Starting with the Uchiha clan, they began cultivating demonic arts.

Chapter 132 The End of the Ninja World War and News of Orochimaru

The young female ninja in the Kazekage's office, besides being part of Yekura's Shadow Guard and the Kazekage's secretary, has another, more important identity: she is Uchiha Tou's cauldron.

Therefore, even if Uchiha Touya acts recklessly in the Kazekage's office, there is absolutely no need to worry; in fact, he can receive the most meticulous service.

As the midday sun gradually set, its dim light shone into the Kazekage's office. Inside, Yekura, draped in a torn Kazekage robe and looking utterly exhausted, sat curled up in Uchiha Tou's lap like a kitten.

Uchiha Touyu put his hands in Yekura's arms, sat on the Kazekage's special seat, and listened to Yekura's trembling report.

"Tsk... So, the so-called Shinobi World War has finally come to a complete end?"

"Yes, the conflict between Konoha and Iwa ultimately couldn't be sustained any longer and they signed a peace agreement."

"It's said that Konoha now only has a little over 2000 ninja left, which is less than some small ninja villages..."

"If it weren't for the deterrent power of the Nine-Tails and the Yellow Flash, Konoha would probably have fallen out of the ranks of the great ninja villages."

"It sounds really tragic. I didn't expect that the other ninja villages could push Konoha to this extent."

"This is not solely due to the efforts of the Iwa ninja. It is said that the Iwa ninja paid a high price to bribe the Kusagakure village, causing significant damage to Konoha."

Uchiha Touyu chuckled. As the mastermind behind the Grass Ninja Village, he undoubtedly knew more details about this matter.

It must be said that although the Grass Village is known as a fence-sitter, it has managed to grow up in the cracks between the five great ninja villages. Not only was it not destroyed by the five great ninja villages, but it has also gradually developed and grown stronger.

The fact that Kusagakure has even surpassed Amegakure, which produced a demigod in the ninja world, and Takigakure, which once had a Jinchuriki, demonstrates that its leaders are quite adept at survival strategies.

Uchiha Touyu thought that with his help, the Grass Ninja Village would definitely carry out massacres and refine pills, but he did not expect that these guys would actually act discreetly and join the Ninja World War by hiring mercenaries. They gained a lot of benefits, but the blame was mostly taken by the Iwa Ninja.

After this Fourth Shinobi World War, countless ninjas were captured by the Grass Village and refined into pills. It is believed that the strength of this ninja village has definitely increased considerably.

Furthermore, due to the Fourth Shinobi World War, Orochimaru's experimental subjects were in such high demand that there was a long queue of volunteers, and the Chaos Treasure Box there must have collected a lot of chakra and soul energy.

For Uchiha Touyu now, his bloodline and physical strength have reached a limit that ordinary ninjas cannot enhance. However, pure chakra energy and soul energy still provide him with considerable assistance.

"Two years have passed, and the Hunyuan Treasure Box must have yielded quite a harvest. It seems I should take some time to retrieve the bait I've released."

"Also... the Grass Ninja Village must have profited quite a bit from this war, shouldn't we let them reap some of the rewards too?"

"Speaking of the black aura on the altar of the Book of Demonic Path, it has accumulated to the level of four or five thousand people in the past two years. Subtracting the ninjas I killed in Sunagakure, Orochimaru and Kusagakure have sacrificed at least 3000 ninjas..."

After thinking for a while, Uchiha Touyu gave up the idea of ​​directly wiping out the Grass Ninja Village. Anyway, once these Grass Ninjas had consumed the pills from the Hunyuan Treasure Box, their power would automatically dissipate and enter the Hunyuan Treasure Box once they died.

Human greed is not so easily satisfied. Even if the ninja world returns to peace in the future, these grass ninjas will definitely continue to plunder ninjas in secret. As long as they do not stop their greed, death will follow them like a shadow.

Ultimately, these powerful medicines will not escape Uchiha Hiyu's grasp, so there's no need to be in such a hurry now.

Moreover... to be honest, this Ninja World War really devastated all the ninjas. Konoha Village was left with only 2000 old, weak, sick and disabled people, and the other ninja villages were not much better off.

