Inside the laboratory!
A severed rat's hind leg had completely regrown. Aside from some missing fur, it looked no different from before it was cut.
Although Uchiha Mei had lost her sight, her other senses were as sharp as ever. She could tell with certainty that the rat in her hands hadn't been switched.
"T-this… how is this even possible?" Her despair from before was gone, replaced by trembling disbelief as her hands explored the rat's healed body. As a kunoichi, touching rats—or even snakes—was nothing to her.
"Why wouldn't it be possible?"
"You're thinking too small."
"There's no such thing as impossible."
Shien's voice carried quiet confidence. After all, the proof was right in front of her. And he didn't think his results were particularly shocking, either.
In the future, that white-eyed wolf Obito had half his body blown off and was still saved by the "Mad Sage" Uchiha Madara with White Zetsu's help. Then there was Orochimaru's cloning tech… those were far more advanced than what Shien had achieved here.
Those people relied on science. What he relied on was cheating via bloodline.
If not for his unique blood, there was no way he could have created something like this—
The Rebirth Elixir.
No matter who used it, they would feel as if they'd been given a new life. The name couldn't be more fitting.
"When can I start?" Uchiha Mei turned eagerly toward him. The days since she'd lost her eyes—days spent secretly undergoing treatments outside the village—had been pure torment. She didn't want to wait another second.
"Not yet," Shien shook his head.
"We've only tested on animals. We still don't know about side effects, and dosage needs to be precisely measured first."
Hearing that, Uchiha Mei forced herself to calm down and asked, "Then what do you need me to do?"
Now that she'd seen proof of success, the fear of permanent blindness was gone, and patience returned. Patience, after all, was the mark of a true ninja.
"I need you to send someone to the Exchange Hall to post a bounty. I need a Summoning Scroll retrieved, and… these materials gathered, plus a few human test subjects."
Shien listed his requirements.
"Alright."
Uchiha Mei agreed immediately without a hint of hesitation. As the granddaughter of the former clan head, her reach was extraordinary. Before, she had been too despondent to act—but once she moved, manpower and funding were never an issue.
Before long—
A high-level commission appeared at the Underground Exchange Hall.
The Exchange Hall was a broker network spanning the entire shinobi world, where any task could be posted, regardless of legality.
A 30,000,000-ryō bounty.
That was an outrageous amount— some minor village leaders didn't even have that high a price on their heads.
In one such Exchange Hall hidden within the Land of Fields—
Thud!
A corpse was dumped onto the counter.
The man standing there, cloaked from head to toe, eyes like tiny green beads, silently counted his money.
"Lord Kakuzu," the manager behind the counter spoke cautiously,
"would you be interested in taking on a 30,000,000-ryō mission?"
"…Thirty million?"
Kakuzu immediately found the cash in his hand less satisfying. He'd spent an entire month hunting the jonin whose corpse now lay at his feet—just for a measly two million reward. Now someone was offering thirty million in one go? How could he not be interested?
"Yes. The client specifically requested you for the job…" The manager didn't understand why anyone would choose to deal with such a dangerous man, but that wasn't his concern—he just facilitated the deal.
"I'll take it."
Kakuzu didn't fear difficult missions—only cheap ones. For thirty million, he'd even consider assassinating one of the Five Kage.
Bang!
Hearing Kakuzu's agreement, the manager immediately performed a summoning jutsu, retrieving the sealed mission scroll.
Kakuzu accepted it, checked the seal for tampering, and then broke it open to read.
The contents were simple: He was to travel to Drowning Marsh and retrieve a Summoning Scroll. The employer provided intel—apparently, a powerful giant lizard guarded the area and was proficient in certain jutsu.
With that information, Kakuzu felt confident in success. The only minor complication was that he wasn't to deliver the scroll directly to the client, but to hand it over to a small merchant caravan afterward.
Still, that wasn't an issue— the full payment had already been deposited with the Exchange Hall as escrow. No risk of getting stiffed.
After finishing his count, Kakuzu pocketed the scroll, carefully stowed the money in his chest box, and quietly left the underground Exchange Hall.
Meanwhile, Shien's days were packed to the brim.
Not only did he have to keep up with his own intensive training, he was also developing new jutsu and refining the elixir— he practically wished he could split himself into several people.
Actually… there was a jutsu that could do that—
The Shadow Clone Technique!
A classic B-rank skill and the ultimate cheat code for transmigrators. Unfortunately, even though Uchiha Mei had access to it, she couldn't teach it to him— not because she didn't want to, but because of both village and clan restrictions, and more importantly, the sheer difficulty of learning it.
At minimum, one needed jonin-level chakra control.
Shien's combat ability had improved drastically thanks to Taiyi, and while he was now stronger than most chunin, his base stats were still far from that of a jonin.
In the anime, jonin seemed as common as dogs, Kage-level shinobi popped up everywhere, and "Six Paths" beings showed up just to flex. But in the real shinobi world, that was absurdly unrealistic.
Even a "background extra" jonin was a big deal. Out of the tens of thousands of active Konoha shinobi, there were fewer than two hundred jonin in total. That said everything about how rare and difficult promotion was.
So, for a freshly graduated genin like Shien, mastering a jonin-level jutsu was pure wishful thinking.
Of course— if he were a Nine-Tails Jinchūriki with Uzumaki blood, that would be another story. (Naruto: Why don't you just say my name already?!)
But he wasn't.
So, he had to keep playing the role of a "time management master," painstakingly dividing every hour of his day while grinding like a full-time 007 agent.
His dream was to live the "lazy life," yet here he was—working overtime every day. The suffering was indescribable.
All thanks to Danzo, that bastard.
Still, there was one bright spot—his progress in developing new jutsu was phenomenal. He couldn't match those main-character monsters, of course, but at the very least, he could now be considered a genius.
With his imagination, his grasp of fundamentals, and Minato's personal guidance in practical technique, his progress was smooth as could be.
Once he completed his custom jutsu, his combat power would soar.
As for the Rebirth Elixir—he had already extracted several doses. All that remained was human testing before it could be officially used.
And as for how to conduct those tests?
Well, Shien himself definitely wasn't volunteering— but with Uchiha Mei handling arrangements… that was another matter entirely.
Today, he arrived at a most unexpected testing site.
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