Orochimaru, the Script for Automated Muscle Growth (Bonus Chapter)

Cold, damp air.

This is the base of Root.

Along the stone corridor, the light from the torches is swallowed by the darkness, illuminating only a small patch of ground beneath one's feet.

A slender figure in a hood and cloak moves silently through it; his pale skin appears sickly in the dim light, and his golden vertical pupils are cold and sharp, like those of a snake.

It is Orochimaru.

Orochimaru has returned.

He pushes open the heavy stone door at the end of the hall; inside the room, Shimura Danzō sits upright on his seat, like a statue merged with the shadows.

"Mission accomplished, Lord Danzō." Orochimaru's voice carries a unique, husky magnetism, devoid of any emotion.

"You've worked hard, Orochimaru." Danzō opens the eye not covered by bandages, his sharp gaze falling upon Orochimaru. "As it happens, there have been some new developments in the village that require your attention."

"Oh?" Orochimaru sticks out his long tongue and licks his lips. "If it is something that requires your personal intervention, it must be no simple matter."

Orochimaru stares at Danzō, waiting for his explanation.

"A child, a very interesting child." Danzō concisely recounts the Cloud Village kidnapping incident, the subsequent graduation exam, and especially the performance of Sawada Hiroki.

Orochimaru listens quietly, his golden pupils showing not a ripple of emotion.

He has heard and seen too much of so-called combat intelligence and split-second decision-making; it is long past the point of stirring his heart.

Konoha has never lacked geniuses; Dan Katō was a genius, Nawaki was a genius, and there are countless others whose names he doesn't even remember—he has lost count of how many he has seen.

Yet, no matter the genius, they all inevitably perish in the end.

And for him, he is no longer like he was in his youth, prone to emotional fluctuations over these so-called geniuses.

After all, only death... is the one topic he cannot avoid...

Orochimaru stares at Danzō, waiting for him to say what the next step is and what mission he must execute.

He has no interest in the description of such a minor genius.

Until Danzō mentions that key ability.

"...His Kekkei Genkai seems to be able to directly read and copy an opponent's ninjutsu through physical contact."

"Even more extreme, based on existing information, we suspect that under specific conditions, he might be able to read the opponent's thoughts, memories, and ninjutsu without physical contact."

A faint, imperceptible glimmer finally flashes in Orochimaru's eyes, like a snake catching the body heat of its prey in the dark.

Copying ninjutsu!?

The Uchiha can do that too. But mind reading, reading thoughts—isn't that something only the secret techniques of the Yamanaka clan can accomplish? How could it have become a Kekkei Genkai?

Orochimaru ponders this with amusement, but remains composed.

"Copying ninjutsu?" He chuckles, his voice tinged with disdain. "Sounds like a degraded version of the Uchiha clan's Sharingan. What difference does that make?"

The Sharingan—that is the masterpiece of Kekkei Genkai.

One only needs to look with their eyes to make the opponent's ninjutsu their own.

And an ability that requires physical contact is far too limited in the ever-changing flow of battle.

However, as a logistical asset, it is certainly a top-tier ability; whether for gathering intelligence or copying the ninjutsu of other villages, it is an absolutely excellent application. It is no wonder Danzō had him return early.

Danzō stands up from the shadows and paces slowly. He lets out a low, mocking scoff: "Difference?"

Danzō speaks with a hint of disgust, sounding like a complaint or perhaps a cold snort: "The difference is that the Uchiha are the Uchiha. Konoha is Konoha."

He speaks every word clearly, and the profound meaning behind his words makes Orochimaru's expression turn playful.

"And this child," Danzō turns around, his single eye staring fixedly at Orochimaru, "is a blank slate. A perfect blank slate that we can paint as we please, one that will not be bound by family sentiment, nor swayed by those ridiculous, absurd emotions. If used correctly, he could completely... replace the Uchiha."

Replace the Uchiha.

So that's it.

But to be fair, the emotions of the Uchiha clan are indeed different from ordinary people; their minds are complex, irritable, impulsive, and they never mingle with others in the village.

If the Uchiha were to leave the village, there probably wouldn't be a single person in Konoha who would be unhappy about it.

"Then how do you think we should handle that brat?" Orochimaru smiles, dangerous light flickering in his golden pupils. "Where is he now? What do you need me to do?"

