The detector beeped all night.
Rinto stared at the error messages flashing red on the screen. The crystal jade pinched between his fingertips had already cracked, the residual chakra from Hashirama Cells inside it battering his engraved solidification patterns to pieces. He casually hurled it into the scrap box with a clatter. The box was already nearly half full of carrier fragments pitted by erosion.
This was his third all-nighter.
The vitality of Hashirama Cells was too wild. Even a trace of purified chakra would grow madly along the patterns the moment it touched a carrier, either bursting the engraved configuration apart or eating straight through the crystal jade's internal structure. He simply could not lock it in. The circulation configuration he had previously used to solidify senjutsu chakra was like paper before that vitality.
Three meal boxes Kabuto had delivered sat piled on the table, all unopened. The rice balls in the top one were already hard enough to hurt his teeth. He had only gulped down half a bottle of cold water early yesterday morning. He had spent the rest of his time rooted to the workbench, dismantling and testing, watching the tests collapse, then revising again.
With all the chakra he had studied before, whether the binary structure of ordinary ninja or the ternary balance of senjutsu, the core had always been "spiritual energy anchoring energy." But the chakra of Hashirama Cells was different. Its life energy itself possessed an extremely powerful ability to form its own configurations. Without spiritual anchoring, it could grow wildly, erode, and reconstruct on its own, completely outside his previous configuration logic.
The door was gently pushed open. Kabuto stepped in quietly, set a new meal box at the edge of the table, and collected the empty boxes. Looking at the discarded draft papers covering the floor, he said softly, "Mr. Rinto, Lord Orochimaru asked whether you've finished the Cursed Seal isolation configuration you agreed on."
Without raising his head, Rinto swiped through the instantaneous data from the latest collapse on the light screen and tossed out a casual reply. "That scroll at the corner of the table. Take it yourself."
Kabuto looked where he indicated. A rolled-up sheet of draft paper did indeed lie weighed down at the corner of the table. Drawn on it was an optimized isolation configuration with three added layers of chakra-shielding patterns, which could seal the Cursed Seal's fluctuations tight and even evade the high-frequency scans of sensory barriers. Rinto had casually revised it when he hit a wall late last night. It had taken less than ten minutes altogether. To him, such minor changes that did not cross his red line were far simpler than dissecting Hashirama Cells.
Kabuto picked up the scroll, then could not resist reminding him, "You've barely eaten in three days. Why not have something hot first? If you keep this up, your hands won't stay steady, and that will only delay your experiments."
Rinto did not respond. His fingers sketched rapidly across the draft paper, his mind filled with the flow paths of Hashirama's chakra. Seeing him like this, Kabuto said no more and quietly withdrew.
He tried four more times. It still collapsed.
Whether he thickened the isolation layer or added circulation buffers, Hashirama's chakra always found a gap to squeeze through and shredded the entire configuration. Rinto tossed the engraving knife onto the bench, leaned back in his chair, and closed his eyes as he rubbed his aching temples.
His previous approach had been wrong.
He had kept trying to "lock up" Hashirama's chakra, but its very nature was wildly growing life energy. The tighter he locked it down, the worse the collapse when it erupted. Just as he had switched to circulation when he could not lock down senjutsu chakra, could he stop trying to confine Hashirama's chakra and follow its growth logic instead?
His eyes snapped open. He grabbed a charcoal pencil and began drawing. His previous configurations had "blocked"; now he needed to "guide"-rather than forcibly stopping it with isolation layers, he would follow the life energy's growth paths and engrave a set of adaptive anchor points. Wherever it grew, the anchors would follow, turning wildly growing energy into a controllable configuration flow.
Once that line of thought opened up, the knot that had held him back for three days loosened at once.
He grabbed a piece of starfall iron and secured it in the vise. As the engraving knife touched down, even his breathing grew lighter. These patterns were completely different from the earlier ones. They were neither closed loops nor one-way channels, but vine-like adaptive anchor points. Each node could adjust to the chakra's growth, stabilizing the configuration without forcibly obstructing the energy flow.
By the time he finished engraving, it was completely dark. His hands trembled badly. He had barely eaten for three days and was holding on through sheer persistence, yet the fingertips holding the starfall iron remained steady, without the slightest deviation.
He carefully extracted a trace of chakra from Hashirama Cells and injected it into the patterns on the starfall iron.
There was no sharp crack of fracturing material, nor any beeping error alert. A faint green glow rose within the starfall iron. Chakra flowed slowly along the anchor patterns, and the adaptive nodes made tiny adjustments with the energy's movement. The once wildly growing life energy was firmly contained within the patterns, without the slightest overflow or sign of collapse.
Rinto stared at the steady curve on the detector, his Adam's apple bobbing.
It worked.
He tested it five times, and every result was absurdly stable. The injected chakra could be precisely converted into Wood Release's growth-inducing effect. Even a trace could make the dried rice balls on the table sprout green shoots half a foot long in an instant.
More importantly, he had finally dissected the core configuration of Hashirama's chakra-the essence of Wood Release was the ultimate configuration of yang release chakra, using life energy to directly reconstruct the structure of matter and turn lifeless carriers into living things capable of growth.
This discovery vastly expanded the boundaries of his configuration studies. His previous solidification methods had all used "static patterns," which could not change once engraved. But the adaptive configuration of Hashirama Cells had brought him to the threshold of "dynamic configurations"-structures that could adjust their own patterns as the chakra changed.
