Chapter 378: Some Experiments and Ideas on One's Own Life Reincarnation
[Experiment Log: The seventh One's Own Life Reincarnation experiment has begun. After the first experimental subject, who had previously died, was successfully reincarnated by the second experimental subject, a certain degree of struggle and resistance appeared.]
[Experiment Log: After death, the parasitic worm's influence over the host is greatly weakened. If the host possesses enough strength, they should be able to break free from the parasitic worm's control.]
[Experiment Log: However, the first experimental subject quickly returned to his original state under the parasitic worm's influence and began the reincarnation of the deceased second experimental subject.]
Amamiya Kenichi recorded the information in his experimental log.
In front of him, a man with vacant eyes was mechanically forming hand seals, then casting One's Own Life Reincarnation to revive another ninja lying motionless across from him. That person was Kenichi's second experimental subject.
Kenichi had previously thought of a method: teach two ninja to master One's Own Life Reincarnation, then kill one of them and have the other cast One's Own Life Reincarnation on the corpse.
In this way, the ninja who cast One's Own Life Reincarnation would die, while the deceased would be revived. Then, the revived deceased would cast One's Own Life Reincarnation on the one who had just died, bringing them back again.
It could be said that a cycle of life and death had been achieved between the two ninja. This provided great convenience for Kenichi's experiment. At the very least, it greatly reduced the consumption of materials.
Of course, Kenichi also discovered some other problems.
Looking at the vacant experimental subject before him, Kenichi fell into thought.
He had already performed One's Own Life Reincarnation seven times, and during that process, he discovered something rather interesting.
The more times One's Own Life Reincarnation was cast, the more vacant the caster became. For example, during the first few uses, the first and second experimental subjects had shown strong resistance after casting One's Own Life Reincarnation, actively trying to break free from the parasitic worm's control.
But now, after the first experimental subject stood up again, he remained completely motionless.
At this moment, the first experimental subject was like a puppet on strings.
However, now was not the time to study that.
Kenichi activated his Mangekyō Sharingan and once again observed the entire process of One's Own Life Reincarnation.
[Experiment Log: During the hand seal sequence, countless chakra energy points spontaneously gathered into a special shape according to the hand seal gestures. So far, the energy composition of all seven One's Own Life Reincarnation casts has been identical.]
Kenichi looked at the diagram in his hand. He had drawn it based on the chakra flow he observed through his Mangekyō Sharingan.
This made him rather curious.
What function did hand seals actually serve in the shinobi world?
One had to know that hand seals were basically common knowledge among ninja. But conversely, in the later stages of the Naruto story, hand seal animations were rarely seen.
However, according to Kenichi's understanding, it might not be that they were no longer using hand seals, but that their hand seal speed was too fast for ordinary people to see.
Just like when Itachi once crushed Kakashi, his hand seal speed was so fast that Kakashi could not see his hand movements clearly at all.
Moreover, repeatedly showing hand seals was troublesome, so it was simply abbreviated for convenience.
But now, Kenichi had gained a new perspective.
"To a certain extent, are hand seals equivalent to a method of arranging chakra in a specific way? Can properly arranged chakra perform specific functions according to that method?" Kenichi pondered.
This felt somewhat like computer programming. A string of code could produce different effects depending on how it was written.
So, if the method of arranging chakra could be deciphered, would it be possible to completely eliminate the need for hand seals to some extent?
Even if that could not be achieved, the process of forming hand seals could probably be simplified, just as the Second Hokage often needed only a single simple seal to cast many ninjutsu.
But if it could be simplified even further, would it then be possible to cast ninjutsu directly without any hand seals at all?
That would be extremely helpful in battle. It would be covert enough that others would have no idea what ninjutsu you were about to cast.
At that moment, One's Own Life Reincarnation continued.
In Kenichi's eyes, after the ninjutsu was successfully cast, it transformed into a strange...
Kenichi could not quite describe what it was.
It looked somewhat like a circular hole, yet it also felt like a black hole.
