In the end, those Hidden Sand fellows still agreed to our demands, didn't they?
Suikazan Fuguki skimmed the reply from Hidden Sand Village, smiled, and said to Vegapunk beside him, 'They won't shed tears until they see the coffin. Should we squeeze a few more supplies out of them this time?'
Vegapunk flipped through the supply list and shook his head. 'No need. You might as well have them hand over a few mining districts. Those people waste time and work slowly; the moment a vein turns slightly barren they're helpless.'
Although Hidden Sand had a gold miner like Rasa, his advantage lay only in extracting gold ore. When it came to other minerals buried in the desert, they were equally stumped.
Besides… Vegapunk added coolly, as if struck by a new thought, 'If my plan succeeds, Hidden Sand will practically become our back garden.'
The conversation ended there. Vegapunk walked out of the Mizukage's office and headed for the laboratory.
By now the Sea Ninja Village's laboratory had become the largest institution in the entire Village, an insatiable money-devouring beast. Countless resources poured into it, making it the true center of Sea Ninja Village.
To put it bluntly, if enemies struck the Mizukage building and the experimental center at the same time, the Ninja would rush to defend the experimental center first—even the Mizukage building would have to wait.
Even though the so-called experimental center merely repeated work on inventions Vegapunk had long since developed.
Vegapunk's personal lab, naturally, was not located there. The most important thing was not the instruments or materials, but the quantum brain in his possession.
It was a true one-of-a-kind, impossible to replicate, and the single most important object he held.
For that reason he had simply used Ninjutsu to bore a massive hole deep in the earth's crust, creating an underground laboratory nearly a thousand meters beneath the surface, powered entirely by subterranean magma flows—barely enough to keep the quantum brain running.
With the quantum brain's computational power, the current level of laboratory could not utilize it fully; it could employ only a hair of its capacity. By wireless brain-wave transmission, several of Vegapunk's labs simultaneously drew on the quantum brain's calculation ability.
Entering this laboratory, Vegapunk quickly saw an exact copy of himself collecting data: a clone he had created with the Shadow Clone technique.
A Shadow Clone projected through a Quantum chip had been developed by Vegapunk shortly after arriving in the Land of Water. But if the chip ran at its limit, the clone would still disperse naturally. Research showed the cause lay in the upper limit of computational speed the projected Quantum chip could sustain.
Therefore, his Shadow Clone could use only about one-fifth of the total computing power—adequate for leading simple, directional research, but still fell short of coordinating the whole project. Vegapunk himself had to take charge.
Beside Vegapunk's Shadow Clone stood Orochimaru, pale, dark circles under his eyes, once-sleek black hair now a mess—clear evidence of who-knew-how-long spent on research.
Though Orochimaru ranked as the world's number-one scientist, he could not beat Vegapunk, the cheater. Even Vegapunk's Shadow Clone stood above him.
After all, even without the Quantum chip, Orochimaru and Vegapunk were about equal; the clone still enjoyed partial Quantum chip enhancement. Keeping up with the research naturally left Orochimaru exhausted.
Even so, bloodshot eyes gleamed with excitement as Orochimaru watched the clone's data, jotting notes from time to time.
'Orochimaru, I think you should rest…'
Vegapunk spoke, seeing Orochimaru looked one step from sudden death.
'Fine—let me finish these formulas…'
Just then the Shadow Clone looked up, as if reminded by the original's words. He pushed open a lab door, revealing another Orochimaru performing an experiment.
Without a word the Shadow Clone stepped forward and punched, blasting that Shadow Clone apart. Vegapunk's original watched as Orochimaru's eyes rolled back and he collapsed.
Apparently, with the fatigue feedback from the destroyed clone, Orochimaru had finally hit his limit.
'Hey, he's not actually dying on us, is he?'
Vegapunk exclaimed in surprise. His Shadow Clone shook its head. 'Relax—he's not that easy to kill.'
'Besides, the Chakra-based soul-transfer technique is nearly complete. Worst case we just give him a new body.'
After losing Dream Star, soul transfer had lacked its hardware basis, but once concrete data existed, developing a Chakra version became easy.
Combined with Orochimaru's own research data, the soul-transfer Ninjutsu was almost finished—only a few trials remained.
The only reason he hadn't undergone rebirth was that Orochimaru himself didn't want to abandon his original body; he wished to pursue the path of sage transformation.
'All right, how's your side progressing?' Vegapunk asked the Shadow Clone at once. This clone was researching sage transformation—an important ability capable of extending life, something Vegapunk valued highly.
Even with soul transfer, Vegapunk still didn't want to swap bodies frequently. Even if the soul remained intact, adjusting to a new body took time.
And each body replacement meant abandoning the cultivation results of the previous one. Even if Vegapunk had relied on training capsules and similar tech—hadn't exactly sweated for it—it was still a huge waste of time.
Who could say the soul itself would never decay? By comparison, absorbing Natural Energy and ascending into a sage to raise one's life level seemed far more reliable than changing bodies.
'How to put it… some results, at least!'
The Shadow Clone spoke briefly, then extended a hand. 'Memory exchange will be faster.'
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