During the standoff between the Iwa ninja and Konoha, although the strong ninja did not suffer much loss, the ninja below were severely harmed by Minato Namikaze. Especially towards the end, even the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki intervened, bombing the Iwa ninja camp and causing massive casualties.

Even considering only ordinary lower-ranking ninjas, the Iwagakure ninjas are not much stronger than the Konoha ninjas. Their once tens of thousands of ninjas are now lucky to have seven or eight thousand left.

It was fortunate that Onoki ultimately swallowed his anger and did not truly start the Tailed Beast War, otherwise the two great ninja villages might have perished together.

However, Uchiha Tou knew very well that Namikaze Minato had probably mastered the Flying Thunder God Technique, which was why he dared to directly bombard the opponent with the Nine-Tails. If they really went all out, the Iwa ninja would definitely be the ones who suffered.

The remaining Cloud Ninja had their Third Raikage and his successor killed by Uchiha Touya. Although their basic strength was not greatly depleted, the higher-ups only had the Eight-Tails Jinchuriki as their top-tier fighter and the Two-Tails, which had not yet fully matured. Before a new Kage-level fighter appeared, they would inevitably be extremely cautious in their actions.

Otherwise, if there is a shortage of top-tier ninjas, the entire ninja village could very likely fall into crisis.

Needless to say, Sunagakure is now the stronghold of Uchiha Tou. If it weren't for Uchiha Tou's usurpation, this ninja village would probably only have Pakura as its top-tier power, and its basic ninjas would be continuously weakened.

The last Hidden Mist Village, seemingly not to have participated in the Fourth Shinobi World War, was actually destroyed because Uchiha Touya killed Uchiha Madara. This caused the Three-Tails Jinchuriki, who was under control within the village, to go berserk, and also revealed that the Third Mizukage was being manipulated by genjutsu.

According to the intelligence we've received, the entire Hidden Mist Village is still in a state of chaos.

With none of the major ninja villages wanting to fight, the ninja world naturally gradually returned to peace.

After careful consideration, Uchiha Tou also intended to restore some vitality to the ninja world. Otherwise, if they continued to harvest like this, it would be too much, and even the roots of the leeks would be dug up.

At that time, the ninja world's vitality will likely recover very slowly, and in the long run, the gains will actually be smaller.

"Very well, during this period of peace in the ninja world, I should make some arrangements and acquire some pawns, ideally gaining control of all the major ninja villages!"

Once his plan succeeds, he will be able to control the wars in the ninja world. When the ninja world recovers and the villages, large and small, are fattened up again, he can wield his scythe and harvest them once more.

"Orochimaru-sensei sent me some information a while ago; the Reanimation Jutsu is almost fully developed..."

"But given my teacher's shrewdness and temperament, how could he possibly tell me something so easily that concerns his own life?"

"If I'm not mistaken, it's probably because of that Second Hokage..."

While the Second Hokage and Orochimaru might cooperate briefly due to the Reanimation Jutsu, they could never truly consider each other as one of their own!

Therefore, once the Reanimation Jutsu is completed and the Second Hokage is resurrected, it will inevitably be the moment when the two turn against each other.

In this regard, Uchiha Tobiu really didn't have a high opinion of his cheap teacher. Even though Orochimaru had obtained a lot of information from him and was now stronger than in the original story, he was still probably not good enough to face the true master of forbidden techniques, Tobirama Senju.

Moreover, although there are few ninjas in the entire ninja world who can defeat Orochimaru, there are still some. But the person who can definitely kill Orochimaru, not counting myself, who is overpowered, or a mechanical deity like the Sage of Six Paths, is most likely the Second Hokage.

Just like the saying that magic can only defeat magic, only forbidden techniques can best counter forbidden techniques, and in the entire ninja world, perhaps only the Second Hokage has a talent in this area that surpasses Orochimaru.

Not to mention that the Second Hokage and Orochimaru had studied together for so long, and both of them must have prepared many backup plans. However, judging from how Orochimaru was once controlled by the Second Hokage who was resurrected through Edo Tensei, the Second Hokage's skill level was probably a little higher than Orochimaru's.

"Since this cheap teacher has already left his information, it would be a waste not to go and stir things up."

"It'll be good to observe the resurrection of this Second Hokage... Heh, the latest version of the Reanimation Jutsu, I'm actually quite interested."

