The Secret Senju Tobirama Hid Deepest

A hundred meters beneath Hokage Rock.

Hiruzen Sarutobi used Earth Release to tunnel down here, opened layer upon layer of seals, and arrived in a long, narrow basement.

A faint smell of decay lingered in the air. The walls and vaulted ceiling were made of dark stone hardened through Earth Release.

This book was first published in the Taiwan Novel Network library. Complete collection, ??????????.?????? Take your pick, providing an error-free, properly ordered reading experience.

Rusty experimental tables and cultivation tanks lined the walls, containing all manner of "materials."

The cultivation tank at the far end was especially eye-catching. Dense Sealing Jutsu covered its surface, while a thick transparent tube extended from its base and plunged into another chamber.

This was Senju Tobirama's Secret Archive.

Long ago, he had visited this place before.

But Senju Tobirama's research ideas had truly been shocking...

After only skimming through them, realizing that he could neither handle nor continue the work, he had reinforced the seals, taken the notes, and sealed the vast amount of equipment deep underground.

Hiruzen Sarutobi had long been extremely interested in this place.

It was simply that when he had first arrived in the shinobi world, this matter could not be his top priority.

Once he had a little room to spare, Lord Hokage had rushed over eagerly.

Recalling how, twenty years ago, he had nearly been injured by an explosion because he was unfamiliar with Senju Tobirama's Defense Array on his first visit, he could not help but smile faintly.

Holding the Second Hokage's research notes, Hiruzen Sarutobi inspected these shocking half-finished products one by one.

"This puddle of pitch-black stuff is probably that Monster capable of absorbing the negative energy in people's hearts, right? What a pity it no longer has any life in it..."

Hiruzen Sarutobi marveled at Senju Tobirama's creativity.

The Second Hokage had once proposed an idea: to use the negative energy that would forever arise in people's hearts to create a Monster that survived on it, an artificial Tailed Beast.

The Second Hokage had called it the "Zero-Tails."

"There are even a few Sharingan here? One One-Tomoe, and a pair of Three-Tomoe..." These were most likely spoils captured during the Warring States Period.

Still, the number was somewhat lower than Hiruzen Sarutobi had imagined.

After all, Senju Tobirama's notes gave an extraordinarily detailed analysis of the Sharingan.

From its origins and structure to its precise operating mechanisms, even the methodology for awakening it had all been listed.

If he brought over a Three-Tomoe user from the Uchiha Clan Compound now and had him debate the Sharingan with Senju Tobirama...

Hiruzen Sarutobi believed his teacher could talk the other party into wholehearted conviction.

In his previous life, he must have had a Mangekyō Sharingan. Otherwise, how could he understand it so well?

All that could be said was—

No one understood the Uchiha better than Senju Tobirama!

Walking up to the cultivation tank that resembled a Black Coffin, Hiruzen Sarutobi looked up at it.

He could vaguely guess some of it.

Based on the research notes, Hiruzen Sarutobi's past memories, and a little speculation.

Before the First Shinobi World War broke out, Senju Tobirama had already been considering how to use Bioengineering to strengthen Konoha...

The first thing he had considered was injured shinobi.

Shinobi needed to form hand seals. Helping shinobi with damaged limbs restore their bodies was, both in intention and application, practically a righteous path bathed in light, perfectly in line with the Will of Fire...

But as the research gradually developed, Senju Tobirama began pondering the possibility of cloning an entire person.

Hiruzen Sarutobi could understand that as well...

Not even considering people on the level of Senju Hashirama and Senju Tobirama...

Even the body of an elite Jonin, whether used as a puppet or for something similar, would possess considerable combat power.

But clearly, Senju Tobirama had failed.

According to his findings, for a shinobi possessing Chakra to develop from cells into a human body, a genome alone was far from enough.

The more talented the shinobi's cells were, the more likely cloning attempts were to result in a mass of chaotic, useless tissue.

Senju Tobirama had guessed that this phenomenon might be greatly related to the "growth environment of the host body" and "nourishment of the soul," and had listed quite a few other interfering factors...

