Scientific Cultivation Is the True Shortcut

The forests on the border of the Land of Rice Fields fall asleep in the twilight.

Neji —or rather, "Sake"—appeared for the last time among the shadows of the trees. He crouched down, his fingertips gathering a fine layer of Lightning Release Chakra, and precisely carved several marks into the damp soil: a deep and rapid drag mark, a few fallen leaves slightly scorched by Lightning Release Chakra, and a variant of the Uchiha Clan's Shuriken pattern deliberately drawn with Kunai on a tree trunk.

Not obvious enough, but professional enough.

He took a few steps back and activated his Byakugan. In his 360-degree field of vision, these marks appeared both abrupt and reasonable in the natural environment, as if they were left by a real ninja who had passed by in a hurry. More importantly, there was a residual Chakra fluctuation in the marks—that was the cold aura of the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan that he had deliberately simulated. Although it was faint, if a perception expert like Zetsu passed by, he would definitely be able to detect it.

"That should be enough."

Neji muttered to himself, then turned and formed Hand Seals.

He activated the Flying Thunder God Technique, and spatial ripples spread out. The next second, he was already standing in the teleportation room at the deepest part of the Sound Village Underground Base. The cold air, carrying the smell of disinfectant and old scrolls, rushed towards him. This was the most familiar aura to him in the past three years—an aura of danger, secrecy, and full of possibilities.

He removed his special lenses and rubbed his temples. Even now, the continuous use of the Flying Thunder God for short-range, high-frequency teleportation caused him a slight burning sensation in his Chakra meridians. But that didn't matter; what mattered was buying time.

At the end of the corridor, the laboratory door was ajar, from which came the low hum of instruments running and the rhythmic sound of liquid dripping.

Neji pushed open the door and entered.

Orochimaru stood with his back to the door in front of a huge data screen. The screen displayed densely packed Chakra waveforms, molecular structure models, and constantly updating values. He wore a white lab coat, and his golden snake eyes appeared exceptionally focused under the cold light of the screen. His pale fingers rapidly tapped on the control panel, leaving behind a series of commands.

In the center of the laboratory, the workbench where Ōnoki's corpse had once stood has been replaced by a complex sealing array. Within the array, a figure stands silently—it is none other than the Third Tsuchikage, Ōnoki. But now, his eyes are empty, his skin displays the characteristic grayish-white cracks of the Impure World Reincarnation, a talisman covered in incantations is affixed to his forehead, and his body is riddled with over a dozen tubes. The other ends of these tubes are connected to sophisticated instruments surrounding him: a spectrometer, Chakra resonance detector, an attribute separation array...

"You're back?" Orochimaru without turning his head, his voice carrying the focused intensity characteristic of experiments. "How's the setup going?"

"That'll keep the Akatsuki busy all day." Neji walked over to Orochimaru, his gaze sweeping over the data stream on the screen. "What about this side? Have you figured out the Chakra ratio for Dust Release yet?"

Orochimaru's fingers paused for a moment as he typed on the keyboard.

Then he slowly turned around, a rare, almost helpless expression on his face. This expression on Orochimaru's face made Neji's heart sink slightly.

"The problem is more complicated than I thought." Orochimaru walked towards the sealing array, his golden snake eyes fixed on Ōnoki within it. "I gave this Lord Tsuchikage too much 'consciousness'—this is a high-level technique of the Impure World Reincarnation, preserving most of the deceased's personality and memories, allowing them to exert almost their full strength from before their birth. But correspondingly, their will is also preserved."

He reached out, his pale fingers gently brushing across the talisman on Ōnoki's forehead. The Reanimated Body's eyes remained empty, but the corner of its mouth seemed to twitch slightly, as if some deep-seated consciousness was resisting.

"Old man Orochimaru Ōnoki, a hint of sarcasm in his voice. "Even as Reanimated Body, even under the control of the talisman, his deep-seated obsession with Dust Release and his instinct to protect the secrets of Iwagakure still resist my investigation. I tried to directly read his Chakra memories, but his mental defenses were as stubborn as a rock—no wonder he ruled Iwagakure for forty years."

Neji frowned. "So you failed?"

"No." Orochimaru turned and walked back to the console, pulling up a new set of data. "I've tried a different approach. Since we can't get it from the 'internal' source, let's observe it from the 'external' source."

He pointed to the instruments surrounding Ōnoki.

"Chakra is essentially a form of energy, and Dust Release Kekkei Tōta, is the product of the fusion of wind, earth, and fire Chakra in a specific ratio and sequence. This ratio and sequence are like the most precise lock, and Ōnoki's soul is the key. If the key refuses to Gate of Opening the door by itself, then I will disassemble the entire lock and analyze it."

Orochimaru's snake-like eyes gleamed with an almost fanatical light.

