"What are you talking about?" Orochimaru asked, genuinely confused. He was struggling to follow Shin's rapid shift in tone.
"I appreciate that you helped Tsunade and me understand each other better," Shin said, instantly activating his three-tomoe Sharingan. "But I don't appreciate you using her as a tool in your schemes."
"Please calm down," Orochimaru said quickly, raising his hands. "We should be discussing the research opportunity—"
"We'll get to the research after I've made my point," Shin cut him off, his expression darkening. "Start running. Find someplace public, it might hurt less."
Without further warning, Shin's fist connected with Orochimaru's face, the impact sending him crashing through the nearest wall and out into the street.
Before Orochimaru could even regain his bearings, Shin was there again, landing another solid blow to the opposite side of his face, launching him further down the road.
The commotion from the fight immediately attracted attention from nearby people. It was already a bustling area, and soon a crowd gathered to watch the spectacle.
Orochimaru didn't fight back at all, letting Shin attack him freely. If taking a beating could get Shin to join his research team, he really didn't mind. After all, Shin wouldn't kill him, and if he was seriously injured, he'd probably heal him anyway.
Despite his later reputation, at this point in his life Orochimaru wasn't yet fully committed to his darker path, but his single-minded devotion to scientific discovery was already firmly established. And since he had indeed manipulated Tsunade to influence Shin, he could hardly claim innocence.
After sending Orochimaru flying once more, Shin vanished completely, reappearing instantly in Orochimaru's trajectory. With a calculated kick, he sent the pale-skinned ninja tumbling in the opposite direction, only to appear directly in his path once again.
The display left onlookers stunned, particularly the ninjas among them who recognized the impossibility of what they were seeing.
"Stop this immediately!" A squad of ninja arrived moments later, moving to intervene.
With a flash that didn't even blur, Shin simply appeared beside Tsunade, as though he'd been standing there all along.
Orochimaru picked himself up, checking for serious injuries and finding none. As he dusted himself off, he suddenly understood what Shin was trying to do.
Shin looked fierce while hitting him earlier, but every blow had been held back. So he was using this as an excuse, to create an opportunity to demonstrate the Flying Thunder God Technique in front of witnesses.
This was likely a prelude to a confrontation with Konoha's leadership.
Though perhaps "Flying Thunder God" wasn't even the right term anymore. What Shin was doing appeared to be true teleportation, not dependent on formula marks. Still, Shin continued to call it Flying Thunder God out of convenience.
A month earlier, while experimenting with combining his past knowledge with the Flying Thunder God Technique, Shin had experienced a breakthrough moment when he suddenly transported himself a meter from his original position without any preparation.
In that moment, he'd heard the system notification.
[Mastery of Flying Thunder God exceeds Tobirama's. Reward: 1000 Research Points!]
Since receiving the system, Shin had understood that Tobirama's talent could be enhanced, but upgrades required 10,000 research points, which could only be earned by surpassing Tobirama's achievements. This advancement of the Flying Thunder God marked his first acquisition of research points, filling him with excitement.
He had no doubt that he would surpass Tobirama in many areas in the future. After all, the Second Hokage had only a little time each day to devote to research, and his main focus was ninjutsu. Even with Hashirama constantly suppressing him, Tobirama still achieved what he did.
Shin, on the other hand, had far more time than Tobirama, and his research scope wasn't limited to ninjutsu, and no one was suppressing him. If he couldn't surpass Tobirama with the same talent, more time, and better conditions, wouldn't that make him worthless?
As for the advancement of the Flying Thunder God, it actually wasn't that complicated. Many people knew how powerful the Flying Thunder God Technique was, but very few understood its underlying principles.
Shin was likely the only person alive who knew the fundamental theory behind the Flying Thunder God Technique. Before the Tobirama created the Flying Thunder God, there was only one ninjutsu in the entire shinobi world that allowed spatial teleportation.
That was the Summoning Jutsu.
But most people only cared about whether the summoned beast was strong, few ever pondered how a summoning beast could be instantly brought across space-time. Maybe some have thought about the question, but none could really make sense of it.
The only person who truly figured it out was Tobirama. And now, that included Shin.
No one knew who invented the Summoning Jutsu. But Shin greatly admired that person, he was even in awe of them, thinking them a genius beyond comprehension.
A legendary space-time ninjutsu!
And yet it had been simplified to the point where any ninja could learn it, it had become utterly commonplace. But because it had been oversimplified, there was no way to glean any knowledge about space-time techniques directly from the Summoning Jutsu.
