Chapter 18: Sealing the Gluttony Technique Mark
Time passed quietly, and in the blink of an eye, another three months had gone by.
During these three months in the Sealing Class, Ryuya's daily life was relatively stifling.
Learning sealing techniques truly was a difficult matter. Even with the assistance of the biological chip, it still took Ryuya a long time to catalogue and absorb a large reserve of ninjutsu knowledge.
For such learning progress, Ryuya himself felt it was slow, but Sakamoto An directly regarded him as a genius in sealing techniques.
According to Sakamoto An, Ryuya's current attainment in sealing techniques had already reached the level of a chūnin.
In addition to studying and researching sealing techniques, Ryuya also spent a great deal of time every day on chakra refinement and training in various basic ninjutsu.
Over the course of these three months, Ryuya felt that his strength had improved significantly. The amount of chakra within his body had steadily reached the level of a Konoha chūnin.
At his current level, if Ryuya were to participate in the Chūnin Exams, he should be able to advance smoothly.
However, Ryuya was not anxious about this at all.
He preferred to develop quietly and discreetly.
At nine o'clock that night, the Akimichi clan grounds were already completely silent.
Holding a sealing scroll, Ryuya walked into a cultivation chamber.
This was a cultivation chamber of thirty to forty square meters, equipped with an experimental table and some simple instruments.
Three months earlier, on the very day Ryuya and the others returned to Konoha, the biological chip had discovered a certain special seal pattern within his body.
This seal pattern was not something Ryuya had deliberately created. Rather, it naturally formed along a certain innate flow trajectory, like bodily memory, deeply imprinted into the physical genes of the Akimichi clan.
If Ryuya had not, by chance, instructed the biological chip to conduct long-term monitoring of his body, it would have been very difficult to discover this at all.
Using the biological chip, Ryuya had already successfully replicated this seal pattern.
In order to test its function, over the past two months Ryuya had purchased dozens of ordinary green snakes from the market for experimentation.
After repeated observation and testing, Ryuya finally confirmed that this innate seal pattern carried within the bodies of the clan members could rapidly convert ingested food into a special form of bodily energy.
This bodily energy was different from the bodily energy refined through ordinary chakra refinement techniques; it was mixed with another kind of energy that was very similar to bodily energy.
After analysis and deduction by the biological chip, this energy was identified as life energy.
At this point, Ryuya finally cracked the secret of the Akimichi clan's Yang-attribute chakra.
This innate seal pattern was the key that allowed the Akimichi clan to rapidly convert food energy into a special bodily energy mixed with life energy.
However, although this seal pattern could quickly convert food energy into special bodily energy, the efficiency with which different individuals absorbed and transformed this energy varied greatly.
This was likely determined by innate physical aptitude.
Moreover, this seal pattern could not directly refine bodily energy into chakra; it needed to be used in conjunction with the Akimichi clan's chakra refinement technique.
Through his research into this innate seal pattern, Ryuya arrived at two conjectures regarding the origins of the Akimichi clan.
One possibility was that the Akimichi clan, like the Senju and Uzumaki clans, were descendants of the Sage of Six Paths, and that this talent was inherited from the Sage's special body.
The other possibility was that the Akimichi clan's ancient ancestors had carefully studied the Sage's body, copied this seal pattern from it, and then, through generations of continuous development and learning, passed it down to their descendants like a kekkei genkai, ultimately forming the present-day secret-technique ninja clan.
At the same time, a bold idea emerged in Ryuya's mind: to combine the Akimichi clan's chakra refinement technique with this innate seal pattern to form a new technique mark, and then engrave it onto his own body.
In this way, Ryuya's body would essentially possess an automatic chakra-refining "plug-in." As long as food was sufficient, he could rapidly increase and restore the amount of chakra within his body.
As soon as this idea arose, the biological chip within his body immediately provided a solution—sealing techniques.
This was also the main reason why Ryuya had suddenly proposed entering the Sealing Class to study.
After this period of learning, Ryuya was no longer a novice in sealing techniques. Relying on the biological chip's powerful computational ability, he had already simulated a sealing technique in his mind. What he lacked now was physical experimentation.
The biological chip was not omnipotent. Some conclusions, though they could be inferred through analysis, still required a large amount of experimental verification.
In this regard, Ryuya had always maintained a cautious attitude.
After all, these techniques were to be used on his own body. If something went wrong midway, it would be very difficult to reverse!
For the sake of convenience in experimentation, Ryuya had asked Akimichi Rangyū to specially apply for this cultivation chamber within the clan for him.
"Release!"
Upon entering the chamber, Ryuya placed a sealing scroll on the experimental table and spread it open. Forming hand seals, he pressed his hand onto the scroll.
Bang!
A puff of white smoke rose, and a two-meter-long green snake appeared on the experimental table.
