章節 146: Development Period
"Natsuhiboshi, naze akai? Yuube kanashii yume wo mita..."
As the beautiful melody played in the background, the beach came alive with warm sunlight casting glimmering reflections upon the crystal-clear water as it pushed in and receded from the sandy landscape, where Shino stood proudly as he inspected the fruits of his labor during this period of intense development.
On the sandy beach nearby, Karina lounged in her smooth purple bikini, while Kurenai rested with a red flowery bikini, both of them chaotically sprawled on the sand. Their bikinis were disheveled, revealing their alluring curves and fair assets. Their bodies were also sticky with sweat, their chests rising and falling as they caught their breath, exhausted from their previous beach activities.
In stark contrast, Yakumo and Ying, adorned in white bandeau bikinis with kimonos loosely draping their backs, continued to serve Shino tirelessly. Their stamina seemed boundless, one's movements precise and mechanical while the other graceful and enticing.
However, Yakumo's actions soon came to a halt, sitting on the ground like a motionless doll. Beside her, Ying gracefully completed a final sweep alone before turning to Shino and reporting, "Master, it's clean and ready. Are you ready to try the new doll?"
"Hmm," Shino grunted, his gaze shifting towards a mature woman in her 30s, with long violet hair and striking facial features. Her jade-green eyes stared vacantly ahead, while her lips hummed a beautiful melody.
A ninja forehead protector adorned her head, bearing the star symbol that revealed her ninja origins, but she now wore a light purple kimono that accentuated her voluptuous, mature curves.
Shino's eyes flickered with recognition as he realized the beauty before him was none other than Natsuhi from the Hidden Star Village.
How had she ended up here? It was a long and intricate story, one that unfolded during this intense period of development.
It all started with Karina's breakthrough, utilizing the invaluable cursed seal data left behind by Uncle Snake.
After digesting Uncle Snake's research data, this brilliant little genius managed to develop a groundbreaking prototype that merged the cursed seal with their vast database of sealing techniques, such as the Thunder God technique. The result was a completely novel technique that seamlessly integrated with Shino's newly acquired powers from Jugo.
Unlike the original cursed seal, Karina's prototype couldn't bestow extreme powers or enable rebirth through the seal. It couldn't even be transplanted onto others. Instead, this seal was designed with a single compatibility in mind: to harmonize with Shino's zergs, or more accurately, his ninjutsu clones.
By embedding the seal within the core of his clones, the zerg battery, Shino could project his main body's power to the clones, regardless of the distance separating them!
This cursed seal enabled him to unleash his unique abilities, such as his powerful genjutsu domain, his chakra sealing chains, and even the newly acquired sage transformation, through his clones!
Needless to say, this ability was overpowered- not. It was crucial to acknowledge that this ability was still a work in progress, far from perfect. Undeniably, there were downsides to consider.
Firstly, the farther the transmission distance, the more power would be lost in transit. As a result, his abilities could only reach about half their full potential despite being fully activated.
Moreover, even with numerous cursed seals at his disposal, Shino could only channel each of his powers to one cursed seal at a time. This meant that he couldn't have multiple clones simultaneously utilizing the same ability.
If one clone were utilizing his genjutsu domain ability, for example, no other clone, including his main body, could access it. This limitation prevented him from deploying an army of clones all wielding the same ability.
Furthermore, if a clone channeled the power of the genjutsu domain, it couldn't simultaneously utilize other abilities like sage transformation or chakra chains, and vice versa. The cursed seal prototype was limited and could only channel one of his abilities at a time. Fortunately, this constraint wasn't a significant concern given the abundance of clones at his disposal.
Of course, Shino possessed a multitude of other abilities in his repository, including chakra transfer and absorption, as well as various passive skills. However, none of these could be effectively transmitted through the seal. Even if they could, the power reduction incurred during the transfer rendered them largely ineffective.
As it stood, the prototype demonstrated its greatest efficacy when using spiritual power-related abilities. Even the sage transformation proved sub-optimal without the presence of natural energy on the clone's body.
Nonetheless, this achievement held significant value in Shino's eyes, and Karina rightfully earned praise for her remarkable contributions. And of course, it was normal praise, not the other type. Ahem.
Naturally, during this period of exploration, Karina achieved numerous other breakthroughs while analyzing Shino's diverse abilities.
However, it seemed that Yakumo's development progress had hit a wall, whether intentionally or not.
If there was one person who didn't want the demoness to advance, it was the jealous little goblin.
Yet, despite her jealousy, Karina had always remained determined to forge ahead, as long as it ultimately benefited Shino. As a result, they encountered no obstacles in further developing the utilization of his genjutsu domain.
However, when it came to Yakumo's soul-devouring abilities, they struck a barrier, letting them realize that Ying's words were too good to be true.
Of course, it wasn't due to any moral reservations on Shino's part, as he had no qualms about consuming human souls. Rather, the issue was the definition of a 'normal' human.
Even when they kidnapped weak, ordinary individuals specifically for Yakumo to devour, she still struggled to consume their souls. In some cases, the feeble, instinctive counterattacks launched by these seemingly insignificant humans resulted in Yakumo's own obliteration, leaving them baffled.
After exhaustive testing, they finally unraveled the reason behind this perplexing predicament.
Despite being average humans, human souls remained deeply intertwined with their living bodies. Thus, Yakumo was unable to extract and devour them. Surprisingly, it was these living humans whose souls mounted the strongest retaliatory response. Bound to their physical forms, their soul strength was seemingly amplified manifold.
