Time flew like water, and a week passed in the blink of an eye.
During this time, Taiichi stopped dwelling on Tsunade and let everything take its course. After all, a big figure like Tsunade wasn't someone you could see just because you wanted to. The kind of gate-blocking tactic he pulled before was only good for one-time use; overdo it, and it would simply breed annoyance. Besides, neither side was actually acquainted with the other.
Having put down his worries, Taiichi also began his disciplined daily routine:
He headed out for training at 5:00 AM, sometimes with Might Guy, sometimes with Kakashi, and occasionally the three of them ran into each other to train together.
Then he went home to eat and clean up before heading to the Ninja Academy at 8:00 AM.
At 4:00 PM after school let out, he rendezvoused with Guy and Kakashi at the training ground to drain his remaining stamina. If she had the chance, Shizune joined in as well, and sometimes Rin Nohara and Obito tagged along because of Kakashi.
He got home at 6:30 PM to eat and rest, then conducted his evening self-training, which mainly consisted of practicing the Three Body Technique, Basic Taijutsu, and Basic Meditation.
Taiichi's days were plain yet fulfilling, and his training was unflagging, monotonous, and persistent. This fed back into his own physique; compared to before, Taiichi's current strength was like night and day. He reckoned he could completely thrash the version of himself from a week ago without breaking a sweat.
Now he could skillfully use ninja tool throwing in combat, and even bust out the Three Body Technique when people least expected it. His rapid progress had startled his peers more than once, and even Yamada had personally stepped down to spar briefly with Taiichi. Naturally, that spar was followed by yet another inevitable report.
Taiichi's stat panel currently read:
Name: Taichi Matsushita
Occupation: Genin Lv3 (324/400)
Talents: Diligence Makes Up for Mediocrity, Academic Overachiever
Age: 6
Physique: 11
Strength: 12
Agility: 11
Spirit: 19
Chakra: 2000 (4600)
Attribute Points: 6
Skill Points: 6
Skills: Basic Taijutsu Lv7 (537/1200), Basic Meditation Lv7 (684/1200), Chakra Refinement Technique Lv6 (345/1000), Ninja Tool Throwing Lv5 (463/800), Transformation Technique Lv4 (13/600), Clone Technique Lv4 (462/600), Substitution Technique Lv4 (534/600)
Evaluation: You are already a slightly bigger cannon fodder, but your fate remains that of cannon fodder.
Taiichi was already used to the panel's sarcastic remarks and treated them like thin air. What he cared about was the improvement of his stats and skills, and every time he looked at the panel, he felt the path ahead was full of light.
Konoha Hospital, Office.
Tsunade, who had been playing hooky for a few days, finally remembered she still had a job at Konoha Hospital. For once not feeling lazy, she arrived at the office, and the moment she sat down at her desk, she noticed a small vial placed right in the center. Only then did she recall a certain someone's request from earlier.
It was also the heavens helping out Taiichi. When he bottled the allicin, he had considered the storage issue and used a brown light-proof bottle. Plus, it was early spring, and the temperature wasn't very high yet. Otherwise, after so much time had passed, sealed merely inside this ordinary little bottle, the allicin inside would have long since degraded and lost its efficacy.
Tsunade picked up the small vial, unstopped it, and cautiously sniffed it. After careful identification, she still couldn't make out anything from that bizarre odor.
After a moment of thought, she headed to the laboratory. The lab conditions at this hospital were far better than those at Taiichi's home, with all kinds of equipment and samples readily available.
Tsunade first sterilized herself, then took a common pathogen sample out of the refrigerated cabinet and placed it under the microscope to check the bacterial activity.
Mm, very good, no problem.
Next, Tsunade carefully extracted some of the "miracle medicine" from the small vial and dripped it onto the bacterial sample. Having finished these tasks, she leaned over the eyepieces to observe the effect of this "miracle medicine."
Her eyes widened at what she saw. With just a single drop, everywhere the medicine touched, all the pathogens lost their activity in just this brief moment. Tsunade found such incredible medicinal efficacy somewhat hard to believe.
Over the next few hours, Tsunade experimented with every pathogen she could find, finally concluding that this miracle medicine could wipe out the vast majority of common pathogens with exceptionally potent effects. This meant that if an effective medicine primarily based on this substance was successfully developed and mass-produced, not to mention in everyday life, the injury and death rate of ninja on the battlefield would drop by at least half.
