War currently had nothing to do with Shiraishi. Although the impending war made him a little unhappy, even if he really had to go to the battlefield, that would be two years later.
Optimistically, perhaps the war would be over in two years, right?
Moreover, war had its benefits. Due to the war, Konoha Village was short-staffed, and the Hokage's direct ANBU would undoubtedly be incredibly busy every day. Who would care about a small, transparent student like him from the ninja academy?
The attention of the Hokage and other high-ranking officials was all drawn to the Sand Village ninjas.
—Uchiha clan compound, Ruri's underground laboratory.
It was a spacious hundred square meters, fully equipped with electrical devices that illuminated the lab as brightly as day.
The center was an open space for people to move around, and electronic testing equipment and an operating table were also set up.
Transparent floor-to-ceiling cylinders filled with green solution contained animal parts that had been extracted and then catalyzed to an unknown degree and by unknown means, transforming them into extremely bizarre, alien-like forms.
Shiraishi held a glass test tube in his hand, which contained an incredibly condensed, pale green liquid energy. This was the materialized natural energy that Shiraishi had extracted from the earth and air.
"How is it? Any progress?"
Ruri, who had just come down from above, asked about the progress of the natural energy research.
To help Shiraishi conduct his research steadily, Ruri would find ways to acquire both equipment and materials.
The human resources and funds spent on this were incomparable to their previous small-scale endeavors.
"No, it's not working. Although the natural energy lasts a little longer than before, the time it can maintain its materialized state is still too short."
Shiraishi sighed and put down the test tube. The pale green liquid energy in the test tube began to dilute without warning, its color becoming lighter and lighter, eventually turning clear, and the test tube became empty.
The natural energy had completely evaporated on its own.
If it wasn't fused with other substances while it was materialized, this would happen.
Of course, it wasn't unusable; it just needed to be utilized before it evaporated.
The efficiency of sustainable use would be slightly lower.
After all, the experimental process of receiving, refining, and solidifying natural energy was very tedious and required the assistance of some metals with extremely high chakra conductivity.
Therefore, refining natural energy was not only a complex endeavor but also very expensive.
"And the most important problem isn't this."
"What do you mean?"
"Look, the various biological parts in here, after injecting natural energy into them on the basis of chakra, formed Sage Chakra and were absorbed, resulting in these bizarre forms."
Shiraishi walked to a floor-to-ceiling glass cylinder and tapped it with his finger, producing a crisp sound. The alien form inside remained unresponsive, like a dead object.
"What does that represent?"
"In other words, the use of Sage Chakra comes with a very terrifying risk."
Shiraishi's eyes became deep, with an inexplicable color.
He unhurriedly walked to a bookshelf nearby, picked up a scroll, unrolled it on the table, and pointed to a line of text.
"Ryūchi Cave, Mount Myōboku, Shikkotsu Forest, these are called the Three Great Sage Regions, right? It says that you can cultivate Sage Mode in these three places. However, the Sage Mode inherited from the Three Great Sage Regions seems to be different from our human processing system. After learning it, corresponding biological characteristics will appear."
At this point, Shiraishi couldn't help but sigh again:
"The Uchiha clan's collection of books is truly vast. Although I haven't found the specific cultivation methods, these materials have given me great inspiration. In other words, the Sage Mode of the Three Great Sage Regions is very likely not suitable for humans. To find a correct Sage Mode system suitable for humans from multiple paths... this workload is incredibly massive."
Shiraishi had conclusive evidence that the Sage Mode systems of the Three Great Sage Regions were not suitable for the human body system.
Because the biological structures of frogs, snakes, and slugs are completely different from human life structures.
The Sage Mode suitable for frogs, snakes, and slugs could very likely clash with the human processing system. In that case, the mortality and failure rates for humans cultivating the Sage Mode of the Three Sage Regions would be infinitely high.
Shiraishi looked at the alien creatures in the floor-to-ceiling cylinders that had transformed due to receiving Sage Chakra, which was the best proof.
For example, using a mouse as the source for refining Sage Chakra, and then transferring this Sage Chakra to a snake's limb, resulted in the snake developing some characteristics of a mouse.
Similarly, using a snake as the source for refining Sage Chakra and transferring it to a mouse would result in the mouse developing characteristics of a snake.
The alien creatures in the floor-to-ceiling cylinders came from this process.
This was also why Shiraishi concluded that the Sage Mode systems of the Three Great Sage Regions were not compatible with humans.
The human body structure is more complex and diverse than that of frogs and other creatures. Once a mistake occurs, the consequences are unimaginable.
Shiraishi would not personally attempt it until he had complete confidence.
So, Shiraishi could only experiment with animal bodies for now, and then, when the risk was minimized, proceed with human body experiments.
However, this kind of inhumane thing was also something Shiraishi rejected.
But to master Sage Chakra without risk, human experimentation was unavoidable.
Life is not such a cheap thing.
To say that sounds a bit hypocritical.
However, reality has developed step by step in this manner.
The more advanced medical science, life science, etc., become, the more unavoidable human experimentation becomes.
All valuable experience is built upon countless sacrifices and deaths of predecessors.
Fortunately, his research into Sage Mode had just taken its first step, and human experimentation would likely be many years away.
Moreover, even if Sage Chakra couldn't be utilized, natural energy had a very wide range of uses.
The life force contained within natural energy was enormous and had extremely high medicinal value.
Therefore, slowing down the research on Sage Chakra was a very wise choice for him at the moment.
What he needed to do now was to maximize the utilization rate of natural energy to enhance his own strength.
"Ruri, can you help me find some medicinal ingredients? I want to use natural energy as a base to refine a new medicine that can enhance physical abilities."
"What about the Sage Chakra experiments?"
"I still need to gather more information on Sage Mode before I can proceed with the next step of the experiment without fail. Otherwise, experiments involving the fusion of Sage Chakra are too dangerous, and a single mistake could lead to death. Unfortunately, we don't have much information about the Sage Mode of the Three Great Sage Regions, so we can only take it slow."
Shiraishi was not in a hurry to use Sage Chakra. Being able to apply natural energy was already a great joy.
"Is that so? Alright, write down the names of the medicinal ingredients you need, make a list for me, and I'll have the ninja cats purchase and collect them as soon as possible."
Ruri had her own private channels to obtain various materials from outside, avoiding the eyes of everyone in Konoha, so acquiring medicinal ingredients was not difficult at all.
Furthermore, to protect the secrecy of the laboratory, Ruri had set up a large number of activation-type explosive tags around it. If an outsider broke in, Ruri would sense it and immediately activate the jutsu, detonating all the explosive tags in the lab, causing the intruder and the lab to explode together, destroying everything there.
"Thank you. If war becomes inevitable, we must prepare now. I have a feeling this war will be very brutal."