Development Progress Built on Human Lives

Sakura Haruno demonstrated the first technique to Yuki.

This is the second stage of the Yin Seal, where energy is drawn from the outside and sealed onto the forehead.

Initially, energy was extracted from cloned hearts; then, complete clones were used as batteries. However, these methods still didn't accumulate energy quickly enough. Whether it was using Yang Release to create new clones or experimenting with the third stage of Cherry Blossom Impact, both required a lot of Chakra; and most of the clones she produced were used to experiment with new techniques, with only a small portion used as an energy source.

Before coming here, the Chakra stored in Sakura Haruno's Yin Seal was only about a hundred times her own Chakra —less than Naruto's when he used the Nine-Tails Chakra.

Since arriving in the Land of Snow, there has been more outflow than inflow, and reserves have been decreasing rather than increasing, falling to less than half.

This quantity is certainly insufficient to cope with future battles.

Using cloned hearts or clones as an energy source is not only inefficient, but also unusable in Konoha; she can't possibly return to the Land of Snow after every battle, can she?

Sakura put a lot of thought into the design of converting natural lightning into energy that ninjas could use.

The first step is to convert the lightning into a form of Sealing Jutsu storage, which requires a Sealing Jutsu called "Lightning Sealing Seal." As the name suggests, this seal can seal the lightning into a special spell.

This Sealing Jutsu is very obscure. Sakura Haruno eventually learned it from Jiraiya. He knew a complete set of Release Techniques, which could seal lightning, fire, wind blades, and so on. The most commonly used and famous one was the Fire Sealing Method: Flame Seal —the famous technique that could even seal Lian Zhao.

In this way, by using the "Lightning Sealing Seal," lightning can be transformed into the form of Lightning Release and sealed away.

By integrating this seal into the Yin Seal, the Yin Seal can directly extract the energy of Lightning Release when it is activated—and then it electrocutes itself.

This was a problem that Sakura Haruno only realized after sacrificing a clone. Fortunately, Sakura Haruno didn't immediately experiment with the Sealing Jutsu after learning it, but waited until she arrived in the Land of Snow before trying it out.

Such energy is too intense, unlike the Chakra normally stored in the Yin Seal, and cannot be directly used by the body.

Therefore, in addition to the Sealing Jutsu technique that stores the Lightning Release energy, another Sealing Jutsu technique that converts the energy must be set up.

To convert an enormous amount of energy into usable Chakra, there is only one option among the existing Sealing Jutsu...

That is, the Eight Trigrams Seal that can suppress and extract the Nine-Tails Chakra!

The amount of Chakra (the Nine-Tails) was absolutely catastrophic. When Naruto and Sakura fought Sasori together, she fully felt how enormous the amount of Chakra Naruto unleashed was. That dense Chakra, so thick that it could form a tangible Demon Fox Cloak, completely shattered Sakura's worldview.

And that enormous Chakra, she estimated, was less than one-tenth of the Nine-Tails '!

With her current Chakra reserves, Sakura Haruno probably couldn't accumulate that much Chakra even in a lifetime...

Therefore, the Eight Trigrams Seal, which can suppress the Nine-Tails, is more than enough to deal with this level of Lightning Release energy!

The only problem is that the Eight Trigrams Seal was designed by the Uzumaki Clan to seal the Nine-Tails. When the object to be sealed is Lightning Release energy, this Sealing Jutsu cannot function well and will always leak some Lightning Release energy from time to time. The Yin Seal acts directly on the body. Even a trace of Lightning Release energy that has not been completely converted will directly damage the fragile meridians and the nearby brain, and may even cause serious injury or death!

Therefore, in order to safely extract the Lightning Release energy from the Yin Seal, the Eight Trigrams Seal must be modified.

Sakura Haruno isn't particularly skilled in Sealing Jutsu —since Kushina Uzumaki, there are very few people in the world who are truly proficient in Sealing Jutsu.

Therefore, she could only rely on her own exploration and the sacrifice of her clones to slowly advance the modification of the Eight Trigrams Seal.

The slow progress was almost unbearable: even the Five Great Shinobi Villages would struggle with modifying such advanced Sealing Jutsu! The unstable seal on the One-Tail Beast was a prime example; the mighty Sunagakure couldn't even handle the Sealing Jutsu for the weakest Tailed Beast! Who knows how many of their lives they lost to create Gaara...

What makes her stronger than the Sunagakure is that Konoha at least has the Uzumaki Clan's Sealing Jutsu; moreover, she can afford to lose people!

For a ninja of Sakura Haruno's caliber, losing even one every few years would be an unbearable loss, but for her, it's almost like one of them is going to die every time... Fortunately, they are just clones.

Unsurprisingly, this experiment ended in failure very quickly.

In front of Xue's face, the clone was struck dead by the leaked Lightning Release. Suddenly, the Eight Trigrams Seal appeared in the Yin Seal on the clone's forehead, followed by a burst of lightning. After a series of crackling sounds, the clone slumped to the ground, its face covered with purplish-black tree-like markings, making it extremely ferocious and terrifying!

Then, a flash of light appeared on the light blue rod, Sakura Haruno's spirit returned to her body.

She sat up abruptly from the sofa, covered in sweat and breathing heavily.

Kazahana Koyuki quickly helped Sakura up. She touched Sakura's back and found her clothes were soaked with sweat. Suddenly, she realized what had happened. "You just died?"

The pink-haired girl nodded with difficulty.

