The sun set, and night descended.
Just as all the customers had left the internet cafe and Ge Liang was preparing to close, a figure suddenly appeared standing in front of the door.
"Boss Ge, closing up this early?"
Ge Liang: This is a rule of the System. I don't damn well want to close this early either.
"It's Orochimaru. I thought you stood me up."
There wasn't much time left until the third stage of the Chunin Exams.
Ge Liang still remembered that in the original work, Orochimaru had to go to the Land of Sand to ambush and assassinate the Fourth Kazekage who was coming to Konoha.
Calculating the time, Orochimaru should be setting off soon with Kimimaro and the others, or he wouldn't make it in time.
"Hehe, how could I possibly forget the 'money' for my own life?"
"Come in."
Orochimaru entered the internet cafe, and Ge Liang closed the door.
"This is truly interesting. Jiraiya comes during the day, and you come at night. Did you two plan this?"
"Oh? Jiraiya is back? It seems things have gotten a bit tricky."
To achieve his goal, Ge Liang sat down and immediately reminded Orochimaru that Jiraiya had returned to the village.
Konoha Village with Jiraiya and Konoha Village without Jiraiya were two completely different concepts.
Even Orochimaru lacked the confidence to kill either Hiruzen Sarutobi or Jiraiya when facing both simultaneously. Instead, he would have to figure out how to escape.
But running away was not an option; he couldn't let Jiraiya ruin a plan he had been plotting for so long.
"If you still want to proceed, you need to seriously think about how to deal with Jiraiya, or rather, how to stall him."
"Don't worry, I understand."
Orochimaru might not be confident in killing Jiraiya, but if it was just about stalling him, there were plenty of ways.
"Alright, enough small talk. Where is the thing I asked for?"
"Wait a moment."
"Ugh~"
Right in front of Ge Liang, Orochimaru opened his mouth wide and spat out a scroll and a small box.
"I said, can you stop being so disgusting?"
"Cleanse!"
Seeing the mucus on the scroll and the small box, Ge Liang immediately used a System skill to clean the liquid off both items.
"Boss is truly unfathomable."
Orochimaru didn't say much about Ge Liang's move; after all, he already knew Ge Liang was very powerful, and cleaning up items was no big deal.
"This is the scroll that records the forbidden Jutsu, Edo Tensei."
"And this small box contains my 'life money'."
Ge Liang opened the box first and counted the money inside.
The reason he didn't open the scroll first was that he believed Orochimaru wouldn't deceive him.
Orochimaru probably wouldn't want to know the consequences of deceiving him.
"This little?"
The money in the box was actually quite a lot—twenty million Ryo.
But Ge Liang was a little dissatisfied. Orochimaru, one of the legendary Sannin and the current leader of the Sound Village—was his life only worth twenty million Ryo?
Was this looking down on me, or looking down on yourself?
"Boss, don't be angry."
Perhaps sensing Ge Liang's dissatisfaction, Orochimaru immediately said, "This twenty million is just the first installment. There will be a second one later."
"Why not pay it all at once?"
Paying for his 'life money' in installments—that was severely lowering his status as a BOSS.
"I couldn't help it. All the funds allocated by the Daimyo of the Land of Rice Fields have been used for my experiments. Right now, I can only spare twenty million Ryo. I will deliver the rest to you immediately after the Daimyo of the Land of Rice Fields grants the next allocation."
"Fine."
Hearing Ge Liang agree to the payment plan, Orochimaru inexplicably breathed a sigh of relief.
"It's getting late, I'll be leaving now."
After seeing Orochimaru off, Ge Liang opened the scroll and began examining the forbidden Jutsu, Edo Tensei.
"As expected, I can't understand any of it."
As soon as he opened the scroll, Ge Liang looked at the 'ghostly scribbles' on it and was completely baffled.
This was actually normal. If he, an ordinary Earthling, could truly understand a Ninjutsu scroll, that would be the real ghost.
"Forget it. I'll give it to Naruto or Sasuke when the time is right."
He closed the scroll, put it in his bedroom, and then Ge Liang opened the System interface to continue 'adding bricks and tiles' to the internet cafe.
The space definitely needed to be expanded~
The Training Rooms definitely needed to be increased~
Some decorations definitely needed to be included~
The twenty million Ryo didn't stay in Ge Liang's hands for long before it was all spent on 'optimizing' the internet cafe.
"The internet cafe looks much more comfortable now."
The entire internet cafe now had fifty-four computers, five Training Rooms, one enlightenment chamber, and some plants for decorative purposes.
After expanding the space again, the internet cafe would no longer feel crowded.
The current layout of the internet cafe was similar to those on Earth in the past.
"Next, it's time to save up money to open a branch."
...There was still one week left until the Chunin Exams.
In the past few days, under Jiraiya's 'coercive' relationship-building method, the relationship between Naruto and Jiraiya had advanced by leaps and bounds.
There was no helping it. As a best-selling author, Jiraiya had a large amount of savings.
If one barbecue couldn't win Naruto over, what about two?
If two didn't work, then three. If three didn't work, then four.
In short, it wasn't that Naruto wanted to get close to Jiraiya; it was just that Jiraiya 'gave too much.' Naruto was practically stuffed from all the barbecue.
Seeing that the time was right, Jiraiya proposed teaching Naruto a Ninjutsu.
Naruto originally wanted to refuse. He couldn't just learn something because he was told to; that would make him lose Face.
However, when he heard that the Ninjutsu was invented by the Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze, Naruto immediately agreed.
Hmm~ It was so good!
While Naruto was Cultivating Rasengan with Jiraiya, Kakashi was struggling with whether or not to teach Ninjutsu to Sasuke.
As the squad leader of Team 7, he could be said to be quite incompetent.
When doing missions, with Naruto's Shadow Clone army, there was nothing for him to do.
When it came to increasing strength, with the internet cafe—that magical place—there was also nothing for him to do.
This situation made Kakashi feel like a babysitter who took money without doing any work.
To change this awkward situation, he decided he absolutely had to do something.
Sure enough, after much deliberation, he thought of teaching Ninjutsu to The Rookie Three.
Among The Rookie Three, Naruto's Chakra nature was Wind, which wasn't suitable for him to teach.
Sakura had low Chakra reserves and specialized in precise Chakra control, making her more suitable for Medical Ninjutsu, so he wasn't suitable to teach her either.
Sasuke's Chakra natures were Fire and Lightning.
Leaving Fire aside, Lightning was quite suitable.
He had a self-created Lightning Release Ninjutsu.
Even throughout the Ninja World, it was considered a very powerful Lightning Release Ninjutsu.
At this moment, he was struggling with whether or not he should teach this Ninjutsu to Sasuke.