Konan put away the small cylinder in her hand and smiled sheepishly.
Yahiko, who was nearby, came running over with Nagato.
He gave the wandering ninja several vicious kicks,
then began searching him for valuables.
They had been looking for food when this wandering ninja ambushed them.
He had targeted the girl who looked weakest in the group.
Under normal circumstances, that would have been true, but things had ended badly for him.
First, Konan had stuck paper made with her Chakra over his eyes.
Immediately afterward, his whole body had shuddered, and he had passed out.
The three of them quickly left the ruins with the two thousand ryo in banknotes they had found, as well as the Ninja Blade made of ordinary materials.
As they traveled, Yahiko asked,
"Konan, that ninja tool the cocky Sand ninja kid gave you is amazing!
Could you ask him how much it costs and buy a few more from him?
With a ninja tool that can unleash Lightning Release, we won't have to fear ordinary ninja anymore!"
Before Konan could speak, Nagato, who was following beside them, shook his head.
His eyes, hidden beneath his red hair, had seen something unusual about Konan's cylinder.
That was Chakra Metal, something extraordinarily precious in the Shinobi World.
He had no idea what sort of intricate design allowed it to store Chakra and convert it into fierce Lightning Release.
In the Shinobi World, even a little Chakra Metal cost a fortune.
"Yahiko, we didn't really help Mukai with anything.
It was all Sister Nonō's doing.
The fact that he gave Konan one makes it precious enough.
Teacher Jiraiya mentioned Chakra Metal. Have you forgotten?
The cylinder that ninja from Sunagakure gave Konan
is made of Chakra Metal.
It's so valuable, we can't let bad people see it."
Yahiko was a little insensitive, but he knew right from wrong.
He slapped his forehead and said,
"I was asking too much. Don't mind me, Konan.
That black-haired kid is really generous.
He's so much better than that red-haired kid who's the cockiest of them all.
Since it's so valuable, make sure you keep it hidden.
It'll be trouble if those bad people see it.
Konan, next time we run into Mukai,
how about we treat him to something tasty to thank him?"
Konan nodded and tucked the cylinder inside her clothes.
Her hand felt along the cylinder's smooth outer surface, and she couldn't help remembering the boy whose confidence shone even in his eyes.
What was Mukai busy with now?
The Land of Wind, Sasori's own puppet workshop.
"Mukai, this can produce Lightning Release?"
On the table was a set of rather crude-looking equipment.
The contraption, a little over forty centimeters tall, looked like two drums pressed together.
One drum was wrapped in fur, while the other was coated with a very thin layer of insect grease.
Many metal wires ran out from inside the drums. Some led to the ground, while others connected to a metal ball inside a jar.
Anyone familiar with modern physics experiments would surely have recognized the device:
a basic device for generating and storing static electricity, a Van de Graaff generator!
By gaining and losing electrons, it stored an electrostatic charge!
Mukai turned the crank, and as the drums rotated,
the electrostatic charge traveled through the wires and accumulated in a supercapacitor he had specially made.
Thanks to the special properties of Chakra Metal in the Shinobi World,
a capacitor made from this metal, which looked much like the titanium alloy from his previous life, had almost ten times the storage capacity of one in his original world!
Could Chakra Metal really be titanium?
But he had studied electrical engineering, not prospecting and smelting!
Putting aside his curiosity about Chakra Metal for the moment, he prepared to finish the task at hand.
As he cranked, the protective circuit built into the special cylinder began to crackle and discharge,
indicating that the capacitor was fully charged.
The Van de Graaff generator had a simple design and was ideal for an introduction to electricity.
Mukai took the fully charged capacitor off the Van de Graaff generator,
pointed it at a grounded metal post embedded in the middle of the puppet workshop, and gently pressed the discharge button.
With a crackle, a blue-white arc burst from the capacitor in Mukai's hand,
crossing a distance of more than half a meter and striking the metal post.
Five hundred thousand volts and six milliamps!
