Jiraiya naturally could not understand someone like Orochimaru, but seeing how much his old friend had changed, he was naturally very happy.
"You can already live forever without dying? Has your research into life reached such a level?"
Orochimaru shook his head. "It is not research into life, but ninjutsu. I can replace my own body with someone else's."
Jiraiya frowned at that. Wasn't that murder?
Forcibly taking over someone else's body in order to revive himself.
"Perhaps you are overthinking it. I can already produce Artificial Humans myself. They have no consciousness and are specially made for experiments."
So that was it. Without any consciousness, they could not be called people.
In that case, it did not matter if Orochimaru disposed of them as he pleased.
"When it comes to developing ninjutsu, I am no match for you. Perhaps only the old man could be better than you."
Orochimaru smiled. "Who knows? That old fellow does nothing these days either. He just stays home and waters his flowers."
"When he did not choose me to become Hokage, to be honest, I truly hated him. But now, I have let it go."
Jiraiya looked at Orochimaru. "The reason the old man did not choose you was probably because you lacked the most basic requirement for being Hokage."
Orochimaru raised a brow. "Oh? Tell me."
"As Hokage, you need to be someone the villagers can feel close to, someone who can become one with them."
"Your aura is too gloomy, and your personality is too strange and withdrawn. You were simply not suited to be Hokage."
Orochimaru burst out laughing. "Perhaps. But none of that matters anymore. I never had much expectation for the position of Hokage in the first place. It was just that the feeling of not being chosen