"Teacher Orochimaru, are we starting now?"
Yin Jie watched as Orochimaru used Hidden Shadow Snake Hands to send Tenzo back to his chair while picking up a test tube from the table. Reining in the smile Tenzo's performance had brought to his face, he asked.
The green liquid churned inside the transparent glass test tube in Orochimaru's hand as though it were alive. Countless tiny bubbles continuously rose from the bottom, bursting one by one and splashing faintly as they made soft but clearly audible gurgling sounds.
"Clang..."
With a crisp ring, Orochimaru poured all the green liquid from the test tube into a cup on the table.
In an instant, the green liquid exposed to the air rapidly steamed amid a hissing sound. In the blink of an eye, it evaporated into a strange dark-colored solid.
Then, Orochimaru spat out a sealing scroll covered in mucus. After undoing the seal, he took out a glass test tube filled with blood.
"Yin Jie..."
Orochimaru spoke slowly. "You are my disciple, and currently my only disciple. If you do not wish to..."
His voice paused slightly, as if he were hesitating, but his hands never stopped moving.
He was emphasizing Yin Jie's identity, as well as Yin Jie's importance to him.
After all, Orochimaru had only ever taken two disciples. The first was Nawaki, the unlucky fellow who had stumbled into an explosive tag trap during the ninja war and had his internal organs blown out.
The second was Yin Jie, who was now Orochimaru's only disciple.
Over their long time together, Orochimaru had formed a unique bond with Yin Jie, a disciple whom he considered exceptionally different from ordinary people of the ninja world in both thought and breadth of spirit.
Moreover, this bond, this emotion, had at this very