The Deeper You Think, The More Terrifying It Becomes!

Based on Nawaki's understanding, the surviving members of the Senju Clan were mostly of his father's generation and his own, with only a handful remaining from the First Hokage's era.

The Senju Clan had a total population of three thousand! Yet, among these three thousand, there were only eight jonin. Three were holdovers from his grandfather's generation, and in his own generation, only Tsunade was a jonin. This meant there were only four jonin in his father's generation, with everyone else being chunin, which showed that their bloodline inheritance had severely regressed.

In truth, given the powerful nature of the Senju bloodline, it should not have diluted and dissipated so quickly. Furthermore, descendants of the Senju continued to intermarry with other families in the village who carried maternal Senju blood, which should have maintained a certain concentration of the lineage. The First and Second Hokage had made these arrangements with this in mind. Why, then, had such an unexpected situation occurred, where after a mere three generations of intermarriage, the family's bloodline was on the verge of vanishing?

It was because these Senju clansmen faced the same problem as Tsunade and Nawaki: the inability to fully fuse the bloodlines of different clans! The Senju bloodline had not disappeared, nor was its concentration as low as it appeared on the surface. Instead, due to the nature of dominant and recessive genes, much of the bloodline power had become recessive, hiding within the veins of these clansmen. If any of their descendants were to turn these powers back into dominant genes, they would inherit the talent of the Senju Clan; this was the reason Konoha produced geniuses one after another.

This problem was easy for Nawaki to solve. By spending 1,000 Wish Power, he could perfectly fuse the bloodline within any Senju clansman. Not only could they develop the high and mid-level bloodline powers they were meant to have, but they could also acquire the bloodline abilities of other clans, allowing them to study their secret techniques! At that point, the power of the Senju Clan would inevitably see an explosive increase. This was ten thousand, or even a hundred thousand or a million times more cost-effective than spending Wish Power to convert ordinary people into Senju!

The Senju Clan was the greatest legacy his grandfather had left him! If he could fully develop the bloodlines of these three thousand people, the power of the Senju would surpass its former glory, completely crushing the Uchiha and Hyuga to become the number one clan in the ninja world! However, this would require at least three million Wish Power, and at his current level of prestige, it would take a thousand years to accumulate... so he decided to wait until he had sufficient Wish Power to resolve this issue.

How could Nawaki be so certain that his deduction was correct?

Did he not collect Orochimaru's saliva and Jiraiya's hair yesterday?

Through the system's analysis, the genes of both these men contained the high-level bloodline of the Senju Clan!

In his past life, while watching Naruto, Nawaki had been curious about their surnames, but he could never find them in any records. Jiraiya and Orochimaru were clearly given names, not surnames. Why were they, like Tsunade, never mentioned with a surname? If they were born as ordinary commoners without surnames, why would the Third Hokage take them as disciples?

Moreover, according to the Book of Formations and the Book of Ren, both men possessed a wide variety of chakra natures, and their chakra reserves were astonishing. Orochimaru possessed all seven natures, with his "Vigor" stat—representing chakra—at 7. Jiraiya possessed six natures, yet his Vigor was at the maximum value of 10, just like Naruto!

Thus, Nawaki suspected they were likely descendants of the Senju, with at least one parent belonging to the clan. Now, he had finally used the system to confirm his hypothesis.

Beyond those two, Nawaki suspected that Minato Namikaze also possessed the Senju bloodline. Why did Naruto's hair and eye color inherit the gold and blue of Minato rather than the red and black of his mother, Kushina? Was the bloodline of the ordinary surname "Namikaze" stronger than that of the Uzumaki Clan? The most likely possibility was that Minato inherited the Senju bloodline from his mother or grandmother, and luckily, it had all manifested as dominant genes! Furthermore, it was a high-level bloodline! In the Book of Formations, his chakra natures were listed as Wind, Fire, Lightning, Yin, and Yang—five in total. His chakra reserves were also massive, and he possessed a talent for spatial sensing, allowing him to master the Second Hokage's Flying Thunder God. This was the hidden reason he could become the Fourth Hokage at the age of twenty-three!

Another popular supporting character, Kakashi Hatake, was also highly suspicious. His chakra natures were the rare seven-attribute set, and he was able to transplant a Sharingan and utilize the power of the Mangekyo! If any random person could transplant and use the power of the Mangekyo, the Uchiha Clan would have been wiped out long ago! As for the strain of the Mangekyo limiting his strength, that was simply because the bloodline could not perfectly fuse—a problem that could be solved perfectly with just 1,000 Wish Power.

The final major suspect was Shimura Danzo! Why did he love courting death so much, and why did Sarutobi tolerate him? Why was he able to transplant Wood Release cells? And why did he transplant an entire arm of Sharingan? If everyone could succeed, they would have been mass-produced long ago! In the original story, only a very small number of people successfully transplanted Wood Release and Sharingan, yet he possessed both and remained active and healthy.

Why, despite his penchant for courting death, did he never directly move against Minato, the parents of the twelve rookies, or the Sannin? Because they were related! They had already become one with Konoha through blood ties!

It was a terrifying thought: the Senju Clan had unknowingly merged with the entirety of Konoha, becoming the invisible masters of the village through blood relations, with all high-ranking officials having some connection to them. The Hyuga and Uchiha clans never stood a chance; in the end, one was wiped out, and the other chose to integrate into Konoha through marriage.

Such a dark, calculating conspiracy must have been the work of the Second Hokage, Tobirama Senju; perhaps even the First Hokage had been kept in the dark!

If not for the issue with the fusion of the Senju bloodline causing a misstep, the entire village of Konoha might have become a vassal to the Senju Clan, with the position of Hokage passed down through the Senju line generation after generation. Instead, as in the original plot, the Senju Clan unexpectedly vanished, allowing those who should have been vassals to seize the initiative, effectively acting as a stepping stone for other small clans and commoners.

Even so, Tsunade had easily become the Fifth Hokage as the princess of the Senju Clan without any resistance!

It was clear that under the Second Hokage's strategy, the status of the Senju Clan had become deeply ingrained in the hearts of Konoha, becoming the very symbol of the Will of Fire!

Since he had fully grasped the chess game laid out by the Second Hokage, Nawaki decided to follow the path, and he happened to have the ability to patch the greatest loophole: bloodline fusion.

With the help of the Wish Power System, he would surely be able to maintain the bloodline advantages of the Senju while using the various clans and commoners of Konoha as nutrients and a seedbed, absorbing the strengths of all bloodlines to bolster the Senju Clan!

He would lead the Senju Clan and the entire village of Konoha to become a forest that grew ever stronger!

The Will of Fire would no longer need to be passed down like a flickering flame; Nawaki Senju would become the Fourth Hokage, transforming into an eternal, indestructible Divine Tree that would carry the Will of Fire forever.