……

The Land of Fields, Orochimaru's base.

At this moment, in a hidden laboratory in the base, a cold-looking ninja with a full head of white hair sat in the middle of a room filled with sealing talismans, seemingly resting with his eyes closed.

A faint black aura rose from his body, but was suppressed by endless sealing talismans. A moment later, the ninja opened his eyes, raised his hand, and looked at his palm. The cracks on his palm that were originally from the Impure World Reincarnation technique were now barely visible.

"Second Hokage, you look increasingly radiant!"

A voice tinged with a hint of laughter rang out from the room, and a small white snake emerged from the corner of the room, emitting Orochimaru's voice.

"Why don't you show yourself in your true form? Are you scared, Orochimaru!"

The Second Hokage slowly stood up and spoke in a cold voice.

"I just don't want to have an unnecessary conflict with you... Didn't we cooperate very well when we were conducting the resurrection research?"

"Very well? Do you mean secretly tampering with the original research data, or are you referring to trying to control my Edo Tensei body through the cursed seal?"

"Hehehe... Second Hokage, don't just criticize me! Didn't you deliberately lead me astray in my research, or try to find out the timing of my soul's transformation by checking the research progress?"

Orochimaru's voice remained cold and stern, yet a hint of gritted teeth could still be heard. "I tricked you, but didn't you trick me too? We're both seasoned foxes, what kind of ghost story are you playing on me?"

In truth, if these two hadn't both been geniuses in research and hadn't had profound insights into the soul itself, they might have actually been led astray by each other.

Even though it was supposed to be a collaborative research project, they were quite wary of their partner. Fortunately, their wariness proved to be justified.

Of course, although they were setting traps for each other, they also shared their research without reservation. It was only in this kind of open communication that the traps they set could actually backfire on each other.

Orochimaru knew very well that although the two seemed to be evenly matched in their research, he was actually at a disadvantage. This was because he had started the research on the Reanimation Jutsu and had obtained all the information on the Lich Reincarnation Ritual, while the information he gave to the Second Hokage was only a rough outline with no details.

In this situation, the fact that the Second Hokage could keep up with his research already demonstrates that his research ability was superior to his own.

Orochimaru was amazed by Tobirama Senju's talent, unaware that Tobirama was also secretly surprised. Although Tobirama's research on forbidden techniques filled the entire Book of Sealing, there were actually some even darker forbidden techniques that the Second Hokage had not left in the Book of Sealing.

Just like breaking the curse against the Impure World Reincarnation, the Second Hokage kept it as a backup plan, never showing it to anyone easily, and not even leaving it in the Scroll of Seals, precisely to guard against Konoha rogue ninja like Orochimaru.

Naturally, research in this area is mostly focused on the soul, since what a dead person like him needs to guard against is definitely soul ninjutsu.

The Second Hokage was able to keep up with Orochimaru's research pace for two reasons. Firstly, he had a foundation in researching soul ninjutsu. Secondly, because he was a dead man, he was more professional and relevant to the research on the Lich Reincarnation Ritual than Orochimaru, who was alive.

The Second Hokage didn't respond to Orochimaru's words, only letting out a cold snort.

"Enough with this pointless talk! Orochimaru, are you here to confront me today?"

"It must be the Second Hokage, you can't wait, can you?"

"I genuinely thought you wanted to be resurrected by changing bodies, until recently I realized... you want to use the Impure World Reincarnation technique to directly transform into another form, right!"

Orochimaru had never thought of this before, until recently when he noticed that the traces of the Impure World Reincarnation on Tobirama Senju's body were gradually disappearing, and at the same time, his chakra, which was originally impossible to increase after the Impure World Reincarnation, was also constantly increasing. This made him realize the truth.

The other party doesn't need any container at all; it is already transforming its life form!

Regardless of whether this method constitutes resurrection, Tobirama Senju, after changing his life form, will inevitably be able to overcome the various shortcomings of the Impure World Reincarnation technique, regain the potential to become stronger, and possess the sensory abilities of a living person.

At that point, what difference would it make to Orochimaru if Tobirama Senju were resurrected? Perhaps, with his changed life form, he would become even more troublesome.

The previous one is under review, it will take some time.

(End of this chapter)