Tetsumaru realized that his obsession with research had inadvertently planted several landmines for himself—no, dozens of them. Specifically, he was referring to the Shadow Clones he had scattered outside last year to maintain the illusion of his daily activities.
Right as he began his leave, a Shadow Clone that had been active for four months straight dispelled itself. The resulting mental backlash left Tetsumaru paralyzed for ten minutes, nearly making him vomit on the spot.
After that, several more clones were forced to disperse as their chakra ran dry. Each time, the sudden influx of memories left him in a pathetic state of exhaustion.
There were exceptions, however. The clones assisting him in the lab had a much smaller impact when they dispelled. This was likely because the information they possessed—experimental data and theories—had already been shared and discussed with the original during the research process.
This proved that the instantaneous return of information was the "divine bug" of the Multi-Shadow Clone Technique, but also its most lethal hazard. Compared to the risk of mental collapse, the much-touted "chakra cost" of the jutsu was trivial.
To use it safely, one either had to be so wise and far-seeing that the clone could return no truly "new" information, or one had to be a total idiot whose clone simply didn't have much to report.
As expected, only a thick-headed powerhouse can truly master the Multi-Shadow Clone Technique, Tetsumaru mused. He swore that, outside of combat, he would never touch the forbidden version of the jutsu again.
He eventually found a workaround: before any clone dispelled, it had to communicate as much as possible with him to lessen the "shock" of unknown information. It helped, but it was still agonizing. He had dug these pits for himself, and now he had to climb out of them, even if it meant doing so with tears in his eyes.
It took him half a month to clear out the clones stationed within the village. However, thinking about the clones he had left in the Land of Wind to search for giant scorpions filled him with dread.
Konoha was currently under lockdown, isolating the interior from the exterior. Without a valid reason, he couldn't leave, and neither could his clones enter. He could only wait in anxious anticipation for those clones to run out of chakra and trigger another mental "explosion."
In the end, he resigned himself to his fate. He had so many "debts" at this point that a few more didn't matter—they weren't likely to kill him.
But Tetsumaru knew there was an even greater hidden danger: the "Super-Landmines." Ever since he had learned the Shadow Clone Technique from Orochimaru, he had sent out clones specifically injected with massive amounts of chakra. These were designed to last a very long time, and so far, not a single one had dispelled.
The earliest batch had been active for over three years. The sheer volume of memory they would return was a terrifying prospect.
But maybe it'll be fine? he thought hopefully. After all, those clones were cast into the distant stars across the Sea of Souls in my dreams.
He couldn't be sure.
Pushing these uncertainties to the back of his mind, Tetsumaru turned his attention to his newly discovered biological sample.
This organism, which he deemed far more important than the Mantis, was a fungal colony. He had found it by accident in his old stone-house laboratory. When he had invited his classmates over to play, he discovered that the insects he had been keeping in the shack had all been devoured by a terrifying fungus, leaving behind nothing but "fuzzy" exoskeleton specimens.
At the time, he hadn't thought much of it, assuming it was just a common mold contamination. He had casually swiped a sample into a Petri dish and disinfected the area with strong alkali before returning to his friends.
That night, when he returned to clean the lab properly, he was shocked to find that the lid of the Petri dish had been pushed open. The fungus had spread from the table directly to the other side of the workbench, tightly wrapping itself around a bottle of culture medium.
Upon closer inspection, Tetsumaru found that the bottle's stopper had also been forced open. Stunned, he conducted a full investigation.
It turned out that the growth on the table was only the tip of the iceberg. Following the trail down the corner, he found the fungus had invaded his waste sink and chemical storage box. Most impressively, it had specifically picked out ammonium bicarbonate, calcium phosphate, and potassium chloride from the box, while carefully avoiding hazardous chemicals like sodium hydroxide and sulfuric acid.
What kind of divine fungus is this? he wondered. It found exactly the energy, water, and minerals it needed. Does it have sensory organs? No... does it have the capacity to think?
Crucially—where did it come from? How did it appear in his lab?
Tension gripped him. He summoned countless Gadflies, ants, and moths to conduct a carpet search of his home and the surrounding five-kilometer radius.
After two days of searching and expanding the perimeter, he finally found the source: the clan's own Sugar Ant Ranch.
