Chapter 324: The Problem of Fusing Trinitrotoluene and Chakra
Koyuki worked very efficiently. While Amamiya Kenichi was still drawing up the blueprints, she had already gathered the raw materials. Seeing that, Kenichi immediately gave her a second task.
"Find the best blacksmith in the Land of Snow and have him forge this for me. There must not be any gaps or bubbles," Kenichi said, handing the blueprint to Koyuki before hurrying back to the laboratory with the materials.
Normally, Kenichi would have been interested in chatting with Koyuki a little longer, but inspiration was surging through him right now, so he did not waste any time. While the idea was still fresh in his mind, the most important thing was to quickly extract trinitrotoluene and then formulate the TNT.
"My master is so busy, but also so serious. Really, how can he be this charming?" Koyuki watched Kenichi's retreating back with sultry eyes and licked her lips. If not for the strict hierarchy of the insect race, she would have thrown herself at him long ago.
Still, she obediently took the blueprint he had given her and went off to find the finest blacksmith in the capital of the Land of Snow. Anything her master ordered had to be carried out.
Meanwhile, back in the laboratory, Kenichi began extracting trinitrotoluene himself.
Although trinitrotoluene sounded dangerous, it could actually withstand a certain degree of friction and impact. Those scenes in movies where it exploded the instant it hit a wall were mostly nonsense. The real danger came from heat. Once any part of it was heated enough, it would detonate, and that was precisely one of the main reasons it was so widely used as an explosive.
Even though there had been many better explosives in his previous life, TNT had still remained in widespread use, so for most people, this substance was practically synonymous with explosives.
Its extraction process carried risks, of course, but it was nowhere near as terrifying as something like hydrofluoric acid. The real key to TNT lay in how it was stored.
"I just hope this goes smoothly."
Kenichi took a deep breath and started the extraction.
He remained busy until evening. By then, he had finally succeeded in producing a batch of TNT.
"The TNT is done, but it still needs to be tested."
Kenichi quickly assembled a simple explosive device with the TNT in hand, then brought it to a small mountain beside the capital of the Land of Snow for testing.
The detonation was extremely smooth. The roar was deafening and even triggered a small avalanche, though one of that scale was not enough to count as a real problem.
"The explosive power is still weaker than a thermobaric bomb, but yield can solve that. The real problem now is how to fuse TNT with chakra."
Standing before the blasted site, Kenichi fell into thought.
Previously, he had obtained a book on the fusion of chakra and thermobaric explosives. The thing had been absurdly thick, and just thinking about it still made his stomach hurt a little. Still, as the saying went, no pain, no gain. Thanks to that book, his understanding of both explosives and chakra had deepened considerably.
"In the book, chakra is treated as a form of energy, a structure composed of atoms. So if I want to fuse the two…"
As he walked back to the laboratory, Kenichi kept thinking through the process.
Logically, since he had already succeeded in fusing chakra with thermobaric explosives, fusing it with TNT should not have been too difficult. But in reality, things were never that simple. Kenichi felt he would still need a round of experiments to figure out how to integrate chakra into TNT without destroying its explosive properties.
By the time he returned to the lab, Koyuki still had not come back with the launcher body, but Kenichi was not in a hurry. In an era where iron smelting still relied heavily on manual production, expecting something like that to be made too quickly was unrealistic to begin with.
After preparing another batch of TNT, Kenichi started trying to mix fire nature chakra into it. To avoid any accidental detonation caused by a handling mistake, he only worked with a small portion first.
[Although the properties of TNT are stable, the addition of fire nature chakra still caused certain changes in its molecular structure.]
[After a certain amount of fire nature chakra was fully injected, strange patterns appeared on the surface of the TNT, resembling cracks in glass.]
Kenichi studied the patterns on the explosive, then patiently sketched them down. They were oddly beautiful.
But just as that thought crossed his mind, he noticed the TNT in front of him beginning to bulge outward.
Without hesitation, he used an Earth Release jutsu to bury it underground.
The next moment, a muffled explosion sounded.
A great spray of dirt burst into the air, and some of it nearly splashed onto Kenichi's face.
"The explosive power really did increase. As expected, chakra provides a huge boost to explosives."
He did not dwell on the failed result. Failed experiments were normal. Sometimes even experiments that had already been repeated countless times could still fail.
"It should be because I injected too much chakra and caused the trinitrotoluene to heat up."
He wrote the observation down in his experimental log.
After studying the book, Kenichi could now roughly deduce the causes behind this kind of failure. Fire nature chakra itself was very active, even more active than wind nature chakra in some respects, so the chances of problems arising were naturally high.
[In this experiment, I tried controlling the output of fire nature chakra and distributing it as evenly as possible. The TNT remained stable and showed no signs of detonation.]
[However, after observation, I found that the TNT seems to have a problem with chakra retention.]
[Once a thermobaric explosive is produced, it can retain chakra for a period of time. But using this method to produce TNT causes the chakra to dissipate much more quickly.]
[At this rate, the TNT will probably revert to an ordinary explosive in about three days. Is this related to one of the materials used in thermobaric explosives?]
Kenichi frowned at the report in his hand, then looked at the TNT beside it.
The strange patterns were still visible on its surface, but they were fading, slowly enough that it would have been almost impossible to notice with the naked eye. With his Sharingan, though, the process was obvious.
If this continued, chakra infused TNT would be far more troublesome to use. Worse, who knew whether that gradual dissipation might affect storage safety? If the departing chakra atoms caused a structural change in the explosive, then all it would take was one unstable point for heat to build up and detonate the trinitrotoluene.
