Karatachi Yagura

The next day, Jiang Rui habitually slept in, only to be dragged out of bed by Ito Rei.

"I finally got a good night's sleep..."

Jiang Rui muttered as he yawned.

The two were on their way to the training grounds.

According to Ito Rei's arrangements, he would begin a certain amount of taijutsu training today to improve his physical fitness. At the same time, she would teach him some basic ninja knowledge.

Jiang Rui was quite unwilling about this. Aside from strength and constitution, which had already been maxed out, his other two physical attributes could also be filled up entirely with attribute points.

Although training could slightly improve his physical fitness, the problem was that he was lazy...

Still, once this world ended, barring any surprises, he could advance to Sequence 8.

Though the attribute bonuses from magical creatures seemed low, he did not intend to fuse them for advancement. Never mind whether he could still advance into a Demon King species after fusion—their sole growth-type skill, "True Name," was enough.

He had no intention of touching that Sequence.

Priest and Child of Light were both intermediate Sequences. However, Jiang Rui intended to find a low-level spiritual or mental Sequence as his main Sequence—either Sequence 9 or Sequence 8—to fuse with Child of Light.

The reason was that Child of Light truly did not seem very useful to him.

"As my senior... uh, junior brother, how can you be so lazy? Right!" Ito Rei leaned against a tree, her gray scarf wrapped around her neck and just covering her delicate chin. Paired with her ear-length short hair, she looked rather gallant.

When she had first seen that Jiang Rui had marked himself as male in the file, she had thought he had filled it out wrong. After hearing Jiang Rui confirm it, her surprise turned into an even greater fondness for teasing him.

It was as if she wanted to hurry up and have her way with him before he fully grew up.

"Tch." After finishing several thousand squats, Jiang Rui's expression did not change as he retorted, "I'm not your junior brother yet."

The Third Mizukage meant that Jiang Rui would only count as a Mist ninja after the mission ended—after he passed the assessment. At that time, he would also formally take Jiang Rui as his student.

There would not be some grand ceremony for accepting a disciple, but at the very least, the major clans of the Mist ninjas, as well as the other ninjas, would more or less know of his existence.

"What does it matter?" Ito Rei clicked her tongue. Several thousand squats without even breaking a sweat—no matter how she looked at it, his endurance and physical fitness should not have been weak. Yet whether it was explosive force or full-speed movement, Jiang Rui only barely reached the level of a Chunin.

She could not make sense of it at all and could only attribute it to the Hozuki Clan's unusual physique.

"Anyway, with your skills, the assessment is just a formality."

"Did Lord Water Shadow agree?"

Jiang Rui asked.

Ito Rei fell silent for a moment. Knowing what he was asking, she shook her head. "The Anbu isn't that easy to enter. At the very least, you need to complete several high-level missions first."

Jiang Rui's mouth twitched. Who said I wanted to join the Anbu?!

Just as he was about to argue, he remembered that he had no way to explain how he knew about the other units... He sighed inwardly. Fine, Anbu it was...

So he changed the subject. "Who's that?"

He raised his chin and nodded toward a child in the distance who was taking down a staff and practicing swings.

Oh, he looked a little familiar.

"That one?" Ito Rei glanced over, suddenly interested as well. "Why did you notice him? Mutual appreciation between geniuses?"

Jiang Rui rolled his eyes. Instead of continuing his squats, he resumed practicing the Water Gun Technique. He wanted to train his control over magic power.

He could not keep relying on Great Sage all the time. What if one day he encountered some strange Sequence or ability that directly sealed Great Sage?

Ito Rei did not stop him. Instead, she observed the famous ninjutsu with great interest and asked, "Hey, hey, hey, what other secret techniques do you know? Can you use the Second Mizukage's Oil Style?"

"No, no." Jiang Rui waved his hand. "You still haven't told me who that is."

"The genius Karatachi Yagura," Ito Rei replied with a curl of her lips.

Oh?

Jiang Rui froze. Karatachi Yagura? The Three-Tails Jinchuriki?

The future Fourth Mizukage?

I've heard so much about you!

