Chapter 197: Ideas for Improving Gene Programmed Ninja Techniques
Kenichi was just about to dig into the genetic data he had finally obtained from the Uchiha when an unexpected problem came knocking.
Sasori had arrived.
Kenichi had told Sasori the location of his lab beforehand, so it was not surprising that Sasori knew exactly where to find him.
"Kenichi, let me tell you, I've made an incredible invention!" Sasori's eyes were bright with excitement, as if he had just discovered a new continent.
"What invention?" Kenichi looked at him, genuinely confused. He knew Sasori's previous attempts well enough. When Sasori left last time, nothing had reached a real breakthrough yet. How did he suddenly leap forward?
"You'll see when you come over." Sasori grabbed Kenichi's sleeve and started tugging him along.
Kenichi immediately sped up. He was not worried about Sasori dragging him, he was worried about Sasori getting too excited and accidentally ripping his clothes.
A moment later, Kenichi finally saw what Sasori had been talking about.
In a deep pit stood a massive metal puppet.
A tin golem, towering to an absurd height.
Kenichi estimated it was at least twenty meters tall.
Twenty meters meant something very specific in his mind. Back in his previous life, if you calculated a floor height of 2.8 meters, that was about a seven story building.
He stared at the giant for a few seconds, then looked at the crater around it.
The pit was so deep that the puppet still sat about five meters below the surface.
This used to be flat ground.
Now it looked like Sasori had spent the day trying to excavate the center of the world through sheer stubbornness and repeated blasting.
"Can this thing actually move now?" Kenichi asked, suspicious. "Or is it going to explode any second?"
It was not that Kenichi did not trust Sasori.
It was that Sasori had an impressive history of giving explosions the confidence to believe in themselves.
Sasori smiled slightly, but as he looked at the giant puppet in front of him, he still fell into thought, as if deciding what to do with it next.
"It won't explode, don't worry," Sasori said with absolute confidence. He patted his chest proudly. "I've been making it for a whole day."
"One day?" Kenichi's lips twitched. Was this Sasori's new record for safe production time?
Sasori walked up to the puppet and patted the metal plating twice.
The golem responded.
Its massive arm creaked upward, then steadied, and the fingers shifted into position.
It raised its hand and formed a hand seal gesture.
Kenichi froze.
"This thing can form hand seals?" Kenichi's shock was genuine. If the puppet could form seals and actually use ninjutsu, that would be a real invention. It would not just change battlefield tactics, it would erase entire job descriptions.
Sasori shook his head, as if embarrassed by the question. "I can make it form hand seals, but it can't use ninjutsu."
Kenichi exhaled slowly. The terror faded, but only slightly.
A giant puppet that could throw out ninjutsu would be an extinction level event for ordinary shinobi careers.
Even now, a twenty meter puppet was still an enormous target, and a very expensive one.
"So how about its hardness?" Kenichi asked, forcing himself back into practical mode. "Can it withstand ninjutsu?"
If it was big but fragile, then it was just a walking monument to overconfidence.
"Yeah, I tested it," Sasori replied, then his expression turned awkward. "It can withstand a Chunin's ninjutsu without any problem."
Kenichi's lips twitched again.
One Chunin.
So, if someone used something like Fire Dragon Flame Bullet or even a standard Great Fireball with enough force, this thing would start looking a lot less like a golem and a lot more like scrap.
Not to mention other techniques. If it was his friend's Lightning Flash, it would probably pierce straight through the puppet.
Still, Kenichi did not dismiss it.
For Sasori, reaching this level was already a huge step forward.
At least the puppet did not explode during assembly, even if that meant giving up the Nine Tails chakra.
Kenichi had long suspected there might be some overall limit to chakra in the shinobi world. Kaguya had needed the Divine Tree to absorb chakra before she could even be unsealed. If Sasori kept gambling with ridiculous energy sources, he would eventually gamble himself into a disaster.
"Sasori, based on what we know about metals, even the best metals probably can't withstand high level ninjutsu head on," Kenichi said. "Why don't you develop externally instead?"
"The outside?" Sasori frowned, confused.
"Yes." Kenichi nodded and explained briefly. "Use chakra to form a protective circle around the puppet. An energy shield. Let that neutralize ninjutsu before it hits the metal."
A barrier built from chakra, not from material strength.
It was the same logic as upgrading armor by adding a second layer, except this layer could actively resist.
Sasori's eyes sharpened as he listened.
After Kenichi finished, Sasori was clearly interested. He said he would try it, then turned around and went to experiment with almost frightening enthusiasm.
Kenichi shrugged and headed back to his own laboratory.
He still had work to do, and none of it was the kind that could be solved by digging a new crater into the earth.
Back in the dim lab, Kenichi stared at the records in the experiment log, then sank into thought.
Deciphering the Uchiha clan's genetic code was already a tedious task. It was not just the general Uchiha data, it was Obito, Shisui, Itachi, and even the special cases like Sasuke and Naruto.
It was exhausting.
Even if he brought more people in, how was he supposed to determine which genes corresponded to which functions?
This was no less absurd than getting a caveman to skillfully play League of Legends on a computer and then demanding he solo kill the Demon King.
The difficulty was not just high.
The entire path was missing half its tools.
