Takuno slept for a full day and two nights straight.
When he opened his eyes again, he felt his stomach was empty, and his spirit had finally recovered.
Afterward, he looked at his extremely disheveled appearance in the mirror, a sight that he barely recognized as himself for a moment.
Although Takuno was not a clean freak, he could not tolerate his current state. After spending considerable time cleaning himself up, he looked at his still-pale face in the mirror and smiled.
This paleness likely wouldn't disappear. For the sake of his research and practicing Ninjutsu, he had consumed many military rations pills and constantly drained his own Chakra.
As is well known, Chakra is the combination of physical and spiritual energy. His physical energy had been depleted too severely, and the recovery speed could no longer keep up, resulting in such a pale complexion.
It was foreseeable that if he continued down this path, he would undoubtedly be short-lived.
However, ever since he acquired the Chimera Technique, his path had already changed!
Takuno pushed open the door and firmly took a step toward a brand new life.
After satisfying his hunger, he began making his subsequent arrangements.
First, since he was unsure when Obito's beloved, Rin Nohara, would be captured by the Kirigakure, he had to start surveillance immediately. Using crows would be sufficient for this purpose.
As for the rest of his plans, they would require a bit of time.
The next day, Takuno went to the Hokage mission board and accepted a relatively complex solo mission.
After walking past the village's barrier with the mission scroll, Takuno looked at the scroll and the task written on it; he had no intention of actually completing it.
The actual issuer of this mission was none other than himself; he was merely using the task as a legitimate excuse to leave Konoha.
After confirming that no one was following him, Takuno bit his finger, formed hand signs, and pressed his hands to the ground.
"Summoning Jutsu!"
However, this Summoning Jutsu seemed to be faulty, and no Ninjabeast was summoned.
This was, of course, intentional by Takuno. By using far less Chakra than was required to summon a Ninjabeast, the attempt was virtually guaranteed to fail, but the target of the summoning would still sense the attempt.
Just like Madara forcibly attempting to summon the Nine-Tails inside Uzumaki Naruto; even if unsuccessful, the target would still feel it.
After Takuno completed the Summoning Jutsu, inside a slightly dim experimental base, a crow blinked. This was the Ninjabeast Takuno had summoned. It flapped its wings, flew up, and, following Takuno's instructions, unrolled a massive scroll.
Engraved upon it was clearly the formula for the Summoning Jutsu.
The next moment, Takuno outside Konoha vanished in a puff of white smoke, replaced by Takuno appearing inside the experimental base!
Inside the experimental base, Takuno looked at the various corpses preserved in the cultivation tanks. Then, he let his gaze settle on the final row of bodies.
These corpses shared a common characteristic: their hair was red.
That is correct; these were all Uzumaki Clan corpses.
He hadn't killed these people himself; he had merely instructed his crows to monitor the Land of Whirlpools.
Then, when the Uzumaki Clan was annihilated, he took advantage of the chaos to steal the corpses of some slain Uzumaki Clan members.
As for the culprits behind the Uzumaki Clan's destruction, one could only say that none of the major Hidden Villages had clean hands... Why did he choose the Uzumaki Clan?
It was because, to overcome his weakness of having low Chakra reserves, the most obvious choice was the most famous long-lived clan: the Uzumaki Clan.
Anyone who had read the original work was likely awed by the protagonist Uzumaki Naruto's Chakra.
However, Takuno also knew that ordinary Uzumaki Clan members could hardly possess the same amount of Chakra as Uzumaki Naruto.
After all, Uzumaki Naruto not only had the Uzumaki physique but also the Nine-Tails' Chakra and the Chakra of Asura's reincarnation. The combination of all these factors resulted in such a monstrous amount of Chakra.
But even if they were inferior to Uzumaki Naruto, the Uzumaki Clan's Chakra was definitely not to be underestimated. He had even formulated a simple, rough equation for Chakra capacity: y = x * i.
Y represents the Chakra capacity, X represents the physical strength that can be obtained through effort, and I is the Chakra coefficient.
Everyone's physical strength can be improved through training, but the Chakra coefficient is innate and generally does not change later in life.
Naturally, geniuses exist with high Chakra coefficients, such as Jiraiya and Minato Namikaze, whose coefficients are certainly not low. They represent the peak level for ordinary people.
As for the Uzumaki Clan members, even the weakest among them would have a Chakra coefficient that is absolutely not low.
Therefore, they only need to put in a little effort to train their physical strength, and their resulting Chakra capacity will be something that those with low coefficients cannot achieve even with desperate training.
After all, not everyone is Might Guy. His large Chakra capacity is due to his almost monstrous physical strength training, and that too, depends on inherent physical talent!
Takuno finally stopped in front of one of the corpses. He couldn't measure the person's Chakra coefficient, but he knew it wouldn't be low.
He measured the person's Chakra nature: Wind and Lightning.
These were exactly two of the three natures he lacked, and they were also relatively rare natures.
It wasn't that Takuno didn't want to find a corpse with Wind, Lightning, and Fire natures, but that none were available.
Corpses with three natures existed, but they were not the three he required.
Because the Wind nature is inherently rare, followed by the Lightning nature, the combination of these two is already extremely uncommon, let alone three natures.
This remained true even though the Fire nature was not rare.
Therefore, the corpse before Takuno was his best fusion material.
Takuno looked at the corpse with a burning gaze. By fusing with this individual, his Chakra capacity problem would likely be solved, but... he knew that now was not the right time.
Although he had finished reading the experimental records for the Chimera Technique, since he had not personally experimented with it, he was not completely confident of success on the first attempt.
Since this involved his own body, he naturally needed to be extremely careful.
Therefore, he had to suppress his excitement and first use animal corpses for experiments. Not only animals, but he also had some useless materials here for subsequent testing. He would only take the final step after achieving absolute confidence.
"I hope there is enough time."
Takuno used the Clairvoyance Technique to look at Rin Nohara, who was still grieving over Obito's 'death' while visiting Kakashi, and narrowed his eyes.
He was indifferent to her life or death. The key point was that the Kirigakure would seal the Three-Tails inside Rin Nohara.
Takuno had no interest in a complete Tailed Beast, as such a massive target would likely be tracked by Madara, Black Zetsu, and others later on. However, he still wanted a portion of the Tailed Beast's Chakra!