The day after receiving Uchiha's "gift," Uchiha Feiyu took a freshly written scroll and went to find his convenient "teacher," Orochimaru.
"Looks like you've made up your mind, Feiyu. You're planning to join Root with me, then?"
"That's right, sensei. There are some things I can only accomplish by relying on Root's power."
"Oh? Don't tell me you've also developed an interest in human experimentation?"
"Human experimentation… let's say that's one way of putting it."
As he spoke, Feiyu handed Orochimaru a dossier. Orochimaru blinked, took it, and glanced over it—then instantly sucked in a sharp breath.
Even someone as cold-blooded and indifferent to human life as Orochimaru felt a bit of a chill at the "human materials" listed inside.
"With this many bodies, are you planning on wiping out an entire minor Hidden Village? Even all my years of experimentation together don't add up to more than a fraction of this number!"
"Don't joke, sensei. Your experiments require very high-quality specimens. Ordinary genin don't even qualify as consumables, right?"
"What I'm building with this blood pool doesn't need that kind of quality. As long as they have chakra and a corpse, they qualify."
"But the quantity is the problem… I'm not the head of Root, you know. I'm just a hired hand."
"Sensei, don't sell yourself short. A 'hired hand' doesn't have this much authority. With your capabilities, joining Root makes you at least a key strategic partner, no?"
Feiyu spoke with a smile as he handed over another scroll. Orochimaru opened this one curiously, and immediately his expression was captured by it. Surprise and delight burst across his face.
His greedy gaze swept over the contents, line by line, until he reached the end—and then his eyes suddenly froze, his tone turning anxious:
"And then? Where's the rest? The second half of this technique?!! Give me the rest of it!"
The Lich Transformation Ritual—even in the D&D world it came from—was a spell only top-tier mages could perform. Every mage who successfully became a lich was an extraordinary existence, at least at the threshold of "legendary" power.
After generations of refinement, lich transformation still had flaws—corrosive negative energy eroding the soul, the body no longer preservable, emotions and memories fading over time, and so on—but it was, undeniably, a complete path to immortality.
In that world, liches living for several thousand years was nothing special. Every lich anyone had heard of had died recklessly, never of old age.
By comparison, Orochimaru's later-developed Living Corpse Reincarnation might or might not truly grant eternal life—there was no guarantee.
From Feiyu's perspective, that crude soul-transfer method might let Orochimaru live a hundred, maybe two hundred years at best before his soul shattered and scattered into nothing.
So when Orochimaru saw the lich ritual, it was like a guiding star appeared before him. Even though the theoretical framework didn't mesh perfectly with the chakra system and couldn't be copy-pasted as-is, it still made inspiration explode in his mind.
Seeing that the "spell" text abruptly cut off with no second half left him overexcited and jittery, glaring at Feiyu in agitation.
Only when he noticed the half-smile on Feiyu's face did Orochimaru exhale slowly and realize how badly he had just lost his composure.
"My apologies… it seems I got a little carried away."
"It's just that this jutsu is truly brilliant. Even if it doesn't line up cleanly with our chakra system, the theories inside have opened my eyes."
Feiyu chuckled.
He knew perfectly well just how irresistible the lich ritual was to someone like Orochimaru, who chased immortality above all.
If Feiyu weren't at least on par with Orochimaru in raw power, the man would probably already have tried to take it by force.
"Sensei Orochimaru, don't worry. As long as you can supply me with the materials I need, I'll gladly hand over the complete Lich Transformation Ritual."
Orochimaru's eyes lit up faintly at that, and he nodded slightly.
"In that case, it's a deal."
"A deal."
The resources Feiyu needed to construct his blood pool were a nightmare for him to obtain alone. Even for Orochimaru, they were no trivial matter.
While Orochimaru did have his own private subordinates inside Konoha to do dirty work, rounding up over two thousand ninja corpses was way beyond what his personal network could handle.
But that was fine—Root was made for this sort of job. Orochimaru could simply subcontract the whole project.
At worst, he'd just have to make a few more filthy trades with Danzō. As Konoha's top-tier researcher, he could "pad" his experimental reports a little, claim higher losses, and then pull a few finished results from his backlog to hand over. Problem solved.
Even so, as he studied the materials list, Orochimaru's mouth twitched despite himself.
Gathering all this would bleed him dry this time for sure.
…
"We're here. This is Root's base."
In the forests around Konoha's outskirts, Feiyu stared with curiosity at the patch of ordinary-looking grass in front of him. Orochimaru casually formed a few seals; with a rumbling sound, the grass split apart to reveal a massive underground entrance.
"Pretty well hidden… but is it really necessary to be this secretive inside Konoha?"
"Hehe, that's probably just the commander's personality. Old men tend to have a lot of worries."
Orochimaru smiled. He was one sentence away from saying Danzō had full-blown persecution paranoia.
The sound of footsteps echoed out. From the darkness, an elderly man with a cold, blank expression stepped into view, his voice cutting and chilly:
"Orochimaru, what exactly are you implying? That I'm old?"
"Hehe, I wouldn't dare. Elder Danzō, you're in your prime. Which of the Five Great Villages' ANBU doesn't know the great name of 'The Darkness of the Shinobi World'?"
Danzō snorted and let it pass.
After his gaze circled Orochimaru once, it shifted onto Feiyu.
"So this is the disciple you spoke of? And he also wants to join my Root, not just you?"
"Not everyone can become part of Root. To be a Root operative, you must abandon your past and future, become a complete ghost, and live as the shadowed roots that support Konoha's great tree from underground."
"Uchiha brat, do you have that resolve? That kind of courage?"
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