The dragon pill entered his stomach.
After a brief silence, all the desires and temptations Logan had suppressed surged back, fiercer than ever before.
Boom—boom—boom!
Logan's heartbeat pounded like a war drum, thunderous and deep.
At first, the sound echoed only inside the Great Toad Sage's chamber.
But soon, an invisible force rippled outward. Pebbles and sand surrounding Logan defied gravity and rose into the air, suspended like stars caught in a current.
The earth quivered in rhythm with his heartbeat. The tremors traveled across Mount Myōboku.
Jiraiya's brush wavered, and a blot of ink fell onto the manuscript he was writing.
He didn't bother wiping it. He instinctively turned toward the Great Toad Sage's room.
Logan had arrived at Mount Myōboku earlier to consult with the Great Toad Sage. Jiraiya had planned to catch up with him afterward.
But now—
"Is there going to be a fight…?"
His mind flashed to the rumors—how Logan had once chopped up the White Snake Sage in Ryūchi Cave. Alarmed, Jiraiya shot up to his feet.
Though his lower legs were still stiff from past petrification, his thighs powered him upward in a kangaroo-like bound toward the mountaintop.
The tremors hadn't gone unnoticed.
Every toad on Mount Myōboku felt the pulse of the earth and the monstrous natural energy embedded in it.
Fukasaku and Shima—the elders—sensed the threat immediately and sped toward the epicenter, followed by Gamabunta, Gamaken, and other giant toads.
They leapt across the cliffs like waves in a storm, Jiraiya bouncing behind them.
As they landed, a deafening boom erupted. The walls of the Great Toad Sage's home cracked and crumbled, collapsing into rubble. Dust choked the air, hiding the center of the disturbance.
Gamabunta unsheathed his blade without hesitation, ready to charge.
Fukasaku threw a webbed arm in front of him.
"Wait. Something's not right."
A gust of wind cleared the dust.
The Great Toad Sage sat on his chair, his wrinkled face dusted with debris, his teacup filled with dirt.
But he wasn't concerned.
His once-drowsy eyes had snapped wide open, now staring forward—unblinking.
The group followed his gaze.
Logan sat cross-legged, floating mid-air. Natural energy poured from him in torrents, swirling dust and wind into a vortex around his body. He looked like an immortal descending from heaven.
Then Jiraiya saw Logan's face—and his heart skipped a beat.
Half of Logan's face had transformed—covered in gleaming white scales. His pupil had become a vertical slit.
A serpent's eye.
And within that eye…
A sinister, inhuman hunger. Something no ordinary person could possess.
"White Snake Sage…!"
Half of the transformed face grinned.
Memories—of the White Snake Immortal—awakened within Logan's flesh, soul, and cells, spreading like a virus.
The dragon pill—a sacred treasure, a gift of irresistible life—was one of the White Snake Immortal's secret weapons.
"I thought you could overcome your greed," the snake side sneered. "But in the end, you're just another mortal!"
It cackled with joy, but that glee masked layers of deep resentment.
"Logan!" it roared. "This body is perfect—it belongs to me now!"
The dragon pill's life force surged. Scales crept across Logan's body, slithering toward the untainted side. The laughter of the White Snake Immortal echoed like thunder.
And then—
Silence.
The laughter choked.
The snake scales… were retreating.
Logan's human flesh began devouring the white scales—cell by cell—as if his body had turned into acid.
Ripples and natural energy rewrote his very DNA, purifying it.
Scales that had begun to spread now peeled away.
The White Snake Immortal screamed—not in joy, but in terror.
It could feel itself being consumed.
Its knowledge, its nature energy, its ancient techniques—its very existence—were being devoured, bit by bit, by the man it thought it had conquered.
If it were the true White Snake Immortal, perhaps it could resist, even triumph in a last desperate spark of genius.
But this wasn't the real one—only a memory, preserved inside the dragon pill like an echo.
It was no different from the little white snakes that had once fled from the shattered golden eggs.
It had no power to resist.
All it could do was watch as everything it had worked for—its soul, its transformation technique, even its power—was stolen.
