Arriving at Danzo's laboratory in Root, Danzo had someone bring a stack of research reports to Orochimaru.
Orochimaru simply stayed at Root's research base and began reading the reports.
Just as he had expected, progress on the Hashirama Cells over the past year had been extremely slow—practically nonexistent.
It was not because their researchers were too incompetent. Even Orochimaru, with twice the comprehension, found the research difficult.
After briefly reviewing their progress, Orochimaru left.
He had only just returned to Konoha and had not even had the chance to rest before running around everywhere. The fact that he had come over to take a look was already proof of his dedication.
Without caring what Danzo thought, Orochimaru left directly after spending two hours at the Root base.
After getting far away from the Root base, Orochimaru arrived at an open area on the edge of the village.
He needed to properly study the max-level Earth Release he had just obtained.
"Earth Release: Earth Dragon Bullet."
"Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall."
"Earth Release: Earth Clone..."
After trying several Earth Release ninjutsu in succession, Orochimaru felt that these techniques were now far too easy to use. It even seemed that he could use them without hand seals.
So he stopped forming hand seals. With a thought, a string of Earth Release ninjutsu erupted the next moment.
"Looks like this is just basic operation."
He suddenly recalled that little old man, the Tsuchikage Ōnoki, and his Ultra-Light-Weight Rock Technique.
Without any hand seals, at a mere thought, his body gradually floated into the air.
"As expected of max-level Earth Release. Then what about this?"
As he spoke, his body, which had been floating in midair, suddenly plummeted and smashed a one-meter-deep crater into the ground.
These were precisely the two manifestations of the Ultra-Light-Weight