"Hiss hiss"
The green snake flicked its tongue, rubbing its head affectionately against Ryuya's arm, looking extremely intimate and attached.
Half a month ago, this green snake had still been an ordinary snake less than one meter long. It was the last survivor among the snakes Ryuya had purchased for experimentation.
Under Ryuya's constant tinkering, the snake not only suffered no damage, but its body had more than doubled in size during this period. A faint amount of chakra had even formed within it, turning it into a ninja snake that could be sealed and summoned.
"Good, now lie down."
Ryuya gently stroked the snake's head to calm its excitement and then gestured for it to lie down.
The green snake obediently lay down. The expression on Ryuya's face grew solemn as his hands rapidly formed seals.
This was an extremely complex sequence of hand seals. As soon as it was completed, Ryuya pressed his right hand onto the snake's body, and a dark-ink sealing formula immediately spread and formed across the snake's body.
Thump~
As the sealing formula took shape, a dull sound like a heartbeat came from the snake's body, and then its body began to pulsate rhythmically.
At the same time, a faint chakra fluctuation emanated from the snake.
A few seconds later, the snake opened its mouth wide, its tongue stretching out as its body involuntarily swayed left and right on the experimental table.
Ryuya watched all of this calmly. He took a chunk of fresh meat from the side and tossed it toward the snake's open mouth.
The snake slightly raised its body, clamped onto the meat in one bite, and after a few swallows, gulped it all down, causing its entire body to swell by two full rings.
After swallowing the food, the snake's body trembled even more violently. The fresh meat it had just eaten was digested at an extremely fast rate amid the vibrations.
In just fifteen minutes, Ryuya saw the snake's body return to normal.
At the same time, faint strands of energy slowly overflowed from the snake's body and dispersed into the air.
This energy was the special bodily energy that Ryuya was extremely familiar with.
When Ryuya used the clan's secret techniques to absorb food, this same kind of bodily energy would also be produced within his body.
Half an hour later, the green snake on the experimental table raised its head again, its mouth slightly open as it looked at Ryuya.
The several-pound chunk of fresh meat it had eaten earlier had been completely digested, and hunger once again surged within it.
Seeing this, Ryuya picked up another chunk of fresh meat and threw it to the snake, while simultaneously recording experimental data using the biological chip.
Another half hour passed, and the food within the snake was once again fully absorbed.
After this feeding, having absorbed enough bodily energy, the snake no longer thrashed about and slowly fell into a deep sleep.
It worked!
Judging from the snake's reactions, Ryuya knew that his experiment had been successful.
The sealing technique he had just used on the snake was precisely the result inferred and simulated by the biological chip. Ryuya named it the Gluttony Sealing Mark.
The Gluttony Sealing Mark was an automatic chakra-extraction "plug-in." It could not only rapidly convert food energy into the Akimichi clan's unique chakra, but also store excess bodily energy within the body.
Moreover, the Gluttony Sealing Mark could be stacked with multiple layers.
Through previous experiments, Ryuya discovered that although the Gluttony Sealing Mark greatly increased the recipient's appetite, it still had an upper limit.
By adjusting the number of Gluttony Sealing Marks applied according to the recipient's physique, the caster could control the upper limit of food intake.
Based on a comparison of experimental data before and after, the Gluttony Sealing Mark on the green snake increased its food intake by more than ten times. Meat that would originally have taken over ten days to digest was completely processed by the snake in just a little over an hour.
Most of the absorbed food energy was converted into special chakra, which had an astonishing effect on the snake's growth rate.
More importantly, although the Gluttony Sealing Mark accelerated the snake's food absorption speed, it did not break its original bodily limitations. Its absorption efficiency and upper limit remained constrained.
This completely reassured Ryuya. The Gluttony Sealing Mark was indeed controllable and would not arbitrarily create a terrifying bottomless glutton capable of devouring everything.
At this growth rate, if sufficient food could be supplied, given enough time, the green snake might not be unable to grow into a powerful ninja beast like Manda.
Thinking of this, Ryuya could not help but feel his blood surge with excitement.
However, all of this was based on Ryuya having sufficient financial resources.
Without money, even a single green snake would be enough to eat him into ruin.
"Release!"
After a brief bout of imagination, Ryuya lifted his hand to remove the Gluttony Sealing Mark engraved on the snake, then sealed it back into the sealing scroll.
After tidying everything up, Ryuya took the sealing scroll and returned home to rest.
Although this experiment was extremely successful, it was not yet perfect. There were still aspects that needed to be gradually adjusted through experimental data.
For example, judging from the green snake's current efficiency in absorbing life energy, engraving eight Gluttony Sealing Marks was clearly too much. A considerable amount of bodily energy that was not absorbed had dissipated into the air, going to waste.
However, the first step had already been taken, and the rest should proceed naturally from there.
Over the next few days, Ryuya spent his time continuously experimenting and collecting data.