Sasori's gaze lingered on Orochimaru's paper-pale face for a moment, his brow tightening almost imperceptibly.
Although this was their first true meeting, both had long heard of the other's notorious reputation in the underworld.
"I've heard of you—the Sannin of Konoha, a madman obsessed with forbidden techniques and human modification." Sasori turned around. "The smell of flesh and blood on you is so strong it's nauseating. Life is always accompanied by decay and fragility. I find it difficult to understand why someone as gifted as you would waste his time on carbon-based bodies that could age at any moment."
Hearing this assessment, so clearly tainted by technological prejudice, Orochimaru did not get angry. Instead, he let out a low laugh.
He strolled into the laboratory, his gaze sweeping across the exquisitely crafted mechanical prosthetics and dismantled puppet components on Sasori's workbench like a radar.
"Hehehe... Calling flesh and blood 'waste'—so you seek eternity through these puppets?"
Orochimaru walked to the workbench, curiosity gleaming in his golden pupils.
"What ingenious mechanical design. It almost perfectly replicates the load-bearing structure of the human skeleton—but Sasori, I'm curious."
Orochimaru turned his head and looked directly into Sasori's eyes, recalling the concept of Mechanical Ascension he had seen on the scroll. "Metal indeed does not rot, and wood indeed does not bleed.
"But inanimate objects can never grow or evolve.
"The moment you finish forging this shell, its upper limit is completely locked in.
"You have abandoned the infinite possibilities of mutation brought by cell division, relying only on chakra to drive a heap of lifeless materials—
"When facing an enemy with greater vitality and explosive power, can that mechanical shell of yours, incapable of generating new chakra, truly be called 'eternal'?"
Those questions instantly chilled Sasori's gaze.
Orochimaru had keenly grasped the core