New Eyes, Demon Eye!

That afternoon, the group returned to Whirlpool Village.

The moment Ryū got back, he plunged headfirst into the clan leader's building. Mito also became busy, throwing herself into the great task of building Whirlpool Village.

Only Shusen was left idling around with nothing important to do.

After wandering around the village for a while, he sent a Shadow Clone to patrol with the guards while his real body sank into the earth and headed for the laboratory a hundred miles away.

He had a feeling that his eye-fusion experiment would make a breakthrough today!

"I never thought I'd obtain Hashirama Cells this way."

In the dim laboratory, Shusen took out a bag of blood and sighed repeatedly.

He had tampered with the bowl used to hold blood during their sworn brotherhood ceremony. Hashirama's blood had not been mixed with the other three men's, but had instead been collected separately.

"Now, let's see what's so extraordinary about Hashirama Cells."

Shusen walked to the operating table, tore open the blood bag, and slowly poured it into a container to extract the cells from the blood.

After several hours of research, Shusen looked up with an odd expression.

"Is this the absurdity of a Sage Body?" he muttered, his tone somewhere between envy and jealousy.

He compared his own cells with Hashirama's and discovered that Hashirama Cells contained astonishingly active substances. In theory, they could divide and multiply endlessly. Compared to them, ordinary human cells seemed like they belonged to an entirely different species.

"No wonder Madara awakened the Rinnegan after fusing with Hashirama Cells in the original story, and even used a piece of Hashirama's flesh to cultivate an army of White Zetsu... These cells are truly terrifying!"

After marveling at them, Shusen removed an eye intertwined with red, white, and black from the solution.

This was the new eye he had created a month ago by fusing a Byakugan and a Sharingan. When it had first been born, the Byakugan's ocular power and the Sharingan's ocular power had repelled each other. If Shusen had not suppressed them with sealing techniques, the new eye would have exploded long ago.

"Hashirama Cells are so active. They should be able to neutralize the two kinds of ocular power."

With that thought, Shusen carefully carried out the experiment, extracting a portion of the Hashirama Cells and integrating them into the new eye.

The experiment was tedious, and every step was exceptionally rigorous and difficult. He had to remain completely focused without the slightest distraction.

In the blink of an eye, two hours passed.

Shusen let out a long breath. The Shadow Clone beside him wiped away his sweat with gauze, acting as his assistant.

"The Hashirama Cells have fused with it. Next... it's time to witness a miracle."

Shusen began removing the seals on the eye's surface. The Shadow Clone beside him stood ready, prepared to seal it again at the first sign of trouble.

Eight Trigrams Seal, released.

Four Symbols Seal, released.

Two Principles Seal, released.

Soon, the final seal was undone.

Shusen used Kagura's Mind's Eye to sense it carefully. Just as he had expected, with the Hashirama Cells acting as a buffer, the two kinds of ocular power inside the new eye no longer repelled each other or raged violently. Instead, they were remarkably gentle and calm.

"At last, it won't explode."

Shusen was completely relieved. All the trouble he had gone through to obtain Hashirama Cells had been worth it!

After resting for several minutes to recover his strength, he planned to test the ocular abilities of the new eye.

The process was not difficult, just somewhat terrifying. Shusen first severed the optic nerve of the Byakugan in his right eye, then dug it out and transplanted the new eye in its place. Finally, he swept his hand over it with medical ninjutsu, reconnecting the severed optic nerve.

Eyes in the Naruto world were just that convenient—plug and play. He had performed plenty of transplants while researching the Sharingan and Byakugan before, so he was exceptionally familiar with the procedure.

"Open!"

Shusen shouted softly, circulating chakra and concentrating it in the newly transplanted eye. In the next moment, his gaze pierced through the thick layers of earth and stretched farther and farther into the distance. He saw earthworms, snakes, rats, rabbits...

"X-ray vision?"

Shusen fell into thought. The new eye had fused with the Byakugan's ocular power, so it would have been strange if it could not see through things.

Moreover, its x-ray vision was even stronger. With an ordinary Byakugan, Shusen could only see two kilometers away, but with the new eye, he could see five kilometers into the distance. This should count as a form of evolution.

After testing its x-ray vision, Shusen began studying its other ocular abilities. He closed his eyes and sensed carefully. Before long, he indeed detected another ability.

"Genjutsu..."

"This new eye possesses both the Byakugan's x-ray vision and the Sharingan's genjutsu. One eye is stronger than two. As expected of the fusion of two different eyes."

After several rounds of exploration, Shusen more or less figured out the ocular abilities possessed by the new eye and was quite satisfied with it.

"I'll name this new eye the Demon Eye! It looks frightening, so its name should be frightening too."

Shusen made his decision. He had no intention of replacing the Demon Eye. One Demon Eye was equivalent to a Byakugan plus a Sharingan, making it incredibly useful.

Suddenly, a wonderful idea flashed through his mind.

"Since the Sharingan and Byakugan can fuse perfectly, what about the Tenseigan and the Rinnegan?"

Once that thought emerged, he could not suppress it. Shusen even imagined himself with two eyes that were fusions of the Rinnegan and Tenseigan. At that point, he would surely become terrifyingly powerful!

Even Hashirama and Madara at their peaks would not be his match!

After indulging in the dream for a while, Shusen returned to reality.

He realized he was getting ahead of himself. Forget the Rinnegan—he had not even fused a Mangekyō Sharingan yet, much less touched upon the Tenseigan. Thinking about fusing those two eyes now was truly worrying about things that had not happened.

"The road ahead is long. I should keep my feet on the ground and continue experimenting."

He became busy again, attempting to fuse Hashirama Cells into the Sharingan.

It had to be said that Hashirama Cells were practically a universal medium. With them serving as an experimental medium, the speed of Sharingan fusion increased dramatically, eliminating many tedious steps.

It had previously taken six hours to fuse two Sharingan. Now, it only took two hours. The same was true for Byakugan fusion, and the efficiency was absurdly fast.

If the number of Hashirama Cells had not been limited, he would have even been confident in fusing all the eyes in his inventory within half a month.

Over the next few days, Shusen focused all his energy on fusing Sharingan. That Three-Tomoe Sharingan had now fused with fifty-three Sharingan. Its three tomoe had curved and enlarged considerably, and its ocular power was more than ten times stronger than that of an ordinary Three-Tomoe Sharingan. It was clearly very close to evolving into a Mangekyō Sharingan.

While fusing Sharingan, Shusen occasionally slipped back home for a night or two to see how the construction of Whirlpool Village was progressing, worried that something might go wrong.

The facts proved that his concerns were completely unnecessary. Under Ryū's diligent and wise leadership, Whirlpool Village had thoroughly embarked on the right path of development. The people worked hard at production and construction, drawing merchant caravans from many other countries to come by name and trade with Whirlpool Village.