Chapter 223: Extraction of Elemental Fluorine
"I'm truly speechless."
Kenichi stared at the tragic scene in front of him, a headache starting to throb behind his eyes. Still, since this disaster was his own doing, he really could not say much.
After half a month of grinding away in the lab, annotating genes and separating sequences until his brain felt numb, Kenichi finally decided to do something else to clear his head. Doing the same task nonstop was exhausting. Work and rest needed balance.
He did not know what possessed him at the time, but he chose to extract elemental fluorine.
In simple terms, the process was to produce elemental fluorine by electrolyzing hydrogen fluoride. However, because anhydrous hydrogen fluoride itself was not a strong conductor, potassium fluoride was usually added to improve conductivity.
At the same time, the hydrogen fluoride had to be kept in a liquid state during the process. Otherwise, things could fail easily, and the consequences could get ugly.
But Kenichi did not have potassium fluoride.
So he tried to brute force it, directly electrolyzing hydrogen fluoride with Lightning Release to generate elemental fluorine.
The result was exactly what anyone who respected chemistry would predict.
An explosion.
If Kenichi had not reacted fast enough, he would have been swallowed by the blast. He escaped without injury, but parts of the room he had set up for elemental fluorine were corroded by residual hydrogen fluoride.
"Sigh. When it comes to chemistry, you really can't joke around," Kenichi muttered.
The extraction of elemental fluorine already had a complete industrial process in his previous life. But in the ninja world, elemental fluorine did not exist, which meant he had to build the process from scratch himself.
As for why he wanted elemental fluorine in the first place, the reason was simple. Fluorine was extremely useful. With fluorine available, preparing certain materials became much easier.
The common uses were everywhere. Fluoride toothpaste could increase tooth hardness. Fluorine containing drugs like levofloxacin were also widely used in medicine.
But fluorine was not limited to civilian applications. It played a major role in military industry too, and it was closely tied to something Kenichi planned to research later.
For example, when making nuclear weapons, to separate Uranium 235 and Uranium 238, uranium had to be converted into uranium hexafluoride.
So fluorine was practical in more ways than one.
Of course, its destructive potential was also real. Fluorine was violently reactive. Under specific conditions, it could even react with inert gases.
Inert gases were called inert because they were naturally difficult to react with, yet fluorine acted like an old rogue. It grabbed the inert gas by the hand and forced it into a fight anyway.
Even so, there was no need to worry about fluorine containing compounds harming the human body in normal contexts. Those compounds were safe.
After letting out another sigh, Kenichi ventilated the room. After waiting for a while, he went back in and began cleaning up the mess, writing down every piece of equipment that needed replacement.
Fortunately, the room was not filled with expensive instruments, so he would not go bankrupt. But the basics, glass test tubes and beakers, were mostly ruined.
Hydrogen fluoride reacted quickly with quartz, and it was dangerous to handle.
So the small containers that had come into contact with hydrogen fluoride were essentially scrap. Several had also been damaged by the explosion itself.
After hauling out the ruined equipment, Kenichi wiped sweat from his forehead. Since this approach failed, he would have to find another way to purify elemental fluorine.
He had chosen hydrogen fluoride electrolysis because he thought it would be the most convenient. He never expected Lightning Release to not only fail at producing elemental fluorine, but also trigger an explosion.
He was not certain of the exact mechanism. To be honest, nobody in this world had researched what happened when chakra and chemical elements interacted at that level.
Maybe that was something he would investigate in the future.
"Since electrolyzing hydrogen fluoride like this won't work, I'll have to produce fluorine using high temperatures," Kenichi murmured, scanning the room. "But that would require specialized containers."
High temperature fluorine production was a common method. You calcined fluorine containing substances at high heat to obtain gaseous fluorine, then cooled it to condense the gas into elemental fluorine.
However, that approach came with its own issues.
In the end, Kenichi decided he still preferred electrolysis. It was a more mature, controllable method.
And obtaining potassium fluoride was actually simple.
There was glass in the ninja world. Kenichi had noticed that some glass carried patterns, meaning these people had mastered glass engraving.
Potassium fluoride was commonly used for engraving glass.
He just had not thought of it before, so he had been stuck. Now, he could go ask around and buy the experimental materials he was missing.
So Kenichi left, carrying a bag of scrapped items.
Not long after he walked out, a massive roar rolled through the air.
Kenichi turned his head. The sound came from Sasori's direction, and a small mushroom cloud was already rising into the sky.
"Ah. Just another ordinary day," Kenichi said with a dry smile, stretching his arms. Sasori and Deidara were over there, so an explosion was not exactly shocking.
Boom!
A second blast erupted, and another mushroom cloud climbed upward. Before Kenichi could even process it, four more mushroom clouds rose one after another.
Each one was louder, bigger, and more violent than the last.
When the final one detonated, Kenichi even saw a branch flying from the distance. It nearly landed straight into his mouth.
"What in the world are those two doing?" Kenichi stared at the fading clouds.
There was no way he could stay calm now.
He sprinted toward them. If he did not, the Land of Rice Fields would eventually be blown into the Land of Rice Basins by those two. That would be an interesting renaming.
