By this point in his long, winding path of research had reached an uncomfortable plateau again.
He would never admit stagnation, of course.
But even he felt it.
His greatest breakthroughs were already behind him, each one carved from decades of violation, brilliance, and trial:
The Cursed Seal, his crown jewel of decades-long research.
It was a synthetic mimicry of Jūgo's clan's innate Sage Transformation, which he discovered a long time ago, compressing a fragment of nature's power into a controllable imprint.
Crude at first.
Refined later.
Now capable of amplifying a subject's physical and spiritual output severalfold, if they didn't die in the process.
Most did.
And of course, the seal was never meant only for empowerment.
That was merely the bait, the surface function.
Beneath it lay Orochimaru's true intent.
The seal carved a pathway of influence straight into the user's chakra network, tying them to him in a way subtler and more permanent than external chains.
It made his strongest subordinates easier to control, easier to monitor, easier to nudge, loyal not by conviction but by conditioning embedded in their very chakra.
It also allowed him to test the compatibility of their bodies for future purposes.
A potential vessel candidate, if they proved stable enough.
A potential respawn anchor, should he ever need to abandon a failing form.
A potential backup shell, waiting in the shadows.
Everything canon hinted at, everything implied by his philosophy, all woven into the mark.
To Orochimaru, it was a tagging system, a remote control, a sieve for sorting which organisms were fit to serve as his next body… and which were destined to be discarded.
It was elegant.
Efficient.
And incomplete.
Just like everything else he had mastered so far.
Just like the "Power of the White Snake".
His gradual transformation into something no longer quite human.
Shedding bodies.
Regenerating from chunks of flesh.
Turning poison into breath.
Turning blood into fuel.
A biological ouroboros devouring itself to be reborn stronger.
But even that had limits.
His body-switching technique needed new hosts constantly, and each host degraded faster than he liked.
His other body modifications were also numerous, but even that reached diminishing returns.
There was only so much one could do before a vessel tore itself apart or mutated into uselessness.
His reanimation studies, built on Tobirama's foundation, the notes he had gradually swindled from Hiruzen and Danzō while still in Konoha, had stalled as well.
He could perform Edo Tensei, he could summon them, bind them, weaponize them, but the results were still far from perfect.
The resurrected shinobi were shadows of their peak selves, limited in will, in power, in clarity.
The soul-binding remained incomplete, an equation he only half understood, still full of missing variables he hadn't yet cracked.
His kinjutsu library expanded every year, just like that, yet even so, he felt the horizon narrowing.
By this point, Orochimaru could perform more jutsu than most hidden villages even held in their archives.
For example, additionally, all five elemental natures, Yin, Yang, all kinds of combat forms, medical ninjutsu, curse manipulation, sealing, unsealing, and an entire encyclopedia of techniques stuffed into a single body...
And yet…
He knew it meant nothing.
He could stack a thousand techniques on top of one another, and it would still be the same dead end.
Hammering endlessly on a path that went nowhere.
Because in this world, he had gradually realized a cruel, simple truth:
The true evolution lay in bloodlines.
For example:
Senju.
Uchiha.
No matter how brilliant he was…
No matter how many techniques he acquired…
Without a bloodline of that caliber, he would always lag behind the monsters born into destiny.
He had learned that reality most bitterly from his humiliation at the hands of Uchiha Itachi.
One boy.
Part of the reason why he even lingered in that organisation.
One prodigy of a bloodline as old as chakra itself, which he desired for a long time.
And Orochimaru had been, almost instantly, forced to flee.
Not only from the scene, but from the Akatsuki as well, in the greatest shame of his life.
Not to mention the legendary Rinnegan of the Akatsuki's leader, the one who pressured him to join in the first place.
Orochimaru couldn't even secure the Sharingan from that boy, let alone dream of reaching the heights of those eyes. The venerable eyes once wielded by the Sage of Six Paths.
Technique, brilliance, decades of experience, all useless before a bloodline that bent reality with a glance from that boy.