Sakura's spirit returned to her original body only after the clone suffered a fatal injury, her physical body died completely, and her body could no longer bear her soul; she truly "died" again.

The mental pressure they experienced was immense.

For a moment, he was speechless and could only collapse helplessly to the side, still being supported by Xue.

"You're pushing yourself too hard." Xue didn't understand Ninjutsu, but as a professional actress, she could read expressions. This was the first time she had seen undisguised pain on Sakura's face—the agony she felt before being Lightning Release to death by lightning...

She held Sakura's hand with a touch of heartache and wiped the sweat from the girl's forehead.

Sakura Haruno knew that what she was doing was extremely dangerous. If her mind also judged that she was dead when her body died, then she would be truly doomed!

She had heard of similar cases from Sasuke.

The Uchiha possesses Genjutsu called "Tsukuyomi," which directly attacks a person's spirit by repeatedly killing them within Genjutsu space. If someone dies too many times in the Genjutsu space, by the time the Genjutsu ends, their physical body is still alive, but their spirit has already died!

The psychological impact of experiencing death in such a completely realistic way is no less than that of a powerful version of Tsukuyomi —after all, Tsukuyomi only creates a false sense of death through Genjutsu!

Therefore, it is possible that if Sakura Haruno were to accidentally believe that she was dead, her spirit would dissipate, and her soul would be sent to the underworld instead of returning to her body.

Fortunately, she had died so many times when she used her Ice Clone back then that she was used to it; and even if it was real death, she had experienced it once—the time she traveled through time—and she survived it without her soul dissipating. With her mental strength, she could withstand this pressure for the time being.

People are all driven to their limits; after dying so many times, Sakura doesn't feel so bad anymore.

After a long while, once she had caught her breath, Sakura managed a weak smile at Kazahana Koyuki.

"I'm fine now." She squeezed Xue's hand hard, gritted her teeth, and stood up.

Sakura Haruno's body was perfectly fine, so standing up shouldn't have been so difficult for her; it was just that her mind was in excruciating pain that made her appear so unsteady, as if she couldn't even stand up straight.

Kazahana Koyuki touched the spot where she had just been sitting; the sofa was soaked with sweat, leaving a mark. She sighed and asked, "Why did you work so hard, to this extent? You've 'died' this way so many times already!"

"Because I feel a sense of urgency..." Sakura steadied herself and said softly.

Future enemies won't wait for her to grow stronger...

Moreover, the second stage of the Yin Seal is the necessary path to the third stage - Yang God Mode. She must overcome the difficulties one by one, including how to convert foreign energy into Chakra mode energy, and how to extract high-density energy into energy that she can use... Otherwise, Yang God Mode will just be a mirage!

"Don't worry, I'm much better now! At first, I had to lie down for half an hour before I could stand up!" The girl's voice was weak, but her tone was strong.

Kazahana Koyuki shook her head secretly, watching as she Hand Seals, creating a water rope that swept away the corpse lying on the ground, and then put it somewhere else.

Then, Sakura Haruno recovered some of her energy and sat down at the table, starting to write and draw, sketching out one complex pattern after another with her pen.

A strong spirit brings with it a strong recovery ability. Just a few minutes after Sakura stood up, she began to work with a normal expression. She recorded the inspiration and experience gained from the experiment, and today's experiment was thus concluded.

--Dying once was already her mental limit.

"Let's go back!" Sakura said after finishing this.

"Wait, don't you still have a Ninjutsu you're developing?" Kazahana Koyuki was reluctant to leave so soon, as she would be subjected to Genjutsu once she returned, so she quickly said.

"That technique also kills people..." Sakura Haruno said wearily, "I've already died once, so I won't demonstrate it for you."

Seeing Xue's expectant eyes, Ying sighed, "Let's just chat for a bit, then you can get lost."

She said slowly.

"Cherry Blossom Impact is Secret Technique to improve reaction speed. Its basic principle is to accelerate the speed of nerve conduction, thereby improving reaction speed."

"For example, suppose a Kunai flies towards me and I dodge it. The whole process involves first seeing it, then the brain processing the image transmitted from the eyes, recognizing the danger, making the decision to dodge, and transmitting the dodge command to the hands and feet. The time required for this entire process is the reaction time; the purpose of the Cherry Blossom Impact is to shorten this time."

"Isn't it also divided into things like conditioned reflexes?" Xue asked, blinking.

"It would be too complicated to explain in detail. In short, just remember that even making the decision to 'dodge' 'subconsciously' takes time to think, about a few hundred milliseconds. Then, transmitting the decision made by the brain to the hands and feet also takes time."

The second stage of Cherry Blossom Impact involved the so-called "Motor Nerve Electronification," which shortened the time it took for nerve signals to travel from the brain to the hands and feet.

Therefore, logically, the task to be completed in the third stage is "Brain Overclocking," which uses the same neuroelectronic method as in stage two to accelerate the transmission speed of neural signals between brain cells and shorten the time spent thinking.

"Do you understand now?" Sakura asked.

"Okay, I'm getting the idea." Kazahana Koyuki frowned. "But why do people die when developing this technique?"

"The brain is very fragile..." Sakura rubbed her temples. "This technique of mine, after all, manipulates the brain, making it far more dangerous than the Yin Seal from before!"

(Second update delivered, two updates today! Extra updates starting tomorrow!)

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(The National Day holiday update rush is over. I need to take a break these two days to look up some information and organize the outline! I'll continue updating tomorrow, with at least 10K words every time!)