Immediately afterward, chakra gathered on the corpse, then flew into the circular hole, pulling something back before shrinking again.
At the same time, the caster collapsed to the ground, losing all signs of life.
[Experiment Log: One's Own Life Reincarnation seems to be completed by opening a channel to the Pure Land, then using chakra to search for the soul of the corpse and pull that soul back. At the same time, one soul must be sacrificed as a...]
Kenichi's pen paused for a moment.
[Experiment Log: ...a chip? Or an exchange item, used to trade for the other party's soul.]
Kenichi watched as the second experimental subject slowly opened his eyes. Those eyes were dull and vacant.
The subject instinctively crawled up, then sat on the ground and began eating military rations.
He had already given up resisting.
"If we assume that the Pure Land has a monitoring mechanism, where one soul must enter for every soul that leaves in order to fill the gap and evade this mechanism, then what about Rinne Rebirth?" Kenichi scratched his head, feeling that the current situation was becoming rather complicated.
However, after thinking about the effect of Rinne Rebirth, Kenichi felt that it might not be entirely impossible to explain.
After all, one directly summoned the so-called King of Hell, who spat out the souls of the dead from his mouth, while the other secretly drilled a hole into the Pure Land and furtively pulled out a soul.
In other words, one was official import, while the other was private smuggling. Naturally, they would be treated differently and subject to different levels of suppression by the Pure Land.
From this perspective, it was not completely unreasonable.
"So, if I can find a way to officially import, can I avoid the need for someone to die and serve as the exchange? If we follow the principle of energy conservation, does Rinne Rebirth sacrifice a high-quality soul in exchange for countless low-quality souls?" Kenichi scratched his head.
He always felt that more problems were hidden behind these questions.
For example, how was the value of a soul defined?
Moreover, Obito later used Rinne Rebirth to revive Uchiha Madara. Madara's soul value could not have been low, right?
Kenichi rubbed his temples, feeling a little troubled.
These problems were like nested dolls. Solve one, and more would pop out.
"Forget it. Let's sort things out first. Based on Rinne Rebirth and my current observations, Rinne Rebirth is naturally stronger than One's Own Life Reincarnation."
"So, there are several current hypotheses."
Kenichi moved his pen and continued writing down his thoughts.
[Hypothesis One: Rinne Rebirth is cast through the Rinnegan. The mysterious energy of the ocular ninjutsu pays some unknown price, thereby exchanging for many souls.]
[Hypothesis Two: The soul of the Rinne Rebirth caster itself possesses great value, so it can be exchanged for more souls.]
[Hypothesis Three: The Rinne Rebirth caster is powerful enough to forcibly open the Pure Land and achieve resurrection through brute force, but is then taken away by the Pure Land.]
Kenichi scratched his head.
Among these three possibilities, he personally felt that the first and second were the most likely, while the third had a much lower probability.
After all, if the caster truly had that much power, why would he still have to die?
He could just revive everyone and be done with it.
"So, the research direction can begin by testing whether the souls of other creatures, or perhaps other objects, can be used as the exchange price." Kenichi became somewhat interested.
At this moment, the second experimental subject also began the eighth experiment.
This time, he would use One's Own Life Reincarnation to revive the first subject, continuously repeating the process until Kenichi obtained the experimental data he wanted.
However, in this experiment, Kenichi also added something extra to verify his idea.
[Experiment Log: The eighth experiment has officially begun. This time, an ordinary person was introduced. At the instant the second experimental subject successfully cast One's Own Life Reincarnation, the ordinary person was killed and simultaneously covered with chakra...]
In Kenichi's Mangekyō Sharingan, although chakra enveloped the civilian, it did not bring anything back. It simply dissipated.
The second experimental subject also collapsed to the ground and lost his life, while the first experimental subject's heartbeat slowly returned to normal.
Kenichi sighed.
[Experiment Log: It seems that increasing the number of souls offered is not feasible. Or rather, One's Own Life Reincarnation does not account for this aspect. It cannot attach additional souls for exchange.]