When he arrived to investigate, he encountered other Aburame ninjas. It turned out a fungal disease had recently broken out, causing large-scale wilting of the pasture grass, which in turn threatened the production of Ant Sugar.
After talking with his relatives, Tetsumaru quickly confirmed that this new fungus was the culprit.
The Sugar Ant Alliance was deep-rooted and powerful, with annual revenues reaching billions of Ryo. They had zero tolerance for anything that threatened their sugar production.
Under their orders, a massive force of Aburame, Uchiha, and Hyuga ninjas mobilized. The Nara, Akimichi, Yamanaka, Kurama, and Gekko clans also turned out in force to thoroughly disinfect every wild fungal colony found.
With ample manpower, they literally dug three feet into the ground across a ten-kilometer radius. Even the samples Tetsumaru had collected were confiscated and burned to ash.
However, that was only a surface-level eradication. Scientists, by nature, are creatures who flirt with disaster—how else could they express their "scientific spirit"?
Tetsumaru was certain that not only had he kept samples, but the other major clans had also made their own "small moves." Even Orochimaru had personally come to watch the disinfection process. Was he just that bored?
Of course not.
Through his Domain Field Barrier, Tetsumaru had clearly seen a snake underground swallow a wood fragment contaminated with the fungus before vanishing in a puff of white smoke. It was obvious who was behind it.
Currently, the ground beneath Konoha was riddled with "wormholes"—a literal web of tunnels so dense that the shinobi had become aware of them.
Especially after Tetsumaru left for the Land of Rivers, his control over the Mining Zerg had weakened. A small portion of the swarm had naturally succumbed to their instincts for reproduction and survival. Ignoring Tetsumaru's prohibitions, they dug everywhere, even invading various underground secret chambers.
These invasions naturally triggered alarms. Ninjas, including those from the Aburame clan, were dispatched to investigate. However, they couldn't find a root cause; they only dug up piles of worms, scorpions, and mole crickets.
The final conclusion was that Konoha's ecological environment was too healthy and human activity too high, leading to the extinction of certain natural predators. This, in turn, had triggered an "underground insect plague"—a natural phenomenon.
People like Orochimaru and Hiruko, as well as departments like Root, Anbu, and Intelligence, were annoyed by the insects in their tunnels. They used various methods to kill the bugs and fill the holes, but the pests were inexhaustible. No matter how many they killed, the insects would return within a few days.
A year later, everyone had grown accustomed to it. When they saw a bug, they'd simply spray it with pesticide, plug the hole, and move on.
Someone as sharp as Orochimaru didn't just use venomous snakes to kill the insects near his lab; he turned the tables and used the existing wormholes to hide his snakes or move through the underground rapidly.
But such stealth was impossible to hide from the master of the wormholes. Tetsumaru saw every interaction the snake swarms had underground with crystal clarity.
Tetsumaru gave the fungus a name: Physarum polycephalum (Many-headed slime mold). He chose this because the fungus advanced from multiple directions at once. When mature, it grew yellow fuzz and long stalks topped with transparent bubbles.
These bubbles were full of spores used to broadcast its seeds. Once a spore successfully germinated, the main fungal body would spread in that direction.
The name actually came from a fungus in his previous life—one that humans had even used to design city transit maps based on its expansion paths.
Why did Tetsumaru value this fungus so much? To create Creep. All the structures of the Zerg were living beings; they required infrastructure to sustain them. The infrastructure of the Zerg was Creep.
The most basic function of Creep was to serve as a food source for the swarm. It absorbed inorganic matter from the soil and decomposed organic matter, converting it into nutrients for the insects.
If the land was too barren and lacked organic matter, the Creep could act like a plant, performing photosynthesis to produce organic matter, which was then converted into nutrients.
This was exactly the technology Tetsumaru desperately needed. His current Broodmothers were sustained by Sugar Ants and Fuel-Bugs. As the swarm grew and the Broodmothers took on the burden of long-range communication, energy supply had become a massive bottleneck.
To maintain communications, he currently had to strictly limit the scale of the swarm the Broodmother could produce. This was contrary to the very nature of a Zerg swarm. Finding a more efficient food source was an urgent, unavoidable need.
