Naruto's civilian cannon fodder starts with the three-body technique

Chapter 315 Cloning Technology

"Sasuke-kun, you've come at the perfect time!"

Hearing footsteps, Orochimaru didn't turn around. His hoarse voice was filled with barely suppressed excitement. "Look! This is the result of my research, the first version of the Reanimation Jutsu. We are only one step away from true immortality!"

He turned around abruptly, his face flushed with a sickly pallor, his eyes burning with intensity: "As long as my soul can successfully detach and transfer to occupy this body, the decaying flesh will no longer be a shackle, and I will have unlimited time to explore all the truths of this world!"

Sasuke Umino walked to the incubation tank and calmly gazed at the unfamiliar boy inside, who served as the "container." He was not infected by Orochimaru's fanaticism; instead, he frowned slightly, scanned the fluctuating data, and finally settled on the soul energy monitoring graph.

"Forcibly stripping away one's own soul, occupying and obliterating the soul of another, and seizing their body!"

Sasuke Umino spoke slowly, his voice calm, "Senior's thinking is indeed unconventional and incredibly audacious. The very concept of soul transfer and possession is a forbidden miracle in the history of ninjutsu, truly admirable."

Orochimaru's smug expression deepened, awaiting what would follow.

However, Sasuke Umino changed the subject, his tone becoming serious: "But, Orochimaru-senpai, you've overlooked a fatal, fundamental problem."

"Oh?" Orochimaru's golden snake eyes suddenly narrowed, his excitement subsiding slightly, replaced by a probing glint. "What's the question?"

"The loss of soul compatibility and the wear and tear of the essence."

Sasuke Umino looked directly into Orochimaru's eyes, his finger precisely pointing to the simulated curve representing Orochimaru's soul power. "Look here. In each simulated soul transfer process, no matter how you optimize the technique or how close the chosen container is to your original chakra attribute, your soul power will experience irreversible decay. This is not a consumption of chakra, but a wear and tear on the original power of your soul!"
Forcibly stripping one's soul is itself a huge harm to the very essence of the soul.

Occupying a body that is not yours is like forcibly stuffing a peerless sword into a scabbard that is not tailor-made for it. The scabbard may be brand new and the sword spirit may still be sharp, but with each swing, the imperfect friction and collision between the sword and the scabbard wears down the blade invisibly!

Not to mention, you also need to continuously expend your soul power to suppress the original owner's remaining instinctive consciousness and this body's natural rejection reaction. This continuous, fundamental depletion will accumulate with each reincarnation. Ultimately, your soul, seemingly cycling through immortality, will have its very essence quietly draining away!

Orochimaru's face drained of color instantly. He lunged at the soul monitoring device, his golden snake eyes fixed on the soul decay curve that he had previously noticed but deliberately ignored, or attributed to the immature technology.

Sasuke Umino's description, like the sharpest scalpel, precisely dissected the root cause of the soul's wear and tear.

"The very essence of the soul, irreversible wear and tear, continuously accumulating..."

Orochimaru muttered to himself, his voice dry and hoarse, filled with unprecedented unease, "Doesn't this mean that even with continuous reincarnation, the soul itself will be completely exhausted and return to nothingness after hundreds, or even just dozens of reincarnations? The more times one reincarnates, the closer one gets to the complete dissipation of the soul. This goes against the very path of the eternity I pursue! So-called immortality is nothing more than a death delayed by hundreds of years?"

Then, he suddenly looked up at Umino Sasuke, his eyes filled with surprise and doubt: "Sasuke-kun, how could you see such a fundamental flaw at a glance?! Surely you already have a solution?"

Orochimaru's tone carried a barely perceptible hint of pleading.

Instead of answering directly, Sasuke Umino walked to a culture tank displaying organ cloning technology and gently tapped on the glass.

"The solution is right in front of us."

Sasuke Umino pointed to the cloned organs and said in a deep voice, "My solution is—to reincarnate myself!"
As long as mature cloning technology is used to cultivate clones that are entirely derived from one's own cells and have a 100% compatibility with one's own soul, these clones are not 'containers' but 'backups' and a continuation of life!