"It's really difficult. Modifying ninjutsu these days is truly no simple matter." Kenichi began thinking about what to prepare for the next experiment.
Should he use five ordinary people as experimental subjects?
While Kenichi was pondering, he suddenly discovered a problem.
The first experimental subject was lying on the ground, motionless.
Kenichi walked over and glanced at the life monitor placed nearby. The readings were slowly returning to the level of a normal person.
Except for the brainwaves.
"Interesting." Kenichi picked up the instrument and checked it.
He quickly found that the instrument showed that at the moment the subject's heart resumed beating, the first experimental subject's brainwaves had recovered for less than a second before permanently ceasing activity.
Kenichi tried poking him. Then he directly picked up a kunai and pierced the subject's hand.
The subject's brainwaves showed no activity at all.
"Can he still move now?" Kenichi asked.
Naturally, he was not asking the experimental subject, but the parasitic offspring inside him.
"Yes, Master." The first experimental subject opened his eyes and crawled up from the ground.
His movements were somewhat stiff, as if he was not yet accustomed to controlling the body in this way.
"What's the situation now?" Kenichi asked with interest.
"Master, this... this person seems to be dead. No matter how I stimulate him, he won't move," the parasitic worm answered respectfully while controlling the experimental subject.
The scene gave off an eerie feeling.
Kenichi pondered.
This looked somewhat like a vegetative state.
The concept of a vegetative state had been a cliché in television dramas in his previous life, especially in the earliest Korean dramas, where car accidents, leukemia, vegetative states, and amnesia were common tropes.
However, in reality, scientific research into vegetative states had never stopped. Many scientists in that field had been quietly dedicating themselves to it.
Kenichi had not researched vegetative states much, since that was not his field. However, he was now more curious about how the first experimental subject before him had ended up in this condition.
[Experiment Log: The ninth experiment has not yet begun, but the first experimental subject has already developed a problem. Preliminary diagnosis: loss of brainwave activity, resulting in a vegetative state.]
[Experiment Log: The first experimental subject has been revived a total of four times. During the first revival, there was strong resistance. During the second revival, resistance was negligible. During the third revival, he became vacant. After the fourth revival, symptoms resembling a vegetative state appeared.]
"Now, can you still control him to use ninjutsu?" Kenichi rubbed his eyes.
At this point, his eyes had begun to ache as well. It was a good time to rest.
"It needs... time to practice, Master," the parasitic worm continued.
Its speech was now less stuttered, showing that it was quickly adapting to controlling this body.
"Alright." Kenichi closed his experimental log.
He now needed to research why the first experimental subject had fallen into this state. Once the first subject became somewhat accustomed to movement, he could begin reviving the second subject.
That would also be the second subject's fourth revival.
At that time, he could see whether the second subject would also enter a vegetative state.
If the second subject also developed the same condition, it would prove that there was a problem with One's Own Life Reincarnation itself, or that repeatedly experiencing death and revival within a short period would cause certain issues for the target.
Kenichi then began his research.
After examining the first experimental subject, he found no obvious damage to the subject's body. There was only a certain degree of brain cell death in the brain, but the number of dead cells was not large, and the affected area should only have involved the language region.
Logically speaking, a vegetative state should not have occurred.
Meanwhile, the parasitic worm was rapidly adapting to controlling the first experimental subject's body.
"Lord Amamiya."
Just as Kenichi was about to continue his experiments, Uchiha Shiori knocked on the door. Kenichi temporarily gave up on continuing.
"What is it?" Kenichi looked at Shiori.
She was the same as always.
"Here is the latest intelligence. You need to review it." Shiori handed over a piece of intelligence with both hands.
Kenichi took it curiously.
Then he saw the contents written inside.
"Orochimaru reportedly attacked Konoha."
Kenichi frowned slightly.
"Why would my teacher attack Konoha? It seems my little junior sister really did something incredible." Kenichi scratched his head.
He had not expected the matter to escalate this much.
Originally, he had thought there would be a better solution.
.....
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