Acupoint Chakra

For the time being, it didn't matter.

Spring, Year 35 of Konoha.

Another year had passed.

Inside Laboratory Two of the Root Base, a special chakra within Li Yao's Gate of Life Chakra Acupoint slowly merged into the acupoint barrier. It gave off fluctuations identical to the invisible binding force of the acupoint barrier.

Then, a thread of normal chakra flowed out of the acupoint, only to be immediately caught by the Eight Trigrams Seal and sealed away.

Li Yao did not care about that at all.

Within his acupoints, chakra surged about freely.

If Li Yao had been controlling his body right now, the smile on his face would surely have been brilliant—full of joy.

After a year and a half of research, he had not only found a way to draw chakra from his acupoints, but had successfully achieved it.

The principle was actually quite simple.

Li Yao had discovered that the invisible force holding chakra firmly inside the acupoints and preventing it from escaping was the same type of force as the invisible power the Eight Trigrams Seal used to seal and restrain chakra.

Li Yao boldly speculated that sealing jutsu that restricted the flow of chakra might have been developed with inspiration from the invisible forces in acupoints and chakra pathways that bound chakra.

So, Li Yao's method of breaking through the invisible force of the acupoint barriers and freeing their sealed chakra was simple: just as he had condensed chakra identical to that of the Eight Trigrams Seal to break free of it.

He only needed to condense chakra that gave off fluctuations identical to the invisible force of the acupoint barriers.

When the invisible force restrained chakra, it also emitted a unique fluctuation.

The sealing chakra of the Eight Trigrams Seal likewise emitted a fluctuation, forming an invisible force that bound and confined chakra.

Based on this trait, Li Yao reverse-engineered chakra that emitted the same fluctuations as the invisible force of acupoints. That way, he could remove the restraints of that invisible force just as he would undo a sealing jutsu.

However, since there was no ready-made chakra template, Li Yao could only work it out through reverse deduction and trial and error, so it took a little longer.

In fact, he had come up with this method half a year ago.

Only today had he finally condensed the Acupoint Chakra capable of removing the restraints of an acupoint's invisible force.

Li Yao simply called this chakra, which could remove the restraints of an acupoint's invisible force, Acupoint Chakra. It was a new chakra nature with the attribute of restraining chakra flow.

Condensing Acupoint Chakra had taken quite a while this time.

But the results were gratifying as well.

Li Yao used Acupoint Chakra to open passages through his acupoints and controlled normal chakra as it flowed out—from a mere thread, to a stream as thick as a pair of chopsticks, and finally shut it off again. He could freely control the size of the passages opened in his acupoints and the amount of chakra flowing out from them.

This differed from the Eight Gates, where opening a gate directly blew open the entire acupoint and released all the chakra within it.

The Acupoint Chakra Li Yao had condensed was like a switch on a sluice gate. It could control the size of the passage opened in an acupoint, thereby controlling how much chakra flowed out.

The greatest benefit of being able to control the amount of chakra flowing out of an acupoint was that Li Yao no longer had to worry that opening one would cause a massive chakra eruption and injure his body.

In other words, even if he opened the Gate of Death and drew upon the chakra inside, he would not die.

To put it plainly, the reason the Eight Gates had the saying that opening the Gate of Death meant certain death was that the Gate of Death contained an enormous amount of chakra. Fully opening it and releasing all that chakra at once was simply too terrifying.

The body could not withstand an impact of chakra at that level.

That was why opening the Gate of Death meant certain death.

But if, like Li Yao, one only opened a small passage in the Gate of Death and drew upon its chakra through the chakra pathways like one would from a dantian, there was no need to worry about the chakra's impact damaging the body.

With Acupoint Chakra, the countless Chakra Acupoints throughout Li Yao's body were no different from dantians capable of storing chakra.

Combined with the acupoints' inherent ability to bind chakra and keep it from escaping, in a sense, every acupoint was a Yin Seal, capable of storing chakra he did not normally use.

If Li Yao filled every Chakra Acupoint in his body, his chakra reserves would break through a limit.

They would be at least a thousand times greater than if he only had a single dantian to store chakra.

With such a vast amount of chakra, it would basically be enough for combat.

Aside from Jinchuriki, his chakra reserves should not be inferior to anyone else's.

Thinking of this, Li Yao was very satisfied.

