Chapter 182: The Shortcoming
"A strange stone or mineral, is it?" Sasuke couldn't be bothered to memorize its characteristics and just said directly, "I'll go back and look through them."
"Oh right, our clan has several 'Records of Strange Objects' and 'Records of Lands and Customs of Various Countries.' I'll just lend them all to you!" he said after a moment of recollection. "By the way, what do you need these things for? Is it related to that 'nuclear energy' thing you mentioned?"
Sakura said with a serious expression, "Of course it's related. What I'm looking for is ore containing uranium. This element is the fuel for so-called nuclear fission. Without it, nuclear fission can't be achieved. And nuclear fusion probably also needs the energy from nuclear fission to be ignited. So, if I can't find this raw material, then the so-called utilization of nuclear energy will just be empty words on paper."
The key was that she hadn't found a single mention of uranium ore in Konoha's public archives.
So she had no choice but to ask for help from Sasuke's family's archives.
The Uchiha clan's assets and lands had mostly been taken back by the village.
Fortunately, those secret scrolls, training notes, ninjutsu insights, and even various miscellaneous books had been left for Sasuke. These were the foundation for Sasuke to revive the Uchiha clan, and he had always kept them safe.
Haruno Sakura had also taken the time to check Konoha's materials in this area before. But unfortunately, as a Chunin, the level of information she could access was not high enough, and she hadn't found any leads so far. Of course, she could submit a report and apply to view these materials. With her status as the Hokage's disciple, it would just be a matter of procedure.
However, the problem was that this ninjutsu would very likely be one of her ultimate trump cards.
She would rather take her time and look for it herself than make a big fuss about it right from the start, letting every cat and dog know that she wanted to develop this kind of ninjutsu. By the time the procedures were completed, the news would have pretty much leaked.
Therefore, going through the Uchiha clan's archives was clearly her best choice at present.
The development of a Yin Seal that could utilize fusion energy would inevitably be a long process. Haruno Sakura was already mentally prepared for this. If things went smoothly, it would still take two or three years to see results.
Recently, she had already begun to focus her main energy on the development of the Yin Seal.
In the previous battle, Sakura had fully experienced the advantages and problems of Sakura Rush - Phase Two.
The Medical-type Ice Clone, which was claimed to be a 100% simulation of the original, was, after all, not Sakura's real body. When used for experiments, there was always a layer of separation. Naturally, it was not as genuine and real as the feelings and experiences gained from using a real body. With the insights gained from this high-intensity actual combat, after her injuries healed, the development progress of Sakura Rush - Phase Two was rapid.
Although she had ended up covered in injuries, the gains this time were also huge: Sakura Rush - Phase Two had basically been successfully developed, saving her several weeks of adjustment time all at once.
But this did not mean that Haruno Sakura would now give up on continuing to use the ice clone.
One such adventure was enough.
The risks of experimenting with Sakura Rush were very high. She was not about to gamble on whether she had a protagonist's fate, to be able to court death every day and still be perfectly fine. To experiment directly on her real body, if something went wrong, it would be a major problem with her nervous system, enough to doom her forever.
In short, after the development of Sakura Rush - Phase Two was completed, Haruno Sakura's next task was to start researching Phase Two of the Yin Seal.
At present, her combat system was already preliminarily complete.
The Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals, Sakura Rush, the Monstrous Strength Technique, and the Wind Blade Raging Stream supported all her tactical needs. With these four jutsu, paired with those accompanying ninjutsu, against any enemy below Kage-level, she was confident she could take them down if she went all out.
However, the prerequisite for going all out was having enough chakra to support it.
One super-large-scale Cold Frost Ice Funeral paired with the Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals was enough to consume most of her chakra. If one also considered using Ice or Water Style to set up the field, just relying on her own chakra was not even enough to continuously use these four jutsu in actual combat.
Although Tsunade had given her the Yin Seal, allowing her available chakra amount to rise sharply, it had not turned her into the type who could wantonly squander chakra like Naruto—then again, Sakura didn't think even the current Naruto could wantonly squander his Rasengan.
In any case, the ninjutsu she had recently developed and used had already begun to move in a direction suitable for fighting against Kage-level opponents. The three Phase Two jutsu and the Wind Blade Raging Stream could only be countered by a powerhouse at the Kage-level or above, who had sufficient speed, experience, or secret techniques. If used against ordinary opponents, the power was already far beyond what was needed. She had felt this very clearly when carrying out Anbu missions.
However, the problem with the Yin Seal was that just relying on her own meager chakra amount, it was very difficult to save it up quickly.
Sakura's chakra consumption was very large. Because she had many ninjutsu she wanted to develop on hand, the chakra she saved up on weekdays was mostly used for experiments. Otherwise, the development progress of Sakura Rush would not have been so fast.
So she was very conflicted—if she wanted to save up more chakra, then she had to do fewer experiments, and the progress of her ninjutsu development would be slow. Conversely, if she wanted to speed up the R&D of her ninjutsu, then her chakra couldn't be saved up.
Usually, her method was to leave a certain baseline amount of chakra, for example, two or three times her own body's stamina in chakra amount, and only use what exceeded that limit for experiments.
It was just that the battle with Kimimaro this time had once again shown that no matter how much chakra you have, it's still not enough.
This body of hers, its talent was indeed not very good. Although Ice Style was constantly improving her physical body, the process was slow, and it had not yet shown any obvious effects. This was why many people's first impression of her was that she looked soft and weak, too slender, and didn't have much combat power. If you didn't talk about the super-standard ninjutsu she had developed, then this evaluation was quite appropriate.
After her deficiencies in other areas were gradually compensated for, the shortcoming of having insufficient chakra became more and more obvious.
Therefore, in the next stage, Sakura had to focus on the further development of the Yin Seal.
Of course, the primary task was to learn sealing formulas, only then would she have the qualification to talk about modifying the Yin Seal.
Secondly, she had to consider the energy source for the Yin Seal.
Using clones was the most trouble-saving and convenient—if she had the prerequisite cloning technology.
Collecting the energy from a power plant would provide an even more massive amount of chakra, but she would have to spend more effort on how to convert electrical energy into energy that a ninja could manipulate.
However, Haruno Sakura felt that these were all just transitional methods. The ultimate goal she envisioned should be to seal a huge, long-term energy source directly inside her body and extract it through the Yin Seal, so that she could obtain an endless supply of chakra.
Of course, the vacuum zero-point energy was sufficiently vast, but it was a pity that she had no clue how to master this energy for the time being. A reasonable goal lay in controlling nuclear energy.
This goal, although it was far away from her, she had already thought clearly about how to take every step.
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