Tsunade's Guilty Conscience, Orochimaru's Special Trait

"Orochimaru?"

Qingyu set down the towel he had been using to wipe his sweat and turned to face Tsunade.

"Why would Lord Orochimaru suddenly want to see me?"

Tsunade's gaze drifted toward the ceiling, then to the leftover chicken bones on the coffee table, before finally landing back on Qingyu's face.

"He heard of your reputation as a genius and offered to meet you himself."

Qingyu stared directly into Tsunade's eyes.

"Sister Tsunade, tell me the truth."

"I am telling you the truth."

Tsunade felt a bit guilty, but she put on a bold front despite her lack of conviction.

"If you're lying to me, I'm never bringing you alcohol again."

Tsunade's expression froze instantly.

If she couldn't have alcohol, she might as well be dead.

"Actually, it's like this..."

Tsunade shifted her posture, taking her legs off the coffee table.

"Orochimaru is short an assistant for odd jobs for two or three days, so I thought... why not let you give it a try?"

Qingyu kept his eyes fixed on her.

Tsunade felt increasingly uncomfortable under his gaze and decided to just give up and come clean.

"Fine, fine! That bastard Jiraiya didn't lend me money this time, so Orochimaru did."

"So, Sister Tsunade, you took a kickback and sold me out?"

Qingyu's question hit the nail on the head.

"You can't really put it that way, can you call this selling..."

Tsunade's voice grew quieter and quieter until she finally turned her head away, not daring to meet his eyes.

Qingyu took a deep breath.

He knew it.

In this household, Tsunade was the local tyrant, he was the little manservant, and Shizune was the little maidservant.

When the local tyrant was short on cash, she wouldn't even blink before selling off her servants.

"Doesn't he have Shadow Clones? It's impossible for Lord Orochimaru not to know that technique."

Qingyu was curious; how could Orochimaru possibly be short on help?

"Shadow Clones accumulate fatigue, too."

Tsunade waved her hand, becoming uncharacteristically serious.

"Do you think the Shadow Clone Technique is some kind of universal tool?"

"All the pain and fatigue experienced by the clones are transferred back to the original body the moment they are dispelled. If you create too many, it's even possible to exhaust the original body to death."

Tsunade said sternly.

Upon hearing this, Qingyu didn't argue further.

What Tsunade said was indeed a fact.

The mechanism of the Shadow Clone is essentially a double-edged sword; the fatigue accumulated when the clones vanish is dumped into the original body in an instant.

That is why many ninjas know the standard Shadow Clone Technique, but the Multi-Shadow Clone Technique is classified as a forbidden jutsu.

The individual effect of the clones is the same for both; the only difference is the upper limit of how many can be created.

Except for a monster like Naruto, whose chakra reserves are unreasonably vast and who carries the protagonist's halo, no one dares to use Shadow Clones as if they were ordinary clones.

"Fine."

Qingyu sighed.

Since he couldn't avoid it, he had no choice but to go.

Looking at it from another angle, maybe he could trigger some good traits at Orochimaru's place.

After all, he was the number one scientist in the ninja world; the man was a walking treasure trove.

Qingyu was also curious: what exactly would this man, who pursued eternal life, drop?

Seeing that Qingyu had agreed, Tsunade visibly relaxed.

She stretched comfortably.

She was wearing only a loose nightgown, and as she stretched, the thin fabric pulled taut, outlining her curvaceous figure without reservation.

The hem lifted, revealing her slender waist.

Qingyu's gaze was uncontrollably drawn to her, but he quickly looked away.

Tsunade remained completely oblivious, letting out a lazy yawn before rising and swaying her hips as she walked toward the bedroom, leaving Qingyu with nothing but the sight of her retreating figure.

Qingyu subconsciously took an extra look.

Hm?

His brows furrowed slightly.

Logically speaking, from this angle, there should have been a triangular outline visible beneath her back.

Could it be...

Commando?

Qingyu banished this dangerous thought from his mind and turned to head toward the backyard.

After resting for a while, he still had medical knowledge to memorize.

Only by allocating his time this way would he avoid affecting his sleep at night.

Qingyu would never let fatigue carry over to the next day.

A few days later.

Qingyu followed Tsunade through the streets of Konoha, arriving at a secluded research facility on the edge of the village.

The exterior of the laboratory was unremarkable, its gray-white walls covered in ivy, making it look like an ordinary residence.

But the moment the door was pushed open, Qingyu saw shelves packed with jars and bottles, inside which were soaked various specimens he couldn't name.

Orochimaru stood in a laboratory at the end of the corridor, holding a test tube and observing the color of the liquid against the light.

Hearing footsteps, he set the test tube down and turned around.

It was a face so pale it was almost bloodless, with golden slit pupils that resembled those of a snake.

Upon seeing the arrivals, Orochimaru displayed an expression that could, at best, be called a smile.

"You've arrived, Tsunade."

Orochimaru's voice was rather hoarse.

"Mm, I've brought the person."

Tsunade crossed her arms over her chest and gestured toward Qingyu with her chin.

Orochimaru's gaze landed on Qingyu.

Those golden slit pupils scanned Qingyu from head to toe, and then back up again.

Lending money to Tsunade was merely a casual gesture.

A few hundred thousand ryō was nothing to him.

A single experiment could easily require millions of ryō in funding.

What truly interested him was Qingyu himself.

Recently, he had been helping Shimura Danzō research how to balance the side effects brought on by the Sharingan.

While the Sharingan of the Uchiha clan was undeniably powerful, the chakra consumption and physical burden it placed on the user were equally staggering.

If an outsider were to transplant one, and they weren't strong enough themselves, they would likely not gain any power but instead have their body dragged down, becoming a liability.

Furthermore, most of the test subjects who had undergone Sharingan transplants experienced rejection reactions.

This made him think of Qingyu.

In all of Konoha, he was the only existence that naturally fused the bloodlines of the Senju and the Uchiha.

Long before Qingyu had even enrolled in the academy, Orochimaru had taken note of this child.

It was only due to Qingyu's sensitive status and the barrier posed by Tsunade that he had never made a move.

Now that Tsunade had delivered the person to his doorstep, there was no reason for him not to accept.

"Lord Orochimaru."

Qingyu greeted him first, his attitude neither servile nor overbearing.

"Just call me Orochimaru."

Orochimaru stepped closer, observing Qingyu.

[Collectable trait detected: Desire for Longevity]
[D-rank trait: Desire for Longevity]
[Effect: You possess a yearning for immortality; increases the upper limit of cellular division.]
[Collectable trait detected: Regeneration of the White Snake]
[D-rank trait: Regeneration of the White Snake]
[Effect: It is rumored that the white snake represents luck and regeneration; increases Yang Release chakra by 20%.]

Qingyu's entire body shuddered.

Two traits.

Just from a single meeting, he had dropped two D-rank traits.

Moreover, the effects of these two traits were not merely simple ability bonuses.

Desire for Longevity acted directly upon the upper limit of cellular division cycles.

This meant that his maximum lifespan had been tangibly extended by a significant margin.

One must realize that the cells of an ordinary person can only divide a limited number of times in a lifetime, and the appearance of this trait was equivalent to adding several more segments to that progress bar.

Since Hashirama Senju died so early, Qingyu had also suspected it was because his passive, Seal-less Healing, had been constantly burning through his life force.

The number of times human cells can divide is finite, even for a ninja.