Konoha's highest-level laboratory. Only three people in all of Konoha knew of this lab's existence.
All the sealing techniques protecting it were personally set by him.
Opening the door, Aoba stepped inside.
"Long time no see, Black Zetsu."
This was the place where Black Zetsu was imprisoned. After capturing him, Aoba spent a great deal of effort trying to uncover Black Zetsu's secrets.
After all, from the perspective of many living beings, Black Zetsu's abilities were practically a bug. He possessed independent thought, could manipulate chakra, freely attach himself to other lifeforms, and his body exhibited a strange fluid-like form.
That last trait, in particular, fascinated Aoba.
The development of the chakra cloak had hit a bottleneck. To further enhance its performance, Aoba's vision was to create something akin to a Venom-like suit, a super chakra cloak that could integrate self-defense, offense, support, and medical functions all in one.
At present, the only entity that could fulfill this concept was Black Zetsu.
Curled up in a corner, Black Zetsu slowly extended a face.
"Aoba Kamikawa… You're different. No, you no longer have chakra. It seems you've noticed the old man's little moves as well."
Aoba wasn't surprised that Black Zetsu knew about this.
People often say that Black Zetsu, when faced with adversity, could simply go into hiding and wait another thousand years. However, based on the events in the original series, it was clear that Black Zetsu was actually quite impatient.
For one, deceiving a character like Madara Uchiha from beginning to end was completely out of character for Black Zetsu.
In the story, Madara was fooled from start to finish and was ultimately ambushed. While this highlighted Black Zetsu's strength, it also clearly felt like plot-induced stupidity.
And yet, Black Zetsu still went through with it. Most likely because he had realized the Sage of Six Paths was making moves. If this plan failed, he would never get another chance.
Unfortunately for him, despite being a top-tier backstabber, he had wasted too much time being cautious.
So much time, in fact, that the Sage of Six Paths had already fully powered up.
From this perspective, the Sage of Six Paths was even more patient than Black Zetsu.
In the end, even though Black Zetsu successfully resurrected his mother, the Sage of Six Paths didn't even have to intervene personally. Everything was easily resolved.
Black Zetsu ultimately lost completely.
After greeting Black Zetsu, Aoba didn't bother continuing the conversation. Instead, he directly stepped forward and extracted a small portion of Black Zetsu's body tissue.
"Heh, still not giving up? Aoba, even you won't be able to uncover my body's secrets. This is Mother's final masterpiece. Even my useless brother couldn't do it."
Black Zetsu wasn't wrong.
After capturing him, Aoba had Tobirama's team use every possible method to analyze and study him.
However, in the end, no useful information was obtained. At the time, Konoha simply did not have the means to analyze the Yin-Yang Release in Black Zetsu's body.
Aoba had originally planned to personally conduct the research once he achieved Sage of Six Paths-level power.
But plans never keep up with reality, Aoba had lost his chakra.
In theory, this meant he could no longer analyze Black Zetsu's Yin-Yang Release.
But he had another method to achieve his goal.
Now, Aoba's objectives had changed. He no longer needed to decode Black Zetsu's Yin-Yang Release, he only needed biological samples.
This made things much simpler.
Although Aoba no longer had chakra, he had become a god, a divine being unlike anything the shinobi world had ever seen. Aside from death itself, he had gained almost every divine authority.
This allowed him to effortlessly separate the energy components from the biological matter in Black Zetsu's body.
As a result, Aoba obtained a pure biological sample of Black Zetsu's cells. This was the final missing piece for the Ōtsutsuki gene template.
With this last puzzle piece in place, the progress in the laboratory skyrocketed. In just three days, the first Ōtsutsuki clone was successfully cultivated.
However, Aoba now faced another problem, the issue of soul transfer.
Konoha's laboratory had already swapped multiple bodies in the past, including the First, Second, Third, and Fourth Hokage, as well as Itachi and Nagato.
But the entire process wasn't exactly what people imagined.
For the Hokage reanimations, Aoba had rescued their souls from the belly of the Shinigami and provided them with new cloned bodies.
This was the ideal body-swapping method, since the clones had no souls the external souls could perfectly attach to them, achieving a flawless resurrection.
For Nagato and Itachi, however, the process was different. In fact, it wasn't a full-body replacement, it was actually a brain transplant.
That's right. The method used was a biologically inclined brain transplant surgery to achieve body-switching.
However, Ōtsutsuki bodies required a complete soul attachment to complete the transfer. A simple brain transplant would cause rejection.
Clearly, the Ōtsutsuki genetic sequence was far superior and more refined compared to that of ordinary shinobi. The brains of shinobi simply weren't compatible with such an advanced body.
This created a serious problem, how to achieve a flawless soul transfer?
At present, the lab couldn't do it. Or rather, they could have before, but not anymore.
Originally, Aoba could have used a modified version of the Reaper Death Seal to extract the soul of an experimental subject, then retrieve it from the Shinigami's belly, allowing the soul to take over the new body.
But ever since Aoba absorbed the authorities of the gods, the Shinigami's attitude had changed. It was clear that the Shinigami didn't want Aoba using this method anymore.
Even if Aoba honored his promise to return the divine authorities to nature in the future, the newly reborn Shinigami wouldn't necessarily be the same as the current one.
This meant that the Shinigami was now hesitating.
Aoba suspected that the Sage of Six Paths had made some kind of offer, perhaps a promise to preserve the Shinigami's position as a god.
With this shift in attitude, Aoba no longer dared to carelessly interact with the Shinigami. At the very least, he couldn't freely use the Reaper Death Seal anymore.
But without it, achieving a complete soul transfer was beyond Konoha's current capabilities.
Despite the lab's massive breakthroughs in biology, medicine, ninjutsu, and sealing techniques, their accumulated knowledge in soul-related research was still lacking.
In truth, there was only one person in the shinobi world who could handle this matter with ease, Orochimaru.
If you would like to read more...
The novel has be completed (Chp. 362) on the patreon -> SaintXI