The All-Purpose Chakra

Mizuki didn't finish the mission and return home until the sun had completely set. Tsubaki had already made dinner and was waiting for him.

"Everything go smoothly today? I heard Mitaraishi Anko, a Special Jōnin, was leading the team."

"Yeah, nothing out of the ordinary. It went pretty smoothly. We'd originally planned to finish in ten days, but now we've got a few extra hands. If we work hard, we might be able to wrap up early."

"That's good. I heard Iruka was there, too. Did you two get along all right today?"

"Yeah, don't worry. There were no problems."

"Good." Tsubaki relaxed. "I sorted out some basic information on Sealing Jutsu today and left it on your desk. You can take a look. It might come in handy."

"Thanks, Tsubaki," Mizuki said happily. "Let's eat first."

"Okay."

Just then, someone knocked at the door.

"It's so late. Who could that be?"

Mizuki went to open the door and found Iruka there.

"Hey, Iruka. What brings you here so late? Is something wrong?"

"Is that Iruka? Would you like to come in and have dinner with us?" Hearing the noise at the door, Tsubaki called out an invitation, too.

"No, thanks. I'm leaving right away. I came to give you this." Iruka pulled a scroll from his robes and handed it to Mizuki.

"What's this?"

"A Sealing Jutsu scroll. It has a few very simple sealing techniques and some tips."

"You knew I wanted this?"

"Mizuki, we've been friends for more than ten years. I know you pretty well. Otherwise, why would you have brought up the Binding Formation out of the blue?"

Well, Iruka really was a hopelessly good-natured guy.

"Wait here." Mizuki turned around, grabbed two scrolls, and tossed them to Iruka.

"These have my notes on using genjutsu, along with a little about Puppet Technique and secret medicines. They're nothing special, but they should be enough for you."

"Mizuki, what are you—"

"I don't want to owe you a favor. This way, we're even."

"Ah, well... If you insist, I'll accept. Thanks."

"Don't mention it. Just think about how you're going to finish the mission faster."

"Then I'll get going. I won't keep you. See you."

"Wait, Iruka." Mizuki suddenly changed his mind. "This time, I'll owe you a favor. Come find me if you need anything." Iruka hadn't realized he'd gotten the worse end of the deal, but Mizuki couldn't forgive himself for taking advantage of his friend's ignorance.

"Suit yourself."

"See you tomorrow."

On his way back inside, Iruka looked at Tsubaki, busy with dinner, then glanced at the scrolls in his hand.

"Maybe I should find a few people to help out. Going it alone isn't a good choice, and I don't have the ability to manage everything by myself. I should build up and expand my network as soon as possible. It might come in handy someday. Having a few connections would also offer me some protection."

Over the next few days, Mizuki left early and came home late, diligently carrying out his mission. On the eighth day, the three Genin stopped accompanying them. The final two days mainly involved setting up the examination grounds. They still didn't know about the Chunin Ninja Exams, but since the work was directly related to the exams, the Genin couldn't be allowed to take part. Iruka, Mizuki, and Mitaraishi Anko didn't get a few rare days off until they'd completed the final tasks, reported to the Third Hokage, and received his approval.

On a leisurely afternoon, Mizuki leaned against the windowsill, basking in the sun as he watched people come and go in the street.

"This peaceful, prosperous scene won't last much longer." Mizuki shifted his attention to the few unremarkable plants in the flowerpots on the windowsill.

They were ordinary plants he'd brought back from the Forest of Death, but after a few days of experiments, they'd begun to change. One plant, similar to kudzu, was known for spreading quickly and was commonly used as a medicinal herb. But after being nourished by Mizuki's chakra for several days, it gradually displayed incredible vitality. Even if he chopped it into several pieces, each one grew new shoots within two days. There was also a thorny, pitcher-plant-like carnivorous vine. Over the past few days, it had grown enormous, and it sometimes lured in sparrows and mice and ate them. Other plants, such as fast-growing bamboo and flowers that could revive after being dried into hay and soaked in water, had also undergone some miraculous changes in the rich chakra environment.

That wasn't even the most astonishing part. Mizuki turned to look at the large glass tank in the middle of the room, where several transparent creatures lived. You could barely see their bodies unless you looked closely. They waved their long tentacles as they drifted about. If not for the red specks of light inside their clustered bodies, you wouldn't even know they were alive.

He'd stumbled upon these creatures at a night market, where a traveling merchant was selling them as local specialties. They were a rare kind of jellyfish with highly potent venom. The moment Mizuki saw them, he bought them without hesitation and brought them home to observe. He often exposed them to a rich chakra environment and even fed them quite a bit of his own blood to see what would happen. In the end, he was delighted to discover that they shared a striking similarity with the Turritopsis dohrnii from his previous life. In a sense, the Turritopsis dohrnii was the only theoretically immortal species ever discovered in his previous life. Given the right conditions, it could live forever. It had a peculiar trait: after reaching maturity, it could revert to its juvenile polyp stage, then grow into a mature jellyfish again, repeating the cycle until it was eventually eaten by a predator.

