Getting fifty thousand capable shinobi to obediently sit inside a chakra transmission array and wait for their chakra to be drained dry—something that absurd would be impossible even if Kagami became Hokage.
After all, even during the Fourth Shinobi World War in the original timeline, the Allied Shinobi Forces numbered only a little over eighty thousand, and that was including the samurai of the Land of Iron.
So controlling the lives and deaths of fifty thousand shinobi at once was something far beyond what a mere Hokage could accomplish. Even if someone unified all Five Great Shinobi Villages and became the sole ruler of the entire shinobi world, pulling something like that off would still be exceedingly difficult.
Besides, the Bloodline Fusion Ritual could not tolerate outside interference. The more people involved in the ritual, the harder it would be to manage them, and the greater the chance that something would go wrong.
The countless unexpected incidents during Danzo’s ritual were a perfect lesson in that regard.
Therefore, Kagami would never allow unnecessary people to participate in his own ritual. If circumstances permitted, he even felt that completing the entire ritual entirely on his own would be the safest and most reliable option.
But chakra had now become an unavoidable problem.
"Unless..."
Suddenly, an idea occurred to Kagami.
But almost immediately, he shook his head and drove the thought from his mind.
The method he had thought of was actually very simple.
It was Black Zetsu’s ’Eye of the Moon Plan’ to rescue Kaguya!
As long as the Ten-Tails was revived and the ’Infinite Tsukuyomi’ was activated, all the shinobi in the shinobi world would fall under the ’Infinite Tsukuyomi’, and everyone’s chakra would naturally be gathered together.
At that point, there would no longer be any problem of insufficient chakra.
But this idea was obviously completely impractical.
If he allowed Akatsuki to revive the Ten-Tails and activate the ’Infinite Tsukuyomi’, then what Kagami would have to face afterward would be either Nagato in his Six Paths state, Madara in his Six Paths state...
Or Kaguya after breaking free from her seal.
No matter which one it was, Kagami would be no match for them.
And if Kagami tried to do it himself—collecting the Tailed Beasts and activating the ’Infinite Tsukuyomi’—then the Sage of Six Paths, who watched over the shinobi world, would inevitably intervene.
When that happened, Kagami’s fate certainly wouldn’t be any better than those villains from the original timeline.
Therefore, although activating the ’Infinite Tsukuyomi’ could solve the problem of insufficient chakra, it involved far too many complications and could very easily end with him getting burned by the very fire he started.
It was truly a last resort among last resorts.
"Looks like I’ll have to think of another way!"
At the end of his summary, Kagami heavily wrote down the word ’CHAKRA’ before closing his notebook.
In truth, there were many ways to obtain chakra.
Using a chakra transmission array to forcibly extract vast amounts of chakra from other shinobi was merely the crudest and most brutal method among them.
Hiruko, for example, had come up with the idea of borrowing the power of celestial phenomena.
By arranging a corresponding ritual at a special location and at a specific time, he could use the ritual to absorb and transform the power of nature, converting it into chakra for himself.
Another option was to consume miraculous substances capable of stimulating the body, sacrificing one’s life force in exchange for an enormous amount of chakra for a short period of time.
Examples included Takigakure’s secret treasure, the ’Hero Water’, and the Akimichi Clan’s ’Three Colored Pills’.
Besides medicines, certain secret techniques and forbidden techniques, such as the ’Strength of a Hundred Seal’ and the ’Eight Gates’, could also allow someone to store chakra accumulated over time or remove the body’s natural limiters, enabling them to temporarily unleash ten times—or even a hundred times—their normal amount of chakra.
Moreover, there was still a Giant Tenseigan on the Moon, while another Giant Tenseigan was suspected to be hidden somewhere in the shinobi world.
As long as Kagami could gain control over both Giant Tenseigan, his chakra predicament would also be greatly alleviated.
In the end, there would always be more solutions than problems.
As long as there was still a road ahead, Kagami was not afraid of difficulties.
What he truly feared was the confusion of facing the unknown—and the despair of having no path forward at all!
Leaving his archive room, Kagami walked over to the ten large nutrient tanks cultivating his Earth Release clones.
Now that Kagami was flush with money, he had cultivated ten Earth Release clones in one go. Moreover, thanks to the improvements in his cell fusion technology, all ten Earth Release clones possessed extremely vigorous cellular activity and could be considered high-quality clones.
After inspecting the ten large nutrient tanks one by one, the corners of Kagami’s mouth unconsciously curled upward.
Although these Earth Release clones would still need another month to fully mature, the monitoring data displayed on the new nutrient tanks showed that their potential seemed even better than he had anticipated.
In fact, the data from two of the clones was so exceptional that they could only be described as ’top-tier’.
"That brat Deidara’s cell tissue really is something else!"
......
Iwagakure.
Deidara, who had just received a thorough beating from the Third Tsuchikage, Onoki, pursed his lips and said,
"Old man, the shinobi world is way too dangerous. I know I was wrong, so just forgive me this once!"
"Hmph!"
With his hands clasped behind his back, Onoki let out a cold snort through his nose, though a trace of barely perceptible joy flickered in his eyes.
At present, Iwagakure, much like Konoha, was suffering from a shortage of capable successors.
In fact, Iwagakure’s situation was even more severe than Konoha’s.
Although the village had no shortage of elite jonin, there wasn’t a single person among them who possessed Kage-level strength and could shoulder the heavy responsibility of succeeding the Tsuchikage.
Fortunately, the Third Tsuchikage, Onoki, who wielded ’Dust Release’, was still capable of holding everything together.
Otherwise, Iwagakure’s position as one of the Five Great Shinobi Villages would already be hanging by a thread.
But Onoki was old, after all.
He knew very well that his body was deteriorating with each passing day, and that his strength was steadily declining with the passage of time. Therefore, he needed to cultivate a candidate for Tsuchikage as soon as possible—a shinobi capable of taking the burden of Tsuchikage from his shoulders.
But within Iwagakure, there simply weren’t many shinobi with the potential to become Tsuchikage.
Onoki’s son, Kitsuchi, wasn’t suitable.
His granddaughter, Kurotsuchi, was also slightly lacking in talent.
His disciple Deidara was the only one with astonishing talent and the potential to become Tsuchikage, but he was also an unruly rebel who constantly gave Onoki headaches.
Now that Deidara had suffered a setback outside, realized the error of his ways, and returned to the village, Onoki might have appeared indifferent on the surface, but deep down, he was absolutely delighted.
In his eyes, with Kamigami and Akatsuki running rampant, the shinobi world would only become increasingly chaotic and increasingly dangerous.
And only a shinobi with extraordinary talent like Deidara could safeguard Iwagakure’s future.
Just then, Deidara suddenly said,
"Old man, I want to learn your ’Dust Release’!"
Onoki looked at Deidara in considerable surprise before smiling.
"Weren’t you only interested in your art? Why do you suddenly want to learn my ’Dust Release’?"
Deidara recalled how miserable he had been when facing Kamigami’s Homura.
He remembered seeing Homura’s godlike figure, bathed in dazzling golden flames—and how, at that moment, even his faith in the art of explosions had wavered.
Immediately, he gritted his teeth and said,
"Heh, I just suddenly realized that your ’Dust Release’ is pretty artistic too, old man... hmm!"