He snatched up draft paper and recorded data like a madman, his pen tearing through several sheets as he muttered directions for optimization, completely forgetting time, food, and everything outside.
Only when he had more or less finished organizing the data did he notice that Kabuto had replaced the meal box by the table again. It was still hot. He picked up a rice ball and devoured it in a few bites, choking until he coughed. After gulping down half a bottle of water, he had just picked up his engraving knife to optimize the adaptive anchors' structure when the laboratory door opened.
Orochimaru walked in. His golden slit pupils swept over the green shoots on the table, then settled on the Hashirama chakra configuration diagram still displayed on the detector. His lips curled into a hissing smile.
"It seems you've already solved the problem of Hashirama Cells." He walked over to the workbench, his gaze settling on the piece of starfall iron engraved with adaptive anchors. He could not hide the fervor in his eyes.
After studying Hashirama Cells for so long, his greatest headache had been their uncontrolled erosion. Even with his techniques, he could barely suppress it. He could not possibly tame Hashirama's chakra as thoroughly as Rinto had, much less release it steadily.
Rinto casually put the starfall iron away in a box and looked up at him. "You've got the Cursed Seal configuration. Anything else?"
"I came to thank you, of course." Orochimaru chuckled softly, tapping the workbench with his fingertips. "Your isolation configuration works very well. It has greatly improved the Cursed Seal's concealment. But what interests me more is your dissection of the configuration of Hashirama Cells."
He moved half a step closer, his tone enticing. "Rinto, we can work together again. Help me crack the proliferation configuration of Hashirama Cells and solve the problem of cellular erosion, and I can give you all the resources you want. Tailed Beast chakra samples, configuration records for forbidden techniques-anything."
Rinto's brows immediately knitted.
Cracking the proliferation configuration of Hashirama Cells would essentially serve Orochimaru's human immortality experiments. What Orochimaru wanted was for Hashirama Cells to survive stably inside living people without eroding their hosts. That was still human experimentation, and it crossed his red line.
"No." His refusal was crisp and utterly unhesitating. "I only dissect chakra configurations. I don't touch cellular modification, much less conduct supporting research for your human experiments. We agreed on this before. You know my bottom line."
Orochimaru's smile faded slightly, but he did not grow angry. He merely said unhurriedly, "You've already thoroughly understood the chakra of Hashirama Cells. You'd only be helping me optimize their cellular compatibility configuration. You wouldn't have to touch a living subject. What does it matter?"
"My research concerns chakra itself, not living people." Rinto's tone cooled. "I will not give you the chakra configuration data for Hashirama Cells. Using that on human bodies would only produce more collapsing test subjects. I have no interest in cleaning up your mess."
This was the first time he had explicitly refused Orochimaru's invitation to collaborate. The previous buffer models, locking configurations, and concealment patterns had all been theoretical optimizations that did not involve living subjects. This time was different. What Orochimaru wanted was plainly intended for use on people.
Orochimaru stared at him for a long while, emotions churning in his golden slit pupils. Eventually, he smiled again, though the smile did not reach his eyes. "All right. I won't force you. I was presumptuous."
He did not bring up collaboration again, instead exchanging a few remarks about the thinking behind adaptive configurations. Rinto casually answered a couple of questions, choosing only matters that did not involve the core, clearly showing little interest. Orochimaru took the hint and did not linger, leaving after a few more remarks.
The moment the door closed, Rinto casually added two more layers to the laboratory's barrier.
He knew exactly what Orochimaru was after. Their previous collaborations had given each of them what they needed, but now Orochimaru wanted to drag him into the mire of human experimentation. That was something he would never touch.
He and Orochimaru had never been the same kind of person. Orochimaru studied chakra for immortality, for power, and for control over other people's lives and deaths. He studied chakra only to understand its essence. Nothing more.
Rinto stopped thinking about Orochimaru and turned his attention back to the workbench. The adaptive configuration of Hashirama Cells had given him a completely new approach. Perhaps these adaptive anchors could solve the multi-nature compound configuration that had stumped him for so long.
He picked up a fresh piece of crystal jade and was just about to lower his knife when his gaze swept over the neatly organized stack of experiment records at the corner of the table. He remembered the experimental chronicle he had previously begun.
He set down the engraving knife, took the scroll out of the explosion-proof cabinet, and opened it to a blank page. Stroke by stroke, he wrote down the basic configuration theories he had developed over more than a decade, along with his experimental data on carrier solidification. From his earliest Wind Release configurations to nature transformation, then senjutsu circulation and the adaptive anchors he had just developed, he clearly recorded every experimental process, lesson from failure, and line of reasoning behind his optimizations.
He was not writing this for fame or for anyone else to read. He simply wanted to systematically organize more than a decade of his own research. Many scattered ideas only revealed their flaws and room for improvement once they were written down.
Outside the window, dawn came again.
Rinto wrote for an entire night, filling nearly half the scroll before finally setting down his pen. He stretched, his joints cracking. After staying up for nearly four days, sleepiness finally washed over him.
He did not lie down on the bed. He merely leaned back in his chair and dozed with his eyes closed for ten minutes, then abruptly opened them and grabbed the piece of starfall iron.
There was still plenty to do to optimize the adaptive configuration. As for Orochimaru's probing, Danzo's schemes, and Konoha's undercurrents, he still paid them no mind.
As long as they did not disturb his experiments, even the sky falling had nothing to do with him.