Further Fusion Plans

After using his current body to test out his various ninja techniques, Minamoto Takuya's expression grew even more satisfied.

Not only could he use them more times, but their power had increased tremendously as well.

Just like Six Paths Naruto and Six Paths Sasuke at the end—Six Paths Naruto clearly did not have many mechanics, yet his damage was absurdly high. It was... a kind of beauty in raw stats!

Minamoto Takuya did not find this strange. With the same ninja technique and unchanged proficiency, the more chakra it contained, the greater its power would naturally be.

Unfortunately, every ninja technique had an upper limit to its power. Once that limit was reached, adding more chakra was useless.

After completing the tests, Minamoto Takuya came before another incubation chamber. Looking at the bloodlines he had collected during the Second Shinobi World War and the Third Shinobi World War, he would have preferred to fuse them first before returning to Konoha if he had the time.

But it would take too long, and he might miss the time when Rin Nohara was captured.

To be safe, every time he added another bloodline, he had to experiment with it first. Only after ensuring it was safe would he perform the fusion on himself.

By the time Hiruko had reached the final five bloodlines, he had even waited all those years for the conditions of heaven, earth, and man to align.

This showed that every additional bloodline caused the difficulty of fusion to rise exponentially.

Therefore, safely testing the fusion of a second bloodline would inevitably take even longer. He probably did not have the time to conduct that experiment.

Minamoto Takuya looked at the materials he had prepared. The primary one was a specimen with a One Tomoe Sharingan.

That was right. The second bloodline he had prepared was the Uchiha bloodline.

This specimen could be said to be the only Uchiha he had obtained who had awakened the Sharingan—and it had only awakened to One Tomoe.

However, he had collected quite a few Uchiha Clan members who had not awakened the Sharingan, and obtaining them had not been especially difficult.

After all, he had been assigned to Sealing Jutsu specialization. Once these bloodline-bearing shinobi died on the battlefield, people like him were naturally responsible for sealing and recovering their bodies.

He had merely used a trick of swapping the genuine article for a fake, creating substitute Uchiha bodies to hand over while keeping these materials for himself.

But obtaining materials with the Sharingan was extremely difficult. Even clan members with nothing more than a One Tomoe Sharingan were registered. No matter how careless the Uchiha Clan might be, they would inspect things afterward.

Therefore, none of the registered Uchiha members with the Sharingan could be an option for him. He had only barely acquired this One Tomoe Sharingan user after confirming that the other party had awakened it shortly before death.

As everyone knew, the Uchiha Clan's Sharingan required intense mental stimulation to awaken. The stimulus of a life-and-death moment certainly counted as intense stimulation, so awakening it at such a time was not unusual.

Even so, those who awakened the Sharingan before death were exceedingly rare.

In truth, he could accept it even if there was no Sharingan.

After all, unlike other bloodlines, the Sharingan could be awakened later. Even if he could not awaken it, he could transplant a Sharingan through other means.

Still, being able to awaken it himself would naturally be better.

Suddenly, Minamoto Takuya thought of something. If he did not transplant the Uchiha bloodline and only transplanted the Uzumaki Bloodline, would he be able to freely activate and deactivate the Sharingan?

After all, while the Uzumaki Bloodline could not awaken the Sharingan, it shared a common origin with the Uchiha bloodline. Perhaps it might still allow him to freely turn it on and off.

Unfortunately, this had not been verified in the Original Work. Shimura Danzō had transplanted not only the Sharingan but also First's cells, yet he still seemed unable to freely activate and deactivate the Sharingan.

Following that line of thought, the Uzumaki Bloodline, as a branch of the Senju bloodline, probably could not do it either.

So... should he transplant it later and test it? If it worked, would that not save him one fusion slot?

After pondering for a while, Minamoto Takuya still shook his head and rejected the idea.

The Uchiha bloodline was still essential. The Sage of Six Paths' bloodline had been divided into the Sage Body and Sage Eyes, so only by combining the two could one achieve the most perfect state. Just as Madara Uchiha had fused Hashirama Cells, that was likely one of the conditions for him to awaken the Rinnegan.

Thus, both the Sage Body bloodline and the Sage Eyes bloodline were necessary. Since that was the case, there was naturally no need to transplant the Sharingan in advance.

Minamoto Takuya then looked toward another set of materials: Hyuga bloodline samples.

However, he hesitated over whether to fuse the Hyuga bloodlines in his possession, because all those he had managed to acquire came from the branch family.

In terms of bloodline alone, since they generally intermarried within the clan, the Hyuga Branch Family's bloodline was not much inferior to that of the main house. The problem was that Minamoto Takuya did not know whether the Caged Bird curse mark remained after a Hyuga Branch Family member died.

In the Original Work, Neji Hyuga's Caged Bird curse mark had indeed disappeared after his death. Yet another issue arose: Hizashi Hyuga, who had been revived through Impure World Reincarnation, still bore the Caged Bird curse mark on his forehead.

Although Hyuga Hiashi had not used the Caged Bird curse mark, there was no way to determine whether it was fake, or whether he had simply been unwilling to use it on Hizashi Hyuga because of their brotherly bond.

As for whether Hyuga Hiashi had once used the Caged Bird curse mark on Hizashi Hyuga—he had, certainly, and there was nothing wrong with what he had done. Hizashi Hyuga had developed murderous intent toward his own daughter. If using the Caged Bird to punish him resulted in no other punishment, what more could anyone ask for?

That left Minamoto Takuya somewhat hesitant. It would be troublesome if fusing the Hyuga bloodline also fused the Caged Bird curse mark into him.

But he was unwilling to give up the Hyuga bloodline, since it was connected to the possibility of obtaining the Tenseigan.

The Tenseigan was an existence in no way inferior to the Rinnegan!

Minamoto Takuya stared at the other party's unmarked forehead, considering what to do.

The Hyuga Main House bloodline was out of the question. Those people's protection of the main house bloodline was outrageous. Although Hyuga Main House members had died on the battlefield before, they never allowed outsiders like them near the main house bloodline!

Then he would first use the materials at hand to conduct an experiment and see whether fused specimens would inherit the Caged Bird curse mark over time.

Or, once his techniques matured in the future, he could change the location where the Caged Bird was applied. What he needed was not their Byakugan, only the Hyuga bloodline.

And even if he did not change it, there would be no Byakugan anyway. The moment they died, the Caged Bird had already destroyed both their brains and Byakugan.

However, either method required time to verify.

The second method, though... seemed like something he could begin right away.

Minamoto Takuya's eyes flickered. He once again used the Chimera Technique to fuse several specimens with Hyuga bloodlines, then resealed and restrained them before tossing them back inside.

Looking at those specimens, none had developed the Caged Bird curse mark. As long as enough time passed and they still did not develop one, that should prove it.

He was not in a hurry. After all, obtaining the fourth and fifth bloodlines he wanted to fuse would take a long time.

That time would be more than enough to verify it!