Even with the soundproofing barrier Orochimaru had set up, this kind of destruction was too much. His teacher would definitely be unhappy.
Yet when Kenichi arrived, his teacher was nowhere to be seen.
Only Sasori and Deidara stood there, covered in dust, cleaning something up.
Kenichi walked closer and looked down.
Several deep, giant craters gouged the ground. Metal parts were scattered everywhere.
So what exactly happened?
Were they seriously trying to start the Fourth Great Ninja War here?
"You two come up with new tricks every day, hehehe," Kenichi said as he jumped down.
He had been angry at first, but then he remembered he had just blown up his own lab. That anger evaporated immediately.
An older brother should not laugh at a younger brother, it was too embarrassing.
"Kenichi, you're here? Come help," Sasori said as if nothing unusual had happened.
Deidara looked excited, but he kept cleaning with even more speed.
Kenichi was not surprised. He dropped down and started helping them gather parts and clear debris. By the time they finished, Kenichi was sweating too.
"So. What happened?" Kenichi let out a long breath, then looked between them.
The explosions were obviously their doing, but he still did not know exactly what they had built.
Given how terrifying it looked, Kenichi suspected Sasori might have dragged out that oversized robot again.
"It's like this, Kenichi senpai," Deidara explained seriously. "When Sasori senpai and I were researching, we had an idea. We wanted to put my clay bombs inside the puppet as a weapon depot. That would also boost the puppet's combat ability."
Sasori occasionally added details, filling in the gaps.
Only after listening did Kenichi fully understand.
In short, they had wanted to build a remote combat Gundam.
The first attempt failed.
They created a suicide bomber instead.
The mushroom clouds Kenichi saw were caused by explosions in the compartments where the clay bombs were installed, and the final blast was triggered by a super large clay bomb stored in the chest.
Kenichi pressed his temples, headache returning. These two were genuinely talented. They could cause this level of destruction with inventions alone.
If they had not cleaned it up quickly, and if the soundproofing barrier had not existed, Konoha ninja would probably already be on their way.
"Your idea isn't wrong," Kenichi said, forcing himself to stay calm. "But Deidara, your clay bombs aren't stable to begin with. Add movement on top of that, and explosions are basically guaranteed."
"But if I want it to never explode, I'd have to control detonation myself," Deidara said, scratching his head. He could control whether his bombs exploded.
But manually handling it every time was a pain.
"Then make them denser, pack them tighter, add a shock absorbing outer shell, and put a fuse at the front or something," Kenichi suggested, laying out his idea.
Deidara and Sasori exchanged a glance, then decided to try it. It was only an experiment, so failure was acceptable.
"By the way, Sasori," Kenichi asked, curiosity winning out, "how much funding did you give Teacher?"
They caused this kind of explosion, yet Orochimaru still had not appeared. That was absurd.
"Not much," Sasori said after thinking. "A little over two hundred million ryo."
Kenichi's mouth twitched.
Over two hundred million.
No wonder Orochimaru stayed calm.
Two hundred million sounded like a number, but in ninja world prices, it was enough to buy six Asumas.
"You two don't have to be obsessed with Gundam, you know," Kenichi said, staring at the crater. "You could try researching flying iron puppets or something."
"Would that even have killing power?" Sasori frowned.
Kenichi choked. Sasori clearly understood what he meant, hot air balloons, and rejected it immediately.
Kenichi had wanted to push drone swarm tactics, but considering the difficulty, it was not something they could casually build right now. Still, he explained his idea anyway.
Sasori refused again, saying he only wanted to research large mechanical puppets for now. He would consider Kenichi's suggestion after finishing his current work.
Kenichi could only give up. Instead, he reminded them not to make explosions this large again. Large explosions were troublesome.
Sasori and Deidara nodded obediently.
"…Seriously, don't make anything too big, or my lab will be gone," Kenichi said as he started walking away, then could not help turning back to repeat himself.
He saw Sasori and Deidara huddling together again, already doing something Kenichi could not identify.
Kenichi sighed and turned away.
He had not even gone far before a small rumble sounded behind him again.
"…"
Kenichi rubbed his face.
Now he understood why Nagato had not assigned Sasori missions yet. Nagato was probably afraid Sasori would go blow up the Hidden Rain Village again.
"It seems being a leader isn't easy either," Kenichi muttered, shaking his head.
The current Akatsuki still had a huge gap compared to its future self.
Deidara was not yet at that age. Sasori was busy building giant puppets. As for Hidan, he probably would not have the chance to join Akatsuki in this lifetime. He would only become Orochimaru's experiment inside Akatsuki.
And Itachi…
When Kenichi thought of Itachi, he hesitated.
Itachi and Sasuke were important pieces of the plot, especially Sasuke, who was practically another protagonist. Now that their timeline had been altered, would it attract the attention of the Sage of Six Paths?
Kenichi was not worried about most things, but Sasuke was different.
The future Child of Prophecy.
The reincarnation of the Sage of Six Paths' son.
That kind of variable was hard to predict.
The thought made Kenichi restless. In the end, he decided to make a trip to the Uchiha compound and see what Itachi and Sasuke were doing now.
"I hope the Six Paths isn't watching."
.....
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