His ego never forgot that moment.
It was partly why he left Akatsuki without hesitation and began experimenting on his own with renewed urgency, throwing himself into his research en masse with more focus than ever before.
He needed such a bloodline.
He needed a prestigious, ancient lineage, something tied to the very source of chakra itself.
And over time, he began to suspect more and more where those roots truly lay.
Uchiha first, ideally.
After all, for example, the true purest Senju were practically extinct and idealistically self-destructed and assimilated into the wider Konoha civilian pool, and his attempt to replicate their legacy through Hashirama cells had been an outright failure.
Dozens of stolen samples.
Dozens of dead test subjects.
Years of effort.
And all he had produced were unstable tissues that rejected the human body violently.
Only desperate fools like Danzō, his previous 'co-conspirator', clinging to scraps of power, would inject something so volatile into themselves.
Another dead branch from his past.
Another wall he could not climb without the right genetic ladder.
And as for another possible true game-changer, the illustrious Sage Mode, the Snake Sage Arts he glimpsed within Ryūchi Cave, and always felt connected to, even that remained stubbornly out of reach.
Not because he lacked insight or technique, but because neither his original body nor any vessel he stole possessed the necessary vitality or chakra foundation.
No matter how perfect his control or how brilliant his mind, a body without the right bloodline simply could not withstand that power.
Every body he found eventually rotted.
Cracked under the strain.
Proved too weak to hold the weight of true nature energy.
He could prolong his existence, but he could not perfect it.
Not yet.
That was why he needed a true bloodline.
Something that could elevate him beyond human weakness.
Something that could finally match the destiny of the Senju and Uchiha.
Something that would let him break the cycle of fragile vessels and ascend toward the ultimate lifeform he envisioned.
Yet he didn't have enough new pieces.
Not enough new theories.
Not enough fresh mysteries to pry open.
He was circling the same cage.
His immortality was functional, but not elegant.
His power was monstrous, but not absolute.
His techniques were deep, but not yet infinite.
He needed new insights.
New materials.
New directions.
And that was what drew his attention toward the unknown.
He needed something beyond the ordinary, beyond the essentially "fake" serpent form he had crafted for himself so far.
A breakthrough into a new field of evolution, something that could finally let him become the true serpent he envisioned.
Even his experiments on more 'ordinary' kekkei genkai reached a plateau without understanding the genetic mechanisms behind them.
No matter which subordinate or specimen he found, no matter what unique talents or rare genes they possessed, none of them gave him what he sought.
None of them offered anything that could rival the Uchiha.
But these cultists…
They contradicted logic.
They weren't clan heirs.
They weren't Kage-level.
They weren't trained.
Yet something kept them alive beyond reason.
Something not tied to bloodline inheritance.
Something that manipulated souls and bodies together in a way he had never mastered.
Orochimaru's tongue flicked across his lip again as he stared at the tank.
His experiments had reached the edge of existing knowledge.
What he needed now was something alien.
Something uncharted.
A new branch to graft onto his evolutionary tree.
This cult might hold some missing pieces.
And Orochimaru intended to take them.
All the more so because restlessness had been gnawing at him lately.
Hiruzen was getting old, decaying, softening, soon to rot away entirely, and Orochimaru refused to let the old man slip peacefully into death.
He wanted to be the one to end him.
To settle that debt with his own hands before time could steal the satisfaction.
And there was another reason his thoughts kept drifting back toward the Leaf recently.
Konoha was weaker now than at any other point in its history.
A perfect moment to take advantage.
A perfect moment to hunt.
He knew exactly what lay within its walls now.
The "last" Uchiha, among many other things.
After all, if he had failed to take Itachi…
Couldn't he take Sasuke?
The weaker version in his mind.
But he had the same blood.
The same eyes waiting to ripen.
The same potential to bloom into something extraordinary under the right "stressors."
And Orochimaru already had a tether inside Konoha.
