Fumori masaki was the last to enter the conference room. Although he wanted to arrive early, he didn't want to put unnecessary pressure on his hardworking subordinates. If the Hokage arrived too early and his subordinates were late, what kind of situation would that be? Either they would feel uneasy, or they would have to arrive even earlier, neither of which would be good for them.
Fumori masaki looked at the people in the conference room. Everyone had already arrived, including his daughter, Akemi. He nodded to each person, and the heads of the Research Department and the Military Production Department immediately stood up, leading the others in a bow to the Hokage.
When the Research Department and the Military Production Department were first established, due to their special nature, they didn't receive much attention from powerful ninja clans. The earliest members were either those who were not valued within their families or civilian ninjas who later showed talent. The department heads were all individuals dedicated to improving the status of civilians, such as the Second Hokage Tobirama and Sarutobi Hiruzen.
Even now, more than twenty years later, when members of powerful ninja clans began to try and get involved, due to Fumori masaki's control, the main leaders of these two departments are still those original individuals, maintaining a strong civilian character. Even those from ninja clans are inevitably influenced by this atmosphere.
In these two departments, what is valued is not traditional combat ability, but talent in other areas. Therefore, even among the clan members who join, most have insufficient talent. Of course, there are also a few genius ninjas who possess both talent and ability, but they are ultimately a minority and not many are willing to join.
Therefore, the conflict between ninja clans and civilians in the Research Department is not significant; research capability is paramount. This is something that can quickly narrow the gap between ninja clans and civilians. Currently, it appears to be a relatively healthy competitive relationship. On the Military Production Department side, the issue of clan involvement is resolved through orders and other business.
For the senior members of these two departments, who were not valued in traditional ninja clans, their ability to find a place here and exercise their talents in non-traditional ways was entirely dependent on the support of two generations of Hokage, especially the current Third Hokage. They hold Fumori masaki in great respect.
Fumori masaki gestured for everyone to sit down and then took his own seat. In front of him lay a document outlining the agenda for the meeting. He didn't look at it immediately, but instead said, "Well then, let the meeting begin."
"I will report on the production status of the Exploding Cannon first," said Wakayama Shoichi, head of the Military Production Department, as he stood up to begin his report.
The Exploding Cannon is a new type of ninja tool, whose theoretical model was established by the Research Department and realized by the Military Production Department. It looks very similar to the cannons in Fumori masaki's previous life, but there are differences. The most important difference is that although it's called a cannon, it doesn't fire cannonballs. Instead, it projects kunai ninja tools combined with explosive tags.
Therefore, the projection capability of the Exploding Cannon is different, focusing on how to rapidly project kunai. This directly affects the structure of the Exploding Cannon. However, it is precisely this design that allowed the Konoha Ninja Village's craftsmanship to build this device. If it were a traditional cannon from his previous life, it would have been much more troublesome.
"With the current production capacity of the Military Production Department, while also taking into account the production of other ninja tools, we can maintain about twenty-five units per month," Wakayama Shoichi said. "As our skills improve and we incorporate mechanical production assistance, reducing the time spent on grinding parts, our output has increased. However, the biggest constraint on production is the manufacturing of explosive tags."
The mechanical collaboration adopted by Konoha Ninja Village is semi-mechanized production. The machinery used for operation is still not very mature. For ninja tools with complex assembly processes like the Exploding Cannon, it's naturally impossible to achieve very high output. But as Wakayama Shoichi said, the important thing is that the production capacity of explosive tags limits it.
If the Exploding Cannon doesn't have "ammunition" made of explosive tags, it's just a huge iron rod that can be lifted to smash people, heavy and troublesome, completely useless on the battlefield. In other words,
If too many Exploding Cannons are produced without enough explosive tags, those unprojectable cannons would be useless, a waste of time and resources.
Currently, the main personnel involved in producing explosive tags are some members of the Sarutobi and Uchiha clans—some combat personnel and those responsible for security—and their numbers are not large. If it were just for one ninja clan, it would naturally be sufficient, but for the projection capability of the Exploding Cannon, it's completely inadequate.
