Chimera Technique

He rested for about half an hour, and Hyuga Ritsu felt his mental state had reached its peak. He lit another oil lamp and placed it on a stone platform protruding from the rock wall. He stepped forward, opened the cell door, and stood before the still unconscious "precious material."

He took a deep breath, and began forming hand seals.

The Chimera Technique required nineteen seals. With each seal formed, the Chakra within his body was mobilized and circulated through specific meridians. Once all nineteen seals were completed, his hands erupted in a pale blue Chakra glow. In his Byakugan's vision, this pale blue glow revealed itself to be countless thin, blade-like Chakra projections.

The fair skin of his hands was cut by these blade-like Chakra projections, leaving fine wounds.

Immediately after, he raised his hands and slowly brought them close to the "precious material's" chest.

With a "shrieking" sound, the clothes were torn to shreds.

Then, he saw that the muscular chest also bore dense, tiny wounds. Drops of blood seeped from the wounds, and an invisible force drew the blood, enveloped and stained by Chakra, into his body through the wounds on Hyuga Ritsu's hands.

In an instant, the muscles in his arms twitched violently, his veins bulging like small snakes, as if they would burst at any moment.

Hyuga Ritsu's expression was as hard as iron.

Not wavering in the slightest.

He continued to use the Chimera Technique with unwavering resolve.

At the same time, he released the "regeneration ability" he had been intentionally suppressing. His veins healed immediately upon any slight rupture. Of course, the price for letting his "regeneration ability" take effect was repeatedly cutting his palms, and the wounds had to be slightly stretched and enlarged, otherwise, they wouldn't keep up with the healing speed.

The pain was undeniable.

The pain of cutting open his palms was merely an appetizer. The intense agony coming from all over his body was what truly made him wish for death. Blood coursed through his veins like boiling water, his muscles convulsed as if electrocuted, and even more critically, his bones endured waves of gnawing, grinding pain, as if someone were preparing to carve and polish a Qingming Scroll onto his bones with a drill and saw.

Simultaneously, even his eyes felt an indescribable stinging pain, so painful that his eye corners split, and wisps of blood trickled down.

Cold sweat broke out on him repeatedly, making him feel as if he had just been fished out of a pool.

The concept of time blurred amidst this intense pain. One second felt like a minute, and one minute felt like an hour. Time became so long, as long as the Snake Way to King Kai's planet, where no matter how hard you ran, you couldn't see the end.

His consciousness swayed precariously under the onslaught of pain.

Fortunately, the Snake Way had an end.

And the pain was not endless.

After climbing to an extreme, the pain suddenly dropped off a cliff, replaced by a transcendent sense of clarity, as if every pore in his body had opened, and the accumulated ailments within him were swept away. He felt so refreshed he almost cried out.

"Did... did it work?"

Hyuga Ritsu awoke with a start.

The pain had put him in a semi-conscious state.

Now, suddenly awake and regaining his senses, he immediately noticed the changes within himself. Firstly, his Chakra had surged dramatically. If his previous Chakra level was ten, it was now about one hundred, a tenfold increase. Secondly, he realized his consciousness could penetrate every single bone in his body.

He raised his right hand, and with a thought, a sharp, pointed bone, pale as jade, emerged from his palm.

"Shikotsumyaku!"

Hyuga Ritsu stared at the bone in his right palm, the corners of his mouth curving into a barely perceptible smile.

It had truly worked.

He had successfully stolen the Kaguya Clan's Kekkei Genkai, "Shikotsumyaku," using the Chimera Technique.

However, this was merely an incidental gain.

He hadn't risked using the Chimera Technique in an "incorrect way" just to obtain "Shikotsumyaku."

He activated his Byakugan, veins bulging around his eye sockets. Simultaneously, a 360° field of vision flooded his mind. Yes, a 360° field of vision, not the 359° that members of the Branch House had after being suppressed by the Caged Bird Seal, which left a 1° blind spot.

The extra 1° of vision made Hyuga Ritsu ecstatic.

He removed his forehead protector, took out the small mirror he had used before, and held it close to the tiny flame of the oil lamp. The mirror reflected a vibrant, handsome face. His pure white eyes were like the finest mutton-fat jade. His forehead... was smooth and unmarked!

The Caged Bird Seal had been broken without his intervention, leaving not a single trace.

"It finally worked! Hahahahahaha!!"

Hyuga Ritsu could no longer hold back.

In the secret laboratory deep underground, he laughed to his heart's content, laughing until tears streamed from the corners of his eyes.

A moment later, Hyuga Ritsu calmed down.

It wasn't time to completely relax yet; being free from the Caged Bird Seal was only the beginning.

Before their departure, the words of Teacher Hiruko echoed in his mind again. Without the restraint of the Caged Bird Seal, he had merely flown out of a small cage, only to find another cage called the "Main House and Branch House system" that denied him freedom. If the Main House members discovered he was no longer bound by the Caged Bird Seal, he would become a thorn in their side that they would eliminate at all costs!

Only by killing him as a warning, could they suppress the ambition in the hearts of the Branch House members and ensure the system of Main House and Branch House remained unshakable and immutable.

"This is a fight to the death, with no room for retreat or compromise. Even if a retreat or compromise occurs, it will surely be to gather strength to destroy the other party," Hyuga Ritsu muttered to himself. His gaze gradually turned cold as he spoke, and his pure white eyes showed a killing intent as scorching as lava.

He did not intend to follow Teacher Hiruko's suggestion to "leave Konohagakure."

Konohagakure had the highest standard of living in the ninja world, closest to the modern society he had lived in during his previous life. For the fifteen years since his birth, he had become familiar with every blade of grass and tree in Konohagakure and had established his own relationships.

Why should he abandon everything he had in Konohagakure because of the inhuman bastards in the Main House, becoming a rogue ninja relentlessly pursued by the Anbu, living on scraps and wandering the world?

The ancients said, "He who lives apart from the herd is either a beast or a god."

Hyuga Ritsu wanted to be neither a beast nor someone so deranged with his own Mangekyo Sharingan that he considered himself a god.

He just wanted to be a normal social animal.

In Hyuga Ritsu's view, "defecting" from the village was the worst possible option, a choice to be made only when all other paths were exhausted and there was no other way out.

Before that, he would exhaust every means to fight and strive!