The Katsuyu flesh he had obtained through such effort was intended not only to upgrade his bio-armor but also to see if it could be transformed into Creep. After all, Katsuyu was not just a slug; she was a Sage who mastered Natural Energy. He wondered if she could be developed into an infrastructure that absorbed Natural Energy directly.
However, the biological gap between the two species was too wide. So far, he hadn't even found a starting point, let alone made progress.
This "intelligent" fungus was a godsend. It was a fungus, it clearly fit the Zerg "Creep" aesthetic, and it was smart enough to seek out resources on its own. Its potential was limitless.
Given that this thing was "blacklisted" in Konoha, Tetsumaru chose to conduct his research in a laboratory 1,600 meters underground. This was well beyond the detection range of any sensory method in the village. No matter what he did there, he would remain undetected.
Even if Nagato were to show up one day, lose his temper, and peel back eighteen layers of Konoha's topsoil, this place would remain untouched.
After some research, Tetsumaru discovered that this wasn't a single fungal species, but a composite colony made up of fourteen to twenty different types of fungi.
The reason he couldn't pin down an exact number was that six of the fungi could morph into the others. He couldn't yet tell if they were different forms of the same fungus or two symbiotic species.
The fungal world was far more complex and bizarre than the animal or plant kingdoms. It was common for one fungus to swallow another, leading to a symbiosis where they influenced and supported each other—and just as common for them to suddenly part ways.
These dozen-plus fungi had come together and, under the influence of something unknown, exchanged genetic material and adjusted their attributes. They had formed a rudimentary division of labor, effectively becoming a higher-order life form.
Tetsumaru guessed that a virus was the likely catalyst for this change.
It was even possible that the fungi hadn't exchanged genetic material at all. Instead, this virus had invaded and been recorded into their genomes, much like how chloroplasts once invaded plant cells. The virus acted as a common denominator, stringing these separate fungi into a single entity.
The process of functional differentiation within the colony was progressing rapidly, giving the fungal mass movement capabilities that far exceeded single-celled organisms. Its reaction to the environment was becoming stronger and faster.
Consequently, the colony's demand for energy was growing, which gave Tetsumaru his opening.
He began feeding the colony culture medium mixed with Mantis tissue, gradually training it to accept this food source and adapt its digestive enzymes to decompose Zerg tissue.
Over time, he stopped providing culture medium entirely, offering only biological tissue. The colony eventually evolved a dietary preference for Zerg biomass.
Everything has two sides. Once the fungal colony adapted to Zerg meat as food, it conversely became edible for the Zerg.
With this step, the first phase of Creep development was complete. Tetsumaru was now certain: this was exactly what he wanted.
Immediately, the four Shadow Clones in the "Katsuyu Research Group" halted the project to turn her into Creep, pivoting instead to focus entirely on the "Strong-Colonization" (Guyver-style) of Katsuyu cells for bio-armor.
The next step was to induce the fungal colony to accept a broader diet. He had to constantly cross-breed various fungi into the mix to expand the menu: meat, skin, blood, leaves, grass, wood, and other fungi.
During this process, countless mutants were produced. Most perished due to genetic collapse. Others became weak or underwent mutations that made them toxic to the Mantis.
These were failed experiments and were promptly destroyed.
The colonies that successfully adapted to new foods without negative mutations were the minority of minorities. Every success made Tetsumaru ecstatic.
As time passed, Tetsumaru obtained fourteen successful fungal colonies. The final stage was to cross-breed these strains to obtain a "Super Colony" compatible with all food sources.
This process would be filled with failure, disappointment, and frustration. It would consume an unquantifiable amount of time. But once finished, Tetsumaru would have the "Base Model" of a true Zerg Creep.
The "Complete Version" of the Creep would eventually need to provide medical healing for the swarm, power for Zerg structures, and provide cover or interference against enemies during combat. Its diet would need to include all organic matter, and at its lower limit, it would need to digest coal and oil while maintaining photosynthetic self-sufficiency.
But Tetsumaru didn't need to do this manually anymore. He handed the task to his Shadow Clones. Besides, he didn't have the time to keep burying his head in research.
A new mission had been issued by the Hokage. After bouncing through several departments, it finally landed on his desk.
However, Tetsumaru wasn't being drafted into a legion or sent on a standard ninja mission. He was being sent to a long-term station away from the village to protect Konoha's assets.
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