"Have the Fire Release ninjas in the village who aren't on the front lines been assigned to this?" Fumori masaki asked. He was referring to other ninjas in the village who could use Fire Release but didn't meet the standards for battlefield deployment or were prohibited from the front lines due to other missions.
"Hmm, even so, the production of explosive tags remains a problem. It's foreseeable that the production of Exploding Cannons cannot be too high," Wakayama Shoichi replied.
Fumori masaki nodded slightly. In his previous life, there had been discussions about what effect it would have to put ninjas into production. Although having ninjas in production would indeed be better than ordinary people, there would be a huge problem: the shortage of production personnel.
Ninjas must undergo arduous training to control chakra and learn nature transformation, thereby using ninjutsu. This inevitably takes a considerable amount of time. According to statistics from the Ninja Academy, to cultivate a qualified Chunin—which is also the level capable of undertaking sufficient production tasks, based on standard degree—requires five to six years, and this is under the condition of having a certain level of talent.
Even though Konoha Ninja Village has seen a large influx of population in recent years, and the number of ninjas entering the Ninja Academy has greatly increased, large-scale production remains a problem. After all, the stronger a ninja is, their primary focus should be on protecting the country and the village; putting them into production is too much of a waste of energy.
Fumori masaki understood that even ninjas, who can use miraculous ninjutsu, are essentially just more active ordinary people. Ultimately, they still fall within the category of humans and cannot compare to the more widespread and faster production of mechanized operations.
Of course, Fumori masaki knew not to rush things. Konoha Ninja Village's current production capacity definitely surpasses that of other countries, and maintaining such an advantage is hard-won; he couldn't ask for too much. According to his plan, once the underground Dragon Vein of the Land of Rou ran is introduced, solving the critical energy problem, Konoha Ninja Village's mechanization should see rapid progress.
In that scenario, the traditional ninja way of life will be further weakened. Although Fumori masaki has established departments where even ninjas of average talent can utilize their abilities to solve their survival problems, facing an era of change, he still needs to proceed cautiously to maintain the stability of the entire village.
Fumori masaki always kept one thing in mind: never rush. If he were too impatient, conflicts would arise too early, and there wouldn't even be time to resolve them.
Next, Wakayama Shoichi reported on the application of the Lightning Blast Tag, which was not much different from the Exploding Cannon, simply replacing the "ammunition" of the explosive tag with the "ammunition" of the Lightning Blast Tag. However, its subsequent applications could not be like this.
In addition to the Exploding Cannon, Konoha Ninja Village also researched other forms of second-generation or third-generation Exploding Cannons. These efforts primarily focused on enhancing their explosive power through research, as well as creating smaller explosives—such as fragmentation explosive tags. These would add secondary damage to the traditional explosive tag's blast, catching those who thought they had avoided the initial explosion off guard. These are the subsequent applications of explosive tags.
Currently, these items are already on the agenda. The theoretical models have been established, and even the actual production blueprints have been drawn up. Whenever this happens, Fumori masaki feels proud of the people in the Research Department. Although they may not be considered powerful in traditional ninja terms, they possess another kind of "power." They diligently mastered mathematical theories and the scientific spirit, and successfully translated them into practical applications.
Ninjas who understand culture are truly good ninjas, Fumori masaki thought.
Those were all subsequent applications of explosive tags, but in the report sent by Orochimaru, he proposed other ideas regarding the characteristics of the Lightning Blast Tag. The Lightning Blast Tag uses Lightning Release chakra nature, and compared to the high-temperature explosive tag, Lightning Release chakra has other applications.
Although it was just a draft, Orochimaru's report proposed concepts for high-speed projected lightning blast weapons, barrier weapons that use Lightning Release to trap enemies, and weapons that directly concentrate and detonate Lightning Release. His imaginative ideas greatly astonished the Research Department, who began discussions and agreed that the characteristics of the Lightning Blast Tag were indeed feasible.
Given this, new designs are being made for the Exploding Cannons that use Lightning Blast Tags. Perhaps they won't even be called Exploding Cannons, but rather something else. As for other applications, they are still under discussion in the Research Department. Although there are no specific blueprints yet, there are already various novel conjectures.