With Hiruzen Sarutobi's current understanding, both he and Senju Tobirama believed that unless a shinobi's body possessed some special trait, large-scale replication through cloning would be difficult.

They could only make minute adjustments step by step, carry out endless experiments, and rely on repeated attempts to accidentally stumble upon the correct result.

Perhaps as the technology advanced further, some solutions could be found for this problem.

When he removed the external seals on the Black Coffin, what entered his sight...

Was the body of a youth who looked both familiar and unfamiliar, around fourteen or fifteen years old.

He had a head of messy black hair and handsome features. There was something of Senju Tobirama in his brows and eyes, though he was not entirely alike.

"Heh heh, Teacher..."

In the Laboratory, where he was alone, even the usually steady-tempered Hokage could not stop the corner of his mouth from twitching. "Though I've never met him, the person whose cells you fused was probably that man you kept mentioning in your notes, wasn't it?"

Its name was Izuna Uchiha!

Hiruzen Sarutobi turned to look at the other section connected to the canister.

Inside were large quantities of wood-like cells. With a slight probe, he recognized them as Senju Hashirama's.

"So the water soaked with Hashirama Cells is filtered through Sealing Jutsu, then circulated to nourish this body?"

Whether ordinary people kept diaries was hard to say.

But researchers definitely had a habit of keeping records.

Senju Tobirama, who had stayed behind to cover the retreat on the battlefield and never had the chance to clear his "life browsing history," had left everything for Hiruzen Sarutobi, the heir to his legacy, to read.

And Hiruzen had read it with great relish!

Upon seeing this experimental subject, Hiruzen's imagination ran wild. He suddenly linked together scattered fragments from the notes and pieced together a little story.

One day, Senju Tobirama had pierced an enemy's chest with the Flying Thunder God Slash, tearing off a piece of flesh in the process.

He had preserved it and begun cultivating it.

After becoming Hokage and gaining access to resources, during one experiment, driven by some strange impulse, he had tried cultivating the cells of his sworn enemy.

And he had discovered that once he added his own cells, an experiment that had always ended in complete failure finally showed a turning point.

After who knew how many minute tweaks and adjustments, he had actually managed to create a fully formed human body!

He had fixed it inside a cultivation tank with multiple layers of Sealing Jutsu.

Waiting to return from the battlefield so he could continue his research...

Only...

Hiruzen Sarutobi stared at the joints of the body and found what seemed to be defects there, like the nodules that appeared when a person's meridians were severed.

Having thoroughly read, nearly memorized, the notes, he immediately thought of the obstacle involved.

"What could allow the auxiliary meridians to conduct smoothly?"

"Sister-in-law Mito might know, but if I ask her, she'll notice what I'm thinking."

"What a hassle. Brother told her repeatedly to keep an eye on my research."

There was actually nothing like that in the notes—only rough scribbles reading "meridian conduction" and Mito's name, crossed out.

Yet Hiruzen Sarutobi's eyes seemed to have already crossed through time and space, seeing Senju Tobirama's thoughts from back then...

Whether it was true or not, he would reason it out this way first!

Dead men could not refute him for the time being, anyway...

Hiruzen Sarutobi felt his teeth ache.

What Senju Tobirama had done to Izuna Uchiha could hardly be described with a mere "fight to the death."

If one of them had been the opposite sex, it could have dominated the rankings of angsty tragic romance novels.

He truly could not understand the affairs between the Senju and the Uchiha...

"I was originally still worrying about a body. Now that there's one ready-made, it certainly makes things easier. It just needs a few improvements."

"Sensei, if you don't dare ask Lady Mito, then I'll ask her for you!"

Konoha's Hokage slowly closed the seal on the canister.

If not for him, this research might have remained buried beneath Konoha forever.

As time passed, it might have collapsed away, or perhaps been completely erased by some generation of Hokage as a forbidden part of history.

But things were different now.

Konoha had to start accelerating!

Thank you to all my dear readers for continuing to follow Xiaofan, and for your monthly votes and favorites!

It's Monday now! Dear readers with monthly votes, please spare Xiaofan a couple!!