Journey of Desires

- So? Why did you come?

When breakfast was finished, everyone moved to the table in the common room, Kilia sat in the corner of the first sofa, and the rest of the girls sat on the sofa opposite, Ban and Orochimaru sat in the remaining seats on the same sofa where Ban's sister was sitting.

The two kunoichi began to play chess, for Naruko it was quite nostalgic, and Hinata had never seen such a game before, in the world of ninja, as it turned out, except for shogi and gambling that are popular in various casinos, there are no other games. For example, chess, checkers or Uno do not exist in this world, but it so happened that Ban forgot to take Uno to his storage when he left, then he did not find it and thought that his sister had it with her. And making new ones or ordering from a master is very long and there was no time for that.

Ban sat half-turned in the center of the sofa, took out quite a lot of unusual tasty snacks from his storage and looked questioningly at Orochimaru, Hikari sat opposite the sanin, she was simply curious to listen to their dialogue.

Orochimaru was clearly not used to discussions in such a format, rather he would feel more comfortable being opposite the interlocutor, and not literally sitting next to him as if he were a friend at a get-together in the Akimichi restaurant.

Ban noticed Orochimaru's similar mood and could not think of anything smarter than to simply say.

- Don't worry, we are not going to decide the fate of thousands of people, we are just going to agree... Hmmm, wait, why did you even come?

A clap was heard behind Ban's back, even without seeing what it was, it was clear that his sister made a facepalm, and Naruko, seeing this, almost laughed out loud, but at the last moment she restrained herself and returned her attention to the game.

Orochimaru frowned with displeasure, after all, he doesn't like clowning, though having gotten used to having someone of Jiraiya's level around, he can tolerate such individuals without any problems.

- Regarding why I came.

Orochimaru took out the same notebook that he received in the deal and put it on the table. At that moment, Ban put a red... grape in his mouth, a rather tasty and rare thing from Arthur's kingdom, and looking at Orochimaru, he made a questioning look.

- In this, as you put it, "Notebook", there is quite a lot of information about different types of immortality, and before making any decision, I decided to contact a person who already has one of them. I need to find out some clarifications on the questions that arose when choosing the path to obtaining immortality...

Orochimaru wanted to say something else, but his monologue was interrupted, Ban did not immediately understand why, but following the gaze of his interlocutor, he noticed that Naruko, out of curiosity, took some red grapes and tried them, but now she sat like a statue and did not move.

Then he heard how his sister next to him exhaled a little irritably and got up from the table, approaching Naruko, she put her palm on her forehead and the next moment Uzumaki returned to consciousness.

- What is this???

Naruko shouted this phrase in a reminder, Hinata was a little scared while the remaining two dark-haired people in the room looked at all this with curiosity.

Ban decided to give the answer.

- What you felt can be called sensory overload, these grapes are grown specifically for the knights of King Arthur, and contain huge reserves of mana for their size, by the way, my sister invented them about seven years ago.

- Ban! Why did you get the modified ones?

- They taste better!

There are two varieties of this grape, one is regular, which differs from regular grapes only in color, and the second is special, magical, which contains a lot of mana aimed at mental relaxation and has an ionizing property on the body, and the less a person has energy reserves of any kind, the more the grapes affect him, although the wonderful taste remains the same even for strong people.

- I don't get it.

- Well... Listen, Naruto, let's be brief now. In fact, when you eat these grapes, they give you a lot of energy for the body, and a person who has previously worked little with such things or has very low reserves of any energy can get sensory overload due to the fact that the body is filled with someone else's mana or chakra or prana and the like. For me it's just very tasty, although my mana reserves are not exactly huge. My sister has 3 times more mana reserves, and even so she is inferior to Merlin by about 7 times.

- Aaaah? What???

Naruko, hearing the last words, was clearly confused, and then continued in disbelief.

- 7 times greater than Kilia? But Kilia herself has reserves almost as large as the nine-tailed one...

Having heard these words from Naruko, Orochimaru and Hinata were surprised, and if the Hyuga girl did not fully understand how monstrous these reserves were, then the sannin fully realized how dangerous this Merlin was, not only does she have incredible knowledge that he managed to glean from her notes, but also huge reserves... Judging by the dialogue, it is definitely not chakra, but some kind of mana unknown to him, he came across this word in Merlin's notes, but he could not fully understand what it meant.

- Well, yes, the mentor is strong, although on the other hand, what did you expect from a person who can create a barrier that cannot be destroyed? She can lock any half-god in a perfect cube without the slightest effort.

After these words, Ban turned to Orochimaru, having lost interest in the situation with the grapes. Noticing the thoughtful look of his interlocutor, he took a branch of this very grape with his left hand and extended it towards Sanin.

Orochimaru looked up at the product that had not been given out earlier, rationality and curiosity began to fight in him, but since there was no point in setting it up, and any girl could take any grapes on the table, leaving poisoned ones there would be dangerous. Also, the fact that Sanin himself is immune to almost all poisons plays a role, and as a result, curiosity to find out the sensations from the energy product exceeded wariness and Orochimaru actually took the offered treat and tried it.