Fumori masaki listened to the discussions of the Research Department personnel and nodded slightly. Just one Lightning Blast Tag could lead to so many conjectures. They had truly embodied the spirit of scientific research over the years, and he was confident that, after learning to establish models with mathematics, as long as something was feasible, they could figure it out completely without his intervention.
"Are there any problems with the production of Lightning Blast Tags?" Fumori masaki asked.
While Lightning Release ninjas in Konoha Ninja Village are not few, they are not numerous either. The important issue is the materials for producing Lightning Blast Tags, which has always been a constraint for Konoha Ninja Village. After obtaining the Cloud Village's research data on Lightning Blast Tags, he wanted to know if the village could find alternative solutions.
"According to the scroll data provided by Cloud Village, we have found some materials that may be similar in nature," the Research Department replied. "Whether they can truly replace the original still needs to be tested, but we believe we can at least produce Lightning Blast Tags that are better than before, and in favorable circumstances, they could be on par." He did not boast about being able to surpass Cloud Village's Lightning Blast Tags.
"No problem, just solve the problems according to the scientific spirit," Fumori masaki said.
Next, the Research Department personnel reported on the current research, production, and testing of Lightning Blast Tags, while the Military Production Department occasionally mentioned various issues in the production of Lightning Blast Tags. When these topics temporarily concluded, Fumori masaki brought up a new issue. He looked at his daughter, Akemi, and asked, "What's the progress now?"
Fumori masaki was asking about another research project being conducted in Konoha Ninja Village: a groundbreaking weapon that transcended traditional warfare—namely, aerial combat tools. Traditional warfare involved land and sea battles. Since the Land of Fire was a typical continental country, most battles were concentrated on land. However, as someone from a world with more advanced military combat concepts, Fumori masaki was very aware of the importance of air superiority.
Traditional warfare is conducted on a two-dimensional plane, but with the introduction of aerial combat, it will shift from two-dimensional to three-dimensional. And with the introduction of underwater combat, its depth and breadth will increase to an unprecedented extent. This will completely change the way warfare is conducted in this era, and the ninja village that first masters superior technology will become the dominant force in the coming era.
In the normal timeline of the ninja world, even thirty years later, ninja villages had almost no defense against aerial combat. Although Deidara was a master, the reason he could enter Sunagakure alone and abduct the Kazekage was his flying ability, which prevented others from intervening. Only Gaara, who could also fly with sand, was able to contend with him.
From this point, it can be seen how powerless traditional ninja villages would be against a large-scale aerial combat force. Fumori masaki could imagine that this would be a greater blow to Iwagakure than the Exploding Cannon. The Exploding Cannon could be blocked by towering rock walls, but facing an aerial combat force would not be so easy.
Considering the characteristics of the ninja world, aerial combat tools would naturally be primarily based on Wind Release chakra. Because of Fumori masaki, Konoha Ninja Village's research into Wind Release had gone beyond traditional sharp cutting and begun to study airflow itself, such as using Wind Release to lift people for flight. For someone proficient in Wind Release, this was not a difficult technique.
However, the primary focus of an aerial combat force is widespread use, allowing anyone with a certain level of talent to fly. If it cannot be popularized, it would be very unfriendly to ordinary ninjas. If we talk about miraculous powers that can be achieved in the ninja world, they are certainly very advanced—long-distance reconnaissance, Flying Raijin's spatial movement, and so on—each one astonishing. But this power can only be controlled by the strong, and the inability to popularize it is the biggest problem limiting the development of ninja technology.
Fumori masaki had said before that the concept of new ninja tools was popularization and convenience, enabling ordinary people to use this power. If that couldn't be achieved, then there would be no difference from traditional powerful ninja tools, and it couldn't be called "new."
Among those involved in this research was Fumori masaki's daughter, Akemi. She inherited Fumori masaki's Wind Release chakra, making her a suitable candidate. The main person in charge was Orochimaru, whose chakra also had a Wind Release nature, as well as other Wind Release ninjas—of course, Wind Release is very rare in Konoha Ninja Village, so not many people could participate in the research.
Fumori masaki quietly awaited his daughter's report, his heart filled with anticipation.