I've made my decision

Check out the relationship tracker in the auxiliary chapter to get an idea of how Kotaro's relationship is with other people and of some new perks he has won.

If some people seem a bit out of character, take note that they have spent more than two years in a different world, with different people.

Hope you enjoy ; )

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Of all these options, the research one is an easy choice to forget.

True, I was academically inclined in my past, I even have three doctorates, but they were related to either business management or psychology.

I never liked the science mumbo-jumbo.

Now with that one out of the window, I can choose between things I like to do.

If I were to prioritize the remaining alternatives, becoming the shadow emperor of the Star Dou Empire is more important for the current me.

As a Gamer, my growth speed is unprecedented. Even if you don't take my starting points in account, my stat gain alone is worth a Spirit Emperor.

In three years of a loose training regime, I have acquired the same strength that the protagonist of the series took almost twenty years of back-breaking hard work to reach.

That's the Game for you. It doesn't care about the norms and plot armor.

The moment you have been chosen as its player, EVERYTHING is your playground.

But that said, it's not a good idea to just leave my own power behind and take things for granted. So I will increase it, but not in the same way I did till now.

*Orochimaru*

Death is...my worst nightmare. It is my enemy.

Death took away my parents before I could even know them. It took my friends by wars and sickness. Took the strongest man I knew by a blade. Almost took my life when we saw the salamander. Took the brother and later the lover of the closest thing I had to a sister.

She was shedding tears.

I grew to disdain the fragility of human life and how it affected those still living, which led to my desire for immortality.

Death always takes and never returns. I hate it with a passion.

If I wanted to outgrow death then I had to become the ultimate being.

I started human experimentation to test what modifications the human body can endure and harness a subject's unique abilities for myself, all to reach my secondary goal of learning every jutsu in existence.

But that was not enough. So I started to search other places.

Places like Ryūchi cave where I found the source to expand the life span using Natural energy.

But soon I found the process to be slow and potentially dangerous.

So I started to search again.

In my inquiry for immorality, I of course have checked the possibility of a solution in other dimensions, but it never bore fruit.

All the other dimensions I could reach were barren lands that could not even support life. Except for the White.

The White was the place dead souls went to before reincarnation. I only found it when trying to improve the Impure World Reincarnation.

That discovery showed me how truly mortal I am.

It drove me to find a way out of death even more.

Who would have guessed that after my worst defeat, and by the hands of the same man who defeated me no less, I would reveal the answer.

The day I was ambushed in my safest lair I would have never thought this to be the outcome, but looking at the young boy in front of me was all the proof I needed.

This world he has brought me to as a whole seems to be full of potential to reach immortality, the test subjects his clan provided are all I needed to be sure of that.

Even the oldest being I have ever had the displeasure of knowing, the White Snake Sage, was not as old as most common beasts inhabiting this planet.

I already have found the most secure way of gaining eternal life and power by ascending to godhood, all thanks to the same boy informing me of it, and even if that fails I could always take over the body of a snake-type beast to live hundreds of thousands of years.

"What brings you here, Kotaro-kun?"

"I want you to teach me fuinjutsu Pedomaru."

This damn brat!

"You are lucky I like you, Kotaro-kun, otherwise I would have already taken your body and all its secrets for myself."

*Kotaro*

And people wonder why I call him Pedomaru. The tick mark on his forehead is a sight to behold though.

To other people, his words might seem like a real threat but to us, it was just the everyday banter between friends.

Yes, I'm friends with Orochimaru.

It didn't start like this. In the beginning, he was the same venomous, twisted person that I knew from the anime.

We even had a grudge against each other.

Apparently, if you kick someone's ass black and blue, and before he can get up your mom does the same in a league above, then blackmail them into servitude they won't like you.

Who could have guessed?

But after the first year, we slowly got to know something.

Orochi and I... We are too similar to each other.

We both have been knocked down to the muds at a young age, seeing the cruel ruler that is the world before we even got to know ourselves, driven by our goals to an unknown extent.

Of course, he didn't know of my past life and how I too have lost my parents at a young age.

No one did.

But we could "see" it. The mask protecting the broken shell of a man beneath.

"Wow lucky me."

He was still fake glaring but stopped after a few seconds and went back to his eternally smug smirking face.

"Why do you want to learn fuins? Kids your age should go play house and let the adults do their jobs."

This damn snake!

"Will you do it or do I have to call Nene?" His fast change from smug to scared is always fun to see.

Now it was my turn to laugh at his face.

*Some time later*

Orochi told me to start training in calligraphy and when he deemed my skills are high enough he would start to teach me.

It seems like even a millimeter of inaccuracy would result in a failed sequence of seals, and in the more extreme cases, catastrophic destruction of the whole thing and unspecified side effects.

In simple terms, you fuck up slightly and the seal will fuck you real good.

We will start training the next week because he has to reschedule his timetable.

Until then, I have to make a plan to have a firm grasp of the Star Dou Empire.

There is a ton of ways I could do that.

The Fuma clan, although free of influence because of its fearsome strength, is still part of the said empire's land so I can go for a coup d'état and place either myself or a shadow emperor in place of the Royal Family.

But that is a bad choice. It will spark the war between us and Spirit Hall way faster than I plan for it, and even if we do it fast and without many casualties the economy will be hit hard for some time.

I could do it how Renxue did and infiltrate the Royal Family before she does.

Wait

Now that I talked about her, we are of the same age, right?

How old was she when she started her mission and masqueraded as Xue Qinghe, the prince of Star Dou?

I may have a brilliant idea!

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The things about Orochimaru is canon. Jiraiya once said that Orochimaru wasn't originally the way he is portrayed in the show.

"Jiraiya speculated that the death of his parents while he was young, along with his horror for Tsunade losing Nawaki and later shedding tears when she lost Dan, implies that Orochimaru grew to disdain the fragility of human life and how it affected those still living, which led him to desire immortality." I just added my own touch to it.

Your ideas and suggestions are welcome and if I find it compatible I would surely use it.

Have fun and don't forget to drop rating and stones!!!

Your AWESOME author, peace out😉👍