Danzō does not answer, merely tilting his head slightly toward the shadows in the corner.

He is the leader of Root; he doesn't have the time to monitor a child who isn't even a jonin at every moment.

Inside and outside the village, there are plenty of places that require his trouble.

Where is Sawada Hiroki? This question naturally has someone specifically assigned to answer it.

Sure enough, the next moment, a masked Root ninja kneels on one knee instantly and reports in an emotionless tone: "Reporting to Lord Danzō, according to continuous surveillance, the target Sawada Hiroki has remained at home since the exam ended, rarely venturing out. His most recent activity was... catching two mice from the back mountain, which he appears to be keeping."

"Keeping mice?" Danzō is stunned.

Orochimaru is also stunned.

What kind of hobby is that?

Wasn't he supposed to be copying ninjutsu? Wasn't he supposed to be reading minds?

Why has he started raising mice?

This answer was so absurd that it was simply mind-boggling.

Orochimaru stared at Danzo with a silent expression.

Danzo stared at Orochimaru with a silent expression.

Neither of them spoke, and neither of them opened their mouths.

It was as if they were competing to see who would crack first.

After all, a boy who possessed such a unique Kekkei Genkai and was held in high regard by the leader of Root was, upon gaining some free time, acting like a bored child and raising mice at home for fun?

But Orochimaru's skin was clearly not as thick as that of the master scapegoater Danzo. In the end, he was the first to speak: "I think, if you need me to instruct him, I might need to conduct an additional, separate assessment of the two of them."

Orochimaru's voice was very soft. Although it might sound a bit disrespectful to Danzo, he truly suspected that the Root's intelligence organization had broken down.

Danzo frowned, but he did not refute Orochimaru's words. Instead, he stared at the Root ninja who had reported that Hiroki was playing with mice.

He also began to doubt the accuracy of this intelligence.

"Squeak~ Squeak~"

At Hiroki's home.

Unlike what Orochimaru and Danzo imagined, Hiroki was indeed playing with mice.

Don't ask Hiroki why he wasn't playing with white mice but insisted on playing with large rats. Hiroki could only say that he had wanted to go to the mountain behind the village to catch some white mice, but the problem was, they didn't exist there!

So, he had to just grab two rats to use as test subjects.

Good news—rats were also viewed as computers, and their file types were very similar to Hiroki's own; the sys files for the muscle sections were almost identical.

Bad news—the effect might be a bit too obvious, perhaps even excessively so!

At this moment, two cages were sitting on Hiroki's desk. One contained a large rat, and the other also contained a large rat.

There was no difference between the two cages, but the rats inside were vastly different.

A large, grayish-white rat was in the left cage, pedaling the wheel frantically, its speed so fast that it almost created an afterimage.

Its body size was a full circle larger than the "control group" rat in the cage next to it.

Even more terrifying was that beneath its grayish-white fur, muscle fibers bulged in blocks, filled with an explosive sense of power. Even the fine blood vessels were clearly visible, like a bodybuilding champion rat from hell, born specifically for combat.

The food bowl and water bottle in the cage were being emptied at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Hiroki flipped through his notebook with an expressionless face, recording the astonishing changes of the past week in rigorous handwriting.

"Experiment Log, Day 7. Project codename 'Pointy-headed Mouse', preliminary verification successful."

He looked at that "super rat," which was so energetic it seemed capable of tearing the cage apart, and felt the urge to just toss the notebook aside.

One week, a net weight gain of 115 grams.

This number meant nothing to an ordinary person, but in Hiroki's mind, a more intuitive comparison was instantly constructed.

For a 407-gram rat to gain 107 grams of pure muscle in a week—what kind of concept was that?

It was equivalent to a 120-pound adult growing 31 pounds of pure muscle out of thin air in a single week without gaining a single ounce of fat.

Forget about the Nine Dragons Pulling the Coffin of the bodybuilding world; even nine hundred dragons pulling the coffin, popping all sorts of hormones, could never achieve such efficiency!

This wasn't bodybuilding; this was Fengling Yueying!

His script was far more efficient than he had ever imagined!

Hiroki looked at his notebook, then looked at the rat on the other side that was a full size smaller, and almost didn't know what to say.

