting it through a propulsion device to drive flight. The energy required increased along with the total weight of the structure. The situation Kenichi had mentioned earlier would need a massive energy supply.
The efficiency was terrible.
Orochimaru planned to refine the design using Tadokoro's work as a base, reducing consumption and increasing output to achieve a cleaner result.
"Their energy utilization is extremely low," Orochimaru said with open disgust. "They need an absurd number of batteries just to keep it running. Pointless."
According to those people, it would take at least several jonin just to support the Zero Tails energy conversion.
Yet the conversion itself was wasteful, and with the Zero Tails acting as an intermediary, the whole system was unstable. That was exactly why the Sky Village installed a limiter on the Zero Tails in the first place, because they feared it would stop cooperating.
Kenichi felt both amused and exasperated. His teacher truly was a perfectionist.
Then again, maybe only someone like Orochimaru could produce so many results.
"A flying structure needs full internal linkage," Orochimaru said, eyes bright with excitement. "Relying on only four thrust points to force flight consumes too much. Precision is better."
"Linkage? Precision?" Kenichi froze, his thoughts snapping back to his own ongoing experiments.
He told Orochimaru what he had been working on, then returned to his laboratory. The rice still was not ripe, which meant he had time. His teacher's words had sparked an idea.
In the earlier tests, Kenichi had directly stimulated the amygdala, but it had proven ineffective. The subjects could not endure it. They died without opening their Sharingan.
Now he had a different thought.
Since that strange little fleshy granule only appeared in the amygdala of Uchiha who had awakened the Sharingan, why not stimulate that specific point directly?
And if he stimulated the hippocampus and hypothalamus at the same time, maybe the result would change.
With that decision made, Kenichi dragged out the last remaining male shinobi from the cave and brought him into the lab. There, he removed the man's brain and placed it into nutrient solution.
"Don't be so nervous," Kenichi said, offering a thin comfort.
Then his chakra flowed, slowly probing into the man's amygdala. Before long, he found it.
The small fleshy granule.
Kenichi marked the spot with chakra, then used Yin chakra to stimulate the bump directly. A moment later, the granule absorbed a small amount of Yin chakra.
Once the Yin chakra entered, the subject's emotional fluctuations became obvious.
His body trembled. Tears spilled. His breathing turned rapid and uneven.
Kenichi then used a small amount of Yin chakra to stimulate the hypothalamus and hippocampus as well. He did not dare use too much, only a careful thread.
Even so, the reaction exceeded his expectations.
[After stimulating the hippocampus and hypothalamus, the subject began hallucinating. He called out the name "Mena," then his body trembled violently, and his heart rate climbed to 158.]
Kenichi increased the Yin chakra infusion into the fleshy granule.
The heartbeat accelerated again, climbing quickly to a terrifying 189.
Strangely, the subject stopped crying. Instead, he made low, meaningless growls.
The phenomenon that appeared before the amygdala began to fail was what Kenichi tentatively labeled the overclocking phenomenon. Based on previous cases, overclocking lasted roughly 80 to 92 seconds.
After that, irreversible damage would occur, and the subject would die immediately.
Kenichi stopped infusing chakra into the amygdala.
But he noticed the amygdala was still slowly changing color.
[Even after the chakra infusion stopped, the overclocking phenomenon continued. The amygdala's temperature began rising. This appears to be irreversible and requires further investigation.]
Kenichi frowned, watching the subject convulse.
If this continued, the man would die just like the others. In that case, Kenichi might as well squeeze out one last piece of data.
He increased the Yin chakra infusion into the hypothalamus, hippocampus, and the amygdala granule.
Soon, the subject lost control of his bladder. His heart rate exceeded 200, climbing to 203.
Kenichi abandoned all hope of gentle indoctrination. It was pointless.
With one last violent tremor, the subject stopped struggling.
Then, to Kenichi's surprise, the heartbeat began to drop. The breathing steadied.
[The overclocked amygdala began returning to its original state. I observed a strange flow of chakra emerging from the subject's amygdala, then instantly entering his eyes.]
[Was the experiment a success?]
Kenichi could hardly believe it, but he forced himself to be patient. He waited for the subject to regain consciousness, then ordered him to activate the Sharingan.
Two tomoe appeared.
"Two tomoe?" Kenichi's eyes widened. "This worked?"
He flipped through his experiment log, excitement surging.
"In other words, the amygdala is crucial to the Sharingan's evolution in the Uchiha. Some mysterious chakra flows out from the amygdala and enters the eyes."
He paced the lab, unable to sit still.
But he knew better than to celebrate too early. One success meant nothing unless it could be reproduced. He needed multiple trials. If he could repeat it, then his conclusion would hold weight.
"Let's confirm it first," Kenichi muttered. "My guess was right. That fleshy piece played a key role."
He gathered Yang chakra and probed into the subject's amygdala again.
The subject had begun laughing, but Kenichi ignored him. He found the location of the fleshy mass and sensed that it had grown slightly larger.
"If this existed in my previous life, it would be diagnosed as a brain tumor." Kenichi licked his lips, staring at the brain with a researcher's hunger. He wanted to cut it open immediately and see whether the composition of the lump had changed.
But he forced himself to stop.
Verification came first.
After the lab was cleaned, Kenichi brought in the last remaining Uchiha shinobi and followed the procedure exactly.
Remove the brain. Stimulate the fleshy granule in the amygdala. Simultaneously stimulate the hippocampus and hypothalamus. When overclocking appeared, increase stimulation. When the timing was close, stop the Yin chakra infusion and wait.
This time, as the subject's heartbeat steadied and his breathing slowed, Kenichi clearly felt it again.
A stream of chakra flowed from the amygdala into the eyes.
But this chakra did not belong to Yin or Yang. It was something different, something more peculiar.
"What kind of chakra is this?" Kenichi was practically elated. He had unlocked part of the Sharingan's secret, but now a new question rose immediately.
One problem solved, another created.
There were seven chakra natures, yet this chakra matched none of them. Kenichi suspected it was a fused chakra.
"Could it be a fusion of Yin and Yang?"
He thought of a possibility.
When it came to creating something from nothing, Yin Yang Release was the perfect fit. If Yin Yang Release was involved in Sharingan evolution, it was not impossible.
The Uchiha were descendants of the Sage of Six Paths. Their inherited bloodline had thinned. They no longer possessed the Sage's physique or unique chakra.
But they were still descendants.
And the Sharingan's ultimate path led toward the Rinnegan.
"So could it be," Kenichi said slowly, "that the Sharingan's evolution is actually a kind of atavism?"
A return toward ancestral traits.
It still needed confirmation.
When the female shinobi regained consciousness, Kenichi discovered she also had awakened a two tomoe Sharingan.
No three tomoe.
"So is this method only enough to push them to the second tomoe?" Kenichi frowned. "Do I need something else to reach the third?"
He even checked the elective tasks, only to find he had not completed them either.
That proved it.
This was not yet a truly groundbreaking breakthrough in Sharingan research.
Looking at the two exhausted, weakened subjects, Kenichi had no choice but to stop for now and let them recover.
In his personal judgment, Sharingan evolution looked like bloodline purification, drawing closer to a higher level bloodline, something nearer to the Otsutsuki.
He just needed proof.
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