Kabuto, his quiet, obedient fox among the hens, was feeding him information constantly.
Everything about the last Uchiha's physical potential and psychological loneliness, quiet resentment, and potential ambition.
A perfect seed.
A perfect candidate for grooming.
A potential vessel crafted by fate itself.
Sasuke Uchiha was already part of his long-term plans.
Already being shaped from afar.
Already walking the path Orochimaru hoped to intercept.
But he needed to be stronger first.
Stronger than he was now.
If he could evolve further before that moment came…
If he could acquire whatever secret this cult was using to alter bodies and souls…
Then both Konoha and its precious heirs, and remaining advanced kinjutsu, would be nothing more than ingredients for his next evolution.
Moreover, he still carried a very personal reason to sink his fangs deep into Konoha next.
After all, he never forgot the humiliation he felt when Hiruzen and the entire village rejected him in favor of their hand-raised golden boy, the idealistic, naive Minato.
A child molded to be obedient.
A face Hiruzen could comfortably control.
Hiruzen's own reputation had plummeted during the Third Shinobi World War, the worst conflict Konoha had ever faced, when every great village turned against them only a few years after the Second War.
He needed to restore stability, authority, and what better way than to place a bright, hopeful puppet like Minato in the Hokage's chair, temporarily?
A puppet who conveniently died soon after, forcing Hiruzen back onto the throne he never truly let go of.
Orochimaru saw through all of it.
He had long grown sick of Hiruzen's hypocrisy, of Konoha's moral theater, of being expected to bow to a village that rewarded idealized masks while discarding the minds that actually pushed the shinobi world forward.
For example, Hiruzen allowed his experiments for years, looking the other way when it suited him, yet maintaining that saintly façade for the village.
Preaching justice, performing morality, pretending to be the benevolent God of Shinobi… yet when the truth finally surfaced, when they stood face to face surrounded by discarded bodies, Hiruzen didn't even dare step forward.
He knew why.
If he pushed too hard, Orochimaru would drag every secret the village buried straight into the light.
All of Konoha's ugliness.
All of Hiruzen's compromises.
All of it exploding outward at once.
Hypocrisy made manifest — and Hiruzen feared that more than Orochimaru's crimes.
And Danzō…
Orochimaru's lips curled faintly at the thought.
Danzō was a different kind of rot, one Orochimaru despised in a far more personal way.
He shared Orochimaru's belief that the ends justified any means — yet lacked the brilliance, the vision, the courage to admit it openly.
A coward who hid his darkest acts behind Root's shadows, pretending it was all for Konoha's sake.
A parasite who meddled in experiments he didn't understand, stole techniques he couldn't master.
Even Kabuto — Orochimaru's most promising spy — was nearly destroyed by Danzō's manipulations, a tool sharpened and abandoned without remorse.
The only reason Kabuto stayed in Konoha undetected now was that Danzō shoved him into the cracks of the system, hiding him under Hiruzen's senile watch.
So, they still maintained a thin thread of cooperation even after all those years — mostly because Danzō was too limited to progress in anything on his own.
To Orochimaru, Danzō was neither a rival nor a partner.
He was a reminder of what happened when ambition lacked genius.
A petty tyrant of shadows, masquerading as a patriot, with none of the talent to justify his cruelty.
Someone Orochimaru would never allow to stand above him.
Or beside him.
Or even in his way.
Just like how he wanted Hiruzen dead.
He wanted Konoha punished for choosing comforting illusions over evolution.
He wanted the village to choke on its own corruption and naivety.
And most of all…
He wanted to watch the world twist and unravel into something more interesting.
"But first things first…"
"Before Konoha. Before Sasuke reaches the right age and ripens enough to walk toward me on his own… before that initial imprint is set…"
"I should uncover what secrets these zealots on Shūmoku Island are hiding right now."
His fingers slid along the tank's glass, his eyes narrowing with a quiet, serpentine anticipation for his next immediate move.