The desire for immortality had long been something people could only dream of. After years of tireless research, Orochimaru had managed only an imperfect immortality technique, Living Corpse Reincarnation. Longevity was theoretically possible in some respects. But true immortality was a false proposition: life was always followed by death. No matter how powerful a creature's vitality was, over an infinitely long span of time, it would eventually die, whether through an accident or not. Yet even theoretical longevity was nearly impossible to achieve. The advanced technology of his previous life had discovered only the Turritopsis dohrnii as a theoretical miracle, which showed just how difficult it was.

But in this world of chakra and supernatural powers, given the right materials, it was quite possible to achieve a degree of longevity or greatly increase one's vitality. If Mizuki told Orochimaru about the peculiar traits of the Turritopsis dohrnii, Orochimaru would surely develop an even more powerful reincarnation technique.

"Still, I may not have the same mad-scientist fervor as Orochimaru, but I have chakra, too. I can get there another way. Thank goodness for chakra's limitless uses."

During those few days of experiments, Mizuki had even signed a Summoning Contract with one of the Turritopsis dohrnii. Although it was far too unintelligent to understand any commands and its frail body was no use in a fight, an experiment in which it divided and reverted into a polyp had fully verified that the individual bound by the summoning contract hadn't disappeared. Reverse aging was real.

As far as Mizuki could tell, the Shinobi World's biotechnology was extremely lopsided. Thanks to chakra and the immense vitality it brought, this world could perform organ transplants and cloning even with crude equipment. They had probably also figured out basic theories like genetic codes, yet in practice they still relied on crude fusion. There was nothing like the precise gene-editing techniques of his previous life, such as genetic scissors. Perhaps they simply had no need for them. With crude fusion and enough test subjects, they could always get the results they wanted. That was one thing basic technology and supernatural powers had in common: once people had something that worked, they often overlooked more fundamental research without even realizing it.

With that thought, Mizuki activated the sealing formation embedded around the windowsill's plant beds and the fish tank. As chakra flowed into it, the formation, which had begun to dim, started operating at full capacity once again.

These formations were the result of Mizuki's research over the past few days. They were still far from useful in actual combat, but he'd managed to create an environment rich in chakra by gathering it in one place. As for the basic principles of Sealing Jutsu, he'd only just managed to work out how to seal tangible matter and chakra energy. He hadn't yet figured out how to analyze the underlying principles of energy and power, so he could only keep the formation running by feeding it chakra again and again. As for what the formations could do, he'd figured out simple techniques like the Fire Sealing Method and Binding Formation, as well as how to seal small objects. But he still only vaguely understood more advanced techniques, such as the Four Symbols Seal, Eight Trigrams Seal, and Five Elements Seal. He'd only just begun learning the more powerful Yin Release sealing techniques based on spiritual energy, and he was still a long way from being able to address his own hidden problem.

Seeing that there was nothing else to tidy up, Mizuki gave his prized creatures in the fish tank one last check. Then he went out for a leisurely stroll. There was no point staying cooped up at home alone; perhaps he'd come across another surprise like the Turritopsis dohrnii.

Meanwhile, at the Hokage Office in Konoha, the Third Hokage was listening to a report from Anbu about Mizuki.

"Has Mizuki done anything suspicious at all over the past few days?" the Third Hokage asked.

"No, Lord Third Hokage. We inspected the Forest of Death cleanup mission very carefully and confirmed there was nothing amiss. Mitaraishi Anko didn't notice anything suspicious, either."

"What has Mizuki been doing these past few days?"

"He's been on leave at home, occasionally going out to stroll around town."

"Has he been in contact with anyone suspicious?"

"No. The only people he's been in contact with recently are Iruka and his fiancée, Tsubaki Chie. He's also chatted with a few ordinary merchants in the street. We verified their identities, and there's nothing wrong."

"Merchants?"

"Yes. Mizuki seems to be doing some kind of research on medicines and poisons. He brought back several common plants and medicinal herbs from the Forest of Death, and the details are recorded in the report. He also bought a few poisonous creatures from merchants. He's keeping them at home now and seems to value them highly."

"Oh?" The Third Hokage leafed through the report in his hands but found nothing suspicious in it.

"Venomous Jellyfish? What does he want those for?"

"He's keeping them in a fish tank, and seems to be trying to breed them in large numbers. He's probably extracting their venom."

"Mm." The Third Hokage looked through Mizuki's basic information again. Mizuki was an ordinary civilian-born ninja with no inherited techniques. All his abilities were average, with nothing remarkable about them. His nature was ordinary Fire Release, and he had no family techniques to rely on, so it wasn't strange for him to use external tools like poison as a specialty. After all, there were several recorded instances of him using poison before.

"I see." The Third Hokage considered the matter.

"From now on, cancel the round-the-clock surveillance on Mizuki and switch to monitoring key areas. When his leave ends in three days, have him help with sorting and assigning missions. Any B-rank or higher mission handled by Mizuki must be brought to me for review."

"Yes, sir."