Seeing how pitch-black the cave was, Chen broke off a fairly thick branch from a tree, tore some strips of cloth from his clothes, and tied them to the end. Then he lit it with a Fireball Jutsu and prepared to explore the cave.
Although he was curious about the cave, facing the unknown always inspired a degree of fear and awe. So Chen walked slowly into the cave, extremely wary. He was worried something dangerous might suddenly appear, and proceeded with great caution.
The tunnel was over three meters high and quite spacious. Even three people walking side by side wouldn't feel cramped. But it was a little long, and the walls around him looked smooth. It didn't resemble a naturally formed cave, all uneven and pitted.
"This cave was made by people, not formed naturally. What's it for? Could it be a Konoha shelter, meant for emergencies? No, that doesn't make sense. This cave clearly hasn't been used in a long time; the entrance has even caved in. Besides, a shelter shouldn't be so far from the village."
After walking for a while, Chen finally reached the end. He hadn't found anything unusual along the way.
"It's a dead end? No, this cave was clearly made by people. It can't be this simple. Who would dig such a long tunnel for no reason? Maybe there's some kind of mechanism or hidden door. I'll look around!"
Faced with this situation, Chen naturally thought of the TV shows and novels he'd seen in his previous life. Whenever the protagonist encountered something like this, all he had to do was knock on the walls or accidentally step in a pile of dog shit, and something strange would happen. A section of wall might mysteriously open to reveal a passage, or a hidden door might suddenly appear. Then the protagonist would find peerless martial arts inside—something like Nine Yang Divine Skill, the Sunflower Manual, or the Evil-Warding Swordplay, and so on...
From then on, the protagonist would master peerless martial arts and return to the martial world. Then came all the overpowered stunts and swaggering: taking on ten opponents at once without breaking a sweat!
Chen imitated the protagonists from those novels, knocking on the walls around him, but no mechanism appeared as he'd expected. Dejected, he gave up on this ridiculous act and kicked the wall hard. "Open the damn door already!" he shouted. Then something strange happened. The moment Chen's words faded, the wall in front of him slowly slid apart, revealing a flight of stone steps leading underground.
"Holy crap! What's going on? Did I accidentally step on some dog-shit mechanism? This is so cheesy! But... I like it!" He had no idea what had happened, but the important thing was that a door had opened. Holding his torch, Chen headed down the stone steps.
Fortunately, the steps weren't very long. In less than half a minute, he reached the entrance to a hall. It was pitch-black all around, so Chen couldn't tell what kind of place it was. He could only make out a few jars and bottles, though he didn't know what they were for. But he noticed something that looked like a switch beside him. Taking it for a light switch, he pressed it instinctively—and realized what he'd done only after it was too late.
Luckily, it wasn't some deadly mechanism. It really was a light switch. The moment Chen pressed it, the once pitch-black hall lit up brilliantly.
After making sure there was no danger, Chen walked into the hall and looked around. It was quite spacious, but looked very messy. Two enormous, transparent cylindrical glass tanks stood by the wall, looking like experimental growth vats. On the other side was a shelf with several small glass jars, probably holding specimens. Test tubes, papers, and notebooks were strewn across the table. No matter how he looked at it, this place seemed to be a laboratory.
"What is this place? It looks like some kind of laboratory." Chen walked over to the table and picked up some papers to read. They were full of technical jargon, and he couldn't understand them, so he set them aside and casually picked up the notebook next to them.
"Huh? This notebook looks like a record of the experiments carried out in this lab." The notebook was full of experiment records. Chen couldn't understand the details, but the keywords made him more and more uneasy as he read. First there were Chakra experiments, then experiments on the art of immortality, followed by research into forbidden techniques. Finally, he found records of human experimentation. It was horrifying.
"This... this feels familiar." Chen suddenly cried out, "Damn it, could this be that pervert Orochimaru's laboratory in Konoha?"
The more Chen thought about it, the more likely it seemed. After all, Orochimaru was the only person in Konoha who liked conducting experiments. Danzo might have been doing some as well, but this laboratory had been abandoned, so it couldn't have been his. And these records seemed to fit Orochimaru perfectly.
