Satori Hyūga looked at the corpse of the white mouse now reduced to food and sighed with a helpless smile.
If his skills weren't good enough, he naturally needed more practice.
This was, after all, the traditional method of the Flower Planting Household from his previous life.
The effect? Not bad at all.
It significantly improved his control over chakra's subtleties and deepened his understanding of sealing formulas.
If one could break seals, they could also create them—and vice versa.
Now Satori could even independently design some rather complex jutsu.
But when it came to cracking the Caged Bird Seal, he still felt somewhat powerless.
He turned to Orochimaru and asked, "Professor Orochimaru, I wonder how your research is coming along?"
"Your knowledge and level of understanding regarding sealing techniques are much higher than mine. Surely you've made some progress by now."
Orochimaru, upon hearing this, awkwardly scratched his nose and averted his gaze slightly.
"Even the Second Hokage was impressed by the Hyūga Clan's Caged Bird Seal. How could I possibly crack such an advanced technique so quickly?"
"I thought that since you have access to the method of activating the Caged Bird Seal, you might have made new progress."
Glancing at the full-bellied little white snake on the floor and then at the nearly depleted pile of white mice, Orochimaru quickly deduced that Satori hadn't made any significant progress either.
At least not beyond what Orochimaru himself had achieved.
Just look at these poor little test subjects—they could start their own family by now!
Still, considering Satori's age, there was still much for him to learn. He couldn't expect to catch up to Orochimaru overnight.
Realizing this, Orochimaru couldn't help but give a bitter laugh at himself.
What was he thinking? Did he really expect Satori to work miracles?
Seeing Orochimaru hadn't made much progress either, Satori felt a swirl of complex emotions.
Across Konoha—and heck, across the entire ninja world—Orochimaru ranked among the top researchers.
If even he hadn't cracked the Caged Bird Seal yet, Satori probably wasn't going to do it anytime soon either.
And breaking down that second-tier compound formula had already taken so much time and so many test subjects.
By the time he attempts third-tier compound formulas and faces the Caged Bird Seal directly, who knows how long that will take?
"Professor Orochimaru," Satori said, "it seems cracking the Caged Bird Seal will be difficult to complete. But I have an idea—we might try something else."
"There must be a medium involved when the Caged Bird Seal is activated. If we can block or shield that medium, wouldn't that essentially neutralize the seal itself?"
He recalled an idea he had read about in Naruto fanfiction during his previous life.
In those stories, the protagonist was reborn as a member of the Hyūga Branch House. To avoid becoming a pawn and slave of the Main House, he devoted himself to studying sealing arts.
Eventually, through sheer perseverance and a pact with Orochimaru, he succeeded in devising a method to suppress the Caged Bird Seal.
The idea was great and surprisingly realistic.
This was the solution he recalled from his recent studies on breaking seals.
Now looking at Orochimaru, Satori wondered if this professor—who frequently appeared in fanfics as both a mentor and bargaining partner to reincarnated heroes—would actually go along with the plan.
After listening to Satori's idea, Orochimaru lowered his gaze in thought before responding, "That approach could work, but it's only a temporary fix."
"The Caged Bird Seal on my body is definitely a hidden threat. If not completely removed, one day I might be restricted by it again."
He wasn't entirely convinced by this idea, yet he didn't argue either.
Since the Caged Bird Seal couldn't be cracked for now, temporarily blocking it as a compromise was also a viable solution.
He wasn't so stubborn as to waste time trying to solve something that couldn't be resolved yet.
Seeing Orochimaru nod in agreement, Satori Hyūga smiled and said, "If we lower the difficulty, dealing with the Caged Bird problem becomes far easier."
"Professor Orochimaru, how about a little competition? Let's see who can figure this out first."
"Hmm... That would make things rather boring," Orochimaru shook his head, declining the suggestion.
He knew Satori had already figured out the activation conditions for the Caged Bird Seal—that gave his student a huge advantage.
If he accepted the challenge, he might end up losing unintentionally.
After all, he was the teacher—losing to a student would be deeply humiliating.
Seeing Orochimaru decline, Satori smiled helplessly.
He had hoped to test whether he could beat his professor at his own game—in the very field where Orochimaru excelled.
But apparently, that wouldn't be possible for now.
With a new approach in mind, Satori temporarily set aside the idea of directly cracking the sealing formula, choosing instead to adopt the method of suppression.
This suppression method could be seen as a compromise—a softer kind of destruction.
It involved overlaying the original Caged Bird Seal with another layer of sealing formula, effectively neutralizing it.
However, this method wasn't entirely reliable.
Should an expert skilled in sealing techniques come along, they could easily break through it.
"I need to block three different triggers—cutting off chakra, spiritual energy, and sensory-type genjutsu."
"As for sensory-type genjutsu, it's probably a blend of both chakra and spiritual energy. So if I can develop methods to isolate both chakra and spiritual energy, I should be able to suppress the Caged Bird Seal."
With this clear direction, Satori also possessed the activation formula required to trigger the Caged Bird Seal.
Therefore, by conducting targeted research according to the activation techniques, he could effectively neutralize the Caged Bird activation mechanism.
It was like jamming a signal—like a remote control suddenly unable to turn on the TV.
Clarifying his thoughts, Satori once again purchased large quantities of lab mice from merchants to continue his experiments.
First, he etched the sealing formulas onto the mice, then tried suppressing them.
The suppression technique itself wasn't complicated—it was like building a new structure right over the old one, hiding the original beneath.
Especially since the primary function of sealing techniques was restriction.
This made the suppression effect surprisingly effective, yielding quick results.
Satori perfected the full suppression technique in just three days.
Tailored to the Caged Bird Seal's activation patterns, this suppression method achieved near-perfect isolation and neutralization.
However, drawing the suppression seal required carving the formula directly onto the human body, making it easy to detect.
So Satori spent a few more days fine-tuning and enhancing the method.
After everything was completed, a unique pair of goggles appeared in his hands.
The goggles looked somewhat unusual, with large circular buttons on the sides. Their dark gray exterior was embedded with numerous mysterious patterns, giving them the appearance of an ancient ninja artifact.
The engravings were, in fact, suppression seals. However, to avoid drawing attention, Satori Hyūga had carved additional patterns over them, making the goggles appear even more enigmatic.
Satori held the goggles in one hand, and a glint of delight flashed in his eyes.
In crafting this device, he had spent considerable time racking his brain, striving to strengthen his sealing technique.
Fortunately, the results proved outstanding—his mastery of sealing techniques had reached an exceptional level.
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