Hearing that Kakuzu actually stopped mid-mission to work part-time for travel money left Amamiya Kenichi speechless for a moment.
Then he thought about it again… and somehow, it didn't feel strange at all.
It was Kakuzu.
That guy's entire worldview could be summed up in one line:
"If it doesn't earn money, it's meaningless."
He probably loved hoarding cash even more than killing people. Kenichi had basically never seen him spend money on anything besides mission costs. So clocking in extra jobs just to avoid touching his savings?
Yeah. That tracked.
"…Troublesome," Kenichi sighed.
He'd originally planned two routes:
Trick Kakuzu into funding him somehow, or
Just steal Kakuzu's money pouch and sprint.
Either way, his "broke scientist" problem would be solved in one hit.
But reality didn't agree.
Kakuzu had no hobbies. No weaknesses. No personal indulgences. His personality could be summarized as: "Money is my god. Everything else can die."
That type was the worst target for financial schemes.
At this point, the only way to get his funds would be a straightforward robbery.
And that, in Kakuzu's value system, was an unforgivable sin.
"If you really want money, it's much easier to take it from Konoha," Orochimaru said lightly, the corners of his mouth curling.
He'd been doing research for a very long time.
When it came to "how to get funding," he had plenty of experience.
"Huh? What do you mean, sensei?" Kenichi looked over, curious.
He knew Konoha had money.
The question was: how do you open that vault?
"You already blew up Kumogakure once. You can claim a bounty through Konoha for that," Orochimaru said. "As for your research—come up with something Konoha is interested in, then have them invest."
He made it sound… absurdly simple.
Kenichi thought it over.
The first part, sure—Nagato was already negotiating the "Cloud Village Incident" payout.
But the second part…
Selling thermobaric bomb tech?
Absolutely not.
The threat level of that weapon was way too high.
If he handed it over and, one day, someone dropped a copy on his head…
He'd die of regret before the explosion even reached him.
So thermobarics were off the table.
Which left only one big, sellable project in his hand:
High-yield crops.
"But sensei, my current progress is…" Kenichi began, a bit embarrassed.
"Who said you had to sell something finished?" Orochimaru gave him a look as if he were being slow. "You pitch a concept. They pay up front."
Kenichi froze.
So basically—
Present a grand vision, get advance funding, figure out the details later.
This wasn't funding.
This was straight-up milking the grant system.
Back in his previous life, this kind of operation was officially called:
"Writing proposals."
Unofficially?
"Scamming research funding with a PowerPoint."
But to be fair, Orochimaru did deliver results.
Even with something as insane as Wood Release research, he'd managed to actually produce something. Tenzō—Yamato—was living proof. His Wood Release was a joke compared to the First Hokage, but it still counted as a success.
Which was exactly why Konoha had been willing to keep investing in him for so long.
Kenichi was about to explain his own idea when his ring suddenly grew hot.
Nagato's voice cut straight into his mind.
"Gyoku. Konoha isn't fully convinced yet. They want one more live demonstration.
On the main battlefield in the Land of Frost—if you can repeat what you did to Kumogakure there, they'll pay a massive bounty."
Short, clean, to the point.
Kenichi rubbed his forehead.
Sure enough… replication.
Reproducing the effect wasn't the problem.
The problem was—
He had to build another bomb.
And that meant:
Buying raw materials,
Refining them,
Formulating thermobaric fuel,
Crafting the shell and fusing it all together…
Every step burned money.
But he didn't have a choice. If Konoha wanted proof, he had to give them another mushroom cloud.
So he turned to Orochimaru and laid things out:
"Sensei, can we divert the money I just gave you for the lab to purchase the thermobaric materials first? We can finish the lab construction after the orders arrive."
Orochimaru thought for a moment, then agreed.
Even with a strong network, material delivery took time.
Without sealing scroll logistics, it would've taken even longer.
While he waited for his thermobaric components to arrive, Kenichi decided he might as well stop procrastinating—
And start tackling the other giant goldmine in his plans:
Hybrid rice.
If he could pull this off, the profits would be astronomical.
Not just for the Five Great Nations, but for the entire ninja world.
If people could eat their fill, productivity would rise, internal conflicts would decrease, and the need for war would drop as well.
At the root of it, most of the wars in this world started because:
There were too many shinobi, and
Not enough resources to go around.
So nations used wars to plunder resources and thin out their own ninja populations.
"Hybrid rice, huh… what a pain. It's not like I majored in agriculture," Kenichi muttered.
Once he actually started, he immediately realized how many problems there were.
He knew what hybrid rice was.
He just… didn't know how to create it.
Science was like that.
Without a foothold, without being led into the door by someone experienced, your "general knowledge" was basically useless trivia.
Hybrid rice was one of those things everyone in his old world had heard of.
But if you took away the internet and asked people:
"Okay, how do you breed it?
What's the technical process?
What's the genetic principle?
What are the key control steps?"
How many could actually answer?
Only the ones who studied that field seriously.
"Maybe I should start with how chakra affects crops instead," Kenichi thought, rubbing his chin.
After all, the biggest difference between his past life and this world… was chakra.
So his first experiment could be:
Use chakra to influence crop growth.
The downside was obvious:
The results might not be reproducible by normal people,
It would be hard to scale,
And it wouldn't be easy to popularize across the entire world.
So in the end, the real solution still had to come from the seed itself.
Alter the crop's genetics.
Use yang chakra to stimulate the seeds.
Repeatedly select the best-performing ones.
Breed, screen, cultivate, screen again…
Eventually, he might be able to stabilize a new variety.
Would anyone else in the ninja world think of this?
Kenichi highly doubted it.
Look at the hot-air balloon.
The world had detonating tags, radio tech, surveillance barriers…
but no one had ever thought of tying a big bag to some fire and floating.
Ninja tech was weird like that—hyper-advanced in some places, completely stone-age in others.
"As for other chakra natures…" he mused, "I really don't see how they'd help seeds. Fire would just roast them. Lightning might mutate them straight into fertilizer."
Water, wind, earth—maybe there were obscure applications.
But the most promising was still: yang release.
"Alright then. I'll be counting on you all again."
Kenichi formed a rapid string of seals.
"Multi Shadow Clone Technique!"
With several soft pops, the lab instantly filled with copies of himself.
A row of Amamiya Kenichis stood in front of him, dead serious.
"Today's project," the original said, "is to apply chakra to crop seeds and study whether chakra can influence their genetic traits."
They nodded.
Research alone was slow and inefficient.
Research multiplied by multiple shadow clones?
That was much more like it.
It would be exhausting when the clones dispelled, sure.
But the time saved?
Absolutely worth it.
Note: If you enjoyed this chapter, you can read far ahead (Chapter 131+) on patreon.com/nakai01. Don't forget a Power Stone to keep the updates coming.