Had he really produced that spectacular effect, which looked so much like Lightning Release, without using any Chakra at all?
Sasori stood to one side, watching the crude contraption Mukai had cobbled together by hand from puppet parts.
It could actually produce that effect!
Mukai breathed a sigh of relief and said,
"This is the effect of Lightning Release created with ordinary equipment!
With magnetite sand, I could make an even more powerful generator!"
Although Sasori was astonished by Mukai's ingenious idea, and being able to use Lightning Release without Chakra was indeed amazing,
the power of this Lightning Release was only average. What special use could it have?
With this alone, it would probably be difficult to persuade the village.
Naturally, Mukai wasn't arrogant enough to think a model Van de Graaff generator could win the village's support.
In this Ninjutsu world, technology was severely lopsided. Its social system was one of feudal serfdom,
yet the daimyo and the upper echelons of the Shinobi World had televisions and electric lights.
Of course, those limited applications of technology were all powered by Chakra and Lightning Release.
To make Kazegakure, which lacked Lightning Release Chakra, take Mukai's research and development seriously,
he naturally needed to make electricity genuinely useful to the village.
What did Sunagakure and the entire Land of Wind lack most?
Water, of course!
Outside the areas near oases, clean water cost one ryo in many places!
Although what Mukai truly valued was actually a byproduct of this device.
Hearing Sasori's question, Mukai didn't answer directly. Instead, he brought out a bucket of murky underground brine with an air of mystery.
"Sasori, have a taste. Isn't this undrinkable underground brine?"
Sasori rolled his eyes at Mukai.
He had grown up in Sunagakure. How could he not recognize underground brine?
After Mukai repeatedly urged him, he finally dipped a finger in and put it in his mouth for a taste.
Sure enough, it was bitter and salty, just as expected.
"Pah, pah, pah, that's bitter!
This kind of brine is completely useless, let alone drinkable.
The well water in many oases is just like this.
What did you bring out a whole bucket of it for?"
Mukai pointed to a device beside them that looked like a sloping trough.
Unlike an ordinary trough, this one had thin sheets of Chakra Metal and graphite electrodes fixed inside it.
These Chakra Metal sheets and graphite electrodes
had all been cut by Mukai with precisely controlled wind blades.
Their surfaces were exceptionally smooth, and their dimensions were remarkably uniform.
Mukai hadn't unlocked any other achievements yet,
but he had managed to earn the achievement "My Eyes Are Rulers" first.
The thin Chakra Metal sheets were arranged in an alternating pattern in the trough,
with a small piece of white paper separating each one.
The Chakra Metal sheets and graphite electrodes running through the trough were only a few millimeters apart.
Like a tightly packed comb inside the trough, they had a distinctive, orderly beauty.
"Come on, Sasori, give me a hand. Pour this bucket of brine in through the funnel."
Mukai held the wires on the left and right in his hands as he spoke to Sasori.
Sasori felt that Mukai had changed a lot. Except when he was fooling around,
he rarely called him Big Brother Sasori anymore.
He curled his lip and said,
"I'd like to see what you're being so mysterious about.
I'm such an idiot, wasting time I could spend improving my puppets to indulge your nonsense here in the workshop."
As Sasori grumbled, he used Chakra Threads to lift the bucket of brine off the floor and pour it into the funnel above the trough, his face full of disdain.
By then, Mukai had begun supplying electricity to the two wires:
"Neutral on the left, live on the right, Lord of Thunder, lend me your might!"
Though he shouted something so chuunibyou, what he precisely delivered through his hands was direct current.
Positive on the left, negative on the right, ninety volts of direct current!
As the murky brine poured into the trough and came into contact with the densely packed Chakra Metal sheets, which resembled heat-dissipation fins,
the grayish-yellow brine underwent a change visible to the naked eye!
Small bubbles began to appear on the positive copper plate, giving off an unpleasant smell,
while a layer of yellowish-white crystals began to form on the negative electrode!
Even more remarkably, the murky brine being poured in had become exceptionally clear!