Uchiha Jinzō lifted his eyes from the Sealed Book, stretching his sore neck. He'd been poring over its dense, cramped script for hours, and his forehead throbbed just from thinking about it.
Improving his "basic internal strength" was supposed to be the foundation for everything, yet the deeper he dug, the more it felt like trying to hammer steel with bare hands. The basics themselves weren't hard — any half-trained shinobi could channel chakra. But improving those basics? That was another beast entirely.
The theory required two separate conditions: attribute transformation and nature change.
The first wasn't too bad — every Fireball Jutsu or Water Dragon was just attribute transformation. But nature change? That was rare. Only a handful of shinobi in every generation could pull it off. Jinzō, by sheer dumb luck or "innate talent," happened to be one of them.
He'd already tested the waters with techniques like his Breathing Style and Steel-Cutting Flash — pure nature change ninjutsu he had invented himself. Even his "Spirit Pills" were just advanced attribute transformations. His Liuku Immortal Thief Technique had been his first serious attempt at tinkering with chakra on a fundamental level.
The problem was, to push internal strength to the next level, he needed to fuse chakra with attributes inside the body — half chakra, half transformed property. Purely shoving attributes into your body would just burn you out from the inside. The seal could only stabilize it if chakra was blended into the mix.
But once you picked an attribute, that was it. Chakra would permanently tilt in that direction. Stronger in one lane, weaker everywhere else. That "singleness" terrified him. It was like choosing one superpower at the expense of all others.
And with his all-attribute talent, locking himself into just one was like taking a gourmet buffet and deciding to live off plain rice forever.
Theoretically, multi-attribute training was possible. But in practice? Not a chance. No one around him could help. Orochimaru was too busy stockpiling other research and waiting to steal whatever Jinzō perfected. Tsunade, though? She was the only one who had made genuine breakthroughs with his system — not enough to reinvent the wheel, but enough to polish it smooth.
Still, it meant he was more or less on his own.
Which explained why he'd been dragging his feet.
But tonight, something clicked.
As he skimmed through Tobirama Senju's scattered notes in the Sealed Book, ideas started lighting up in his head. Wind, fire, lightning, earth, water — Tobirama had poked at all of them. But what caught Jinzō's attention were the Yin and Yang attributes.
Yin: spiritual power, the stuff that could give shape to imagination.Yang: physical vitality, the power to give life to the lifeless.
On paper, Yang looked tempting for a taijutsu route — but his instincts screamed Yin. His Sharingan itself was a Yin-type bloodline limit. Strengthening that would be like sharpening the blade he already carried.
Yes, it meant his other ninjutsu would take a hit. But in exchange, his Sharingan could grow into something monstrous. One hand lost, one hand gained — but the balance stayed intact.
Decision made, he transferred the plan into his Goldfinger system.
Lines of text and formulae streamed across the interface, like the world's most cursed slot machine. Ninjutsu theories, sealing formulas, layered diagrams all piled on top of each other until they collapsed into one intricate seal formation. Three stages.
Good news: it could be built straight from basic internal strength.Bad news: it was so absurdly complicated that even with Goldfinger feeding him the notes, he felt like a toddler trying to solve calculus.
And buried among the data, he spotted names that made his stomach sink.
Izanagi. Izanami. Susanoo. Chibaku Tensei. Deep Forest Emergence.
His jaw clenched. "The hell?! Did Madara Uchiha rob my house when I wasn't looking?"
As if that wasn't bad enough, mixed in with the forbidden techniques were moves that had no business being there.
Dust Release. Lightning Chakra Mode.
"What—what is this?!" His hands tightened on the scroll. "Konoha doesn't have these! Don't tell me someone outside already got their hands on my work!"
If that was true, the entire balance of the ninja world was about to tilt. Right now, Konoha was keeping three villages in check thanks to his internal strength system. But if they got the same cards in their deck?
Yeah, the Fire Nation wasn't going to stay on top for long.
Worse — as the inventor, even if he hadn't leaked it, the blame would land squarely on his head. Hiruzen Sarutobi would be all too happy to toss him under the bus if it kept the village's image clean.
Jinzō leaned back, feeling the invisible word "DANGER" burning across his forehead.
This was bad. Really bad.
Sure, he was strong enough to keep his own head above water. But developing Yin-style chakra properly? That was still proving maddeningly difficult, even with the entire world's ninjutsu database stuffed into his Goldfinger.
Unless—
A reckless thought hit him like lightning.
"What if I let the entire ninja world do the research for me?"
If everyone else was inventing, experimenting, and evolving chakra systems, then all that knowledge could funnel straight back into him. His development would skyrocket overnight.
Dangerous? Yes. Insane? Definitely.But then again… wasn't that basically the story of his life?