Entering the Tattoo Era Early

In the blink of an eye, another half-year passed.

Night.

The Zenin clan grounds.

Toji raised his hand and thrust out black threads: "Secret Technique: Earth Grudge Parasitism!"

The pitch-black tentacles burrowed into the body of Test Subject No. 13.

Test Subject No. 13 was a beautiful female chunin with a fiery figure, yet Toji's gaze held not a ripple of emotion as he coldly manipulated the Earth Grudge Fear to plant the Parasitic Seal upon her heart.

He pressed his hands together before his lips and began to frantically extract the physical and spiritual energy from within the kunoichi.

Struggling, twisting, convulsing...

The kunoichi was firmly bound by restraints, her body thrashing violently, but it was all in vain.

After half a year of refinement, Toji's extraction technique had become masterful.

A moment later, Test Subject No. 13 ceased her struggle, her eyes gradually turning hollow. Ten minutes passed, and the various instruments connected to her body showed no abnormal reactions.

"Success."

Toji and the parasitized Test Subject No. 13 spoke in unison.

Toji did not possess the Byakugan.

If he had, he would have been able to see the "flame" rising at the heart of Test Subject No. 13 right now—that was chakra!

He had successfully used the tentacles of the Earth Grudge Fear to extract spiritual energy from the host's heart, then mixed it with physical energy to complete the entire process of chakra refinement.

Because he was refining chakra while manipulating a puppet's body, the efficiency was not particularly high, but he had achieved the breakthrough from zero to one.

What he needed to do next was practice until he reached perfection.

He needed to reach a point where he could match the speed at which he refined chakra within his own body.

Successfully manipulating a host to refine chakra also meant that from now on, he could not only control the host to perform simple limb movements but also directly command them in combat.

The application range of localized chakra deployment was truly vast!

Toji turned his gaze toward Test Subject No. 14.

He repeated the process, parasitizing the Earth Grudge Fear into the heart to refine chakra.

Dividing his focus three ways...

Even for Toji, who possessed innate dual soul power, it was becoming difficult to bear.

If one viewed Earth Grudge Parasitism as a chip, Toji's innate dual soul power acted as two cores; if he handled more than two hosts, his efficiency would drop significantly.

"While maintaining my own consciousness, I can currently only control one host to maintain relative combat capability. Any more, and the mental strain would make it impossible to fully command them."

"The Earth Grudge Fear itself possesses intelligence, but if I leave it entirely to the Earth Grudge Fear without my intervention, it can only maintain basic activity and instinctive combat awareness. Its power would be greatly diminished..."

"Currently, I can plant the Parasitic Seal on five targets at most, with each target corresponding to one of my hearts."

The Earth Grudge Fear, which was originally a mass of black threads, had completed its "incarnation" and now possessed a human form.

Toji assessed his own situation.

Greed leads to failure.

Rather than spreading his energy to control multiple incomplete puppets, it was better to concentrate his focus so that one host could exert power close to its original level.

And if he wanted a host to unleash its full strength, his main body had to clear away all distracting thoughts, remain in a state of meditation, and connect heart and soul to the Earth Grudge Fear without any distraction.

"My Yin-style chakra won't increase in the short term. To improve my control, I can only work on my proficiency."

Since the core performance remained unchanged, he could only increase the efficiency of his task processing by increasing the threads.

For Toji, these threads were his proficiency with the Earth Grudge Fear. The human experiments for Earth Grudge Parasitism could not stop; he had to train day and night with perseverance.

"Or, once I research a method to increase the volume of my Yin-style chakra, this limitation will also be broken."

He looked up at the two controlled chunin beside him; these were his first and second successful experiments. Calling them No. 13 and No. 14 felt too perfunctory and made the puppets seem redundant, so he spoke indifferently:

"Let's call you Type Zero and Type One."

Toji's gaze swept over the light purple ninja uniforms the two were wearing, and he tossed the organization uniforms and masks he had designed long ago toward them.

"Now, as my eyes, go to the Land of Rice Fields."

"Secretly support Uchiha Yan."

"Yes! My Lord!"

Type Zero and Type One replied in stiff tones, devoid of any extra emotion.

Do not be fooled by the fact that Uchiha Yan sent at least one chunin every month, as if chunin were common occurrences. In reality, at any given time, chunin were the backbone of the Ninja World, possessing the power to easily destroy a village.

If these two chunin announced the formation of a rogue ninja group at the Bounty Exchange, they would be enough to stir up quite a storm in the Land of Rice Fields.

Uchiha Yan had been hunted for so long.

Toji also wanted to see what kind of power she had accumulated in the Land of Rice Fields.

"The name of the organization shall be..." Toji thought for a moment before saying:

"Passion."

The next day.

Toji stood before the mirror and began to get dressed.

At the same time, he began his daily routine of "reflecting on himself three times."

Reflecting on himself three times meant summarizing the progress of his current research projects and planning his day.

As for the research projects currently in his hands:

Earth Grudge Parasitism had achieved breakthrough progress.

Toji was now able to summon ten Reanimation paper charms at once, taking him one step closer to the goal of one hundred charms required to summon the dead.

As for the Yin Seal, progress was relatively slow; it would likely take years to complete the redesign.

Mito Uzumaki was right—when this Yin Seal technique was first designed, it likely never considered male ninjas at all. The entire structure of the sealing formula was designed strictly according to the female body's meridians and chakra flow characteristics.

If one were to compare the human body to an Android motherboard, the Yin Seal was an Apple chip; its core function was to store chakra and achieve eternal youth.

The problem was that the Android motherboard and the Apple chip were incompatible.

Toji had to modify the architecture that was only compatible with females and redesign a set of technique meridians that could adapt to a male body in order to break the "males cannot use this" restriction.

However, to say there was no progress at all would be to underestimate Toji's research capabilities.

Toji stood before the mirror, holding two fingers vertically before his lips:

"Yin Seal: Release!"

As the words fell, black markings emerged from Toji's chest, extending along his torso and limbs.

With a shift of his intent, symmetrical markings also gradually appeared on his cheeks.

Looking at himself in the mirror, Toji wore a satisfied expression.

The Yin Seal, which currently lacked energy storage functionality, could only be admired as a decorative piece for now.

Unlike the Yin Seal markings on Tsunade's face in the future, which resembled a diamond, Toji had specifically designed the markings of his "New Yin Seal" to resemble those of Ryomen Sukuna. It looked much more aesthetically pleasing.

Especially on the face...

Toji believed that telling others during a fight that he had released his Yin Seal and entered a second stage was not a very smart thing to do. Having the markings appear on his torso, or even his lower abdomen, was far more insidious and would be more convenient for Toji to use the Yin Seal on parasitic bodies in the future.

Thus, he designed the facial markings to be toggleable.

Only when he held the absolute upper hand in battle and victory was certain would the markings on his face be activated.

In essence—if one does not don this kasaya, how would the masses know that my worldly ties are severed and the golden sea is dry?

The era of colored contacts had yet to arrive, but Toji had already entered the tattoo version.