On the other hand, when they killed a human, the detached soul weakened considerably. However, without a physical vessel to bind it, the liberated soul would swiftly escape, dissolving into the ethereal unknown.
However, they concluded that it was the world itself that reclaimed the soul, sending it on its journey of reincarnation or to the Pure Land. This was a natural law, and even their most sophisticated sealing methods proved futile in halting this natural process.
At best, they could only delay it, but never long enough for Yakumo to complete the devouring process. Even if the underworld of this world could be considered to be rather loose, Death still held immeasurable power.
So, Shino's hopes of building an immortal army were dashed by this realization.
However, their endeavors did yield valuable knowledge and Karina made a conjecture: Detached souls without physical bodies were in their most vulnerable state, exhibiting minimal resistance that generally diminished the longer they remained detached. And this weakened state was perfect for devouring.
To test this conjecture, they turned their attention to a long-standing victim on Shino's watch list. This beauty, however, had been placed lower on the assimilation queue due to the availability of more iconic and desirable candidates.
So, the Star Guard Mission unfolded. And Shino dispatched upgraded clones to shadow Naruto and Team Guy, monitoring their every move in secret.
Simultaneously, he tested the limits of his new cursed seal, pushing the boundaries of his nerfed genjutsu domain, utilizing it to hide from the weak ninjas of the Hidden Star village and the group of four Konoha genins.
Then, with cold detachment, Shino observed the tragedy unfold before his eyes, allowing a potential queen to meet her demise. It wasn't until he witnessed Natsuhi materialize in her soul form that he decided to intervene.
Unleashing the full might of his genjutsu domain, Shino summoned Yakumo. While the rest of the ninjas remained blindsided by his genjutsu domain, his clones swiftly moved to subdue Natsuhi, who displayed an extraordinary ability to deflect attacks.
Alas, despite her impressive powers, Natsuhi proved defenseless against the weakened adamantine sealing chains employed by Shino. Although she could deflect attacks, she couldn't ward off Shino's sealing. In the world of Naruto, sealing techniques were truly overpowered.
Capturing a soul in such a weakened state was a rare opportunity, and Shino knew it wouldn't last long. Thus, he allowed Yakumo to devour Natsuhi's soul.
Despite being a powerful jonin ninja, once detached from her body and sealed, she became the perfect feast for Yakumo, akin to the original Ying, who Karina had rendered dormant through her complete control over assimilated queens.
Thus, poor Natsuhi lost her husband, her son, her life, and now even her freedom after death.
Yet, fear not, as Akahoshi, in his characteristic low-intelligence villainous manner, still revealed his crimes in public instead of lying to ensure the Konoha ninjas couldn't intervene. And after setting up his villain role, he finally embedded the star core onto his own body, ready to sweep away even his own village.
However, this time, the star core was just an illusion. So naturally, Naruto emerged victorious, even without Natsuhi making an appearance.
And with the end of the Star Guard Mission, Shino acquired a new source of power, and his immortal army finally gained an additional member.
And this incident confirmed that Yakumo could devour any human soul, as long as proper procedures were followed to weaken their state. Nevertheless, it remained uncertain when another rare opportunity like this would arise.
Perhaps, Yakumo would be able to directly devour human souls in the future, but for now, Karina concluded that Yakumo could only devour weakened detached souls, dormant souls, or remnant souls. With this restriction, the growth of his immortal army may be hindered, but at least it didn't require his limited supply of essence.
But despite this method not requiring his essence, perhaps directly assimilating ninjas would be a better alternative because the assimilated would be connected to their system, allowing ease of access to their memories and abilities.
On the other hand, with Natsuhi under Yakumo's control, Karina could only invest extra time to extract her memories to bolster their database. Karina also needed to explore the potential applications of Natsuhi's unique reincarnation fuinjutsu, a soul detachment technique which allowed Natsuhi's departed soul to temporarily return after being activated through the bodily fluid of her kin.
Leaving Natsuhi aside, Karina diligently delved into researching the strange star power and natural energy. Immersed in her research, burdened by heavy workloads, and focused on Shino's growth, she even left Shino to dry. However, Shino couldn't blame her, as they were truly severely understaffed.
Yakumo and Ying tirelessly transported resources, zergs, and bugs into the safety of Shino's system space, barely taking a moment's rest. Ying also assumed the responsibility of manipulating Natsuhi, cooperating with Karina in her research on the new power source and integrating her abilities into their system.
Kurenai was entrusted with studying the energy sources of the Spear of Heaven tower and the mirage technique. She also explored potential applications for Shino's genjutsu domain, establishing counter genjutsu and defenses for their system.
In her spare time, she also mentored Ying in genjutsu and sought methods for Shino to store objects without relying solely on Yakumo's abilities. And the list goes on. Like Karina, the list of her tasks seemed never-ending.
So, for once, even Shino himself dedicated his time to rigorous training, honing his skills and integrating his newfound abilities into actual combat. Additionally, he had to master the control of his natural energy, as he couldn't always rely on his bugs to extract it.
It was akin to returning to his old days, with Alina supervising his workout, now by Karina.
And this craze had been set in motion by Karina, the one who usually indulges Shino, just because she had discovered a worrying fact.
每周推薦票狀態
-- 推薦票
榜單 
-- 推薦票