Mikoto of the Shinobi World

The prosthetic limbs developed specifically for civilians already demonstrated Hiruko's blazing Will of Fire.

However, he also had an obvious weakness: lust.

Perhaps because of those unbearable childhood experiences, Hiruko's personality was somewhat extreme.

But in the eyes of the Uchiha Clan, that bit of extremity was nothing worth mentioning.

Thinking of how he had once sent a beautiful Uchiha Clan woman over, only for Hiruko not to spare her a single glance, Fugaku Uchiha felt a headache coming on.

Hiruko might be lustful, but he seemed interested only in female ninja renowned across the battlefield. He had been relentlessly pursuing Tsunade all along.

Pakura, the Scorch Release user Danzo had sent to Hiruko, had captivated him completely. For ten whole days, he had not gone near his beloved laboratory.

After Hiruko finally emerged from Pakura's side, he actually gave Danzo a set of extraordinary prosthetic body parts.

According to Hiruko, after installing this prosthetic body, one could possess combat strength comparable to a Kage for half an hour.

However, the prosthetic body would be scrapped after three uses. Its materials were extremely scarce and its cost exorbitant, so even the village could not bear to order them in bulk.

After thinking for a long time, Fugaku Uchiha realized that among the Uchiha Clan's female ninja, there really was not a single one widely known throughout the shinobi world.

Except perhaps... Fugaku Uchiha's gaze fell on his own wife, Uchiha Mikoto.

Mikoto had been the Uchiha Clan's most outstanding ninja in her youth. After marrying him, she had stopped fighting, and her reputation in the shinobi world had gradually faded away.

Fugaku Uchiha hurriedly cast those absurd thoughts from his mind, then said seriously to Shisui, "Please tell Orochimaru that I will await his arrival at my home."

Fugaku Uchiha truly was indecisive and not skilled at making firm decisions, but that did not mean he could not see the current situation clearly.

Choosing to support the Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze, on the battlefield had been the proudest investment of his life.

Ever since taking over as clan head, his greatest wish had been for his clansmen to truly integrate into the village.

He had hoped even more that the Uchiha Clan could produce a Hokage. This was not only his dream, but the shared expectation of the entire clan.

He simply wished to achieve that goal through gentler means, but some within the clan were far too radical. They even planned to seize it by force if the village refused.

Now that the Fourth Hokage was Minato Namikaze, once the Third Hokage grew old and the several advisors gradually lost influence with time...

By then, if the Uchiha Clan handled things properly, producing a Fifth or Sixth Hokage would not be beyond reach.

If they could gain Orochimaru's support, those hopes would undoubtedly grow even greater.

Unfortunately, the Uchiha Clan had taken far too many wrong steps before this.

Looking at Shisui before him, Fugaku Uchiha sighed inwardly. The new generation of Uchiha seemed to be drifting further and further from the position of Hokage, with fewer and fewer points of intersection.

Kagami Uchiha-senpai, you died far too early!

Hiruko had just vented the resentment he had accumulated over this period on Pakura, and his mood had improved considerably.

He also understood that the key reason he had never been able to break through to the Kage level lay in the flaws of his own heart.

People said the Sharingan reflected the heart, but in Hiruko's view, chakra was what was truly closely connected to the heart. It was practically an omnipotent power, inseparably linked to one's spirit.

With a firm enough will, breaking through in the midst of battle was common enough.

Hiruko turned his gaze toward the flowerpots on the balcony, where several unremarkable plants were growing.

Hiruko had brought these plants back from the Forest of Death during his experiments. They had originally been entirely ordinary plants.

But after several days of experiments, they had gradually begun to change.

At first, Hiruko's experiments had been limited to humans, with the goal of increasing his own strength.

But now, the Third Shinobi World War had just ended, and no large-scale war would break out anytime soon. This gave him ample time to explore the nature of chakra.

The plant before him was a fern, originally famous for its rapid reproduction and often used as an ordinary medicinal herb.

But nurtured by Hiruko's chakra, the fern displayed astonishing vitality.

Even if it were chopped into several pieces, within a few days it would grow into a large patch again.

There was also an insect-eating plant resembling a pitcher plant, and over the past few days, its size had gradually increased.

Whenever small animals such as sparrows or mice approached, they would be lured in, trapped, and devoured.

Another plant resembled a rapidly growing orange tree, while the flowing grass could revive upon contact with water even after being dried into hay. In the dense chakra environment, both had also undergone wondrous changes.

Of course, these changes were inseparable from Hiruko's use of spiritual power to continuously guide them to mutate in specific directions.

However, none of that was the most important thing.

Hiruko slowly walked over to the largest glass tank in the living room. Some transparent creatures were being kept inside.

If one did not look carefully, it was impossible to notice their existence.

These creatures continuously waved their long tentacles as they drifted slowly through the water.

If not for the cold, faint blue specks of light constantly flickering in the middle of their clustered bodies, it would have been hard to notice that these things were alive.

Hiruko had asked Danzo to retrieve these creatures, a distinctive species from the depths of the sea in the shinobi world.

The moment he saw them, Hiruko became excited and immediately began keeping them at home for careful observation.

Not only did he often place these creatures in a chakra-rich environment, he even deliberately fed them the blood of many ninja.

In the end, Hiruko discovered with delight that these things possessed characteristics extremely similar to the Immortal Jellyfish he had known in his previous life.

In a sense, the Immortal Jellyfish had been the only known immortal species in his previous life.

If the environment was suitable, the Immortal Jellyfish could live forever.

This creature possessed a wondrous trait: after growing to maturity, it could regress back into a polyp state.

It would then grow into a mature jellyfish once more, repeating the cycle until it was eaten by a predator.

For a long time, the desire for immortality had been a goal Orochimaru pursued tirelessly, and Hiruko was no exception.

Although he already knew he was walking the great path toward immortality, Hiruko remained curious about other possible methods of attaining it.

Furthermore, as his women increased in number, it was impossible for every one of them to possess the qualifications to advance to the Six Paths level.

Thus, a universally applicable immortality technique was also one of Hiruko's research directions.

After years of study, even Orochimaru's immortality technique remained incomplete.

That so-called reincarnation technique had immense flaws in a sense and remained only theoretically possible.

Even Living Corpse Reincarnation was merely a form of false immortality.

Hiruko found it difficult to accept Orochimaru's method of immortality, but did he truly have a chance to develop an immortality technique suitable for ordinary people?