When the original body ages or is nearing its limit, the soul is transferred into a young clone that is fully cultivated from the original body's own cells and is in its peak condition. Because the soul and body originate from the same source, the rejection and wear and tear caused by the soul transfer will theoretically be minimized!
Even approaching nothing!
Each reincarnation consumes only a negligible amount of soul power. With the extended youth provided by the clone, we have ample time to research methods to replenish or even strengthen the soul's origin before the next reincarnation cycle arrives.

In this way, the problem of the physical body is solved by cloning technology, the problem of soul wear and tear is greatly reduced by the same-origin reincarnation, and the problem of the consumption of the soul's essence is left to be overcome in the infinite future.

The combination of these three is the ladder to true immortality!

"Reincarnate yourself, create a clone of the same origin, minimize the damage, and use time to buy time to resolve the soul problem..."

Upon hearing this, Orochimaru was struck dumb, standing there as if struck by lightning. He repeatedly chewed over every word of Umino Sasuke's words, his golden snake eyes first showing extreme shock, then flashing with a mixture of ecstasy and sudden realization.

Sasuke Umino continued, "Orochimaru-senpai, since our current cloning technology can clone organs such as the heart and kidneys that perfectly match the original body, solving the problem of local decay of the body, why not clone a young body that is 100% identical to its own genetic sequence? A body that is completely compatible with itself at the cellular level!"

"100% genetic consistency and zero rejection can indeed significantly reduce the loss of the original genes..."

Orochimaru's eyes grew brighter and brighter. This creative concept was crucial. It cleverly bypassed the most fatal problem of possession and reincarnation—the wear and tear on one's original essence caused by the rejection of the "non-self"—and used existing cloning technology to create a perfect container for oneself. This was simply a genius application and sublimation.

"Genius! No! It's a miraculous idea!"

Orochimaru's voice trembled violently with excitement. His gaze toward Sasuke Umino was filled with unprecedented fervor and admiration. "Sasuke-kun! You are simply a being who stands at the pinnacle of ninjutsu wisdom. I racked my brains to create the Reanimation Jutsu, thinking I had touched the threshold of immortality, but it turns out I was just a frog in a well! Compared to you, my meager achievements are simply not worth mentioning!"

He waved his arms excitedly, a sickly flush rising on his pale face: "This is the truly perfect path to immortality! Body, soul, time, all linked together. Sasuke, your wisdom and vision far surpass this era! I, Orochimaru, am utterly convinced!"

Faced with Orochimaru's heartfelt praise and excitement, Umino Sasuke simply shook his head slightly, a faint, self-deprecating smile on his face.

"You flatter me, senior." Sasuke Unno said calmly, his gaze falling on the cloned organs that carried the hope for the future. "I just see a little further and think a little more than ordinary people. The cornerstone that truly turns these ideas into reality is the cloning technology and soul research system that you painstakingly built. Without the solid foundation you laid, even the most perfect ideas are just castles in the air."

Sasuke Umino's tone was utterly sincere, without a trace of falsehood. In his heart, the wisdom hidden behind Orochimaru's madness and obsession, his tireless pursuit of truth, and his unparalleled scientific research ability were what truly commanded respect.

His so-called unique insights are nothing more than taking advantage of being a time traveler and standing on the shoulders of giants.

"It is my honor to receive such praise from Sasuke-kun."

Then, the fervor in Orochimaru's eyes quickly subsided, replaced by a scientist's calm and inquisitiveness: "However, Sasuke, it will take some time to achieve this perfect 'Same Origin Reincarnation'."

With our current cloning technology, cloning a single organ is relatively mature. However, to clone a complete living body containing a complex nervous system, capable of perfectly housing a soul, and ensuring its consciousness is blank and in an optimal 'container' state, involves extremely cutting-edge fields such as overall cellular coordination, rapid and defect-free growth, perfect construction of neural synapses, and the suppression or even erasure of consciousness. This is far more complex than cloning an organ, and may even require touching upon taboo knowledge about the connection between life and the soul.

