Orochimaru's dark-golden pupils swept back and forth, taking in the streams of data. Everything aligned perfectly with his calculations. Under the effect of the Cursed Mark enzyme, Hyūga Bluebird's body was undergoing astonishing changes, constantly strengthening. More chakra surged into his inherent chakra system to accommodate the immense power from the Curse Mark.
Orochimaru watched the various data readings and smiled faintly. Hyūga Bluebird's will was quite strong. While the Curse Mark brought enormous changes, it also caused considerable pain. Bluebird's tenacious will allowed his body's strengthening speed to keep pace with the huge changes brought by the Mark. Of course, if his will had been weak, he would undoubtedly have exploded like a balloon from the overwhelming energy of the Cursed Mark.
Dee-dee-dee, beep-beep-beep!
The data flashed, reflecting off Orochimaru's face, which flickered between light and shadow, yet always held that wicked smile.
Half an hour later, a sharp gleam flashed in Orochimaru's eyes. Seizing a fleeting moment identified after multiple calculations, his right hand pressed onto the Cursed Mark on Hyūga Bluebird's neck. His powerful spiritual energy, accompanied by his chakra, surged into Hyūga Bluebird's body.
The moment the pure and abundant chakra rushed into Bluebird's body, the changes brought by the Curse Mark had reached their climax.
Orochimaru's chakra, with overwhelming force, smoothly channeled the chaotic, surging natural chakra that had erupted within Bluebird.
Next, Orochimaru's spiritual energy, carrying Bluebird's native chakra, entered the complex dual pupil pathways without any resistance from Bluebird's immune system, smoothly rushing into the eye area as if it carried a special pass.
At this moment, the intense, agonizing pain coming from his eyes made Hyūga Bluebird let out an involuntary cry of pain. Beneath the white talisman, two trickles of crimson blood slowly seeped out of Bluebird's closed dual pupils. He immediately passed out.
Orochimaru ignored Bluebird's pain. The process of using the Curse Mark to awaken Bluebird's Byakugan had reached a critical juncture.
Orochimaru's spiritual energy, carrying Bluebird's native chakra, slowly channeled, guided, and opened up the vast eye power contained within the complex dual pupil pathways.
During this process, although Orochimaru's spiritual energy was exceptionally powerful and his chakra control ability was highly sophisticated, some minor damage to the intricate and fragile eye pathways was inevitable. However, the miraculous Yamata's blood contained within the Cursed Mark immediately took effect, repairing the damaged eye pathways almost instantaneously with the damage occurring.
Everything unfolded according to the script calculated by Orochimaru.
An hour later, Orochimaru had finished channeling over ninety percent of Bluebird's eye power. It was at this moment that an unexpected change occurred!
The vast chakra congested within Bluebird's dual pupil pathways suddenly boiled over, like water brought to a rapid boil, just as it was about to be completely channeled and smoothed out.
That immense, deathly-white eye power instantly enveloped Orochimaru's spiritual energy and surged into Hyūga Bluebird's dual pupils.
Creak, creak!
A faint, chilling sound of bulging veins suddenly erupted.
On Hyūga Bluebird's face, which was covered by the white talisman, veins—pale white and resembling earthworms—rapidly bulged from the sides of his temples. They extended outward, covering nearly half of his face. Without exception, every single vein stretched toward and converged into Bluebird's unusual dual pupils.
Buzz!
A low hum instantly sounded in the space around the dual pupils. A faint chakra fluctuation emerged and immediately spread out.
Dual Pupil Byakugan, Activated!
At this moment, Orochimaru, whose right hand was pressing on Bluebird's Cursed Mark and whose eyes were closed while channeling the eye power, felt as if he had gained an extra pair of eyes. He perceived a strange field of vision, one unique to the Byakugan.
In this Byakugan field of vision, with black and white as its base colors, only the fluctuations and colors of chakra added any hue to the world. It possessed a nearly 360-degree perfect field of view and could see through almost everything!
Orochimaru immediately realized that this must be Hyūga Bluebird's Byakugan vision. Somehow, at this moment, he was able to enter this vision and use this pair of dual pupil Byakugan.
Suddenly, Orochimaru, who was curiously examining his surroundings with this Byakugan, was astonished to find that this unique field of view was not "nearly" perfect, but truly had a 360-degree, all-encompassing, perfect vision. It could even clearly see the expanded blind spot directly behind the first thoracic vertebra—flawlessly perfect!
Sensing the miraculous and unique vision of the Dual Pupil Byakugan, Orochimaru suddenly recalled his body tempering plan. Through Bluebird's Byakugan, he instantly performed a full X-ray vision scan of his own body.
In the black and white field of vision, a perfect three-dimensional, stereoscopic X-ray image of Orochimaru appeared. Within his chakra system, pure and robust blue chakra surged. A pale-gold energy mass was visible at the center of his chest, but its specific nature was obscured.
Orochimaru did not want to miss this rare opportunity. Controlling Bluebird's dual pupil Byakugan, he looked even deeper.
He clearly saw intricate, black-and-white, crisscrossing, and highly complex pathways emerging all over his body, along with constantly operating internal organs and tiny, miraculous chakra points.
Feeling that the eye power of the Dual Pupil Byakugan still had reserves, Orochimaru concentrated once more, pushing the remaining eye power to perform the deepest level of X-ray vision on his body.
The peculiar Byakugan vision instantly became distorted. Light and shadow shifted rapidly, and Orochimaru felt an overwhelming dizziness that threatened to make him faint. When he opened his eyes and regained his senses, he found that his spiritual energy had returned to his body. He was standing in front of the medical experiment bed where Hyūga Bluebird lay, maintaining his previous posture without moving an inch.
A strange glow flashed in his dark-golden eyes. In that final moment, Orochimaru had managed to clearly use Hyūga Bluebird's Dual Pupil Byakugan to penetrate and view his own cellular structure. Using this as a blueprint, he had instantly constructed a three-dimensional, stereoscopic X-ray diagram of his body's structure, analyzed down to the cellular level, within his mind.
This crucial structural diagram was imprinted into his memory with just one glance; it automatically surfaced in his mind whenever recalled.
This invaluable diagram would undoubtedly play a vital role in Orochimaru's massive project dedicated to the evolution of life. With this structure map, Orochimaru now had a precise and perfectly clear blueprint when using the Forbidden Jutsu and secret medicine to temper and modify his body. This would surely yield twice the result with half the effort, and the efficiency would be dramatically increased!
However, when Orochimaru tried again to replicate the sensation of using Bluebird's Byakugan, his spiritual energy-infused chakra, upon entering Bluebird's body through the Cursed Mark and then into the dual pupils, was immediately repelled by Bluebird's eye power. Knowing that such an opportunity was unlikely to recur, Orochimaru had no choice but to withdraw.
"Ugh—" At that moment, Bluebird also woke up.
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