Of course, that only applied to ordinary people, geniuses like Tobirama were exceptions.
A long time ago, the cunning Tobirama thought: if performing the Summoning Jutsu allows for teleportation between the summoner and the summoned beast across space, then maybe by studying it in reverse, he could uncover the principles of spatial travel.
Building on that line of thought, Tobirama began to grasp some of the secrets behind space-time transmission, and from there created the Flying Thunder God Technique.
When a ninja used the Summoning Jutsu, they treated themselves and the summoned beast as two spatial nodes. By using a contract scroll, they temporarily opened a time-space channel between these two spatial points, enabling instant teleportation across dimensions.
At one point, the calculating Tobirama had a wild idea: what if he could combine the Summoning Jutsu with Reverse Summoning, and summon himself, could he then teleport freely?
It sounded simple, but the idea was a paradox in itself.
Summoning oneself would be like trying to lift yourself off the ground by pulling your own feet, a complete violation of the rules of space-time.
First of all, a person can't sign a summoning contract with themselves to become their own summoned beast.
Secondly, even if such a rule didn't exist, if someone could indeed sign a contract with themselves and summon themselves, trying to summon oneself from the same space into the same space, but at different time points, would cause space to collapse and annihilate itself.
Let alone successfully summoning oneself, the user would be instantly devoured by the void and cease to exist. But Tobirama wasn't someone who gave up easily. He began by thoroughly analyzing both the Summoning and Reverse Summoning techniques. Over a long period, he carefully unraveled the basic principle behind how the Summoning Jutsu connected two spatial nodes for transmission.
With that, Tobirama bypassed the limitations of Summoning Jutsu entirely. Using this principle, he developed a method for connecting two spatial nodes and establishing a transmission channel between them. During this process, Tobirama constantly experimented using physical objects.
He started with small, hard items, like kunai and shuriken. Once he succeeded in teleporting those, he gradually moved on to larger and softer materials.
Then he tested on small animals. Finally, he tried it on humans, and ultimately, on himself. This process was extremely time-consuming, taking Tobirama several years.
Through countless experiments and constant refinements, he eventually created the Flying Thunder God Technique, allowing him to move freely across space.
No doubt about it, he was a monster of a genius.
Tobirama created it from scratch in just a few years.
But in essence, the the Flying Thunder God Technique was actually quite simple.
Just like the hand seals used in ninjutsu, those were also simple in principle. But if you couldn't smoothly channel your chakra while forming the seals, then no matter how fast your hand signs were, it was pointless.
It was like before he transmigrated, Shin already knew many types of hand signs for various jutsu and could perform them flashily, but what use was it?
So, mastering the Flying Thunder God and actually being able to use the Flying Thunder God were worlds apart, more than a hundred thousand miles.
First of all, to learn the Flying Thunder God Technique, one needed an extremely sharp sense of spatial awareness, only then could they perceive the existence of spatial channels.
Secondly, at one spatial node, you had to be able to perceive the presence of another node through the channel. And you also had to be able to pass through the spatial tunnel and control the Flying Thunder God at the other node.
Third, once you'd achieved the above two points, you could trigger the mark and teleport instantly through space. But even the slightest mistake in this process could lead to anything from broken limbs to being completely obliterated.
So the very first prerequisite for learning the Flying Thunder God Technique was that you had to be a sensory-type ninja with an exceptionally high natural talent for perception, in order to train and eventually perceive space itself.
Both Tobirama and Minato possessed this rare quality.
Otherwise, after years of training without even being able to sense space, trying to learn the Flying Thunder God was a joke.
"Fuck the Flying Thunder God" was once a popular phrase. Because quite a few people wanted to learn the technique.
Before a bunch of talented individuals died trying to learn it, Hashirama and Tobirama didn't impose strict restrictions on Konoha ninjas who wanted to attempt it. But after some time, almost everyone would curse in private, because they couldn't even get past the first step.
That first requirement alone, having a spatial perception talent that was one in a thousand even among sensory ninja, was basically setting people up for failure.
Sensory ninjas were already rare, and you had to be the top among them.
Across the entire shiinobi world, the number of people who met just this requirement probably didn't exceed ten. You could say it was one in ten thousand. But that was still not enough. In addition to incredible perception, mastering the Flying Thunder God also demanded extremely precise chakra control.
That was a hard requirement for both talent and strength. The key to performing any ninjutsu lay in chakra control.
Same went for learning the Flying Thunder God, without that, you couldn't activate the mark at the other end of the spatial node.