Then—
Two flawless white jade dragon horns began to grow from Logan's forehead. But unlike the snake's transformation, these had no serpentine essence.
The ancient Fukasaku gasped, "Is that… the White Snake Sage's dragon transformation technique?"
No.
The soul fragment of the White Snake Immortal screamed in disbelief.
This was not the traditional transformation it had practiced for a thousand years.
The snake essence had been burned away.
With a perfectly purified body, Logan stepped into the realm of the dragon—without any of the costs or consequences that once plagued the technique.
This was the ultimate form the White Snake Immortal had chased its entire life.
And Logan had achieved it—without even meaning to.
Fear, jealousy, and hatred consumed the snake's spirit. Its teeth rattled.
It refused to give up.
It wanted to drag Logan down with it.
But Logan—
He slowly lifted his hand and reached for the horns on his head.
Click.
A crisp sound rang out as Logan snapped off the forming dragon horns and tossed them aside like broken sticks.
The White Snake Immortal froze.
Its rage turned to disbelief.
Those horns—symbols of the perfected dragon transformation, a dream pursued for a millennium—lay discarded on the ground like trash.
Logan's calm voice echoed in its mind:
"Did you think I would sacrifice the potential of my body just to become a dragon?"
"You underestimated me far too much."
The flawless "transformation" the White Snake Immortal had obsessed over had been rejected.
Its eyes dimmed. Its remaining consciousness began to unravel.
The remaining scales on Logan's body withered and crumbled to ash, scattering into the wind.
The dragon pill's residual soul dissolved completely.
Logan dusted off the last fragments of scale from his shoulder, then turned toward the others. His gaze swept across the stunned toads before settling on the Great Toad Sage.
Scratching his cheek sheepishly, he said, "Sorry about the mess… I didn't think it'd cause such a commotion. I'll cover the reconstruction costs."
The Great Toad Sage simply waved a wrinkled hand.
"You showed me a miracle. That's worth far more than a house. So—how do you feel?"
Logan hesitated.
Inside him, the massive life force and nature energy from the dragon pill had reset his body on a cellular level—like a newborn's.
His connection to natural energy, his ripple control… everything felt more precise.
And something else—
Logan looked down, touching the earth beneath him.
He could feel the heartbeat of the land.
He hadn't become immortal like the White Snake Immortal, but so long as he touched the earth, everything—his spirit, ripples, regeneration, and energy flow—was enhanced.
The ripple technique, once bottlenecked, now had new paths opening like hidden roads under moonlight.
Of course, he'd need time to explore them.
"Three thousand soul fragments, a treasure trove of gold and silver… and now, this transformation."
He thought of Orochimaru, who even in death continued to contribute to his progress.
"I guess I really am fated to walk with snakes."
---
In the weeks that followed, Logan adopted a strict routine.
Each morning, he ate breakfast in Kirigakure, then teleported to Mount Myōboku with a lunchbox Mayuri had prepared.
There, he trained until dusk, before returning to Kirigakure to oversee the evening classes.
Mount Myōboku's rich nature energy helped him adjust to his new power. Whenever he encountered difficulties, he consulted the Great Toad Sage—if he happened to be awake.
Of course, Logan wasn't just a student.
The White Snake Immortal's method of dragon transformation—recorded in the dragon pill—was shared with the sages of Mount Myōboku. It helped fill in long-standing gaps in their own Sage techniques.
Time flew.
Three months passed like the blink of an eye.
During that time—
Jiraiya's legs fully recovered. No more awkward kangaroo-hopping across the cliffs.
Tsunade officially took office as the Fifth Hokage.
Terumi Mei finalized a treaty with Sunagakure, sending a team to teach their ninjas the "Awakening Course." The leader of the delegation was the newly popular Iwamine Genmako.
And Logan—
Floated above the training grounds.
Pebbles and dust danced around him, suspended in a slow orbit.
In his open palm burned a wisp of golden flame—pure ripple energy, amplified by earth.
He smiled.
"It's finally done."
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