World 3 had been destroyed. Now the entire World Destruction Society had been reduced to the sacrificial lamb of World 6, as the Bewitching Overlord had put it.
Before returning to the Shinobi World, Shinji took some time to recover in World 6.
This was mainly because fighting the Bewitching Overlord not only caused physical injury and contamination, but also inflicted severe mental trauma.
Only someone like Shinji could withstand it. Anyone else would likely have suffered a mental breakdown and collapsed at the first encounter with the Bewitching Overlord.
The next day, Shinji arrived at the Research Institute without alerting anyone.
Amado was startled by Shinji's sudden arrival, then began reporting the results of the previous day's ritual.
Shinji had been there the whole time, but didn't let on. He accepted the report Amado handed him and read it carefully.
According to the Research Institute's preliminary tests, the subject of the sixth ritual surpassed the subjects of the previous rituals in speed, strength, and total Chakra reserves.
Shinji closed the report and asked, "Was this unexpected?"
Amado nodded. "Yes. The ritual's effects improved beyond our expectations, and the improvement has been gradual. At first, we didn't pay much attention to it, thinking it was simply the result of optimizing the ritual. But this time, something was clearly off!"
From Orochimaru to Owl, and then from Owl to Yamada Juichi, the ritual's effects had steadily improved.
The increase had been small, however, making it impossible to tell whether it was a coincidence. And since the Research Institute had never stopped refining the ritual, the slight improvements hadn't aroused much suspicion.
But this time, the circumstances were clearly different. It went beyond what could be explained as a statistical coincidence.
Shinji continued, "Has he awakened a shinjutsu?"
Amado answered honestly, "Not