The next moment, a taste boom sounded in Orochimaru's head, a flow of energy that immediately began to turn into chakras in the body, he immediately took control and it did not cause him any problems, but the role was played by the fact that, accustomed to snacking on everything in a row and periodically using military pills, he felt an incredibly rich taste of sweetness with sourness and this hit his inexperienced taste buds.

Seeing the reaction of the sanin, Ban was pleased with the result and decided to continue the topic of conversation.

- So, what exactly interests the best scientist of this world? As far as I understand, you studied the records throughout your free time? Otherwise, in some month there simply would not have time to read and understand everything, as well as conduct experiments and stumble upon problems, right?

Orochimaru, returning to a normal state, focused his attention on Ban and began to answer.

- Yes. Of all the types that are there, I was interested in three types of immortality.

I rejected immortality through reincarnation right away, every time you have to be in the state of a weak child, and there is no guarantee that you will be born with good combat talent. Also, immortality through sacrifices and service to the gods does not suit me either.

- As far as I remember, she was able to identify about 11 types, which ones exactly interested you?

- Immortality through regeneration, which is the ability to restore me even if all that remains of the body is drops of blood ...

Orochimaru wanted to start talking about the next one, but Ban interrupted him.

- Oh! Well, congratulations, I can tell you the most about him, after all, this is what I have.

Orochimaru raised an eyebrow in surprise, but in general such words are within his expectations, so he decided to move on to the next one.

- Immortality through communication, as far as I understand, absolutely any object can be made the purpose of communication, and Merlin even mentioned that she found an option for making many such objects. And the third option is meta immortality ... I think it is clear why I am interested in them.

- Yes, immortality through technology is not immortality at all, sooner or later cyborgs die anyway. Immortality as an undead is a completely different kind of existence. You cannot physically obtain immortality as a race, even summoned beasts age, and there are no such things as Phoenixes in this world. However, it does not matter who exactly you want to clarify?

While these two exchanged phrases, Hikari listened carefully and then it dawned on her that she, too, was mortal, and even if she lived her whole life next to Kilia and Ban, after death she would become only an episode in their life. And she does not just want to be their fellow traveler, she wants to have people dear to her, and until she is perceived as a friend for life, she feels as if she is letting down those dear to her. As a result, she decided to listen attentively to everything they say, and perhaps in the future she will need this information about the types of immortality.

Meanwhile, Orochimaru continued the dialogue.

- Let's start from the end, the notes describe what meta immortality is and its pros and cons, but there is not the slightest mention of how to get it, what information can you offer for exchange?

- M? Consider the first question free, although let's solve it this way. I'm already very tired of constantly exchanging precious metals for local money, pay in currency, I think fifteen million for such help will not be very expensive.

Orochimaru just nodded with satisfaction and listened to what they would answer him regarding the first question.

- How to get meta immortality? Quite simple, actually. You just need to be a global deity of mega level, for example Death itself or the avatars of the elements, they cannot be killed, well, if you think about it, then it is impossible to get, that is, to acquire in any way other than turning into a god or an avatar, this type of immortality is impossible.

- I see, so it was in the notebook simply as a fact?

- Yes, in general, if I were you, I would choose a combination of the remaining two options, how to make a huge regeneration, I think you should understand, you have a technique for shedding your appearance as if you were a snake, and my cells should have remained.

- You don't care at all that someone has your cells? You can do a lot of interesting things with them.

- Honestly? Not a bit! If someone needs my DNA, they can just attack and collect samples during the fight, and we will only be in this world for about 6 years, and then I don't care at all what happens next, even if someone creates an army of my clones and takes over the world, I don't give a damn.

- This world?

Orochimaru understood his position, in his opinion, this man is too irresponsible about things of such importance, but his brain got hooked on one phrase.

- In this world?

- Yes, in short, my sister and I are world travelers, as you know, this world exists, as well as many dimensions of summoned creatures. And the universe as a whole is a huge number of worlds with different features and appearance. So, we are traveling and will be here for another 6 years, at least that's what we plan.

These words surprised not only Orochimaru but also Hinata, after all, hearing such words is quite surprising, especially seeing living proof that this information is true.

- Well, as for immortality through objects, you should soon have a cursed seal ready, right?

- How did you find out?

- It doesn't matter now, the point is that if you have regeneration and a backup in the form of many seals around the world, then immortality is guaranteed to you. However, I can also advise you to lower your sensitivity to pain in advance, since constantly getting wounds is quite unpleasant, and without pain it is just mild discomfort.

- Okay... Then I have another question regarding what magic is? What is it? What's the difference with chakra?

Hearing such a question, Ban beamed, surprisingly the battle-obsessed guy really likes to discuss magic and various strange phenomena. Putting on a big smile, he began to tell one of his favorite topics.