Uchiha Makoto also openly maintained a laboratory of his own within Konoha.
It was an unremarkable single-story cottage tucked into a remote corner, with a "Private residence" sign hanging by the entrance. It looked shabby and inconspicuous.
The furnishings inside were even simpler: a few tables, several empty culture racks, and some basic experimental equipment. A few chakra circuit sketches he had drawn himself were stuck to the walls. They looked profound but were practically useless.
The entire room was almost excessively clean.
Yes, clean.
That was because his real treasures-the precious samples harvested from Kakuzu, Pakura, and even Danzo, his advanced experimental equipment, complex jutsu models, and all sorts of forbidden research records-were all in his Secret Base, buried deep underground, materialized by the system and continually improved.
This cottage was nothing more than a front.
Occasionally, he had Nako and the others come over to clean, or performed some inconsequential work in front of certain watchful eyes.
Small experiments, such as testing how chakra paper's sensitivity varied with different chakra natures, or observing the slight effects different varieties of Soldier Pills had on a ninja's stamina recovery, were enough to keep up appearances.
Anyone who wasn't an idiot would discover with a little investigation that this laboratory's output was woefully inconsistent with Uchiha Makoto's status as a genius researcher and Orochimaru's disciple.
He clearly had another hideout somewhere.
But Uchiha Makoto didn't care.
As long as you don't catch me with hard evidence, you can suspect all you like. What are you going to do, barge into my head and search it?
That day, he had just finished tinkering with a new batch of growth medium for asura cells in his Secret Base and left for his house to rest.
A snow-white snake, no thicker than a finger,