Naruto: This Uchiha is a businessman Chapter 172

In a temple somewhere, a monk dressed in white feathered robes sat cross-legged in the main hall, silently chanting scriptures.

“Jigen-sensei, it’s time to eat.”

A young acolyte walked in and said respectfully.

“I know.”

The monk, called Jigen-sensei, opened his eyes and slowly stood up. Just as he was about to move, the young acolyte spoke again:

“Oh, right, someone came today asking if anyone had heard of your name.”

“Oh?”

A cold glint flashed in Jigen’s eyes:

“Who were they?”

Could it be that his identity was exposed? Did that damned Kaguya’s son know he was in the Shinobi World, and so came looking for him?

“They looked like ordinary people, just a bit sturdier.”

The young acolyte recalled for a moment and replied respectfully.

“You didn’t reveal my information, did you?”

Jigen stared at the young acolyte. If there was even a hint of a lie, he would immediately strangle the acolyte in front of him.

“No.”

The young acolyte shook his head:

“Following your teachings, I told that person I had never heard of your title.”

“That’s good.”

Jigen nodded. He didn’t sense anything amiss in the young acolyte’s reply.

However, despite thinking so, the idea of leaving this place still arose in Jigen’s mind. Since they had found him here, he could only find another place to hide.

His injuries, after all these years, were finally almost healed. He couldn’t afford any accidents at this critical juncture, or all his efforts would be in vain.

“Damn dog servant, when my injuries are healed, I’ll find you, and I’ll make you wish for death but unable to die!”

This past millennium had been too frustrating. How could he, a dignified member of the Ōtsutsuki Main Family, live such a miserable life?

Where to go?

For the past thousand years, Ōtsutsuki Isshiki had basically traveled all over the Shinobi World. Now, if he were to leave again, which direction should he choose?

Forget it, this way then.

Casually pointing in a direction, Jigen, carrying his belongings, slowly walked in that direction.

Having traveled on and off in the Shinobi World for years, Jigen had visited most places. So now, he was simply walking by feeling, heading in the direction where the scenery looked good.

Of course, if he had been willing to look at a map, or bothered to ask which country the people inquiring about him were from, he would have known that some directions, no matter how beautiful the scenery, were not suitable for people to travel.

After all, that direction happened to be the direction of the Land of Tea…

Lu Lin, who still didn’t know that Jigen would deliver himself to his doorstep, was currently busy researching Jūgo’s Cursed Seal.

Although the Sea Within a Sea helped immensely in easily absorbing natural energy and fusing it with chakra to form Sage Mode Chakra, that place had too high a requirement for personal physique.

Therefore, if Jūgo’s Cursed Seal could truly be thoroughly researched, even if the resulting Cursed Seal couldn’t absorb natural energy, it wouldn’t matter. Lu Lin wouldn’t mind if it could absorb chakra.

Natural energy was scarce on land, but chakra was abundant. With a Cursed Seal that could absorb chakra, battles would be more prolonged than for ordinary people.

“So, you’re saying that Jūgo’s Cursed Seal can absorb natural energy entirely because it contains a special energy?”

“Exactly.”

Orochimaru, in his white lab coat, spoke with extreme professionalism:

“And we’ve seen this energy before, it’s natural energy, but…”

At this point, Orochimaru frowned:

“I’ve tried many times following the method of his Cursed Seal, but every time I try to put natural energy into it, the Cursed Seal always explodes. Perhaps my understanding of natural energy isn’t deep enough.”

He still hadn’t been to the Sea Within a Sea, and his experiments with natural energy were merely based on stripping the sparse natural energy from the air with Lu Lin’s help.

There was a good solution for this. Lu Lin directly told Orochimaru about the Sea Within a Sea and Elder Whale.

“There’s such a mystical place, it’s certainly worth seeing.”

A look of interest appeared in his eyes, but soon he became somewhat worried:

“After all, I signed the Ryūchi Cave summoning scroll. If the aura of Ryūchi Cave on me repels me there, it would be troublesome.”

This wasn’t Orochimaru worrying for nothing, because the natural energy of the Three Great Sage Regions was no longer controlled by the planet, but by the three sages within them. Therefore, what Orochimaru worried about could indeed happen.

“Don’t worry about that yet.”

Lu Lin waved his hand and said:

“Can the natural energy in the Cursed Seal be changed to chakra?”

“Of course.”

Orochimaru had been researching chakra for who knows how long; he was very confident about this:

“I’ve already experimented with it, and I can completely control its activation and deactivation.”

It’s worth mentioning that although he hadn’t thoroughly researched the Cursed Seal, he had managed to deactivate the Cursed Seal on Jūgo, preventing him from unconsciously absorbing natural energy.

Now, Jūgo would never go berserk unless he consciously absorbed natural energy himself.

“So, that means it can be applied to our ninjas?”

This would greatly enhance the combat power of the Heavenly Ninjas. In future battles, there would be no need to worry about the high consumption of large-scale ninjutsu and having to release them cautiously.

With the Cursed Seal, replenishment could fully keep up with consumption.

Lu Lin quickly had Orochimaru apply a Cursed Seal to himself, and then, under his guidance, controlled the Cursed Seal to absorb chakra.

A rough perception showed that the Cursed Seal’s chakra absorption speed was roughly equivalent to that of an elite Jōnin absorbing chakra on their own.

Orochimaru also told Lu Lin that this was the Cursed Seal’s maximum power, and it could only be achieved with Lu Lin’s strength driving it.

If an elite Jōnin were to drive it, it would only reach the absorption speed of a Chūnin at most.

“It’s already very good.”

Lu Lin, who had experienced many wars, fully understood that sometimes the key to victory might just be that you had a tiny bit more chakra than your enemy.

He quickly called Suikawa over and instructed him to arrange for every ninja in the Land of Tea who wasn’t on a mission to receive a Cursed Seal in the shortest possible time.

As for Orochimaru, he would just have to work harder for now, as he was currently the only one in the entire Land of Tea capable of implanting this Cursed Seal into people’s bodies.