The next day, the sky was clear, without a cloud in sight, and the sun was good.
But the underground lab was as dark as ever.
Orochimaru sat under a hanging lamp, flipping through files about the Edo Tensei developed by Tobirama Senju. His gold eyes shone in the darkness.
Edo Tensei, as a forbidden technique to summon the souls of the dead to fight, can be divided into three steps, according to Orochimaru:
Use part of the dead person's body as a way to connect with the soul in the afterlife,
Make a living person's body into a container for the soul,
And control the reanimated body to fight.
The hardest part is the second step, as the quality of the container directly determines how much power the soul can use from its past life. The most important is the third step. If you can't control the summoned reanimated body, the forbidden technique can't be considered successful.
But for Orochimaru right now, the last two aren't important. After all, he doesn't really want to use Edo Tensei.
Looking just at the first step of Edo Tensei, it's clearly a very advanced Summoning Technique.
Under the dim light, Orochimaru licked his lips and sorted out all the content related to the first step from Tobirama's files, putting it into one document.
After putting the other files into a scroll, Orochimaru picked up this sorted document and read it carefully.
In the ninja world, Summoning Technique is the simplest and most common space-time ninjutsu. Even Guy can learn it to summon animals or ninja tools.
The hand signs are simple, in the order of Boar, Dog, Rooster, Monkey, Sheep, but when you get down to it, there are other types depending on the way or the thing being summoned.
One type is the Blood Contract. As the name suggests, blood is used as a way to sign a contract with a creature, allowing it to be summoned when needed.
Another type is Tool Summoning. Orochimaru himself can summon 'Multiple Impure Resurrection Gates' for defense. It's said that among the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist, some people have signed contracts with special scrolls to summon the seven swords.
Another type is the Sacred Ground Contract. The people of the Three Great Sacred Grounds leave chakra on a special scroll. As long as a ninja leaves a blood contract on the scroll, they can summon any animal that left chakra on the scroll, based on their needs.
Sacred Ground Contracts are very advanced two-way contracts, a more advanced way to use Blood Contracts and Tool Summoning.
Jiraiya's contract with Mount Myōboku is this type.
He heard that Ryūchi Cave also has this type of scroll, but Orochimaru has never seen it. He signed the most ordinary Blood Contract.
Orochimaru personally went to Ryūchi Cave to find Manda and his followers, beating them all up to get them as summoning animals.
Even then, Manda, relying on the protection of the White Snake Sage, still often disobeyed him, demanding sacrifices and refusing to work for free.
In short, Summoning Technique has both high limits and low limits. It can even be combined with sealing techniques. For example, during the Nine-Tailed Fox attack, Minato's 'Dead Demon Consuming Seal' also included part of Summoning Technique.
However, although the types and difficulty seem different, they can actually be put into one type.
That is, summoning something by using its chakra as a way.
This also applies to Tool Summoning. Although the tools themselves don't have chakra, there are sealing techniques that can mark them with chakra, which isn't a problem for a sealing technique master. …
But the simplest is also the hardest, such as 'Human Summoning'. Few in the ninja world can do it. This requires very precise chakra control.
But this isn't a problem for Orochimaru. He's one of the very few who can do it.
Now, comparing it with the Summoning Technique in Edo Tensei, he quickly filled in the knowledge about the afterlife.
Time passed quickly, and several days went by.
Using Tobirama's technique as a sample, Orochimaru developed a Summoning Technique specifically for summoning souls from the afterlife.
"Next, it's time to try it out."
After thinking for a moment, Orochimaru took out a body from another scroll.
He specifically asked the intelligence unit for this, a waste product whose brain had already been squeezed dry for information.
"Hiss…"
The blade cut off a small piece of flesh, which Orochimaru placed on a special summoning scroll. He formed hand signs, "Summoning Technique!"
Black patterns spread out from his feet to the surrounding area, and white smoke came out from the center of the array.
However, when the white smoke cleared, there was nothing in front of him.
"Did I fail?"
Orochimaru frowned slightly, but the genie projecting from his back said with certainty, "No, you succeeded."
As soon as he spoke, a see-through body appeared in front of Orochimaru. With the view shared by the genie, he clearly saw a soul with a confused look, whose face was exactly the same as the body under his feet.
The genie reminded him, "Don't just stand there. The power of the summoning contract is fading. Soon, his soul will be sucked back into the afterlife."
Orochimaru stopped observing and quickly formed hand signs, "Four Symbols Seal!"
Black patterns covered his entire arm. Orochimaru reached out his hand. The chakra soul that was originally without shape or form now seemed to be bound, being trapped into another special scroll.
"Phew…"
After completing all the summoning steps in order, Orochimaru let out a soft breath.
Behind him, the genie reached out, ignored the limits of the seal, and dove into the scroll. After looking at it carefully for a moment, he then returned.
The genie nodded, "This guy's still here. The seal isolated the afterlife's pull on the soul, just as you expected."
Orochimaru licked his lips, not happy because he succeeded on his first try.
This was the result of his many years of studying Summoning Technique, and with the Second Hokage's research as a reference, it was only natural that he should succeed. It would be surprising if he failed.
What came next was the main point.
Orochimaru looked at the sealing scroll, his eyes gradually becoming cold and indifferent.
He bit his fingertip, once again cutting off part of his chakra soul, and drew a cursed seal on the other side of the scroll.
After the cursed seal stabilized, Orochimaru released the previous Four Symbols Seal, sealing the summoned chakra soul and the cursed seal together.
After all this was done, Orochimaru finally let out a breath of stale air.
Next, he would wait for the cursed seal to finish invading the soul, then release the Four Symbols Seal.
That way, part of his soul could sneak into the afterlife by hitching a ride.
And the plan after that would depend on what he saw in the afterlife.
"Although it sounds like I'm saying this after the fact, I still have to say, what you're doing is way too risky."
The genie looked at the sealing technique that had closed up again and clicked his tongue.
It hadn't been long since Orochimaru had finished collecting the cursed seals, and now he was splitting them again. And unlike before, he could now clearly see the result of splitting his soul.
"The First Hokage's soul is floating in the afterlife. You're just a small piece. The chance of falling asleep is very high. If it's destroyed by the power of the afterlife, that's a permanent loss. It's not as hard to heal as a normal wound."
"I'll consider this cursed seal destroyed when it's separated."
Orochimaru looked at the genie, his eyes cold and indifferent, and a cruel determination appeared at the corner of his mouth.
"As long as I can get enough information, it's worth it."
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