"Why do you want to graduate early all of a sudden?" Nagasawa asked in confusion.
As usual, he was preparing to train Itachi today while shaping his moral values. However, he suddenly heard Itachi say that he wanted to graduate early.
"It's like this..." Itachi explained the incident that happened today, where his Shadow Clone was discovered.
"You use Shadow Clones to attend the Academy..." Nagasawa stroked his chin.
On the surface, sending Shadow Clones to school seemed like disrespecting the Academy's rules and teachers. However, in reality, all the experiences and memories of Shadow Clones would return to the user, as if Itachi himself attended the Academy.
But no matter how you looked at it, Itachi definitely would have a problem after this.
However, everyone should be too focused on the fact that a first-year like Itachi had learned a B-rank Ninjutsu like Shadow Clone.
After all, strength and talent were what people cared about the most in this world.
"I suggest continuing your study until you at least finish the first grade. But if you really want to graduate now, I can help you to take the assessment," Nagasawa said after thinking it over.
Although he felt that Itachi should have fun in Academy, he also respected Itachi's opinion. If Itachi insisted on graduating, he would assist in applying for early graduation.
In fact, this matter was quite simple because the school's principal was none other than Hiruzen Sarutobi.
All he had to do was go to the Hokage Building and talk to the Third Hokage.
With Itachi's abilities, he could easily pass the assessment.
"In that case, I'll make sure to finish this semester first before graduating," Itachi eventually replied.
It was already July, and there was only about a month left until the end of this semester.
Since it was almost over, Itachi decided to see this semester through before taking the graduation assessment.
However, he would still use Shadow Clones to attend classes.
The things taught at the Academy were too simple. Itachi believed that attending hi to relax once a week was enough, coming more often would be a waste of time.
"Well, if you say so," Nagasawa smiled and began today's lesson.
...
One day, while eating dumplings at home and studying the differences between the Sage Modes from three Sage Regions, a small snake slithered into Nagasawa's house.
The snake approached Nagasawa and spewed out a message.
There weren't many words on the message. All it said was: "Come to the base."
Nagasawa casually burned the message and finished his dumplings before heading to Orochimaru's underground base.
Earlier, Orochimaru had mentioned that he was in need of experimental subjects, so Nagasawa sent a Shadow Clone out the day before to capture two groups of bandits from a remote area and deliver them to Orochimaru.
This time, Orochimaru's messenger snake was notifying him about the progress in the Sharingan experiment. There might be a brand-new Mangekyo Sharingan that was awakened in the laboratory.
When Nagasawa arrived at Orochimaru's base, Orochimaru had a smile on his face, indicating that things were going well.
"You seem to be in a good mood, Orochimaru. I suppose the experiments are making progress?" Nagasawa asked with a smile.
Orochimaru nodded and said:
"Yes, there was a minor setback, but fortunately, the number of experimental subjects you sent was sufficient. The Soul-Transferring Technique is a success. Now, we can proceed with some of our ideas."
Orochimaru pointed to a two meter-tall tube nearby, "The body inside has matured. Next, I will implant the Mangekyo Sharingan to him, and then transfer the soul of the experimental subject into the artificial human."
Orochimaru then opened the tube, and then a black snake came out from Orochimaru's sleeve and dragged the artificial human into a surgical table.
The surgical table was vertical and had two sides.
Orochimaru placed the artificial human on one side of the surgical table, then had his snake bring an experimental subject to the other side of the surgical table.
Next, Orochimaru's head extended, and he bit both the artificial human and the experimental subject on their necks.
The experimental subject had awakened due to being dragged around by the snake, but he was still too weak to resist, so he couldn't do anything when Orochimaru bit his neck.
A seal quickly emerged at the part that Orochimaru had bitten.
"Soul-Transferring Jutsu!" Orochimaru rapidly made hand seals and used a technique he had developed to move one's soul to another body.
Developing such a technique wasn't simple for him, but it progressed relatively quickly because he had previously thought of a similar Forbidden Technique that was related to Soul Transfer.
"It's not Summoning: Impure World Reincarnation," Nagasawa thought at the beginning, but then he found it wasn't that surprising.
After all, Summoning: Impure World Reincarnation forced the soul of the dead to occupy someone else's body, while Orochimaru's technique involved swapping souls.
However, because Orochimaru deliberately created artificial humans without souls or consciousness, it was essentially just transferring the soul of the experimental subject into the artificial human's body.
After a moment, the artificial human opened his eyes with a face filled with fear. On the other hand, the experimental subject closed his eyes.
"You've developed an impressive technique," Nagasawa praised.
"It's not as impressive as you think. There are too many restrictions. Currently, it's only useful for experiments," Orochimaru replied with a sinister smile.
"Now, we can proceed with the actual experiment," Orochimaru said, shifting his focus to the artificial human.
This artificial human was not to be underestimated. In addition to being created with Uchiha genes, Orochimaru had also implanted Hashirama Cells into it.
Nagasawa had mentioned to Orochimaru before that the Mangekyo Sharingan was a powerful Eye Technique, and it required something to balance it out.
Currently, in Konoha, except for Kakashi, almost all Mangekyo Sharingan users had awakened it after witnessing the death of someone important, resulting in intense negative emotions.
Therefore, Orochimaru speculated that the awakening of the Mangekyo Sharingan was related to the power of emotions.
Due to the fact that almost all powers were driven by negative emotions, Orochimaru made an additional assumption that negative emotions were more effective in enhancing the Mangekyo Sharingan's power.
Of course, there were other requirements to awaken Mangekyo Sharingan in addition to the power of emotions such as mastering Sharingan to a certain extent, being skilled enough, and possessed a good enough Chakra control.
However, Orochimaru believed that his artificial human had met all the basic conditions.
All it needed was the negative emotion, and then Orochimaru would get the answer whether his hypothesis was right or wrong.
"You can at least relax in your last moment." Orochimaru made hand seals, and the curse seal on the artificial human's neck activated, causing the artificial human to faint.
Next, Orochimaru would show it the pain that it couldn't imagine.