Training

The secret base in Konoha.

This place had become the Spark Society's base. Kimura Takuya had used Earth Release to conceal the passage again, so anyone entering or leaving had to use Earth Release.

At that moment, Kimura Takuya was inside the base, observing Orochimaru and Sasori.

At this point in time, Orochimaru had not yet left the Akatsuki. He was still partnered with Sasori.

In its early days, the Akatsuki had always kept a low profile. Its members traveled around gathering intelligence on the various shinobi villages.

They weren't causing trouble everywhere. They were still in the stage of quietly building up their strength.

They occasionally took on missions related to wars, but never directly clashed with the Five Great Shinobi Nations.

It was a smart approach. Even if all their members were above Kage Level, they had too few core personnel, and most of them were schemers like Orochimaru.

Even Itachi was an undercover agent.

If you counted them up, the only ones truly working for the organization were probably Nagato, Konan, and Kisame.

The rest either had ulterior motives or were a bunch of jokers.

These people were always a source of danger. Kimura Takuya wanted to use this opportunity to see if he could get a foothold in the Akatsuki.

"First, let's add a little something to the mix and get these two working for me. Heh."

Kimura Takuya then controlled the Soul Energy in Danzo's body, released negative energy, and attached it to the point where Danzo's head met the pig's body.

That way, when the two discovered it, they would think the negative energy was the key.

Then not only would they be unable to figure out his healing ninjutsu, but he would also get to reap the results of their research.

Kimura Takuya was quite confident in his Flesh Substitution Technique. He wasn't worried about the two of them figuring it out.

He had tried teaching the technique to Shizune, but even with her talent, she couldn't learn it.

When Tsunade heard about it, she came to ask him to teach her too. In the end, she couldn't learn it either.

If the two of them couldn't even learn the True Transformation Technique, there was no way they could master the Flesh Substitution Technique, which he used on other people.

They both understood the principles, but that didn't mean they could learn the techniques.

Kimura Takuya guessed it might have something to do with his own abilities.

Perhaps the essence of this technique was that it drew upon his own Immortality of the soul.

That was probably why neither of them could learn it.

So Orochimaru and Sasori were fated to work for Kimura Takuya without pay.

Still, perhaps a genius like Orochimaru might make some other discoveries. But whatever they were, they would belong to Kimura Takuya!

The old schemer stopped paying attention to Orochimaru and focused on his own affairs.

His strength had already surpassed that of an ordinary Kage.

But he still wasn't stronger than the Sannin. At best, he could fight them to a draw.

What's more, each of the Sannin had secret techniques of their own. If they fought with everything they had, it was hard to say who would come out on top.

His strength was already impressive.

But it wasn't enough. Before a truly powerful opponent, he was still like a child.

For now, the problem was still the amount of chakra he had.

Although he had already carved the Yin Seal, it couldn't increase his maximum chakra capacity. It could only store the chakra he had left over in his daily life.

Tsunade had told him that the seal needed at least three years of storage before he could use it.

Only then would the chakra inside the Yin Seal stabilize. If he used it early, it would vanish in an instant, and all his efforts would be wasted.

The chakra he had accumulated over half a month was obviously nowhere near enough.

Absorbing other people's chakra couldn't increase his own maximum capacity, either.

Absorbing it was useless if he had chakra to spare. He could only absorb and use it when his own chakra was depleted.

When he first discovered that the Reverse Rasengan could absorb other people's chakra, Kimura Takuya had been thrilled. He thought it would work like the Northern Darkness Divine Skill's Star Absorbing Technique.

But then he discovered that the human body in the Ninja World had a limit to how much chakra it could store.

An ordinary person's chakra reserves had a fixed limit. No matter how much chakra you absorbed from someone else, you couldn't store it.

And even if he tried to store it in the Yin Seal, that wouldn't work. Different people's chakra had different properties, so it couldn't be combined.

Even chakra that seemed to have the same properties still had subtle individual differences. That meant it couldn't be combined the way blood of the same type could.

When Kimura Takuya absorbed someone else's chakra, he also had to keep it separate from his own.

It was like how a Jinchuriki usually didn't use their own chakra when using Tailed Beast Chakra.

So trying to cultivate the Northern Darkness Divine Skill in the Ninja World was pure wishful thinking.

Kimura Takuya wasn't the only one who had thought so. Orochimaru had, too.

During the Chunin Ninja Exams in the original story, wasn't there a background character who fought Sasuke?

That guy had a Chakra Absorption Technique that nearly drained Sasuke dry, forcing him to use the power of his Cursed Seal.

That background character was on the same team as Kabuto—in other words, he was one of Orochimaru's men. And the fat guy among the Sound Four had nearly drained Shikamaru's squad dry when they were pursuing Sasuke.

"Looks like Orochimaru ran into the same predicament I'm in now.

No wonder that guy in the original story was just a background character. No matter how much an ordinary person could absorb, he'd still be an ordinary person.

And the guy who could absorb an entire team, Jirobo—the orange-haired fat guy from the Sound Four—seems to have been from the Uzumaki Clan. Otherwise, he couldn't have absorbed a whole team.

So in the end, was Orochimaru's solution to abandon an ordinary person's body?

Living Corpse Reincarnation—is this technique not only for achieving immortality, but also for increasing one's chakra reserves?"

At that thought, Kimura Takuya suddenly felt a little discouraged.

So Orochimaru had run into all the same problems he had, and hadn't managed to truly solve any of them.

Whether it was Kekkei Genkai Disease or the problem of chakra capacity.

But Kimura Takuya gave a slight sigh and quickly regained his confidence.

"If Orochimaru couldn't solve these problems, that doesn't mean I, Kimura Takuya, can't!"

It wasn't empty boasting or the blind confidence of a transmigrator.

He had already found a way forward.

Whether it was Kekkei Genkai Disease or the problem of chakra capacity.

He had a plan for both.

It was just difficult, and there were far too many problems he wanted to solve.

Far more than just those two.

"There's never enough time. Forget it, I'll keep using Multiple Shadow Clones."

Kimura Takuya raised his hand and created more than ten Shadow Clones.

He had already used them twice today, once in the morning and once in the afternoon.

Twice a day was already exhausting, and now he had to use them again.

Kimura Takuya felt his brain aching. The side effects of long-term training and research with Shadow Clones weren't limited to headaches. The massive amount of information being written into his soul also put it under immense pressure.

Even with the strength of his soul, he was starting to feel uncomfortable.

But even if it was uncomfortable, he had to put up with it. He wanted so many things, so he had to work twice as hard, didn't he?

"Tuoye, quite a few people from Root have already joined the Fifth's Anbu. Should we join too?"

"Tell everyone they don't need to ask me. If they want to join the Anbu, they can. Anyone who doesn't want to join should leave Root and go public with their identity.

Like the other Root members who didn't join, they can become squad-leading jōnin.

Spread the ideas of our Spark Society far and wide, and change the way Konoha's shinobi think across the board."

The Spark Society's ideas weren't anything special.

They simply added a few new elements to the Will of Fire.

Things like equality, moving away from clan-based society, and a pragmatic approach to being a shinobi.

It was the perfect time to start shaping the young Genin who had just finished their Ninja Academy education.

This kind of change was like a gentle spring rain: subtle, not a radical movement.

No conflict was needed, and no bloodshed. All it needed was time.

He believed that after a few years, this world would become a better place.