To be fair, before the experiment, Hiroki had anticipated that this experiment might need a cycle of 4 to 8 weeks to verify his muscle-automation growth script.

However...

The power of the data still far exceeded Hiroki's imagination.

Before discussing the amount of muscle gain in the rats, we must first understand how much muscle a rat can normally grow through training to have an intuitive sense of what Hiroki's script had achieved.

First, the muscle repair cycle and growth cycle are about three days.

When a person or a rat is subjected to high-intensity training stimulation, the complete repair and supercompensation cycle for a muscle takes about 48 to 72 hours.

Within 24 hours after finishing training, the muscle protein synthesis rate reaches its peak.

24-48 hours: The synthesis rate remains at a high level; satellite cells (muscle stem cells) are activated, begin to differentiate, and fuse into existing muscle fibers, making them thicker and stronger.

After 48-72 hours: Repair is basically complete. If nutrition and rest are sufficient, the muscle enters a "Supercompensation" phase, becoming stronger than before.

But, Hiroki's script canceled the initial 48-72 hour repair cycle. He forced the muscles to continuously repeat the "Supercompensation" golden period of muscle growth.

Under long-term training, a control experiment should generally take 4 to 8 weeks to observe significant and stable muscle growth.

And for a 400-gram large rat, within a perfect 48-72 hour "Supercompensation" cycle, the net pure muscle tissue (dry weight) it could gain might only be a fraction of a gram (e.g., 0.1-0.3 grams).

This number seems insignificant, but it is already a highly efficient adaptive response optimized by the organism during the evolutionary process.

Furthermore, during this process, the mice might experience reduced muscle growth due to various reasons, such as inadequate training, inflammatory responses, or excessive tissue damage.

Not only that, but training itself requires time; high-intensity training cannot be completed in a single second. During training, sustaining injuries is an unavoidable occurrence.

However, after using Hiroki's script, everything is completely different: the script forces the body to remain in the peak state of the "golden window" 24 hours a day. There is no need for training, no need for recovery cycles, and no need to repair muscle.

Only growth is considered, maintaining maximum efficiency at all times!

1 week = 7 days × 24 hours/day = 168 hours.

These 168 hours are 100% continuous, peak synthesis time without any decay.

Referring to a large rat model, the baseline body weight of a healthy adult male wild rat is 400 grams (this is a relatively large individual).

Muscle tissue accounts for approximately 45% of total body weight, which is 400g * 0.45 = 180 grams.

The composition of muscle is about 75% water, 22% protein, and the rest is fat, glycogen, etc. Therefore, in these 180 grams of muscle, the pure protein content is approximately 180g * 0.22 = 39.6 grams.

A normal rat's daily food intake is 5-10% of its body weight. However, under the state of Hypermetabolism caused by Hiroki's script, its appetite becomes extremely voracious.

Here, we assume the rat can consume about 15~20% of its body weight in food. The feed provided by Hiroki is chicken-based with a relatively high protein content of about 25%.

Taking the lower value of 15%, the maximum daily protein intake equals 60g * 0.25 = 15 grams.

Calculating the biological absorption rate at 90%, the actual protein absorbed is as high as 13.5 grams.

Generally speaking, only about 5% of this protein is used for muscle growth. But...

In Hiroki's control experiment, the mice with their muscle growth limitations removed showed a protein utilization rate of nearly 25%, which is about 3.3 grams!

However, it must be noted that this is pure protein, not yet calculated as muscle!

Based on the common understanding of muscle, where protein accounts for about 22% of its composition:

Daily synthesizable wet muscle weight = 3 grams (pure protein) / 0.22 (protein percentage) ≈ 15.3 grams.

This value amounts to an increase of nearly 107 grams of pure muscle in one week!

Of course, as the body size increases, the efficiency of eating and digestion will certainly decrease, and the rate of muscle growth will also decline. But for Hiroki, let alone thirty-one kilograms of muscle in a week, even three kilograms of muscle is something that would require the bodybuilding world to consume an unknown amount of hormones to achieve!

Yet, the moment after Hiroki was shocked and delighted, thinking he had succeeded.

The little mouse that had been running with all its might suddenly twitched twice and abruptly stopped, remaining motionless.

A faint, pungent smell of urine wafted from the cage.