Cheating

The atmosphere in the exam hall was so tense it felt as if you could wring water from it.

Orochimaru opened the exam paper and quickly scanned it.

The first question: deciphering a code.

The Tobirama Code.

Heh. Something left behind by the Second Hokage.

The code used an obscure ancient poem written by Tobirama Senju as its key. The examinees had to use the row and column numbers provided to find the corresponding characters in the poem, then decipher the message.

For Konoha Ninja, this was practically a mandatory subject at the Ninja Academy. Anyone who had paid even a little attention should be able to answer it.

The corner of Orochimaru's mouth curled in an almost imperceptible smile.

It looked like this question was meant to give Konoha Ninja some free points. Were they hoping to establish Konoha's advantage in the very first round?

Interesting.

His gaze moved down the page.

Question two: A ninja stood in a tree seven meters above the ground and threw a Shuriken at an enemy fifty meters away. Calculate the Shuriken's initial velocity, ignoring air resistance.

A simple projectile motion problem.

Orochimaru worked it out in his head and soon had the answer.

The third question concerned how Water Release Ninjutsu could be used in a particular environment. It involved deriving a key formula and required knowledge of calculus to solve Bernoulli's Equation.

Question four was organic chemistry. It asked what compound would remain in the water after an aromatic compound was dissolved, dilute hydrochloric acid was added and stirred, and the mixture was separated through extraction with ether.

Wasn't that a ridiculous leap in difficulty?

Orochimaru couldn't help but smile wryly.

Apart from the first question, which was a "freebie" for Konoha, the rest weren't designed to let anyone pass at all.

This world's technological development had gone a little off course. Thanks to Chakra, biotechnology surpassed his previous world's in some respects.

Take the Delicate Illness Extraction Technique, for example. It could directly extract viruses, bacteria, and diseased tissue cells from a patient's body.

In simple terms, even if you had cancer, all it took was one use of the technique...

In other fields, such as machinery and materials, however, technology was only around the level of his previous world in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century.

And most of those research breakthroughs were concentrated among the non-ninja population.

Ninjas barely had enough time to train all day, and their research mostly focused on developing Ninjutsu and Medical Ninjutsu.

Expecting them to work on basic theory?

That was absurd. So aside from him, probably no one could answer these questions.

With that in mind, Orochimaru didn't rush to write.

Instead, he raised his head and watched the other examinees with interest.

Sure enough, most of them looked utterly bewildered, scratching their heads as cold sweat streamed down their faces.

Clearly, these questions might as well have been written in another language.

But there were always exceptions.

Orochimaru noticed five examinees who had started writing furiously almost as soon as the exam began, all with calm expressions.

They were seated far apart, in different corners of the exam hall.

If he wasn't mistaken, these five had been planted here to provide "model answers."

Heh. They'd gone to a lot of trouble.

Soon, some of the quicker examinees realized something was off and began using every trick at their disposal.

The Hyuga Clan kid had veins bulging at his temples. He had clearly activated his Byakugan and was scanning the exam hall frantically.

Several members of the Uchiha Clan made no attempt to hide what they were doing. Their scarlet eyes spun with Tomoe, as if they were afraid no one would realize they had activated their Sharingan.

The Nara Clan boy silently extended his shadow. It slithered like a thin snake to the feet of the nearest "information provider," apparently letting him sense and imitate the other examinee's writing movements.

The ninjas from the other small clans relied mostly on their respective secret techniques. Their methods varied widely and made for quite a spectacle.

However, two people in particular caught Orochimaru's attention.

The first was the little redhead from Sunagakure, who carried a massive puppet on his back.

At that moment, his fingers danced as several nearly invisible Chakra Threads connected one end to an "information provider" writing furiously, while the other end linked to his five Sand Ninja companions.

As the "information provider" wrote, the redhead's fingers twitched slightly. He seemed to sense the vibrations and movements of the other person's pen through the Chakra Threads, then precisely control his five companions' arms so they could write down the answers in sync.

Using both hands at once—and with such delicate control.

That meant this guy could control at least five puppets at the same time and make them perform fairly complicated actions.

He really was a genius.

The other was a girl among the Kirigakure examinees.

She formed Hand Seals, and a faint mist rose around her.

Soon, the mist condensed into several incredibly thin ice mirrors before her. By angling them cleverly, she reflected the contents of a distant "information provider's" exam paper with perfect clarity.

Her Chakra control was impressive as well.

And she was even using the Ice Style Kekkei Genkai...

Orochimaru wore a faint smile as he turned his gaze toward Jiraiya.

The boy was scratching his head over the exam paper, his face pale and tense. Sweat poured down his forehead like rain. Clearly, he couldn't understand a single question, and he hadn't even realized that he needed to cheat.

"Tsk."