"I brought the Reanimated Body to Duel Arena Number Three—the space there was large enough, and the barrier was strong enough. Then, I provoked him to activate Dust Release." His finger swiped across the screen, bringing up a video.

In the scene, the greyish-white Ōnoki floats in mid-air, his hands clasped together in front of his chest. Despite his numb expression, the posture and the way he gathers Chakra are precisely the starting stance of Dust Release Technique of Detachment of the Primitive World: Particle Style. The next second, a cube of white light bursts from his palms, shooting towards the distant target—

At the same time, dozens of instruments around the device lit up simultaneously, and various sensors began operating at full speed.

"For the first time, the power of Dust Release exceeded the instrument's limits," Orochimaru said calmly, but Neji could hear the heartache beneath that calm. "The core lens of the spectrometer was broken down into molecules, and the sensor array of the Chakra resonance detector was completely burned out. A cutting-edge piece of equipment worth 300 million ryo was reduced to a pile of scrap metal in five seconds."

He switched the screen to the second video clip.

The scene was the same, but this time the equipment was deployed further away, and the protective barrier was thickened by three layers. Ōnoki activated Dust Release again, and a white light swept through—

"The second time, the improved protection barely withstood the direct impact, but the spatial disturbance caused by the Dust Release interfered with all wireless transmissions. The storage chip inside the data recorder was permanently magnetized by the high-frequency Chakra, resulting in the loss of all data." Orochimaru's voice was almost numb. "Another 500 million ryo device."

Neji stared at the screen, at the charred remains of the sophisticated instruments. Even though he didn't have much of a concept of money, he knew what this level of experimental damage meant. Orochimaru's wealth accumulated over the years, and the cutting-edge technology he had amassed from the black markets of various countries, had vanished in these two experiments.

"And then?" he asked.

Orochimaru was silent for a few seconds, then pulled up the third video recording.

The setup in this scene is completely different. Ōnoki is fixed in the center of the dueling arena to a specially made metal frame covered with sealing runes. The number of tubes on his body has increased to thirty-two, each tube connected to an independent recording unit protected by a thick lead plate. Ōnoki's hands are forcibly fixed in Hand Seals posture by mechanical arms, with miniature Chakra extraction devices connected to the tips of his ten fingers.

"The third time, I abandoned the 'observation' approach." Orochimaru's voice turned cold and rational. "Instead, I used 'extraction.' The instant he activated Dust Release, the mechanical arm forcibly maintained the Hand Seals, and the Chakra extraction device operated at maximum power, directly extracting the fusion Chakra sample from his fingertips. Simultaneously, thirty-two independent recording units worked in sync, each recording a parameter—temperature, pressure, fluctuation frequency, attribute concentration, fusion rate..."

In the scene, Ōnoki's body trembled violently, Reanimated Body spread across his skin as he transformed into his Edo Tensei form. The cube of white light reappeared, but this time, a portion of it was forcibly drawn away and diverted into the thirty-two conduits. The indicator lights on the recording unit flashed wildly, and data flooded the screen like a waterfall.

Three seconds later, the Dust Release ended.

Ōnoki's body slumped against the support frame, his Reanimated Body's grayish-white color deepening. All the surrounding equipment remained intact.

"We succeeded." Orochimaru finally turned around, a genuine smile on his face. It wasn't his usual mocking or sarcastic smile, but the pure, weary joy of a scientist who had solved a difficult problem.

He walked to the console and pressed a few keys. A complex three-dimensional model popped up in the center of the screen: three colors of energy flow—cyan representing wind, brown representing earth, and red representing fire—were intertwined in a precise spiral structure, permeating and merging with each other, ultimately forming a pure white.

Below the model is a densely packed parameter table:

"This is Dust Release." Orochimaru's voice carried an almost poetic sigh. "Three attributes, fused together in such a delicate balance. A little more and the structure would collapse, a little less and the power would be greatly reduced. And that old man Ōnoki, to be able to perform such precise Chakra manipulation in the middle of battle, truly deserves to be called a master of the pinnacle of Kekkei Tōta."

Neji stared at the data on the screen, his Byakugan automatically activating. In his perception, the numbers and charts seemed to come alive, transforming into an intuition of Chakra flow. Three years of training in the five elemental transformations, the Chakra control training Orochimaru designed for him, the precise Chakra storage techniques of the Yin Seal —all these accumulated experiences found their point of convergence at this moment.

"Give it to me," he said.

Orochimaru took out a specially made memory scroll from his pocket and tossed it to him. The surface of the scroll was warm, obviously just finished being engraved.

"All the data is in there, including the simulation training program," Orochimaru said. "But I must remind you that even knowing the proportions and sequences, actual operation still requires at least three months of adaptive training. Dust Release demands S-rank precision in Chakra control, and—"

He stopped talking.

