Activating the Sage Body

After some time, Shimura Danzō finally emerged from his earlier fear and anxiety and regained his composure. Thinking that the Rinnegan brat had yet to make a move after all these years, either Hanzo of the Salamander had him tied down, or he too feared the strength of Konoha, the greatest ninja village.

"Looks like I should leave Konoha less often until those two are eliminated."

"Was that vortex the Masked Man vanished through Space-Time Ninjutsu? Is he really Uchiha Madara?"

"Using the Mangekyō Sharingan so recklessly, wearing a mask, possessing Space-Time Ninjutsu... Could he be the one who caused the Nine-Tails Incident seven years ago, leading to Namikaze Minato and his wife perishing together?"

"The intelligence sent after the battle showed that the Nine-Tails had suddenly appeared within the village. Someone capable of summoning the Nine-Tails and connected to the Rinnegan... Even if he isn't Uchiha Madara, he must have an extraordinary relationship with him. Perhaps Uchiha Madara hated the Uchiha Clan for betraying him back then, and sent this Masked Man to Konoha to wipe out the clan."

Countless questions surfaced in Shimura Danzō's mind, deepening his wariness of the Masked Man. Looking at the destroyed laboratory before him, he realized that the massive cluster of Hashirama Cells he had cultivated had vanished. This enraged Shimura Danzō and intensified his killing intent toward the Masked Man even further.

Setting aside Shimura Danzō's impotent rage over losing his high-end laboratory and Hashirama Cells, Minagawa Uchiha had not, as Danzo believed, used Space-Time Ninjutsu to leave the Root Base directly.

Although Minagawa Uchiha also possessed the ability to turn intangible, it was fundamentally different from Obito Uchiha's Kamui. After Materialization to Void, his intangibility merely allowed him to decide whether to project his image into reality, imitating Kamui's outward appearance. It possessed no Space-Time attribute.

Looking at the Hashirama Cells within the Dream Space, Minagawa Uchiha felt an intense desire to fuse with them. Even simply maintaining this Dream Space over a long period was becoming too much for his Dojutsu Power and Chakra. Without further delay, he left the Root Base and hurried home. As he passed the contemplative Shimura Danzō, he did not forget to plant a spore parasite on him.

The Dream Space derived from the duality of Izanagi and Izanami was a very wondrous place. According to Minagawa Uchiha's experiments, either the power of his Sharingan surpassed the real-world dimension, or the dimension in which this space existed was lower than the power of his Sharingan.

Therefore, when opening and maintaining this Dream Space, Minagawa Uchiha's Chakra and Dojutsu Power consumption was not overly severe. However, he had merely connected to this dream dimension and could create within it a Dream Space belonging solely to himself. All of that still required Chakra and Dojutsu Power.

Once that supply was cut off, the Dream Space would disappear, and everything inside it would be lost within this dream dimension.

In an instant, Minagawa Uchiha returned home. After hurriedly shutting the doors and windows, he turned himself intangible and entered the Dream Space.

Staring at the Hashirama Cells before him, Minagawa Uchiha could not help imagining the terrifying leap in strength that would surely come after fusing with them. Once he had fully developed it and upgraded his Mangekyō Sharingan into an Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan, he would become a fusion of Uchiha Madara and Hashirama Senju.

Based on the known intelligence, the Uchiha Clan and Senju Clan came from the same lineage, both passed down from the Sage of Six Paths.

Then, in terms of genetic inheritance, the Uchiha Clan should also possess the power of the Sage Body. Yet from Indra to the Uchiha Clan a thousand years later, the power of the Sage Body had never appeared.

Thus, when he fused with White Zetsu last time, Minagawa Uchiha had already formed a hypothesis. Either the inheritance of the Divine Tree's power was extremely unstable, causing this power to be lost through generation after generation of inheritance, or the genetic information of the Sage Body still existed within the Uchiha Clan but remained an unexpressed recessive gene.

However, whether it had been lost or remained an unexpressed recessive gene, both the Uchiha and Senju were derived from the Divine Tree's power. If it had been lost, then the two could complement one another. If it was a recessive gene, fusing with the Senju's power could also activate his own Sage Body.

For Minagawa Uchiha, who was about to fuse with Hashirama Cells, this outcome could not have been better. Either way, he would not lose out. Of course, if he had to choose between the two, activating his own Sage Body would be better. That would be the most compatible with himself, and its growth potential would also be higher.

Hashirama Senju's Sage Body had reached its endpoint by the time he died, but Hashirama Senju had not been born that powerful. His Sage Body had grown little by little. Whether Hashirama Senju had fully developed his Sage Body by that time was impossible to say.

If that were the case, then the Sage Body obtained through fusion and supplementation could never surpass Hashirama Senju at its peak. Therefore, activating his own Sage Body, whether in terms of perfect compatibility or growth potential that could exceed Hashirama Senju, would be far superior to the former.

Minagawa Uchiha cast aside his distracting thoughts and adjusted himself to his best condition. No longer hesitating, he immediately began the complete fusion. With the experience from last time, he was not worried about any other accidents occurring.

Just as he had guessed, perhaps because fusing with White Zetsu's cells had greatly strengthened his own, the instant the fusion began and his cells came into contact with the Hashirama Cells, Nanga's cells erupted with a formidable life essence that was not inferior to the Hashirama Cells in the slightest. They were merely somewhat lacking in quantity.

Minagawa Uchiha was overjoyed by this sight. It proved that, stimulated by the Hashirama Cells, his own cells had finally activated the essence of his Sage Body.

Not daring to be careless, Minagawa Uchiha changed his strategy. Rather than allowing both sides to adapt and fuse with each other, he used his absolute control over the Dream Space to suppress every function of the Hashirama Cells. Treating them as nourishment for his own cells, he began devouring them directly.

Under the guidance of Minagawa Uchiha, who was like a god within this space, every cell in his body was quickly activated and began devouring and plundering everything from the Hashirama Cells. Before long, nothing remained of that massive cluster of Hashirama Cells. This signified that Minagawa Uchiha had successfully activated his own Sage Body.

Feeling the surging power within his body, Minagawa Uchiha knew that, due to devouring the Hashirama Cells, the degree to which his Sage Body had awakened was already considerable. He eagerly prepared to use Materialization to Reality so that he could properly experience the changes in his new body in the real world.

"Damn, this consumed even more Chakra than last time. But with this power surging forth entirely from within me, that amount of consumption is nothing."