Tsunade frowned beside him. She could make sense of some of the questions, but the complicated calculations and derivations that followed gave her a headache too.

As for cheating, she couldn't think of a good way to do it...

All she could do now was count on Orochimaru...

Thinking of that, Tsunade touched the earring on her ear. She just had no idea what it was for.

Just then, Jiraiya seemed to remember something. He fumbled in his pocket, pulled out the earring Orochimaru had given him earlier, and clumsily put it on.

Seeing that the two were ready, Orochimaru turned his attention back to the exam.

It looked like it was time to take care of some "business."

A faint spark of electricity flickered at his fingertips as Lightning Style: Electromagnetic Communication Technique quietly activated.

The technique was a byproduct of his earlier research into Chakra Nature Transformation for Lightning Release Chakra.

He had discovered that the lightning produced by Chakra in this world had a very unusual nature. It seemed to retain the properties of electric current while lacking magnetic properties.

In other words, no matter how much he increased the current, he couldn't produce a measurable magnetic field.

Only later did he remember that Magnet Style was a distinct Kekkei Genkai in the Naruto world. Its users included Gaara's family in Sunagakure, as well as the current Third Kazekage, whose name he couldn't remember—the strongest Kazekage. It was a Kekkei Genkai formed by combining Wind and Earth Chakra.

When he thought about it that way, it made sense.

If ordinary Lightning Release Ninjutsu could easily produce a strong magnetic field, then during the Chunin Ninja Exams arc, Sasuke's Chidori should have disrupted—or even countered—Gaara's sand through its magnetic effects.

But in reality, Gaara's sand showed no signs of being disturbed by Chidori.

Orochimaru had also tried combining Wind and Earth Chakra. After a long period of preparation and delicate control, he had managed to produce a weak magnetic field of a particular frequency. But it was weak and costly, so it had little value for research or combat.

According to his teacher, Hiruzen Sarutobi, if someone trained their Chakra Nature Transformation to its absolute peak, they could theoretically use a Kekkei Genkai or even a Kekkei Tōta.

But for an ordinary ninja, doing so required a tremendous amount of effort.

Kekkei Genkai were called Kekkei Genkai because their users' families had adapted to the transformation over generations, allowing them to combine Chakra of different natures instinctively.

In simple terms, their bodies were better suited to using these special releases, and that physical trait could be passed down through their bloodline.

Theoretically, it was much like Senjutsu: without the right physical constitution, using it would be exponentially more difficult...

Still, it could come in handy in a situation like the Chunin Ninja Exams...

The principle behind this technique was crude and simple.

It used Chakra to produce electromagnetic waves of a specific frequency.

The earrings he had given Jiraiya and Tsunade were, in fact, simple artificial cochlear implants.

Their materials were commonplace too: mainly extremely fine copper coils and a few Rochelle Salt crystals.

Rochelle Salt had piezoelectric properties, allowing it to convert electromagnetic waves of a specific frequency into faint mechanical vibrations. The cochlear structure amplified these vibrations and turned them into sound signals that the human ear could detect.

The communication was one-way, and its range and resistance to interference were limited. But for a situation like this, they were more than enough to pass along some answers.

"Hello, hello? Can you hear me?"

Orochimaru's slightly teasing voice came through clearly to Jiraiya and Tsunade.

"Whoa!"

Jiraiya jumped at the sound of Orochimaru's voice, nearly bouncing out of his seat. Then his face lit up with delight.

My savior! Orochimaru really came through!

He couldn't answer a single one of these bizarre questions!

Tsunade looked just as surprised.

She furrowed her brows and touched the earpiece.

"Orochimaru? Is this... a radio? Aren't communication devices banned in the exam hall?"

She mouthed the question quietly, but no reply came through the earpiece.

"Just listen. This is one-way communication."

"Time is short. I'm going to read out the answers. Keep track of the question numbers."

As Orochimaru spoke, he quickly wrote on his own exam paper while transmitting the answers to the two of them using Lightning Style: Electromagnetic Communication Technique.

Meanwhile, among the Sunagakure examinees.

A black-haired boy with sharp eyes raised an eyebrow slightly.

He had keenly sensed an extremely faint, unusual electromagnetic wave in the air.

"Hmm?"

The boy was a little surprised.

An electromagnetic wave that weak and directional couldn't have occurred naturally.

In theory, all ordinary communication devices should have been blocked inside the exam hall.

Who was it?

He discreetly focused his mind. Thanks to his unusual talent for electromagnetic sensing, he began tracing the source of the signal.

Soon, his gaze settled on Orochimaru, who was calmly writing his exam.

"A Konoha Ninja... How interesting..."

The black-haired boy's lips curled into a meaningful smile.

He could even use Magnet Style like that...

What an interesting guy.