"Sasuke-kun, since you've come up with such a perfect idea, you must have done in-depth research on it, right?"

Orochimaru's golden snake eyes were fixed on Umino Sasuke, with a hint of probing and longing.

Umino Sasuke:? ! @#￥%&…

What is Orochimaru saying? Such advanced technology, besides you and Hiruko, who else understands it?
However, Sasuke Umino remained unfazed, meeting Orochimaru's gaze with a profound and unfathomable humility: "Senior, you think too highly of me. The homologous cloning technology will still require your help. I'll work hard to earn money and provide you with some funding." "Alright, as long as there's enough funding, homologous cloning technology is no problem at all; it just takes some time and effort."

Orochimaru assumed that Sasuke Umino didn't want to waste time on these trivial matters. Since the other party had already provided the funding, he would have to do these time-consuming and laborious things himself.

"It's a pleasure to work with you, Orochimaru-senpai. I look forward to hearing good news from you. I have other matters to attend to, so I won't disturb you any longer."

Sasuke Umino's lips curled into a satisfied smile.

He glanced one last time at the cloned organ in the petri dish, overjoyed. He had finally succeeded in using the extremely tempting solution of "cloning oneself to reincarnate" to not only point out the fatal flaw in Orochimaru's existing path, but also to use it as a bargaining chip to obtain the other party's most core and cutting-edge technology in the field of cloning.

Orochimaru's more advanced cloning technology will become a crucial piece of the puzzle in his future plans.

Inside Laboratory Zero, underground in the Land of Waves.

Unlike the eerie atmosphere of Orochimaru's place, the lighting here is softer, and the equipment is surprisingly sophisticated.

In the center stood a huge three-dimensional culture tank, like a series of crystal pillars. In the largest tank, immersed in a light blue nutrient solution, was a twisted little horn emitting a faint dark red chakra glow. This was a horn tissue that had not been successfully cloned from the Eight-Tails.

Sasuke Umino stood before the culture tank, gazing at the horn that symbolized infinite possibilities, his fingertips lightly touching the cold tank wall.

His eyes gleamed with an indescribable ambition as he muttered to himself, "With Orochimaru's more advanced cloning technology, replicating complete tailed beast organs, or even complete juvenile tailed beasts, will no longer be an unattainable fantasy!"

Once the complete tailed beast organs are cloned, and the Ten-Tails is fused together to become the Ten-Tails Jinchuriki, then the Six Paths Mode should be mastered.

"Not just the tailed beasts..."

Umino Sasuke snapped out of his thoughts and walked to a nearby experimental table shrouded in numerous sealing runes.

On top of it was a small piece of wood, about the size of a palm, which was a small piece of the mysterious wood that had been peeled off from the Chiyochimatsu Ten Puppet Masters puppet.

After extensive energy spectroscopy analysis and isotope measurements, it can be basically determined that this is very likely a small piece of wood from the legendary sacred tree's root system.

"It's actually the Divine Tree!"

Sasuke Umino carefully picked up the piece of wood with special tweezers, feeling the primal power of chakra contained within it, his heart pounding faster than ever.

"If we use Orochimaru's top-tier cloning technology to clone this divine tree root..."

A burning light shone in Umino Sasuke's eyes as an even more audacious and grander blueprint unfolded in his mind: "What if we could clone the sapling of the Divine Tree and make it bear fruit?!"

He quickly suppressed the agitation in his heart and took a deep breath: "Hoo... Even if it can't bear fruit, the value of successfully cultivating the divine tree sapling itself will be immeasurable! Even the most foolish thing to do is to chop it into firewood, which can be used to make a Shadow-level puppet."

The project has been planned out, and all that's left is for Orochimaru's perfect cloning technology to arrive. Umino Sasuke isn't in a hurry; he's carefully checking the progress of other experimental projects. With the technical support of Orochimaru and Hiruko, two tech giants, all the experiments are progressing very well.

After completing the routine inspection, he left Laboratory Zero and went to the laboratory area under the jurisdiction of Hiruko.

