After learning the forbidden logic of the Spirit Siphoning Seal from Master Bunpuku and the grumbling, ancient archives of Shukaku, my mind became a single-threaded process. Every other project, the maintenance of Shiori's puppets, the routine squad drills, even my own sleep cycle was relegated to background tasks. I was focused entirely on that sliver of dark, patterned wood. I knew that in the engineering of the Ninja World, I was currently attempting to build a nuclear reactor in a garage. One miscalculation in the "containment field" wouldn't just result in a failed prototype; it would cause a local "system wipe" of several city blocks.
I did not rush. I spent three days simply preparing the "Clean Room" environment within my workshop. I sketched complex isolation barriers across the stone floor using a mixture of high-conductive ink and ground-down iron filings. These weren't just decorative; they were designed to act as a "Chassis Ground," absorbing any stray electromagnetic or chakra-based interference that might trigger the God-Tree fragment prematurely.
At the center of my workbench, under a high-intensity oil lamp, lay the original Gen-2 puppet core, the very foundation of my early success. I had carefully opened its metallic casing, revealing the intricate energy-conversion heart. Beside it sat the prize: a speck of Divine Tree debris, barely larger than a grain of sand, yet possessing a mass that seemed to warp the very light around it. I had wrapped this tiny "Stellar Core" in layers of microscopic Spirit Siphoning Seal runes, applied with a brush made of a single strand of my own chakra-conducting hair.
I drew a deep breath, steadying my pulse. My thirty-year-old soul, the mind of Logan the engineer, stepped forward to guide my hands. I needed the surgical care of a micro-soldering expert and the spiritual focus of a master monk.
"Initializing handshake protocol," I whispered to the empty room.
I guided every thread of my chakra with sub-millimeter precision, slowly seating the sealed fragment into the core's central socket. The socket was an adamantine-alloy cradle designed to withstand the "Thermal Load" of the conversion process.
"Seal!"
With the final command, the core's casing snapped shut with a definitive, metallic click. The workbench barrier flared instantly, humming with a low, steady resonance that vibrated in my teeth.
For a moment, there was a terrifying silence. The core lay inert, a cold lump of metal and wood. I checked the "Telemetry" of the room's ambient energy. My sensory perception strained, looking for a sign of a successful boot sequence.
Then, the core quivered.
Suddenly, the conduction circuits, etched into the inner walls like the streets of a golden city lit up with a soft, pure, milky glow. It wasn't the jagged, electric blue of standard chakra; it was a steady, warm luminance that felt like the break of dawn.
Success? No, this was only the "First Boot."
I could feel a faint gravitational field forming around the tiny shard. This was the "Magnetism" of the Divine Tree, a natural pull that began to draw in the wild, omnipresent Natural Energy from the surrounding desert air. It was as if I had opened a port to a massive, invisible cloud server.
Yet, the raw energy didn't just flood the system. It hit the outermost Spirit Siphoning Seal first. These ancient runes, acting as precise governors and step-down transformers, forced the violent torrent to slow down and synchronize with the core's internal "Clock Speed." The energy was filtered and tamed until it was a manageable trickle.
Only then was the stream allowed into the core's original conversion matrix, where the real marvels unfolded.
The intricate arrays I had designed to convert my own chakra now found a higher purpose. They began to harmonize and amplify the incoming stream. A new form of energy, vaster and more stable than anything the Ninja World currently utilized, began to well up. It was a "Life Force 2.0." Its density was calculated to be:
ρₑₙₑᵣ₉ᵧ ≈ Φ · ∫₀ᵗ Ψ(x) dx
where Φ represented the Spirit Siphoning constant and Ψ the ambient natural flux.
This newborn energy carried a pale sheen and a heart-soothing vitality. It was stripped of the ferocity that usually turned "Sages" into stone, leaving only a controllable, high-output fuel. It filled the core's circuits with a warm radiance that made the air in the workshop feel alive, as if the very stone was breathing.
I cautiously threaded a wisp of my own chakra into the core, acting as the "User Interface."
Hum--
The core chimed in delight. It was a sound of pure harmony. A gentle current answered my call, flowing back along my chakra strand. It was obedient. It was high-bandwidth. Its stability outstripped anything I had achieved with standard chakra.
"It worked…" I whispered, my voice thick with the awe of a creator.
I had successfully bridged the gap. I had fused a speck of ancient "Server-grade" hardware with a modern "Middleware" interface.
"Preliminary-tier Natural Energy Puppet Core."
I bestowed the creation with its name, marking it as the first version of a new paradigm. Eager for data, I began the performance tests immediately. I linked the core to a prototype puppet arm I'd built for the Mirage project.
The results were staggering. The limb didn't just move; it performed with a "Real-time" fluidity that eliminated the 20ms latency I usually dealt with. The strength was consistent, the precision was pixel-perfect, and the core's output remained rock-steady even under a 200% torque load.
Next, I connected the core to the Body Tempering Furnace.
I was limited by the core's current size and the microscopic shard I'd used, so the total output couldn't yet sustain a "Full-System Reinforcement." However, the purity of the energy flooding my system was unlike anything I'd ever experienced. As the milky-white light filled the furnace, I felt every cell in my body "Singing." It was a biological optimization. The energy didn't just repair damage; it upgraded the "Firmware" of my DNA, smoothing out the remaining flaws in my foundation.
"Perfect…"
I gazed at the softly glowing core, my eyes shining with the joy of an engineer who has finally cracked the fundamental code of his world.
The energy bottleneck was shattered. I no longer had to worry about the village's budget cuts or the Daimyo's greed. I was no longer a "Shinobi" drawing on a limited pool of internal stamina; I was a "User" tapping into the infinite power of the planet.
This was only an entry-level version, using an almost negligible fragment of the God-Tree. But it proved the concept. It laid the firmest possible energy foundation for the Body Tempering Furnace Mk-III and the high-speed Mag-Lev platform, Mirage.
The first paving stone on the road to a "New Suna" now lay in my hand, glowing with the warmth of a thousand suns. The third Great Ninja War was still raging outside, but inside this dusty workshop, the future had just been initialized.