In his previous life, if you wanted to confirm whether genetic information affected a specific cell process or disease mechanism, there were many methods.
qPCR could determine RNA expression levels.
Immunoblotting could show protein changes.
There were countless ways to verify.
Here, the shinobi world's technological level was a mystery. For now, the only real instruments available to Kenichi and his teacher were the ones built for gene separation and identification.
That meant his research was approaching a dead end.
The experiment had reached a stalemate.
Current instruments were not enough to verify his theory.
The only solution left was live experimentation.
Kenichi rubbed his face, the exhaustion settling into his bones.
"So if these methods can't be verified, I can only verify at the single cell level," he muttered. "But even that kind of verification could have problems…"
It was something that had to be done.
If he wanted to improve gene programmed ninjutsu, he needed a safer testing path first.
That was when his mind locked onto the obvious answer.
Mice.
White mice were familiar to any biological researcher. They reproduced quickly, their genetics had useful similarities to humans, and they were perfect as test material.
Using mice to test improvements to gene programmed ninjutsu was a good choice.
Compared to humans, mice had far fewer cells, which reduced the difficulty.
It was still hard, but it was a necessary step. Only by mastering gene modification in a controlled environment could he ever hope to apply it to future human gene modification.
Kenichi retrieved a cage of mice from his teacher's lab. Guinea pigs existed in the shinobi world too, but not many were bred. Fortunately, his teacher had specially bred test animals, and those had only been created at Kenichi's suggestion in the first place.
Kenichi began with gene isolation and analysis, then extracted the genes marked as abnormal.
Then he tried something that would have been horrifying in his previous life.
He enveloped the mouse in chakra.
Using chakra, he attempted to insert the abnormal genetic information into cells throughout the mouse's body.
In his previous life, this kind of full body insertion would have been almost impossible.
In this world, chakra was a ridiculous power, and the ridiculous was often practical.
The moment he began, Kenichi felt a chill crawl up his spine.
His awareness expanded unnaturally, like his mind was trying to observe countless processes at once.
For an instant, he felt dizzy, as if he were staring at hundreds of millions of cells simultaneously.
He had been careful.
He truly had.
But the process was still crude.
Countless cells were punctured. Many became abnormally excited after being soaked in Yang chakra. Some cancerous cells even began proliferating on their own.
Kenichi finished the insertion process anyway.
Then he stood there in silence, staring at the mouse, waiting for a miracle.
No miracle came.
The mouse died.
It died horribly.
Its organs dissolved. Blood spilled from its mouth, mixed with strange substances, until only a layer of foul smelling skin remained.
Kenichi stared at the result for a long time, then began cleaning the table.
Science was not something you guessed into existence. It demanded proof, and it punished shortcuts.
When Kenichi had been trying to identify the decisive genes behind the Mangekyo Sharingan, he had never dared to experiment on his own eyes.
Now he was reminded why.
"This kind of gene programming is more like a brutal forced behavior," Kenichi said quietly, more to himself than anyone else. "It ignores whether cells are willing to accept it and just stuffs it in. Of course cells die."
His teacher's unique ninjutsu was currently the only technique in the shinobi world capable of gene programming.
It was far fetched, but it could succeed.
The problem was its mortality rate. It was extremely high, which made it impractical. If the test subject died every time, how could you observe any effects?
Comprehensive gene programming on a mature individual was simply too difficult.
So Kenichi leaned back, eyes narrowing as his thoughts sharpened.
"At least we have a direction," he murmured.
He began laying out options in his head.
The first solution was to modify gene programmed ninjutsu to reduce mortality and increase the success rate.
The chance of success was low, and the difficulty was extreme, but it was a direct path.
The second approach was to find the gene with the highest probability, then program only the eye cells and observe whether any changes occurred.
Or he could directly program an entire eyeball.
Kenichi stood up as the thought formed.
Then he paused, stared at the messy notes, and let out a tired breath.
Only children made choices.
He wanted both.
Still, even if he chose a direction, verification methods for these genes required more instruments and reagents than he currently had.
So for now, his work continued the hard way.
Live experiments.
Careful comparisons.
And endless decoding.
At some point, Kenichi checked on the rice improvement project.
The rice was growing well, but it would still take half a year to mature. There was no way to speed it up.
He disbanded several shadow clones and created new ones to handle rice cultivation anyway. With the arrival of the Uchiha clan, flight needs had become more urgent, and he could not afford to let logistics slip.
As for entering and exiting the aerial base, Kenichi already had ideas. He planned to use inventions from the Sky Ninja Village to let people fly freely, though it would require Wind Release chakra.
For Uchiha, that should not be a problem.
His thoughts drifted back to Sasori for a moment.
Kenichi did not know how many times Sasori had failed before reaching a stable assembly, but the crater outside made it obvious Sasori had failed plenty.
Nagato had even been so overwhelmed by one explosion that Kenichi had to drag Sasori away. That was rare. Nagato usually had decent patience. The fact he was irritable now said everything.
Kenichi rubbed his forehead.
If he became the greatest enemy of the shinobi world before the Akatsuki even fully became itself, that would be embarrassingly inefficient.
He set those thoughts aside and returned to the log.
The research was slow.
Brutal.
Necessary.
.....
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