At this moment, Hiruko was buried in a pile of complicated instruments and test tubes, his hair was messy and his eyes were bloodshot. He had obviously stayed up all night again. When he saw Umino Sasuke come in, his face showed a mixture of fatigue and unease.

"Boss!" Hiruko quickly put down the dropper in his hand.

"How is the Boiling Release Bloodline Limit potion progressing?" Umino Sasuke asked directly, his tone calm yet carrying an invisible pressure.

Hiruko's face fell, and he shook his head with a wry smile: "Boss, the flesh and blood of the Five-Tails Kokuo does indeed contain powerful Boil Release factors, that's beyond doubt, but—"

It is extremely difficult to extract these factors stably and make them into a potion that water and fire attribute ninjas can safely take and successfully fuse to create the Boiling Release bloodline limit!
This is not simply a mixture of energy; it is a fusion and reconstruction at the essential level of life. It requires a great deal of experimentation and time, and results are unlikely to be seen in the short term.

He carefully observed Umino Sasuke's expression, fearing that this patron might cut or even stop funding in a fit of anger.

Sasuke Umino frowned slightly: "We've invested a huge amount of money and precious Five-Tails flesh and blood, and all we get in return is 'it's hard to see any results'?"

Hiruko's heart tightened, and he broke out in a cold sweat. He quickly tried to salvage the situation, saying, "No! Boss, although the Boil Release potion is temporarily blocked, we haven't come away empty-handed. Through in-depth analysis and purification of the water and fire chakra sources in the Five-Tails' flesh and blood, we have successfully developed two by-products: a water-attribute secret medicine and a fire-attribute secret medicine!"

He proudly took out two test tubes from the thermostatic safe. One test tube contained a deep blue, viscous liquid with subtle ripples; the other contained a crimson liquid, as if flames were quietly burning inside.

"Look, this is our achievement." Hiruko's voice carried a hint of pride, but quickly turned cautious. "These two secret medicines were directly extracted from the flesh and blood of the Five-Tails, containing the essence of pure water and fire chakra."

After a ninja consumes it, they can gain a deeper understanding of the essence of the corresponding chakra attribute, thus enhancing their comprehension.

Furthermore, they theoretically possess the potential to guide the development of chakra nature. For example, a ninja who originally only possessed wind and earth nature might, after taking a "fire-attribute secret medicine" and using "Life Yang No. 1" to neutralize the berserk effects, potentially stimulate their body to develop fire-attribute chakra. The same applies to "water-attribute secret medicines"!

Then, Hiruko paused, a pained expression on his face: "However, boss, the cost of this secret medicine is just too high. The purification process alone is extremely costly. The amount of secret medicine needed to train one ninja who has mastered a new chakra attribute is probably enough for us to train several Jonin! What's more, the flesh and blood of the Five-Tails Kokuo is a rare and precious material that is hard to come by!"

To Hiruko's surprise, Umino Sasuke, upon hearing this, showed no dissatisfaction but instead his eyes lit up with delight.

"Money and resources?" Sasuke Umino's voice carried an undeniable decisiveness. "That's not something you need to worry about. Problems that can be solved with money are never problems. Not enough Five-Tails flesh? I'll find a way. If funds are insufficient, I'll provide as much as you need! Hiruko, you've done a great service this time!"

He snatched the crimson "fire-attribute elixir," feeling the surging and pure fire-attribute power it contained: "Excellent! Excellent! Immediately increase production of this 'fire-attribute elixir' at full capacity and prioritize supplying it to my cultivation!"

Sasuke Umino had already mastered the Water Release technique to its fullest extent, and the Water Release elixirs had limited effect on him. However, Fire Release was the last basic chakra attribute he had yet to master.

This fire-attribute elixir is like a godsend.

He then took out a sealed scroll, unsealed it, and inside were several pieces of dark yellow flesh and blood imbued with a strong aura of wind and sand: "This is the flesh and blood of Shukaku. Hiruko, using the same approach, immediately begin developing 'Wind Attribute Secret Medicine' and 'Earth Attribute Secret Medicine,' with the same quality requirements as the Fire Attribute Secret Medicine!"

(End of this chapter)