Judging from the records, this laboratory had been built when Orochimaru first started conducting and studying experiments. Perhaps his experiments grew more ambitious over time, until he was conducting human experiments and researching forbidden techniques. Those experiments were strictly prohibited in Konoha. Maybe, for the sake of security, he moved his laboratory to a more secret location. This old lab had nothing valuable left, so he couldn't be bothered to clean it up. He simply used Earth Release to collapse the entrance and left it behind.
The Original Story also mentioned that Orochimaru had researched First Generation Cells and Sharingan transplants for Danzo. Perhaps, by then, Orochimaru had moved all his experiments to the laboratory Danzo had arranged for him. That would explain why the notebook contained no records of First Generation Cells. Orochimaru had only begun researching them after he went to Danzo. In the end, for some reason, the Third Hokage discovered what he was doing, and Orochimaru had no choice but to defect from the village.
So nobody in Konoha knew that Orochimaru had another laboratory here. Maybe Danzo knew, but didn't give it much thought. After all, by then Orochimaru had already moved all his experiments and research results to the lab Danzo had prepared for him. There was nothing valuable left here.
"Well! Since this is Orochimaru's laboratory, there must be something valuable here, right? I'd better look around!" Full of anticipation, Chen began rummaging through everything in search of anything worthwhile. Most of what he found were experimental diagrams, which he couldn't understand. They were probably useless drafts—nothing but junk, with no practical value.
But Chen didn't give up. He kept searching, and in the end, he really did find a scroll.
"What's this?" Chen asked, puzzled, as he started to unroll it.
"Ding! Recyclable skill detected. Recycle?"
"Recyclable skill? Could this be a ninjutsu scroll? What could be on it?" Chen eagerly opened the scroll.
"Holy crap, I struck it rich! I struck it rich!" Chen jumped up excitedly.
The scroll didn't contain just one ninjutsu, but several. It recorded some ordinary techniques, as well as some techniques Orochimaru had created. They included Shadow Snake Hand, Multiple Shadow Snake Hands, Twin Snakes Mutual Death, Body Modification, Summoning: Rashomon, Wind Release: Great Breakthrough, Slay Many Snakes, Raging Cobra Step...
"Maybe these techniques were so unimportant to Orochimaru that he didn't bother to get rid of them. Lucky me!"
Chen was over the moon. These techniques might not have been worth much to Orochimaru, but to Chen, they were like a windfall from heaven. His grin nearly stretched to the back of his head, and drool ran all the way to the floor. He couldn't have been happier.
"Reminder to host: Skills you have already learned are non-recyclable items and cannot be recycled," the system reminded Chen. Naturally, if learned skills could be recycled, Chen could simply write them onto a scroll and have the system recycle it. He'd have made a fortune by now, instead of miserably counting the few Points from his beginner's gift pack and being too stingy to spend them. Of course, recyclable skills could only be recycled once and couldn't be recycled repeatedly.
"I knew it would be like this. I'd better see which ones are worth learning first. I'll have the system recycle the ones I don't need or can't learn." As he spoke, Chen looked over the techniques and considered which ones to learn.
"Wind Release: Great Breakthrough. This is a Wind Release technique, and I haven't exchanged for Wind Release Chakra yet. I'll have the system recycle this one!" Chen looked at the Wind Release technique and thought.
Chen knew he could exchange for Chakra natures through the system. Wind Release techniques had powerful destructive force, but he didn't need one right now. Chakra natures were expensive, too. Each one cost 10,000 Points. Special Chakra natures like Crystal Release and Ice Release, which belonged to Kekkei Genkai, cost even more.
"System, how many Points can I get for recycling Wind Release: Great Breakthrough?" Chen asked the system.
"Wind Release: Great Breakthrough. Item type: skill. Item rank: C-rank. Points required to exchange: 500. Points obtained by recycling: 250," the system explained to Chen. "What the hell? That's half the Points gone just like that! This system is such a rip-off—a total swindler!" Chen complained to the system.
Before you continue