Naruto: Building Insect Kingdom Chapter 13 13: Ten Species in the Petri Dish

The caravan swayed steadily as it moved forward. Just as Shisui Abura had predicted, the upheaval at the northern border of the Land of Grass had drawn the bulk of the Hidden Grass Village's attention, leaving the other checkpoints lax and perfunctory.

Two days later, the caravan crossed the border line without incident and entered the Land of Waterfall.

Inside the borders of the Waterfall, inspections were even looser. Aside from a few retainers or samurai from local manors giving the cargo a cursory glance, ninja were nowhere to be seen. It was, for all intents and purposes, a clear path ahead.

Confident that he had completely evaded pursuit, Shisui released his Sensory Bugs once more.

These insects didn't just scout the road ahead; they also kept a silent vigil over the three wandering ronin within the group.

The ronin leader seed trapped in a state of hesitation, clearly searching for the perfect mont to strike.

The pudgy ronin, however, was a different story—he was constantly whispering in the leader's ear, egging him on.

Seeing the flashes of resentnt on the fat man's face, Shisui guessed the motive: that single kick from before had made him lose face in front of the others, and now he was hungry for petty vengeance.

Watching the man scurry about and stir up trouble, Shisui simply shook his head and looked away. Instead, he sank his consciousness into the Evolutionary Petri Dish.

His current repertoire of combat techniques was still too limited. Since he finally had so downti, he decided to breed a new batch of insects—and he might as well use these three ronin as test subjects for the results.

After the killings of the past few days, added to his previous hoard, the Petri dish had accumulated a significant amount of "Original Energy." The accumulated ti acceleration now exceeded a thousand years.

To be honest, Shisui wasn't entirely sure how the energy was calculated.

He only had a rough sense: among civilians, young and healthy males provided the most energy, while those who had been dead for days or were elderly and frail provided very little.

As for ninja, there was no discernible pattern. Sotis a common young Genin would yield a surprising amount of energy, while so Chunin provided almost nothing.

Upon reaching the Jonin level, the returns stabilized—though age and gender still caused minor fluctuations, the overall yield didn't see the wild, polar extres found among civilians.

Shisui theorized it might be linked to the individual's "potential." Regardless of the logic, the thod of acquisition remained the sa: kill the target, or have the insects bred in the dish devour the corpse.

The storage space in the lower layer of the Petri dish consisted of twelve slots. To this day, they were not all filled.

The Hive Inventory

Slot 1: Kikaichu (Parasitic Giant Insects). Dormant here are the pure black Kikaichu—the most primal and fundantal symbiotic insect of the Abura clan. All other variants were derived from this base species through long-term cultivation and induced mutation.

Slot 2: Sensory Bugs (Sensory-Kikaichu) Hailing from the Abura main branch, these are slightly larger than standard Kikaichu. They are stealthier, fly faster, and possess the highest sensory capabilities of all his insects, making them ideal for intelligence gathering.

Slot 3: Parasitic Giant Insects (Great Insects) Used in conjunction with "Parasitic Giant Insect Jutsu." Once inside a human host, they absorb chakra and flesh to rapidly mature and expand. They can also be gigantified externally by injecting massive amounts of chakra, serving as combat summons or even aerial mounts. However, their bulk makes them easy targets, and their appetite after transformation is voracious. Most are single-use consumables, sent back to the hive after battle to serve as "nutrients" for the next generation. Shisui only kept about a hundred of these for ergencies.

Slot 4: Rinkaichu (Nano-sized Venomous Insects). These are infinitesimally small, blackish-purple venomous insects. Their primary function is to enter the body and destroy cells, causing rapid physical collapse. They are highly reproductive and act almost entirely on instinct, aning Shisui's control over them decreases with each generation. He rarely used them for fear of friendly fire—or even self-injury. He was currently attempting to dosticate them through improved breeding.

Weakness: Their extre density and the pheromones they release make them highly susceptible to "dust explosions" if they co into contact with fire. They also cannot fly, requiring skin-to-skin contact, which usually ans the user must host them inside their own body—a limitation Shisui bypassed using his Petri dish.

Slot 5: Corpse-Blight Bugs Relatives of the Rinkaichu, Shisui nad these Shikaichu. They share the small size and high reproductive rate, but they specifically accelerate their growth by devouring corpses, releasing massive amounts of toxic gas upon death. They are primarily used for the Jar of Poison Jutsu, causing bodies to bloat and explode, scattering toxic spores into the air like fine dust. In a confined space, they are nearly impossible for a standard ninja to resist. However, because of their horrific nature, the Abura clan had largely abandoned this "Great Killer" after the Warring States period to maintain their image as "righteous" Leaf shinobi.

Slot 6: The Ghost Scorpion. This slot contained only one creature—a scorpion Shisui had discovered in the Wind Country desert during the war. Originally palm-sized, he had cultivated it for its ability to blend perfectly into sandy environnts. It possessed combat strength comparable to a Jonin, could turn invisible, suppress its presence, and travel rapidly through soil. It remained Shisui's strongest single-unit fighter.

"Six slots down," Shisui mused, his mind drifting over the remaining empty spaces. "Let's see what a thousand years of evolution can do for the next four."