My clan was exterminated when I was three years old, and you want me to beat Uchiha Itachi? Chapter 143

You followed behind Orochimaru and discovered that his purpose for coming to this land seemed to be to search for a certain ninjutsu.

At the same time, Orochimaru’s frequent visits to noble mansions and merchant residences caught your attention.

Following him inside, you found that Orochimaru was soliciting funding for his laboratory!

It is well known that scientific research is an extremely expensive endeavor.

Whether it’s purchasing rare materials or large quantities of consumables, it’s a huge expense. To achieve results, one must invest heavily. Otherwise, even a scientific genius like Orochimaru, who is rarely seen in a hundred years, couldn’t succeed in experiments just by thinking about them…

Although Orochimaru was once one of the Sannin and a Kage-level powerhouse, he was still just a ninja. A ninja’s way of making money was nothing more than taking on missions and collecting bounties.

While seemingly a lot, this is only true for ninjas and commoners. In front of true wealthy merchants and magnates, it’s not even a drop in the bucket!

Otherwise, even if he were the richest man in the ninja world, would Gato dare to pay Kakuzu billions of paper currency for every mission?

They are just waste paper, relying solely on the Daimyo’s extremely fragile credit to exploit everyone, including ninjas.

The current “Ghost Mask Organization” uses ninjutsu, precious metals, and food for internal rewards and commendations, never issuing paper currency. This is also why the organization has been able to expand rapidly.

…

Perhaps it’s a good opportunity to recruit Orochimaru.

An idea popped into your head.

Considering that Amado always acts mysteriously, you actually don’t want to use him.

This is good; let’s secure Orochimaru first!

You know Orochimaru inside and out. As long as you can suppress his strength, you can use him with peace of mind.

So, after Orochimaru was once again rejected and kicked out of a noble’s mansion as a lunatic, he left the town.

He then bumped right into you.

You took out a gold mask from your black robe, blocked his path, and asked if he wanted to join.

As a ninja and scientist who pursues eternal life, Orochimaru doesn’t like the feeling of being constrained.

Otherwise, he wouldn’t have joined and then left the Akatsuki.

He immediately released his Snake Hand to attack you.

But you merely waved your hand lightly, and a dense storm of ice blades appeared out of thin air, easily dissolving Orochimaru’s attack.

You exchanged a few more blows. During this time, you successively displayed four Bloodline Limits: Ice Release, Scorch Release, Lava Release, and Transparency Release.

Not only did you effortlessly neutralize Orochimaru’s attacks,

You also subtly used Ice Release and Lava Release as a barrier, completely sealing off Orochimaru’s retreat.

Orochimaru also voluntarily gave up resisting, because he had never seen anyone who could possess so many Bloodline Limits simultaneously. He developed a great interest in the source of your power.

At the same time, upon hearing that you could make decisions for Gato’s company, Orochimaru immediately agreed to conduct research for you.

The condition was that you could not interfere with his own actions!

You chose to tolerate this slightly excessive request.

In the Ghost Mask Organization, if you have ability, you can be willful. However, the extent of willfulness cannot exceed your bottom line. Presumably, a smart person like Orochimaru can clearly understand your bottom line!

You assigned Orochimaru his first task: to train the mixed bag of researchers recruited for Gato Pharmaceuticals, fire the freeloaders, and compile basic textbooks to standardize their professional terminology.

In the subsequent exchange, you revealed that you had some research on ninja bloodlines and Bloodline illnesses, but had some questions about the control of human cells. This led Orochimaru and you to find common ground, and for a time, the two of you chatted happily.

You learned from Orochimaru another purpose for his visit: to find suitable bloodline ninjutsu for his disciple, Kimimaro, to develop the Kaguya clan’s bloodline.

Unfortunately, he had searched the entire Kaguya clan’s territory, only to find that someone had already beaten him to it, and it was empty. At this moment, however, you took out a ninjutsu scroll of the Kaguya clan.

Along with it was the extremely abstract “Splitting Technique.”

Business is business, and personal matters are personal.

Although both the fictional Ghost Mask leader and your current self are you,

The effect of communication is different. If you were to forcibly assign such a task to Orochimaru in the name of the Ghost Mask leader, it might create a sense of detachment between man and god, similar to Pain, and also lower your prestige, potentially causing Orochimaru to resent or even defect.

But it’s different with the living you standing before him. This you is just a powerful ninja, still possessing human desires, making communication naturally much more intimate…

Thus, in exchange for the Kaguya clan’s ninjutsu, you had Orochimaru convert the Splitting Technique into a readable and understandable version for you.

…

After seeing Orochimaru off,

You had a thought: the Hyuga clan’s Gentle Fist also seems to be a type of taijutsu.

Gentle Fist is not weak; Eighty Gods Vacuum Attack is also Gentle Fist!

It’s just that the Hyuga clan hasn’t found the right development method.

Moreover, Gentle Fist is a rare internal training type of taijutsu in the ninja world, unlike external training modes like the Lightning Release Chakra Mode. If practiced properly, it might solve the problem of ninjas being glass cannons.

Thinking this, you immediately opened the map of the Hyuga clan ruins you obtained from the Kaguya clan, preparing to explore it.

Following the map, you arrived at the former Hyuga clan territory.

This place was far from Kirigakure and had long been abandoned. With the extinction of the Kaguya clan, who were responsible for its upkeep, this place had completely become a desolate wilderness.

The ninjutsu and ancient texts collected here had been moved out long ago, during the era when Konoha was established. Only some discarded ninja tools were haphazardly strewn across rows of decaying bookshelves.

Collapsed houses and spiderwebs were everywhere, with only a few barriers barely maintaining their operation.

Perhaps due to the Byakugan’s exceptionally strong perception abilities, the Hyuga clan placed extreme importance on privacy. The barriers here could actually block your perception, forcing you to search them one by one.

Harboring the hope that there was a teleportation array to the moon and a possible giant Tenseigan here,

You used sealing jutsu to unlock a barrier, noting down its operational pattern to enrich your own sealing jutsu knowledge, and then entered to explore.

Unfortunately, this was just a shrine for spirit tablets. There was nothing inside except a worm-eaten history of the Hyuga clan.

You switched to another barrier; this time, it was hidden underground.

You silently chanted “Tenseigan, Tenseigan” in your heart and quickly opened it.

Well, there was no Tenseigan.

However, there were a few well-preserved ancient books, which recorded the method for carving the Caged Bird Curse Mark and the activation hand seals.

This should be a secret room for the main family’s descendants to inherit the method of using the Caged Bird.

The reason it wasn’t moved out is also easy to explain: only the main family could enter this place, and the branch family was responsible for hard labor like moving. Because of this, intentional or unintentional forgetting was only natural…