Because Neji had already unrolled the scroll.

Without reading the text or studying the charts, he simply placed his palm on the center of the scroll and closed his eyes. The diamond-shaped mark of the Yin Seal appeared on his forehead, and pale purple Chakra patterns spread along his arm to the scroll, instantly activating all the information engraved within.

A massive amount of data flooded my mind.

The raw data, totaling over 500 GB, collected from 32 recording units, including proportions, sequences, compression ratios, phase synchronization points, and structural stability curves, was reorganized, analyzed, and transformed into the body's instinctive memories in his consciousness.

This is another application of the Yin Seal — Chakra Memory Imprinting. Tsunade originally developed this technique to store medical knowledge and surgical experience, but Orochimaru and Neji improved it, turning it into a tool for efficiently transmitting complex Ninjutsu data.

Ten seconds later, Neji opened his eyes.

He walked to the practice area on one side of the laboratory. It was empty except for the floor and walls, which were covered with a special material that could absorb the impact of Genin S-rank.

He raised his hands and clasped them together in front of his chest.

Blue wind, brown earth, and red fire—the three Chakra attributes surged from his body. They didn't surge out separately, but rather differentiated, transformed, and shaped from the same Chakra source. This was Orochimaru's masterpiece over the past three years: through the nourishment of Hashirama's Yang Release Hashirama Cells and the harmonization of the Natural Energy of Ryūchi Cave Senjutsu, Neji had achieved the instantaneous transformation and parallel control of the five Chakra attributes.

But this time, what's needed isn't parallelism, but integration.

The wind attribute condensed first, forming a miniature whirlwind core in the palm of the hand. The earth attribute followed closely, enveloping the whirlwind like quicksand, stabilizing its structure. The fire attribute was injected last, not in a brutal combustion, but in a precise catalysis—just as described in Orochimaru's data, igniting the fusion reaction at a specific phase point and a specific temperature.

On the first attempt, the three attributes went out of control the instant they came into contact. The wind blades tore through the earth's crust, the flames ignited the whirlwind, and with a muffled thud, a shallow crater was blasted into the ground of the training area.

Neji remained expressionless as he dissipated the remaining Chakra.

He closed his eyes, replaying the failed attempt in his mind. The Byakugan's precise perception, combined with the Dust Release data he had just acquired, instantly revealed the problem: the wind attribute's rotation direction was reversed by three-thousandths of an arc, causing a slight disturbance at the contact surface with the earth attribute; the fire attribute was injected 0.01 seconds too early, disrupting phase synchronization.

Adjustment.

The second attempt. The three attributes coalesced, came into contact, and fused again—this time, the fusion lasted for 0.5 seconds. An unstable energy ball, shimmering with multicolored light, appeared in his palm, then its internal structure collapsed, turning into a chaotic Chakra turbulence that made Neji's hair fly backward.

But the progress is obvious.

Neji opened his eyes, veins bulging around the pupils of his Byakugan. In his vision, the failed attempt was broken down into three hundred frames, with the Chakra state of each frame precisely recorded. What went right, what went wrong, and where the accumulated errors led to the final collapse—all this information, processed by both the Byakugan and the Yin Seal, was transformed into corrective parameters for the next attempt.

He took a deep breath.

He raised his hands for the third time.

This time, the movements were much slower. Not out of unfamiliarity, but out of ultimate control. Wind-style Chakra spun at a precise rate of 720 revolutions per second, forming a perfectly spherical whirlwind core. Earth-style chakra was injected like liquid, not enveloping, but permeating—each grain of Chakra- transformed "earth" precisely embedded itself in the gaps of the whirlwind structure, completing the fusion at the microscopic level. Fire-style chakra was injected precisely at the third phase synchronization point, with the temperature controlled at 674 degrees Celsius, catalyzing for 0.003 seconds.

Integration.

There was no explosion, and the situation did not spiral out of control.

The three colors of Chakra intertwined, coiled, and permeated in the palm, eventually transforming into a pure, stable white. The white initially resembled the size of a ping-pong ball, then slowly expanded, its internal structure continuously reorganizing and optimizing at the microscopic level, ultimately forming a perfect cube—fifteen centimeters on each side, with a surface as smooth as a mirror and edges as sharp as a knife.

Dust Release: Technique of Detachment of the Primitive World

Although it was only the smallest, laboratory-level version, and although its power might not even be one-tenth of Ōnoki's, it was indeed Dust Release: Kekkei Tōta, a power that transcends Kekkei Genkai and can break matter down into atoms.

The white cube slowly rotated in my palm, emitting a soft yet dangerous light.

Neji stared at it, his face expressionless. There was no joy, no excitement, no sense of accomplishment. Only a cold, almost mechanical focus—like Orochimaru's focus when adjusting equipment, like his own focus when carrying out a mission on the brink of life and death.

