Designing a Sharingan Awakening

However, Minamoto Takuya did not return to his old home, but to a brand-new house with a courtyard.

He had bought this house after becoming the head of the Sealing Team. With that status, he could get housing at basically the lowest price bracket.

After becoming team leader, his salary was considerable, and the higher-ups also provided research funds, forcing him to take missions less frequently.

After all, why had he taken missions before? To earn money for researching Sealing Jutsu, wasn't it?

Now that he had research funding and a generous salary, constantly running off to do missions would obviously raise some questions.

Since he was spending more time in the village, his old excuse of rarely being home no longer worked. Naturally, he needed a proper house.

His current house had been carefully chosen. It was far from the Hokage Building, and there were no particularly powerful shinobi nearby.

That was right. He had chosen it this way because he was worried that using the Summoning Technique to leave might attract attention.

Minamoto Takuya did not rest after returning. Instead, he headed to the Sealing Team.

"Team Leader, you're here?"

The Sealing Team member on guard was not surprised in the slightest when he saw Minamoto Takuya.

It was perfectly normal for the other man to come to work in the middle of the night. In the eyes of the Sealing Team's shinobi, their newly appointed leader was excessively obsessed with Sealing Jutsu. They truly did not know what to say about it.

The hostility they had once felt toward this leader who had suddenly been dropped into their ranks gradually faded away.

Of course, the most important thing was that his skill in Sealing Jutsu completely crushed the entire Sealing Team.

"Mm. Not sleepy this time?" Minamoto Takuya asked with a smile.

"Hehe, how could I dare?" The man scratched his head, grumbling inwardly. Everyone knew the old man might show up in the middle of the night. Who would dare slack off at a time like this?

"Alright, I'm going in." Minamoto Takuya did not chat with him for long. He was not like the Third Hokage, capable of exchanging a few words with anyone.

"Yes!"

After Minamoto Takuya left, the guard's face lit up with delight.

Everyone knew that once their team leader went inside to research Sealing Jutsu, he would basically never come back out. That meant no one would notice if he slacked off now!

Minamoto Takuya actually knew the man would slack off after he left, but he did not care. He had never intended to impose overly harsh discipline.

He arrived at the sealing sphere controlling the barrier around the village and inspected its records. There were Summoning Techniques at this point in time as well, though they were rare. Among them, he found the trace belonging to himself.

"So there really is a trace?" Minamoto Takuya narrowed his eyes. If he wanted to make completely untraceable transfers, it seemed he would have to make slight alterations to the barrier and leave behind a hidden door that only he knew about.

With that in mind, Minamoto Takuya erased his own trace, formed several Shadow Clones, and began researching Sealing Jutsu.

It could be said that he was openly using the Sealing Team's research funds to study the Sealing Jutsu he needed. As for how he would account for it later, the Sealing Jutsu he had previously researched had produced quite a few byproducts anyway.

He could just casually toss out a few of them as results to submit.

He could even hand some unimportant Sealing Jutsu to his team members and have them help refine and improve them.

What he was researching now was not a new Sealing Jutsu, but something he had already been studying before.

At the time, however, the main focus had been Sealing Jutsu meant to cut apart Tailed Beast Chakra. Though he had researched this technique as well, it had not been the primary direction, so its development was only halfway complete.

The core of this combined sealing technique he intended to develop was memory extraction, Memory Seal, and creating Illusionary Realms based on extracted memories.

Memory extraction was something that could be accomplished in the world of the Hokage—for example, through the Yamanaka Clan's Secret Techniques, or through certain special types of Genjutsu combined with other methods.

Of course, there was also the Human Path ability of the Rinnegan.

In any case, memory extraction was possible. What he was doing now was finding a way to achieve it through Sealing Jutsu.

As for Memory Seal, there was even less need to mention it. Minato Namikaze had used that Sealing Jutsu at the end of the Dragon Vein movie.

For the final step, creating an Illusionary Realm, he had recently gone out of his way to find books on Genjutsu and learn the relevant knowledge. Since this was illusion-based and had clear memories to use as templates, it was not particularly difficult.

After fully grasping the barrier-type Sealing Jutsu Minato Namikaze had given him, progress on this combined sealing technique had advanced by a great deal.

It could be said that Minato Namikaze had inadvertently done him a huge favor.

Otherwise, it would have taken at least several more years to develop this combined sealing technique. But now...

If he sped up the research, he should be able to complete it this year.

At that point, he could simulate the experiences he needed based on the people in those memories.

Naturally, this combined sealing technique was being developed for the Sharingan.

After all, the Sharingan required intense emotions to awaken. One even had to experience "love" first, and then, upon losing that "love," the brain would receive intense stimulation. Chakra would flood into the eyes, causing the eyeballs to mutate and thus awaken the Sharingan.

In reality, Minamoto Takuya could not think of anyone he cared about. He probably would never have someone he could "love" in this life.

He had determined that long ago, which was why he had chosen to research this Sealing Jutsu to help him awaken the Sharingan.

As for the speculation that sufficiently powerful spiritual energy alone could awaken it, speculation was still just speculation. Naturally, he would not treat it as fact.

He could test it, but that would not stop him from pursuing Sealing Jutsu research.

In fact, he felt that his spiritual energy was already quite strong, yet something still seemed to be missing when it came to awakening the Sharingan.

Based on his analysis of how the Uchiha in the Original Work awakened their Sharingan, what he lacked was sufficiently abundant emotion.

That did not necessarily include loss. For example, Obito Uchiha had awakened his Two-Tomoe Sharingan without losing anything, purely because of "love." Of course, when he did lose something, it was even more extreme—he jumped directly from the Two-Tomoe Sharingan to the Mangekyō Sharingan.

He did not watch much Boruto, but from the clips he had come across, it seemed there was someone in that era who had directly awakened the Mangekyō through love...

Seriously, how were the Uchiha of Naruto supposed to feel about that?

But whether it was Naruto or Boruto, none of it applied to Minamoto Takuya. Even he admitted that his emotions were somewhat too faint. No one who could make him "love" would appear, nor would anyone emerge whom he could hate to the bone.

Other than being slightly excited when he acquired the Chimera Technique, his emotions had always remained quite stable.

So Minamoto Takuya felt that if he wanted to awaken the Sharingan through his own emotions, he might as well go wash up and sleep. Anything was possible in dreams.