Jugo returned to the village of sound the next day, he seemed very happy at that point, he had discovered a way to act.
He didn't actually need to eat human bodies, he discovered he could perform by scaring others.
Sure, at first he didn't understand and thought it was fear, but it was only through tests and with the help of the Tenebrous World that he understood, the point is dissociation.
What is a cadaver? It's a dead human being.
But what happens when you're at a funeral and out of nowhere the corpse gets up and starts talking to you?
A simple situation of humans conversing becomes a cliché trope in zombie movies.
The corpse is already dead, but it was once human.
Neither dead nor alive.
This is the fear that Jugo is after, the fear caused by the contrast between life and death, the fear caused by incongruity.
He is dead, but he acts like he's alive.
That's a zombie.
If he just acts like a living being, it won't work.
If he just acts like he's dead, that won't work either.
The public must understand that he is dead, Only then will he be able to act as if he were alive.
This is a Zombie.
Jugo was very pleased to discover the rules, he felt that this time, the connection was between life and death.
This is the "chain" of this sequence.
He could have acted out of depravity, devouring human flesh, giving in to impulses, but he wouldn't do that.
Of course, acting like Zombie required the audience to believe he was dead, so it wouldn't be easy for him to perform in the Village of Sound.
But working with civilians is... let's just say that in one night's work, Jugo only managed a 1% advance.
He would need to do this for more than three months to complete his performance.
He figured that if he could fool the entire village of Som, he'd probably swallow the potion in one go, imagine if they held a wake for him and he stood up and shouted. - Brain!
That would be fun, but Orochimaru would probably dissect him instead of holding a funeral, he would have liked to use the Third Hokage's burial for that.
Wait! Maybe that's not such a bad idea, he just needs to pretend to be the Third Hokage and start wandering around Konoha like a walking corpse.
No, it would be difficult and a little dangerous, it's better not to go that far.
Jugo was about to give up when he thought of something interesting.
And what about clones?
The potion is digested when his mind synchronizes with it, if he receives the clone's memories, it's not as if he already lived through it!
Jugo's eyes lit up, he hadn't thought this far ahead, but it was worth a try.
Even though their clones couldn't enter their zombie form, they could transform and act like zombies.
Jugo stopped immediately in his tracks, made a hand seal and the next moment, a thousand clones appeared around him, then they ran away.
After transforming into a zombie, both his physique and soul were enhanced, his current chakra reserves are ridiculously large, making creating a thousand functional clones at once no problem.
Jugo paused there for a moment, feeling the natural energy around him rush towards him, replenishing his reserves.
The clones, on the other hand, ran to all the nearby villages and beyond.
They spent the day searching for recently deceased people and their relatives. At night, they returned to the families and transformed themselves into corpses, even using putrefied carcasses to mimic the smell. When the relatives found them, Jugo would say something like: "Bastard! You married my sister! I've come back to kill you!" or "Unfilial son, you sold my favorite pipe! I've come for revenge!"
Finally... it was a night to remember in the land of sound.
Jugo didn't sleep all night, he was receiving constant feedback.
The upside? It worked.
The downside? After going through Bind's filter, Jugo only received a small fraction of the performance fee.
Previously, the same performance yielded 0.3-0.5%, but now it only yields 0.03-0.05%.
But quantity makes the improvement, Jugo made a thousand clones in one night, achieving about 37% completion!
He would only need two more days to complete his act! That was even faster than the prisoner's potion digested!
Jugo was silent for a moment, this wouldn't have worked with the previous potion because he needed to create a true bond between himself and his dogs, but with this potion it was purely a connection between life and death.
Jugo was happy, he had expected the Zombie potion to take months to complete, but instead, he only needed two more days.
That was great, but since that was the case, he needed to speed up the plan.
Did he need to find a place to advance? As for Orochimaru? Who cares, if he advances again, he can say he can face Orochimaru head-on without fear of him running away!
What's next? Wraith! What's the Wraith's specialty?! Souls!
Orochimaru wants to escape? Hehe, good luck, he won't even need a plan, so he's not afraid of trouble.
But for now, after a sleepless night and remembering a thousand clones, Jugo already had a terrible headache, now he just wanted to sleep!
Even when Kin showed up with the three dogs at some point, he only made some unintelligible sounds and covered his head with a pillow.
Then he heard Kin leaving, but felt the dogs stay, lying on top of him.
He soon fell back asleep, only waking up near the end of the afternoon. The trio of dogs were excited as soon as he woke up. Jugo simply waved to them, he still felt tired, but he was much better than before.
After taking a bath and eating something, more out of desire than necessity, he went out and summoned a thousand clones again. This time they headed towards the land of fire. By this time, the rumor about zombies was already spreading strongly in the land of sound, so much so that he heard that several ninjas had been dispatched to investigate.
He didn't want it to be discovered that it was the work of ninjas, that could diminish the effect of the performance, at least for the next two days. He needed to keep it a secret.
Returning to the Village Hidden in the Sound, he visited Dosu, Kin and Karin, all of whom were training, even Kin, who was training with her hair and chakra threads.
Due to her suggestive new clothing, Kin was approached by some Sound ninjas, but Kin used Jugo as cover, basically, she considered herself Jugo's woman, to act against her was to act against Jugo.
After the record of defeating Shukaku "alone" was exposed, no one from the Sound Village dared to challenge Jugo.
So Kin was safe.
Karin was in her introductory phase, she seemed even worse than Jugo in terms of fatigue and Jugo only kept her company for a short time before leaving. Getsu, Yoru and Yami are training with Dosu.
Dosu liked the style of the hidden mist as he used the dogs to attack him, with their keen noses and ears, it wasn't easy to dodge them.
Jugo, on the other hand, went to visit Kimimaro and talk about life.
He spoke about Kin, Dosu and Karin this time, then simply remained silent, keeping Kimimaro company until he fell asleep again.
He left soon after, in the middle of the night, the memories started to come back and his potion began to work rapidly again, but the fatigue that followed was no joke.
Using the first day as inspiration, they realized that the stronger the emotions of the living towards the dead, the greater the performance feedback, thus, the final result was that he received about 42% this time.
He was already at about 80%. Just a little more and he would have made it!