"But if I start adding other materials, that could trigger a whole new set of weird changes. And thermobaric explosives already require a lot of raw materials. Testing them one by one is too slow."
Kenichi felt increasingly irritated.
If his Shadow Clones had been available right now, he could have quickly identified the relevant material, added something to restrict the leakage of chakra from the TNT, and made it usable. Unfortunately, all of his Shadow Clones were currently busy opening eyes for the ninja of the Land of Snow.
"So I'll just have to figure it out myself."
He shook his head. There was no other option.
[In the first experiment, I tried adding a portion of...]
Failed. The rate of chakra dissipation remained the same.
[In the second experiment, I added a small amount of...]
Still a failure.
Kenichi scratched his head and stored those failed products in a special area. He intended to record whether the leaking chakra would eventually trigger detonation in the TNT.
[In the third experiment, I added a small amount of magnesium. This time, the rate of chakra dissipation slowed dramatically. This is somewhat strange given magnesium's normal properties, but the result itself is good.]
The experiment did not take very long, and whether it was luck or something else, the moment he added a portion of magnesium, the escape rate of chakra in the TNT decreased significantly.
Based on his current estimate, it would take at least three months for the chakra to completely dissipate, and perhaps even longer.
At the very least, it would be safe for short term use.
Kenichi then tried mixing in chakra with other elemental attributes as well, and magnesium performed just as well across the board. That finally allowed him to relax.
"So now I can try infusing TNT with chakra of every nature and see what kind of difference it makes in the blast results."
Kenichi rubbed his hands together, a little excited.
Before, he had considered fusing all elemental chakra natures into thermobaric explosives, but the difficulty had been too high, so he had not tested it much. TNT, however, was simple to produce and relatively cheap, which made it much easier to experiment with.
Just as that thought crossed his mind, he heard several explosions in succession. One went off first, then several more followed.
Kenichi immediately realized what had happened.
The explosives he had placed outside to test whether leaking chakra would cause spontaneous detonation had finally exploded.
He sighed.
"But in that case, the practical use of chakra infused TNT will be fairly limited. I'll have to determine a safe usage window. I also don't know whether adding magnesium can fully prevent this kind of explosion from happening again."
He stepped outside.
Earlier, Kenichi had arranged for Koyuki to have people monitor the test explosives specifically so they could record the exact timing of the blasts for him.
But the moment he came out, he discovered that the daimyo's mansion in the capital was in total chaos. People were running everywhere, and there were flames in the distance.
Kenichi's mouth twitched.
Did the explosion actually start a fire?
Fortunately, it had not happened on the mountain. Otherwise this would really have turned into a case of him quietly working in the lab while the whole place burned down outside.
Just as he was about to go handle the fire, a small figure shot past him. The next instant, the flames vanished.
Kenichi raised an eyebrow. He had seen it clearly. The one who put out the fire was Hikari.
He then went over and asked the attendants who had been monitoring the detonation for the exact explosion times.
"The earliest explosive to start leaking chakra detonated a little over three hours after the leakage was first observed?"
Kenichi pinched his brow, then quickly noticed something else.
The explosion times were not consistent.
For example, the first explosive he had produced, the one that had started leaking chakra earliest, had not detonated first. It had exploded somewhere in the middle.
That made things far more interesting.
"So the chakra does not escape from a fixed direction. It dissipates randomly, and the structural collapse also occurs with some degree of randomness?"
Kenichi wrote the point down with interest.
He did not know yet whether the note would prove useful, but recording it could not hurt.
"Amamiya nii!"
Just as he was finishing his notes, Hikari ran over.
"And there they are again..."
The moment Kenichi saw what she was holding, he felt his heart skip a beat.
Gloves.
Three more pairs of gloves.
"Amamiya nii, it's cold."
Hikari happily held them out.
Kenichi took them with a helpless expression. Three pairs this time. More quantity for the same price, was that it?
"Thank you, Hikari chan."
Even if he was a little dumbfounded, he still did not refuse. After all, this was Hikari's sincere effort and kindness.
"Hikari chan, speaking of which, how has your ninjutsu training been going?" Kenichi asked, deciding that she really needed something else to do. Otherwise, he had a strong suspicion he would soon need a dedicated storage scroll just for gloves.
"Hm... Back then, Papa and Mama used to train me, and then..."
Hikari's eyes dimmed slightly.
Kenichi nodded. The ninjutsu of the Warring States period did differ somewhat from modern ninjutsu, and Hikari had also gone through imprisonment and experimentation, so it was only natural that her practical combat experience would be limited.
After thinking it over, Kenichi simply called Shiori over and asked her to teach Hikari basic ninja knowledge. He had no intention of sending Hikari into battle right now, but that did not mean he could afford to let her remain ignorant.
Not using something was one thing. Not having it at all was another.
Strength meant security. If something happened, at least she would be able to protect herself.
"Amamiya sama, Hikari chan has already learned everything," Shiori said with some helplessness. There was not much left that she could teach her.
Kenichi froze for a moment, then looked at Hikari, who was standing there with a bright, pleased expression and a bit of pride mixed in.
"Hikari chan really is a genius," Kenichi said, genuinely impressed.
After all, she had been here only a short time and had already learned everything Shiori knew. That kind of talent was undeniably amazing.
But that raised a new problem.
Who was going to teach Hikari now?
.....
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