Failed clones were not meaningless; every failure provided feedback to Shinji, allowing him to perform fine-tuning and error correction on the chakra used for stimulation.
Such a thing was incredible to an ordinary person, but to Shinji, it merely required spending a bit of thought.
As time passed, more and more clones were scrapped.
On the surgical table in front of Shinji, there was either a bloody mess of a shambles, or corpses curled up together having stopped breathing, or faces staring blankly at the laboratory ceiling.
But there was not a hint of frustration on Shinji's face; on the contrary, he was in high spirits, as if he had realized something through these failures.
Soon, another clone had a reaction after Shinji used Wazunagi for chakra stimulation.
It first twitched for a while on the surgical table, then suddenly snapped its eyes open, revealing a pair of turbid white eyes.
Eh
Shinji let out a light sound of surprise.
He had originally thought this clone had also failed, but just as he was about to look away, he found that the turbid white of the clone's eyes was gradually becoming clear and translucent.
Shinji concentrated his gaze for a moment, and then an unusual look appeared on his face: "This is..."
The eyes in the sockets of this clone were neither Byakugan nor the Jougan Shinji wanted, but another kind of dojutsu Bloodline Limit distinct from those two.
However, very soon, this pair of eyes became turbid again and finally turned into bloody water.
"It seems the state was not stable enough..."
Shinji let out a sigh.
But there was no irritation on his face, because the form of those eyes just now was already very close to the Jougan of Boruto Uzumaki from the original timeline.
Regaining his composure, Shinji performed fine-tuning again based on the situation just now and began chakra stimulation on the next clone.
After a short while, this clone, like the previous one, also opened its eyes, and the white of the eyes gradually changed from turbid to clear.
The difference was that the state of the evolution of the clone's eyes this time was significantly more stable; after the white of the eyes became translucent, the pupils quickly began to focus and gained spirit.
"Jougan!"
Shinji's heart jolled!
This pair of eyes in the sockets of the clone was almost identical to the Jougan in his memory.
With a casual wave of Shinji's hand, that clone floated onto the surgical table in front of him, and then Shinji removed the pair of eyes from the clone's sockets.
After temporarily placing the eyes into a small nutrient tank, Shinji stimulated the remaining clones following the same pattern. However, the situation was somewhat beyond his expectations; the remaining several clones all got stuck at the stage where the white of the eyes transitioned from turbid to clear.
Looking at the only pair of Jougan in his hand, Shinji thought: "It seems that even if the chakra stimulation is identical, there are differences in the recipient's reaction!"
Even if Shinji used the genes of Naruto and Hinata—the parents of Boruto Uzumaki in the original timeline—even if the degree of chakra stimulation was repeatedly fine-tuned, and even if the eyes began to evolve, they might not all eventually evolve into a Jougan.
There was a matter of probability involved here.
...
However, as long as there was a success rate, even if it was one percent or one-thousandth, as long as Shinji was willing to spend some time and energy, he could certainly mass-produce the Jougan.
Of course.
To Shinji, having one pair of qualified Jougan was enough; at this stage, there was no need to spend energy on mass production.
Instructing the puppets to clean the laboratory, Shinji himself brought the pair of Jougan he had just harvested to the central practice field of the Flying Fortress.
After successively activating Susanoo and Susanoo Tomoshibi, Shinji took the Jougan out of the small nutrient tank and held them in his hands.
After observing them at close range, Shinji shook his head slightly: "As expected of a product cultivated from a clone; in terms of chakra level, it is clearly still quite a bit weaker than the Rinnegan or Tenseigan."
This was also within expectations. Dojutsu Bloodline Limit are different from ordinary Bloodline Limit; their strength involves mental power and willpower levels—the mysterious and elusive soul—in addition to the strength of the chakra. Therefore, strictly speaking, dojutsu Bloodline Limit cultivated from clones are all defective products.
Fortunately, the current Shinji had reached the realm of turning the mundane into the miraculous. As long as it truly was a Jougan and possessed some kind of ability to peer into the future, even if the ability was a bit weak, Shinji could use it to complete his full mastery over the time domain.
After appreciating them for a while, Shinji activated Susanoo Tomoshibi to wield this pair of Jougan.
Soon, his eyes lit up.
The basic abilities of the Jougan were similar to the Byakugan, except that things seen by the Byakugan in an X-ray state are black and white, while things seen by the Jougan remain in color.
These were not enough to surprise Shinji; what truly surprised him was that this pair of Jougan contained a dojutsu named "Hope."
The capability of this dojutsu was very simple: it allowed the user to find a glimmer of future hope in a desperate situation!
"Is this the future-predicting ability of the Jougan?"
With curiosity, Shinji activated Hope.
In the blink of an eye, the world before him seemed to be covered with a layer of mist, and all the surrounding things became hazy and illusory. And within all that haziness and illusion, only Shinji himself was the only one full of color.
"I am the hope myself?" Shinji was first stunned, then he gave a light laugh: "Heh, is this considered flattery?"
After making a joke, Shinji began to study this dojutsu in detail.
It seemed that, limited by the Jougan's own capacity, there were various restrictions on the future it could infer.
From Shinji's current experience, if this move were used in a fierce and desperate battle, it should be able to allow the user to find the key to breaking the deadlock with half the effort.
The current Shinji naturally did not need such dojutsu to assist in battle. The enemies he faced were generally not those that could be easily suppressed by this kind of dojutsu; what he truly needed was the Jougan's expansion capability toward the future on the time side.
What he needed was the concept of the "future"!
Hoo
After exhaling softly, Shinji began to calculate how to create the Shinjutsu that uniquely belonged to him.
First, the specifications of this technique had to be maximized, far transcending ninjutsu or Senjutsu, and even transcending ordinary Shinjutsu, because only then could his Shinjutsu take effect against a Kekkei Shinra or a Hegemon.
One must know that so-called "Shinjutsu" are only such to ordinary people; in the eyes of Shinji, a Kekkei Shinra, many "Shinjutsu" can be broken. For example, the Shinjutsu "Enchantment" extended from Eida's Shinjutsu "Omnipotence," as well as Daemon's Shinjutsu "Reflection of Killing Intent," are all completely useless against Shinji.
Similarly, the techniques Shinji currently performed at will could be categorized within the scope of Shinjutsu in the eyes of ordinary people, but once facing a Kekkei Shinra or a Hegemon, these techniques could not be called very "divine."