Orochimaru looked at Uchiha Gen.
He was not worried about Uchiha Gen's safety. If he could not even protect himself in a place like that, then he was not worth all the effort Orochimaru had put into preparing that temporary Snake Body Softening Transformation Potion.
Part of the reason Orochimaru had gone to such lengths to formulate this potion was that he wanted to see whether Uchiha Gen had a chance of contracting a second Rashomon Gate.
In truth, Orochimaru had not been certain about it either. He believed the odds of success and failure were fifty-fifty.
Fortunately, it had succeeded in the end.
"By the way, Orochimaru-sensei, I have a question."
Uchiha Gen suddenly asked Orochimaru.
"Go ahead."
"The mountain there should contain abundant mineral veins, right? Why not try to extract them...?"
"Because it is unsuitable."
Orochimaru answered directly:
"The minerals there are varied and difficult to refine. Coupled with the great distance, the cost would be extremely high. For Konoha, it would be better to simply purchase the output of mines within the Land of Fire.
"More importantly, that place has long been subjected to the erosion of high-intensity Yin Release Chakra. If those minerals were refined and made into Explosive Tags, Yin Release's nature would overwhelm Fire Release's nature, making the sealing structure of the Explosive Tags extremely unstable and preventing the production of qualified finished products.
"The Second Hokage once established a research project to solve this series of problems. Refining costs could be dealt with by improving the process, and for transportation, the Second Hokage proposed a solution as well: a simplified Flying Thunder God Array concept based on the Flying Thunder God, with multiple people working together to enable large-scale long-distance spacetime transportation.
"However, even the Second Hokage could not solve the final