So you're the unlucky guy who got controlled by Uchiha Madara as soon as you took office, only to be freed when you were nearly dead?

Tsk, should I go say hello? At least get him to remember my face.

With that thought, Jiang Rui grabbed Ito Rei, who was leisurely leaning against the tree, and said, "Come on, let's go say hello."

"???" Ito Rei was stunned by Jiang Rui's sudden move.

So it really was mutual appreciation between geniuses???

Jiang Rui dragged Ito Rei to the edge of the other party's training ground, naturally drawing plenty of attention. After all, yesterday's personal ninjutsu showcase by a certain blue-haired girl had already left some impression among the younger generation of Mist ninjas after a single night.

"Yo, isn't this Rei-chan?" The young man sparring with Karatachi Yagura smiled and nodded in greeting upon seeing them. Then he waved for Karatachi Yagura to stop attacking.

The latter frowned somewhat unwillingly, but he still came over.

Rei-chan?!

Jiang Rui looked in astonishment at Ito Rei's thoroughly unwilling expression, then at the man. He seemed around eighteen or nineteen, not much different in age from Ito Rei.

But...

Jiang Rui stared at Ito Rei, whose face had soured despite her strikingly heroic appearance, and smacked his lips. Tsk, tsk. How did you manage to call Ito Rei something so mushy while she looked like that?!

What a talent!

"What are you looking at?!" Ito Rei's cheeks turned pink beneath his stare. In embarrassment and anger, she raised her fist and was about to pounce on him.

Jiang Rui hurriedly took two steps back, suppressing his laughter.

"This is Ruu-chan, right? Hello, I'm Ishikawa Tatsuya. Please take care of me." He walked forward a couple of steps and extended his hand to Jiang Rui, holding it straight before his chest. "I heard you made Rei-chan cry yesterday? Not bad."

A vein popped on both Jiang Rui and Ito Rei's foreheads.

Ruu-chan?!?

You really know how to name people, huh?!

Jiang Rui raised his head, forced out a smile, and lifted his hand, curling a finger in challenge.

"Want to fight?!"

I'm going to smash your damn head in today!!!

At that, Karatachi Yagura instantly raised his head and said, "I'll fight you."

Jiang Rui looked at him. His light purple eyes were filled with fighting spirit and defiance.

Jiang Rui smiled and nodded.

"Sure! How about a two-on-two?" He pointed at Ito Rei. "Rei-chan and me against you and Tatsuya-chan."

Ishikawa Tatsuya: "???"

Ito Rei: "???"

Karatachi Yagura nodded. "Alright!"

Nothing deepened the friendship between men more than a spar. And if that was not enough, then beat them up again.

After dodging Karatachi Yagura's Wind Style ninjutsu with a dog-like dive, Jiang Rui immediately turned and charged at Ishikawa Tatsuya, who was tangled up with Ito Rei.

At the same time, he launched a Water Gun Technique without any restraint. Of course, it was the weakened version—he preferred to call it Finger Gun.

Ishikawa Tatsuya reacted quickly. After all, those who had been on the battlefield and carried out missions had plenty of experience dealing with this sort of sudden target switch and focused attack.

Karatachi Yagura, on the other hand, was a little dumbfounded. Where did he go?

Ishikawa Tatsuya also forced Ito Rei back with a casual counterattack before shooting straight toward Jiang Rui. At the same time, a Water Clone separated from his body and held Ito Rei back.

Though he had initially chosen a king-versus-king, general-versus-general setup to accommodate the little ones, that did not stop him from changing strategies later. First, he would teach these juniors how to respect their seniors!

A smile lingered in Ishikawa Tatsuya's eyes as he crossed paths with Jiang Rui in the blink of an eye.

Please give recommendations! I've been running naked for so long, and someone finally started reading! {ˊˋ}~

Two chapters a day are fixed from now on. I'll try to write more and keep some chapters in reserve later.

Not these past few days, though. Don't ask. If you ask, IG is just awesome!!

The first volume wasn't as detailed as the Naruto arc because I just got a sudden idea back then, but then I got signed and even received a small recommendation...

Explanation complete! Mm, good night, everyone. w