Medical Ninja were, after all, in the minority. Even in Konoha, and under her own vigorous promotion, Medical Ninja were still severely lacking—let alone in other ninja villages, where Medical Ninja were practically scarce.
Not to mention that a Medical Ninja's chakra was also limited. On a tense battlefield, limited chakra could only be used on more valuable wounded, while the majority of the wounded received only simple first aid followed by conventional treatments, which meant the use of medicine was indispensable.
The most common injuries on the battlefield were slash and stab wounds, and the most frequently used medications were antibacterial and anti-inflammatory drugs of this sort. Currently, Konoha's medicines of this type were barely adequate for ordinary light injuries, but for slightly more severe wounds, they were truly dispensable. If they had this kind of "miracle medicine," who knew how many ninja lives could be saved on the battlefield? It would truly be a blessing for Konoha.
Thinking of this, Tsunade immediately cleaned up the lab, erasing all previous traces, and grabbed the remaining "miracle medicine" as she rushed toward the Hokage's Office.
Hokage's Office.
Bam! The door flew open to the sound!
Instantly, the three people inside cast their gazes toward the entrance. They saw Tsunade retracting her foot as she aggressively stormed straight inside, shouting at the top of her lungs, "Old man, look what good stuff I brought you!"
"Well then, Hokage-sama, we'll take our leave first," said one of the Jonin.
"Alright, Jonin Murata, Jonin Yamada, you two go ahead," Hiruzen Sarutobi instructed the two Jonin.
Watching the two Jonin leave the office, Hiruzen then turned to Tsunade and said, "What is it? If you kick my door a few more times, I'm going to have to replace it with a new one again."
Tsunade didn't answer, instead looking all around the room.
Seeing this, Hiruzen didn't hesitate and made a hand gesture. A flurry of rustling sounds echoed around them.
"Can you talk now?"
Tsunade took out the small vial and placed it on Hiruzen's desk, first explaining the matters concerning Nonō and Taichi Matsushita clearly to Hiruzen, and finally detailing her various tests and the prospects of this medicine.
"You're saying this 'miracle medicine' was discovered by a kid named Taichi Matsushita?"
"Right. What, do you know him too, old man?" Tsunade asked with a puzzled face.
"Yeah, I've heard his name frequently lately. He's a genius freshman at the academy; he might just turn out to be a talent like Minato."
"Oh, you rate him that highly, old man?"
Hiruzen looked at Tsunade and didn't take up the thread.
"Is this really as amazing as you say?"
"In its current semi-finished state, the medicinal efficacy is already over five times that of current similar drugs. If made into a finished product, it'll only be higher."
"You said earlier that they're partnering with the village in the joint names of the orphanage and that kid?" Hiruzen asked again.
"Yes. Before coming over, I checked the records on the orphanage." Tsunade looked at Hiruzen with a deadpan expression. "The village hasn't given the orphanage much financial support over the past two years; they've barely been scraping by on the mission bounties of the director, Yakushi Nonō."
"Sigh! It's me, the Hokage, who hasn't been doing my job properly!" Hiruzen wore a look of self-reproach.
Tsunade was already unfazed by Hiruzen's face full of self-blame. If her teacher could be like her grandfather and Second Hokage, Danzo wouldn't have been able to pull off all those scummy deeds.
"Then how do you propose we cooperate?" Tsunade asked impatiently.
"How about this: give them a lump sum of money plus shares. We can make the money a bit higher, set it at 20 million ryo. The shares shouldn't be too many; if they're holding too much right now, they won't be able to protect them."
Seeing that her teacher's arrangement was quite reasonable, Tsunade didn't say anything more. She turned around, dropped a parting "I'm going to notify them," and left.
In the office, Hiruzen picked up the small vial on the desk and stared at it in a daze, involuntarily recalling the scenes in the academy he had witnessed through the Telescope Technique recently. What a good kid.
Having left, Tsunade found Yakushi Nonō at the orphanage. The moment she relayed the news to Nonō, the woman let out a long breath, looking immensely relieved. After all, having gone on for this long, she too had begun to worry whether this whole thing would actually work out.
After the two of them settled the orphanage's affairs, they headed toward Taiichi's home.
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