Three seconds later, he dissipated his Dust Release.

The white cube vanished as specks of light, leaving no trace.

A brief silence fell over the laboratory.

Orochimaru looked at him, and for the first time, genuine surprise appeared in his golden snake eyes—not a pretense, not an act, but the pure, academic surprise of a researcher seeing an experimental subject achieve a breakthrough in a way that exceeded all expectations.

"The third time..." Orochimaru said in a low voice, "Only the third time."

Neji turned around, walked to the control panel, and placed the memory scroll back on the table. His movements were steady, and his breathing was even, as if he had just completed a routine Ninjutsu practice rather than learning a Kekkei Tōta.

"The data is very accurate," he commented simply, "Saving us time on trial and error."

Orochimaru smiled. Not his usual mocking or cold laugh, but a complex, indescribable smile—containing surprise, admiration, and perhaps even a hint of... apprehension?

"Scientific training is the real shortcut." He repeated Neji's casual remark, his tone becoming playful. "But what you're doing isn't scientific training anymore, Neji- kun. What you're doing is 'copying'—using the combination of the Byakugan and the Yin Seal to directly copy the results of someone else's life's training."

"The most efficient way," Neji replied calmly. "We don't have time to take detours."

"Indeed." Orochimaru's smile faded, and he reverted to his composed scientist self. "Then, the next topic...about our other ally."

He pulled up surveillance footage from another area of the base. In the footage, Sasuke was sitting cross-legged in the center of the training room, his eyes closed, but his brows furrowed, surrounded by unstable Chakra fluctuations with dark purple arcs of electricity. That was the oppressive aura naturally emanating from the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan under incomplete control.

"Sasuke has been a bit restless lately," Orochimaru said. "After all, he's been staying at the Sound Village Underground Base for over half a month, doing nothing but training. Even Kabuto, Jugo, Suigetsu, and Karin have been taking turns going out to 'go out'—I sent them to capture a few White Zetsu to study—but Sasuke has been kept here, repeatedly practicing those Ninjutsu he's already mastered hundreds of times."

In the scene, Sasuke suddenly opens his eyes. The pattern of the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan spins in his scarlet pupils. He abruptly stands up and slams his fist into the wall of the training room. The specially made energy-absorbing material emits a dull thud, and spiderweb-like cracks appear on the surface of the wall.

"A perfectly normal reaction," Orochimaru commented. "The Uchiha Clan has violent and impulsive genes flowing in their blood, and the Sharingan amplifies emotions. Especially now, he knows Obito is looking for him, he knows Konoha is gathering, he knows war is about to break out—and he can only wait here. This sense of frustration is probably more unbearable for Sasuke than direct combat."

Neji looked at the agitated Sasuke on the screen and remained silent for a moment.

"I'm going to find him," he said.

"Appease?" Orochimaru raised an eyebrow.

"Remind him." Neji turned and walked towards the door. "Remind him of the value of patience, remind him of the enemy's strength, remind him... if he loses his temper now and gets captured by Obito to be his henchman, then he'll have nothing left."

Orochimaru's snake-like eyes narrowed slightly. "Do you need me to accompany you?"

"No need." Neji placed his hand on the doorknob. "This is a conversation between our 'allies.' You continue preparing for the Impure World Reincarnation; we don't have much time left."

The door opened, then closed again.

Orochimaru stood alone in front of the control panel, watching Sasuke's agitated figure on the screen, and then looking at the surveillance replay of the Dust Release test area—the image of the white cube slowly rotating in Neji's palm.

"Allies..." he repeated the word softly, a meaningful smile curving his lips. "What an interesting combination. A Hyuga Clan who wants to break free of the Caged Bird, an Uchiha Clan who wants to burn down the old world, and a scientist who just wants to witness all the chaos."

He turned and looked towards the cold storage at the deepest part of the laboratory. There were many special "samples" stored there: the cell tissue of the First Hokage, Hashirama Senju; the hair of the Second Hokage Tobirama Senju; the bloodstains of the Third Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi; and the belongings of the Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze...

And two small tissue samples that Kabuto obtained from the tomb of the Cloud Village, contained in a specially made culture jar.

The Kinkaku Ginkaku brothers.

A descendant of the Sage of Six Paths, and the former host of the Nine-Tails Chakra, he retains the complete Nine-Tails Chakra Attribute within him.

Orochimaru walked to the cold storage room, his pale fingers brushing across the cold surface of the culture tank. Inside, the two pieces of tissue writhed slightly in the preservation solution, as if still retaining the ferocity they had displayed in life.

"Almost there," he whispered, his golden snake eyes gleaming with a deep, eerie light in the dim light. "Almost ready."