In the Underground Research Facility's testing arena, the air still seemed to tremble from the thunderous blow moments earlier.
A wall-sized Special Alloy Steel Plate, three centimeters thick, lay twisted and deformed in the distance. A deeply sunken fist imprint marked its center, and fine cracks had even appeared around its edges.
The plate had originally been used to test the destructive power of high-level ninjutsu or taijutsu. It was hard enough to withstand an ordinary jonin's full-strength strike.
And all of this had been caused by a casual punch from Nagato, who had only recently undergone his hashirama cells transplant and was still adjusting.
Nagato stood in the center of the testing arena and slowly withdrew his fist.
He lowered his head and stared at his hands in disbelief. They were no longer skeletal, emaciated, and weak.
Although they could hardly be called muscular yet, the outlines of muscle had begun to show beneath his skin. His knuckles no longer jutted out so sharply, and even his complexion had regained a faint, healthy flush he had not seen in ages.
He could feel an unprecedented vitality, vigorous yet gentle, welling up endlessly from deep within his body, like fresh spring water flowing into a dried-up riverbed.
This power not only repaired his ravaged chakra pathways and organs, but also gave his body strength and vitality far beyond what he had possessed before.
The hashirama cells transplanted this time... are completely different from the ones Obito gave me.
Nagato understood.
The hashirama cells Orochimaru had painstakingly cultivated had been stripped of most of their violent and unstable elements. They focused on integrating with and nourishing the host rather than aggressively consuming him.
As a result, he had not only accepted the cells successfully, but also gained enhancements far beyond his