The greater one's chakra control, the more powerful the jutsu, and the less chakra it consumed. Throughout ninja history, anyone with this level of chakra control had always been someone with top-tier talent and strength.
Think that was enough? Heh, not even close! Even if you met the above two conditions, there was one more ironclad requirement: unparalleled reaction speed.
Selection standard?
Take ten thousand ninjas, whoever had the fastest reaction speed among them likely met the Flying Thunder God entry criteria. Because during spatial teleportation, danger lurked everywhere. If your reflexes weren't fast enough, you wouldn't even know how you died.
Top one-in-ten-thousand in perception, top one-in-a-thousand in talent and strength, top one-in-ten-thousand in reaction speed, how many people in the world could qualify?
Some might ask, "Isn't that just making things impossible?" Exactly, it was making things impossible. Otherwise, why would it be that after decades in the shinobi world, only two people had ever mastered the Flying Thunder God?
Keep in mind, the Flying Thunder God Technique of Konoha wasn't some well-kept secret. Plenty of people had seen it, and it even leaked out. Tobirama's performance alone made countless people envious. And then Minato's Yellow Flash dazzled the entire ninja world.
Many villages tried all kinds of methods to get their hands on the technique. But in the end, even after decades of research, Kumogakure couldn't produce a single user. All they managed was a nerfed version called the Heavenly Transfer Technique. And even so, they were still the only village among all the ninja villages to gain anything at all, every other village didn't figure out a single thing.
Of course, aside from the "evil" Tobirama and the "adorable" Minato, there was one more person who not only met the requirements but even exceeded them.
That was Shin.
Over the past seven years, he had already thoroughly researched and understood the principles behind the Flying Thunder God Technique. He even worked out the Flying Thunder God mark himself, the only thing he lacked was actual practice.
However, he had been mentally simulating the Flying Thunder God Technique in his mind for a long time. So once he finally got the chance to start real training, his progress was lightning fast: he grasped the basics within a month, mastered the second stage in two months, and reached the third stage in three.
Tobirama's incredible talent wasn't just for show, and seven years of study wasn't an empty boast. That was also why Shin was so excited after forming a contract with Shikkotsu Forest.
It wasn't just that he could finally begin training, it also meant he could directly experience spatial fluctuations and teleportation.
Three years ago, after fully understanding the principles of the Flying Thunder God Technique, Shin had a bold idea: What if it were possible to open another spatial node without relying on the Flying Thunder God mark as a medium?
Over the years, he had entertained this idea many times. After mastering the second stage of the Flying Thunder God Technique, he gave it a try, and to his surprise, he actually succeeded. Unfortunately, forcibly opening a second spatial node was extremely difficult, it could only be done within a very close range.
Currently, his teleportation limit was about 100 meters. Any farther than that, and it didn't work. In practical terms, his technique functioned more like a faster, harder-to-detect, and longer-range version of the Body Flicker Technique.
In Shin's own view, it was a bit flashy but not very practical, more of a bluffing tool. Of course, that was just his personal opinion. If anyone else heard that, they'd probably grab him by the throat and scream, "Say that again!"
In reality, even if the teleportation range maxed out at 100 meters, that would still be incredibly useful in battle. Because the traditional Flying Thunder God required a pre-placed mark to teleport.
But Shin's newly invented version allowed him to teleport to any location within a certain range at will. Once applied in combat, its potential was beyond imagination.
---
"Shin, do you even know what you're doing?" The surrounding ninjas, having arrived on the scene, encircled him angrily, clearly ready to strike.
"This was my fault." Orochimaru stepped forward at this moment and explained, "I provoked Shin unnecessarily, his response was only natural given my behavior."
He gestured at himself. "As you can see, I'm unharmed. I'll personally cover any damages to village property. I ask for your understanding in this matter."
The ninja who had just confronted Shin found himself momentarily without response.
What else could he say?
The person who was attacked was stepping in to plead for Shin, admitting it was his own fault and offering to pay compensation. It would be unreasonable to keep pressing the issue.
Not to mention, the one asking for leniency was none other than Orochimaru, the Third Hokage's favorite disciple.
"Ahem…" The leading ninja cleared his throat and asked, "Orochimaru-sama, are you sure you're alright?"
"What could possibly be wrong?" Orochimaru replied, then turned to Shin and sincerely said in front of everyone, "I was in the wrong earlier. I apologize for my behavior."
He glanced meaningfully at the civilian onlookers gathering nearby. "However, we've drawn quite an audience. It would be unfortunate if someone were harmed. Perhaps we could continue this conversation privately? I promise to provide a satisfactory explanation."