The air inside the stone chamber seemed frozen, with only the cold light cast by the Moonstone trembling faintly across the walls.
Neji stood before the stone table, blue-green Sage Chakra gathered at his fingertips as the scalpel glinted coldly beneath the light.
The avatar made from Uchiha Shinichi lay quietly on its back, its eyes shut tight, its chest rising and falling faintly with each breath.
"Let's begin." Neji drew a deep breath and precisely sliced open the avatar's eyelids.
As the blade moved, strands of Chakra wrapped around the wounds like silk threads, ensuring that no scars would remain.
Neji's movements were gentle and precise, as though he were carving a work of art.
He removed Fugaku Uchiha's Mangekyō Sharingan from a specially made container. The eyes glowed with an eerie red light in the preservative fluid, while the intricate patterns in their pupils slowly rotated like living things.
"This is the source of the Uchiha Clan's power..." Neji murmured. He could sense the immense ocular power within the Sharingan, as well as something deeper—a dark energy that was almost like a curse.
When the Mangekyō Sharingan was implanted into Shinichi's avatar's eye sockets, Neji clearly felt the Chakra flow within the room suddenly accelerate.
He quickly formed hand seals, and Sage Chakra surged into the avatar's eyes like a tide, promoting cellular fusion.
Since they shared Uchiha blood, the fusion process went exceptionally smoothly, with almost no rejection.
"One Magatama... two Magatama..." Neji's Byakugan clearly saw the Sharingan evolving rapidly within the avatar's body, the number of Magatama steadily increasing.
When the third Magatama formed, the entire stone chamber was suddenly engulfed in a blinding red glow.
Neji instinctively took half a step back. In Shinichi's avatar's Sharingan, the three Magatama began spinning wildly before merging into