Natural Energy 2

Fortunately, during these past few years of forging his body, he had never once relaxed his exercise in mental energy control...

Though it was strenuous at the moment, he slowly managed to block the natural energy surging into his body.

Beside him, seeing the sweat constantly welling up on Kakashi's head, Tagorihime also waved her hand at the opportune moment, absorbing the natural energy around Kakashi into her own body. Having done this, Kakashi instantly felt much lighter. Deprived of reinforcements, the natural energy gradually lost the strength to continue its assault on his brain.

The senjutsu of Ryūchi Cave required chakra to reach the level of shape transformation before it could be practiced, because compared to using mental energy to control spiritual energy, this condition was easier to achieve.

Yet Kakashi was able to use his mental energy to control spiritual energy, utilizing the home-field advantage to guide the other two external types of energy to circulate within his body.

The natural energy, which gradually came to a halt, was controlled by the spiritual energy, continuously circulating throughout Kakashi's physique.

His body was becoming familiar with this unfamiliar energy, starting with his limbs, and then moving to the meridians through which ninjutsu operated. Aside from the brain center and the organs that stored chakra, everywhere else capable of running it accepted this stream of energy.

Although she could not see through the situation inside Kakashi's body, Tagorihime clearly noticed something different. Was Kakashi seemingly repelling the natural energy?

It was not stemming from bodily instinct, but rather looked like conscious action. This was where the problem lay. However, now was not a good time for her to speak up and question him; she could only silently make a note of it and wait until Kakashi finished his cultivation to talk.

The natural energy within his body grew more docile and obedient with continuous circulation. Originally disorderly energy, after a certain degree of training, adapted to this rule of circulation, requiring only a small amount of mental energy to push and guide it from front to back.

Able to spare some energy, Kakashi attempted to take in more natural energy, only to find that the natural energy all around him seemed to have completely vanished. He could not help but frown slightly, thinking that Tagorihime might have intentionally controlled it, so he temporarily suppressed his confusion. He attempted to release his mental control over his brain just a little bit, allowing a small amount of natural energy to slowly enter his brain.

Having been subjected to control, the natural energy still remaining in his body could now follow that control to a certain extent, and the speed at which it circulated into the brain center was very slow. It was just like a person groping forward in the dark, extremely cautious.

First came a slight stinging itch. It was similar to the sensation on his skin when the natural energy had entered his body. It was just that now it was the brain nerves, making the reaction much more sensitive and the stimulus greater. Thus, the pain was magnified.

This should be the lingering traces left by the original chakra, causing an energy conflict as the natural energy passed through.

The circulating natural energy, when it first entered the body, let us assume there were 100 units. After circulating within Kakashi's body for a period of time, only about 80 remained, and at this moment as it began to enter the brain, the consumption of its reserves obviously increased.

Just as expected, chakra has a huge impact on the brain nerves, so the residual amount is also the greatest. No wonder those powerhouses are all so firm of mind; they have this kind of subtle influence from that aspect.

He slowly ran it through the entire set of brain nerves, and the natural energy reserves were down to only about 65. From the 100 units that entered the body down to a reserve of 65, Kakashi had no idea what level his absorption and mastery of natural energy could be considered. But thinking that this was his first time practicing, this degree of mastery should probably be considered pretty good.

As his physique as a whole grew accustomed to the circulation of natural energy.

Kakashi was about to immediately perform the final step of his experiment. That was the interaction between natural energy and chakra.

He guided out the chakra stored in his liver and lungs, bringing it into gentle contact in his arms with the natural energy lingering there.

The moment they made contact, countless beads of blood suddenly burst from Kakashi's arms.

The two different energies underwent a chemical reaction the moment they touched, tearing apart the meridian tissues and dragging along to rupture the blood vessels. Blood instantly dyed Kakashi's arms red.

Seeing this scene, Tagorihime was just preparing to lend a hand to suck the natural energy out of Kakashi's body when she was interrupted by Kakashi speaking up.

"Don't rush. I can still control it." Having already grown accustomed to the natural energy circulating in his brain, Kakashi did not worry about being hallucinated and could multitask while paying attention to the situation outside. Sensing Tagorihime's action, he voiced a stop to her.

Hearing this, Tagorihime stopped her movement, yet still did not dare to relax in the slightest. She dutifully stood guard over Kakashi.

Looking at the two mutually incompatible energies, Kakashi's mental energy barbarically charged into the intersection point of the two. Acting as a coordinator in the center, he pulled the natural energy and chakra over from left and right. He made them pass through him and undergo interaction right under his own nose.

The scene at this moment was that the purple natural energy and the blue chakra, guided by the white mental energy, slowly underwent a three-in-one process, gathering together into a brand-new color of deep blue energy. This belonged to Kakashi's Senjutsu Chakra. He had not mixed them according to any so-called ratios, purely utilizing his own advantage to achieve fusion. This was a better method than mixing three kinds of energy, directly achieving fusion among the energies.

The reason he had urged Orochimaru to bring him over as soon as possible to master natural energy was because Kakashi's exceptionally acute mental energy, when he had initially extracted chakra, had discovered that every time he finished using chakra, there would always be residual traces of chakra left inside his body. He worried that as time went on, rejection phenomena would appear. It was fortunate that it was still early; otherwise, as time dragged on, even if he shrank all his chakra back into himself, drawing natural energy into his body would probably stump Kakashi, let alone having natural energy circulate in a body full of chakra traces—the damage to himself at that time could be fatal.

From a very early time, Kakashi had hypothesized whether he could abandon chakra or not take chakra as the primary means to elevate his strength. Because the source of chakra was ultimately the Ōtsutsuki Clan, even if he possessed extraordinary talent and developed the chakra system to the extreme, acquiring a Kekkei Tōta, or even a Kekkei Mōra, he would still only be floundering within the realm of chakra.

He might be a genius, but capable of founding the Ōtsutsuki Clan, and even guiding the Ōtsutsuki to become a trans-stellar race—in front of such powerful individuals and groups, no matter how much of a genius you were, and no matter how you studied, it was impossible to defeat the opponent within their power system.

Because over the long years, the Ōtsutsuki Clan had long since become inextricably linked with chakra, mutually blending with one another. You could say that chakra created the Ōtsutsuki, but the Ōtsutsuki Clan had inevitably also driven the advancement of chakra, mutating it from an energy confined to a certain planet into a cultivable and harvestable energy that used an entire planet as its nutrient. Within such deep ties, the Ōtsutsuki Clan would inevitably develop abilities belonging exclusively to their own clan regarding chakra, or rather, the Ōtsutsuki would inevitably develop and evolve chakra in a direction favorable to their own clan.

Therefore, seeing this clearly from the very beginning, for the sake of his future plans and so as not to always remain inferior, Kakashi had long since clearly determined that within his own power system, chakra could only serve as an auxiliary.