'Hey wake up! This isn't your real inner voice, you are influenced! Listen to me! I'm your true innermost self. So what if you are a mob? Who said mobs can't do anything? Mob's are even more important than anyone else! Society wouldn't work without mobs! Even important characters wouldn't exist without their mob ancestors! Everyone looks down on mobs, even though they are the unspoken heroes! Go and show the world the true power of a mob!'

The giant snake with Eiji's face was about to devour him when all the covering snakes were blown away and Eiji stopped the just snake with just one hand.

"YOUUU!!!"

"Yeah, me. Who else could it be, other than the magnificent and virtuous super mob? You know, you said you know me, but then proceeded to talk about emotions and stuff. Emotions are just emotions. If certain emotions are harmful or disadvantage to me, I just ignore them!" - Eiji felt his willpower spinning in his body.

His willpower then engulfed him and transformed him into an even bigger white snake

Suddenly he felt the urge to devour the fake him, so with just one bite, he ate the whole head.

Power he never felt before started to appear in his body.

The White Snake Sage was about to move when Eiji's snake transformation was stopped.

Then he slowly transformed back.

He looked at her and said with a mocking smile: "Sorry if you want a taste of me, you should be a few years younger and agree to a date with me first."

'How interesting, just with sheer willpower he forced his body to accept the natural energy I injected...'

"Looks like your body accepted the natural energy. This means now two things. First: you acquired my personal power, which gives you the ability to heal any injuries and transform yourself into a giant snake. Secondly: with that, you are worthy of learning sage mode. So prepare yourself, the training will start right now!"

It was the day, where the chunin finals would start.

In the end, Eiji only had enough time to learn to enter sage mode without being able to properly balance his own chakra with natural energy.

That meant that on top of the usual snake-like appearance for sages of Ryuchi Cave, he looked even more snake-like

Speaking of snake-like: he looked quite different now since his body had some problems handling the injected natural energy.

His hair turned white, and his eyes looked more snake-like with his eye-color changing to yellow.

At first, when he saw his reflection, he was shocked and quite upset, but after some time he cheered himself up: 'At least I don't look as ugly as transformed Kabuto...'

Anyway, he was about to leave even though he didn't fully master sage mode, so before leaving he wanted to ask the White Snake Sage something.

"Before I leave I have a question..."

"A question? I won't answer, you only passed the trial for learning sage mode, nothing else!"

"Come one, just one question..."

"I won't answer. Since you insisted on leaving today, go now!"

"Why do you have to be so petty? It's not like you have any hobbies or anything other to do than just sitting here and smoking. So come one, if you don't want to answer me, it's fine, but at least hear the question first!"

"..."

He took her silence as a yes and asked: "I'm wondering, why is it called Ryuvhi Cave (Dragon ground cave) when there are only snakes here and no dragons? Isn't that some kind of scam?"

When she heard that she took a puff out of the cigarette holder before saying: "Scam? Well, for someone who doesn't know it might seem that way. Dragons don't exist in this world, but it is said that we snakes have some sort of connection with dragons. A long time ago, there was an ancient group of humans who worshiped a dragon god. They don't exist anymore for a long time now, but if you wish to learn about dragons you should try to look for the remains of their temple."

Eiji asked halfheartedly and didn't expect to get such an answer: 'Dragon god? This is the first time I'm hearing something like that. But now that I think about it...isn't it weird that even though humans didn't have chakra until Hagoromo started doing his thing, there are jutsus with which you can as an example summon the Shinigami? When it comes to gods in this world, many things were left unanswered...maybe if I can find this dragon temple, I might learn more...'

After noting it in his mind, he said his goodbye to the White Snake Sage and decided to leave.

'Wait how do I return?'

Anko wasn't happy.

She wanted to get ready to go to the arena for the chunin finals when a snake transmitted her something: a guy called Eiji wanted her to summon her contracted animal so that her contracted animal can use the Reverse Summoning Technique.

Eiji already found her contracted snake in Ryuchi Cave and made a temporal contract, only for that.

Anko had a sour expression and decided she absolutely didn't want to meet Eiji!

But she also couldn't just let him miss the chunin finals, or else she might make a lifelong enemy out of him.

So she summoned her snake and ordered it to go far away and summon him there, so she doesn't have to meet him!

'Huh?' - Eiji looked at the snake who after summoning him disappeared.

'Why was I summoned at the front gate? Was there no better place? And isn't Anko way too cold?'

CrusadeAgainstFurries

This amazing art was down by Kowaichi. He also did the new cover and I'm still baffled by how well it turned out. Thank you really much, Kowaichi!