Chakra Acupoints

"Hmph!"

Danzo sneered, not believing Sarutobi Hibiki's words at all. He directly ordered, "Three times. After three missions at most, I'll make my move."

Three missions to gather intelligence, then action on the fourth mission.

That was Danzo's bottom line. He understood the Third Hokage's intentions—he feared that acting against the Uchiha too frequently would stir up unnecessary trouble.

He agreed with that point as well.

But three missions to gather intelligence was already the longest he could endure.

"I'm sorry, Lord Danzo." Sarutobi Hibiki said apologetically, "Five missions is already the minimum needed to gather the intelligence. It can't be reduced any further. That is the Hokage's order."

Damn it!

Another Hokage order!

Using the Hokage to pressure him again!

Danzo fixed Sarutobi Hibiki with a murderous glare.

Sarutobi Hibiki lowered his head, not daring to meet his eyes.

But he would carry out the Hokage's words without hesitation.

His mission in coming to Root had been to prevent Danzo from acting on his own. Otherwise, given Danzo's temperament, if he truly caused some major incident, the Third Hokage would be the one most implicated in the end.

After all, Root had only just been established, and it was attached to the Anbu. No one would fail to see Root's intentions as the Third Hokage's intentions.

The Third Hokage had guarded against precisely this possibility, which was why he had sent this younger clansman to supervise Danzo and keep him from acting recklessly.

"Very well!"

This time, faced with Sarutobi Hibiki's refusal to yield even under the pressure of his stare, Danzo did not fly into a rage.

He took a deep breath, then waved Sarutobi Hibiki away. Afterward, he went alone to Lab One to continue researching the Sharingan.

Li Yao's existence was completely forgotten.

One day.

Two days.

Three days.

In the blink of an eye, three months had passed.

Inside Lab Two, Li Yao floated curled up like a fetus within the faintly green-glowing nutrient solution of one of the tall transparent glass pods.

Yet in Li Yao's Chakra perception, he was surrounded by a mass of Chakra radiating a gentle light.

No one has come for so long... It seems they intend to keep me sealed away for the time being.

Li Yao secretly speculated. Over the past three months, no one had come to tamper with his body, which was completely different from how he had been treated before.

But having been burned before, Li Yao made no unnecessary movements. Even though he had already thought of a way to conceal the increase in his Chakra, he did not test it.

He feared someone was watching him in secret, simply waiting for him to expose a flaw.

But now that three months had passed, Li Yao could not continue doing nothing.

He could not remain indifferent forever.

If he wanted to build up the strength to escape, he had to take a risk.

Let's begin.

Li Yao made up his mind. With a thought, he began controlling the naturally dispersed Physical Energy and Spiritual Energy within his body, gathering them toward the acupoints throughout his body, then condensing Chakra within those acupoints.

It worked!

A surge of joy rippled through Li Yao's Chakra fluctuations. Within the Chakra Acupoint at his chest, where his heart was located, a newly condensed mass of Chakra slowly flowed.

That's right.

It was flowing.

The newly added Chakra in the Chakra Acupoint was not restricted by the Eight Trigrams Seal like the Chakra in his meridians and dantian, unable to move.

This showed that Li Yao's idea for concealing newly generated Chakra had initially succeeded.

In Li Yao's Chakra perception, Chakra in the human body was not like water stored inside a human-shaped barrel.

Instead, it flowed through the body like blood, passing through countless meridian channels that spread throughout the entire body.

Just as Daoist internal energy had its own meridian system through which it flowed within the human body—

Chakra also had its own meridian circulation system.

The Chakra condensed within the body flowed through the meridian channels and was stored in the Chakra dantian.

Meanwhile, part of the Chakra in the Chakra dantian flowed back out along the meridian channels, naturally dispersing to nourish the physical body and improve its condition.

This was Chakra's circulatory flow within the body.

Once this Chakra circulation was restrained, a ninja could no longer use any Chakra-based ninjutsu.

The Eight Trigrams Seal restrained and sealed the body's entire Chakra meridian circulation system. At the same time, it devoured the target's Chakra from the meridians and dantian to sustain the sealing formula for an extended period, ensuring the permanent sealing of the target's Chakra.

For Li Yao to break free of the Eight Trigrams Seal's influence while concealing his newly gained chakra, he had to find a place to store that chakra which would remain unaffected by the Eight Trigrams Seal. That was the foundation.

Li Yao had actually found such a place.

Through chakra sensing, he discovered that both the chakra meridians and the chakra dantian were affected by the Eight Trigrams Seal, while the chakra within the countless Chakra Acupoints scattered along the meridian pathways alone remained unaffected.

These Chakra Acupoints were remarkable. Like reservoirs and dams built along a vast river, they restricted the flow of chakra while also storing it like a dantian.

At the same time, these Chakra Acupoints differed from the dantian. They were like Gene Locks, sealing away the chakra inside and completely isolating it from the external meridian pathways. This rendered the Eight Trigrams Seal's Sealing Jutsu Formula ineffective—or rather, unable to enter the Chakra Acupoints to seal and restrain the chakra within.

Compared to the dantian, Chakra Acupoints were like locked secret chambers for chakra, inaccessible to outsiders.

The dantian, meanwhile, was like a chakra main hall with its doors always open, allowing anyone to enter.

It was precisely this extraordinary quality of Chakra Acupoints, so different from the chakra dantian, that gave Li Yao hope of concealing his newly gained chakra.

After all, not even the Eight Trigrams Seal could affect the chakra within the Chakra Acupoints.

That meant Chakra Acupoints were excellent places capable of shielding chakra from chakra sensing to a certain extent.

If the newly gained chakra were stored within them, then even ninja with chakra sensing abilities would likely find it difficult to detect the increase in Li Yao's chakra reserves, even at close range.

This bought Li Yao time to quietly accumulate strength.

However, everything before had merely been speculation.

Only now had it been preliminarily verified.

As for whether it could truly evade the senses of ninja with chakra sensing abilities, Li Yao did not know. He would have to test it to find out.

There was still a certain risk of exposure.

But it was not a major issue. After all, this was the method Li Yao could think of that had the greatest chance of evading chakra sensing.

Inside Lab Two, deep within the silent Root facility.

Li Yao continued guiding the naturally dissipating physical energy and Spiritual Energy within his body toward the Chakra Acupoint near his heart, then controlled the two to merge at a one-to-one ratio and condense into chakra.

There were many acupoints within the human body, spread throughout every part of it.

But not all acupoints were the same.

Some could store large amounts of chakra, while others could store very little.

Put simply, some acupoints were large, and some were small.

Through Li Yao's chakra sensing, he found eight Chakra Acupoints in his body that were far larger than the others—dozens or even hundreds of times larger.

The largest among them was the Chakra Acupoint near his heart. According to his senses, it could store no less chakra than his dantian. It could practically be called a second chakra dantian.

Of the other seven Chakra Acupoints, two were located in his brain, while the remaining five were arranged vertically from the center of his upper chest down to below his navel.

They looked somewhat like the Eight Gates of the Eight Gates... Hm?

"It seems these eight Chakra Acupoints are located exactly where the Eight Gates of the Eight Gates are!"

Li Yao suddenly realized it. In his previous life, he had seen diagrams showing the locations of the Eight Gates. He had also studied medicine, so he had some understanding of the human body's meridians and acupoints. The impression had remained fairly deep.

Now that he remembered, the Chakra Acupoint where he was storing his newly gained chakra was the position of the Gate of Death among the Eight Gates.

In other words, his newly gained chakra was being stored in the Gate of Death.

"This... seems a little troublesome!"