With the successive defeat of Shisui, Shinichi, and Hiiragi the information that was initially limited to the Uchiha was now talk of the village. Once the news of Uchiha's successive failure spread, other ninjas also joined the discussion.

At night. ​​

After finishing with the dishes, Yue asked Kuroto with a little hesitation: "Kuroto-Kun, are the rumor going around true?"

Kuroto who was still busy thinking about compounding poison, absentmindedly asked, "What rumors?"

Yue asked anxiously, "About you and the Uchiha!?"

"Oh, that's what you are asking?" With a slight smile, Kuroto nodded, "Well, the Uchiha Clan did send someone to challenge me, but I defeated them."

However, contrary to what Kuroto expected, Yue didn't seem impressed but said with a more worried look, "Nothing good will come in angering the Uchiha, let's not provoke them, okay?"

Kuroto was taken aback by Yue's words and looked at her strangely

Seeing the strange look, she was getting, Yue asked carefully, "Did I say something wrong?"

Kuroto shook his head and reassured Yue with a little petting.

However, he was indeed surprised just now. He really didn't expect that even Yue being a member of the Hyuga Clan, another one of the major clans of Konoha, would be so afraid of the Uchiha. This shows what kind of attitude ordinary ninjas have towards the Uchiha.

It wouldn't be wrong to say that the Uchiha have been completely separated even from the hearts of villagers.

And thinking of this Kuroto couldn't help but feel a little gloomy.

For Kuroto, the Uchiha aren't just a stepping stone to increase his fame, but also a magnet to attract all sorts of attention. As long as there is the Uchiha Clan, whether the Hokage-sama, Shimura Danzo, or Obito hidden behind the scenes will have their attention directed towards the Uchiha Clan.

But once the Uchiha Clan is gone, God knows who will become the target of their attention.

Therefore, for his own benefit, Kuroto can't allow the Uchiha Clan to disappear, at least not before his personal strength reaches the level of a Kage.

What's more, Kuroto has also been thinking about the artifacts 'Sword of Totsuka' and 'Yata Mirror'.

Orochimaru, whose strength is probably on the same level as a tailed beast while using the 'Eight Branches Technique', was so easily sealed by Itachi, using 'Sword of Totsuka'.

During the entire confrontation, Orochimaru couldn't even fight back and was suppressed so easily and neatly.

Therefore, Kuroto has a very high impression of these two artifacts.

He has two speculations about these two artifacts.

According to the first: the two artifacts, 'Sword of Totsuka' and 'Yata Mirror' are just unique abilities of Itachi's Susanoo. If this is the case then they would be part of Itachi's chakra and can't exist separate from him.

In the second case, these are spiritual artifacts in a chakra state, because of this, he can use both of them while using Susanoo.

And according to Kuroto's guess, the second possibility is more likely to be correct, because when Itachi used 'Sword of Totsuka' and 'Yata Mirror', both Orochimaru and Zetsu not only clearly recognized the artifacts but were also aware of some of their abilities.

Based on this information alone, it can be judged that the two artifacts have existed in the Shinobi World since long ago, otherwise, it would be impossible for both Orochimaru and Zetsu to know the details of these artifacts even when Itachi used them for the first time.

It simply doesn't make sense.

Of course, before the official appearance of these two artifacts, all these are just Kuroto's speculations.

As for where these artifacts may be hidden?

Kuroto has considered it a lot, but his conclusion is that whether the first possibility is correct or the second, the task of finding both the artifacts should be left into Itachi's hands.

Because the fact that even Orochimaru with such a deep understanding of Shinobi World, and even after searching for so many years has not been able to find them just goes to show that they are hidden in some special place.

Kuroto even suspects that the clues about their whereabouts might be hidden somewhere within the Uchiha Clan, and Itachi might have found those clues after exterminating the entire clan.

However, Itachi is still too young, so Kuroto can only put aside this thought for a while. After all, it's not like anyone would be able to get their hands on the two artifacts for the next decade, and Kuroto's immediate priority is the artificial tailed beast plan.

As long as he has enough Chakra support, Kuroto can not only further explore the superior abilities of the Tenseigan but also confidently and boldly learn a variety of other 'Secret Techniques' and 'Kinjutsu'.

…

The next day, Kuroto came to the Death Forest as usual.

After a series of regular failures, the 18th trial sample of the paralytic poison he prepared finally showed some results.

As soon as the baby boar ate the meat piece containing the poison, it started showing signs of weariness, and after struggling a few times, it fell on the ground.

However, the baby boar was back to normal in just about 5 to 6 minutes which greatly annoyed Kuroto but he was still satisfied with this result.

As in a battle between shinobi, not to mention 5 to 6 minutes, even 1 to 2 seconds is more than enough to decide life and death, just a momentary flaw could be fatal.

Therefore, he was satisfied and smiled slightly seeing the success.

Previously he has been using the powder of crushed wings of tussock moths. Although they have a large number, their toxicity is less, so he decided to use the tussock moth King for the 18th sample, their numbers are less, they have a high toxicity.

And reduced the proportion of giant red ant's venom because it was acting as an inhibitor for the toxicity.

By making these two changes and adjusting the compounding process accordingly, although the activity of the resultant poison decreased from 3 days to 1 day, its toxicity has increased. And the poisoning effect of a poison is what's more important for him.

Content with the results just as he was beginning to record the data of his experiments while thinking about how to further improve the poison and how to prepare an antidote, a figure appeared on the big tree in front of him.

"Hyuga Kuroto! Hokage sama has summoned you urgently!"

Even before Kuroto could nod, after leaving such a sentence the Anbu ninja left in a hurry. It seems he still has the task of informing other Shinobi of the urgent summon from Hokage-sama.

Kuroto put away the notebook with a thoughtful look, "The half-month vacation isn't over yet, so how come Hokage-sama has summoned? Is it because Rock Village has started taking some actions?"

The reason why Kuroto was developing the Poisons for the past few days is that he was worried that the Rock Village would attack Konoha under the pretext of destroying their Beheading Unit.

Konoha has lost Yondaime-sama, 2nd Generation Kyuubi's Jinchuriki, and Orochimaru, so it no longer has the same deterrence effect of the third Shinobi World War, therefore it wouldn't be strange for Rock Village to try to utilize this opportunity.

In this scenario, even if there is no war, small scale conflicts are inevitable, and as a member of the Anbu Black Ops directly under Hokage-sama, Kuroto has to participate in the frontline battle, so there is a serious urgency for him to improve his strength as soon as possible…

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