Acupoint Chakra had completely solved his problem of insufficient chakra.

He now had places to hide chakra.

He could also draw chakra from within his acupoints.

Next came the question of how to turn all that chakra into combat power.

According to Li Yao's plan, he first needed the strength to leave this secret base. Only then would he consider researching a Perfect Transformation Jutsu to evade Konoha's Sensory Barrier, as well as the tracking senses of Konoha ninja with chakra perception abilities, and escape Konoha.

Without the strength to get out of here, even if he developed the Perfect Transformation Jutsu, it would still be difficult for him to leave.

Over the past year, since no one had come to deal with him, Li Yao had regained control of his body once. He had seen where he was and realized that he was likely in an underground research base.

A research base like this had to be filled with all kinds of Sensory Barriers and defensive barriers, Even if he could turn into a bird with no chakra, he still would not be able to get out.

Besides, a bird or snake suddenly appearing in an underground research base would be far too conspicuous. Anyone would know something was wrong at a glance.

Li Yao would never underestimate a ninja's powers of observation.

Minato's appearance was still vivid in his mind. Li Yao would not make the same mistake again.

So, he had to gain formidable strength first.

But... how could he turn chakra into strength?

Li Yao pondered.

For Li Yao, there were only two paths to converting chakra into strength: ninjutsu and genjutsu.

There was no need to consider taijutsu.

He could not move at all right now. He had no way to take the path of taijutsu, which required the body to move.

He could only work on ninjutsu and genjutsu.

The ninjutsu he currently knew consisted of the basic Three Jutsu, as well as the Shadow Clone Technique he had learned from reading his predecessor's father's notes.

He knew no other ninjutsu, including the Rasengan.

Although he could easily condense chakra of other attributes, that required relevant ninjutsu hand seals and attribute chakra as templates. With those, he could easily replicate, condense, and develop them.

But he currently had no chakra templates for any other ninjutsu. He did not know the corresponding chakra nature transformations or shape transformations. On his own, he could only reverse-engineer and explore them like he had with Acupoint Chakra.

But that method of figuring things out himself had one problem: it took time.

And time was precisely what Li Yao did not have much of.

Although no one had paid him any attention for nearly two years.

Li Yao knew very well that the Third Hokage had not forgotten him.

Perhaps one day, he would remember Li Yao, come over, and grant him a quick death.

Li Yao was no longer afraid of death.

He simply did not want to die like this.

So, he had to increase his strength in a short period of time.

There was no way to improve his ninjutsu much in the short term.

And genjutsu was even less likely.

He did not know a single genjutsu... huh... that did not seem to be true!

Li Yao suddenly recalled the technique the Third Hokage had always used on him. He remembered now—once, the Third Hokage had furiously spat out the words, "Dark Walking Technique."

His memories from his previous life suddenly supplied the answer.

The Illusion Technique - Dark Walking Technique was a genjutsu developed by the Second Hokage specifically to counter the Sharingan. It could block a person's vision and plunge them into darkness.

Although this genjutsu had no direct offensive power, it was definitely an auxiliary ninjutsu well-suited to Li Yao.

At the very least, without any powerful offensive ninjutsu, the Illusion Technique - Dark Walking Technique would be a tremendous help in escaping this base.

"I'll learn this genjutsu first."

Li Yao made his decision at once.

He remembered that during the last few times the Third Hokage had used the Illusion Technique - Dark Walking Technique on him, his soul had already merged with his chakra, granting him the ability to sense chakra nature transformations and shape transformations.

Although the Third Hokage's chakra had not come into contact with his at the time, the genjutsu chakra activated during the technique had come into contact with Li Yao's chakra.

Li Yao desperately tried to recall the chakra nature transformations and shape transformations of the Third Hokage's Illusion Technique - Dark Walking Technique from that time.

As he recalled it, Li Yao controlled the chakra within his acupoints, simulating its nature transformations and shape transformations.

Since nearly two years had passed, Li Yao could not remember the chakra nature transformations and shape transformations of the Dark Walking Technique clearly. He could only reverse-engineer and explore them.

However, compared to Acupoint Chakra, which he could only reverse-engineer through fluctuations, reverse-engineering the chakra of the Dark Walking Technique should be much easier.

Still, no matter how much easier it was, one or two months would probably not be enough.

Li Yao felt that one or two months was acceptable.