Three Consecutive Instance Dungeon Strikes

"Hey, Kyosuke, what kind of training are we doing today?"

"Trap-making."

"Huh~ Why do we have to learn something so boring?"

"None of your business."

Within the Uchiha Clan Grounds, the argument of two children echoed.

These two were none other than Kyosuke and Uchiha Nagisa, who had been clinging to him nonstop.

Ever since they formally met at the Second Elder's house that day, she had stuck to Kyosuke for several days straight, even following him when he went to train with the Military Police Force.

Not to mention him—even Fugaku had to treat this little ancestor with kid gloves, so Kyosuke just let her be.

After all, building a good relationship with the Second Elder's granddaughter couldn't hurt.

Through some time getting to know her, he came to understand that this little girl had almost no friends her age in the clan, aside from a few people she got along with.

And even those few, because of her status, were always cautious around her—unlike Kyosuke, who would pick fights with her for fun at every opportunity.

So it wasn't strange that she stuck to him.

Sure enough, today she had blocked him early, insisting on following him to the Military Police Force.

Even when Kyosuke trained, she stayed glued to his side, with an attitude that said, "You're not shaking me off."

As for the Second Elder, he was happy with this arrangement. For one thing, at least when Kyosuke trained, she could work hard too—that benefit alone was worth the price of admission.

As for other issues, the Second Elder figured he'd just let nature take its course.

After a full day of grueling training, the two returned to the clan grounds, still bickering.

Kyosuke's daily life was admittedly a bit stifling, but with this tagalong around these past few days, though troublesome at times, it had been fairly pleasant.

So by now, Kyosuke didn't resist her presence too much—he just treated it like raising a disobedient little sister.

That night, Kyosuke lay on his bed, hidden behind the hanging curtain.

With his efforts over this period, his strength had improved considerably compared to before, so it was time to challenge the instance dungeon again.

After some selection, he finally chose a low-level dungeon called "Emergency Rescue."

The content of this dungeon was simple: in a valley scene, rescue a transport squad.

According to the system's evaluation, its difficulty was similar to the previous "Transport Goods" dungeon—both were beginner tutorial dungeons.

Of course, "beginner tutorial" was a name Kyosuke had come up with.

Because aside from these lowest-difficulty dungeons, he could name almost all the others.

For example, "Sasuke Retrieval Mission," "Valley of the End Series," "Chunin Exams," and so on—all classic scenes from the original story.

But even the simplest of those, "Naruto Uzumaki Arrives!", was something he couldn't clear yet.

So he had no choice but to continue his "beginner tutorial battles."

Opening the system menu and selecting the dungeon, he instantly arrived in a massive valley.

Before Kyosuke could carefully observe his surroundings, shouts reached his ears.

"Go, go now! They're not ninja—is it that hard to kill five civilians?" A scar-faced man with a thuggish air was yelling at a group of people.

"But boss, there are a lot of traps ahead," a shifty-eyed underling said timidly, staring at the mountain path ahead.

"Bam." Scarface kicked his subordinate flying, then picked up a shield made of fine steel, roared "Follow me!", and charged ahead.

Kyosuke stood on high ground, watching the whole scene. He frowned as he looked at the surging crowd below and thought, "Just some ordinary bandits this time?"

Even so, these bandits—armed for both ranged and melee combat, and numerous—would be a tough fight head-on for a five-year-old like him.

So to wipe them out, he needed to think of a plan.

After a moment of thought, he suddenly noticed that the kicked underling was still lying where he'd fallen. His eyes lit up.

"Good, the enemy is ahead! Follow me!" Scarface's shouts were loud, but as casualties mounted, the bandits' morale kept dropping.

Just as he was hesitating on what to do, the subordinate he'd kicked earlier suddenly came running over.

As he ran, he shouted, "Bad news, boss! Those five have already escaped through a small path in the valley!"

Scarface stepped forward, grabbed him by the collar, and snarled, "Is that true?"

"R-really! I took the wrong road and saw it with my own eyes!" the underling stammered.

"Hmph, useless." Scarface threw him to the ground, then turned to his men and yelled, "You heard him, boys! Charge with me!"

Then he gave the poor underling a hard kick, signaling him to stop playing dead and lead the way.

And so, under the "comrade's" guidance, the group charged into the mountain path already riddled with traps.

After about ten minutes of frantic running, they finally reached the path the underling had mentioned.

But it was peaceful—no sign of anyone having passed through.

Just as Scarface was feeling suspicious, a kunai suddenly stabbed into his heart.

"Enjoyed that kick earlier?" The underling's dark expression twisted into a particularly vicious sneer.

"Ngh..." Scarface's tiger-like eyes bulged wide, but he couldn't utter a single word. After a few seconds, he collapsed and died.

It was only then that the rest of his numerous underlings finally snapped back to reality.

Before they could swarm forward and tear the traitor apart, something unexpected happened.

Countless kunai, shuriken, and even large boulders came raining down upon these men without warning.

And in the densest cluster of their formation, an Exploding Tag was quietly burning.

"Boom!"

The Exploding Tag's results were even better than Kyosuke had imagined.

He used the Transformation Jutsu to keep slaughtering amidst the thick smoke. Though this consumed some chakra, it effectively conserved his stamina.

After all, the enemy still had many men left.

Following a prolonged battle, the bandits—now reduced to less than a tenth of their original number—finally broke completely and fled for their lives.

And so, Kyosuke cleared his second Instance Dungeon smoothly.

Back in reality, he immediately began checking his gains this time.

"Pharmacology Knowledge"

"Trap Creation Technique"

"Basic Poison Theory"

Three skills that, for now, weren't particularly useful to him.

Since he had already leveled "Trap Creation Technique" to 2, a single skill scroll wouldn't be enough to level it up again, so he had to toss it into storage for now.

As for "Pharmacology Knowledge" and "Basic Poison Theory," they would be quite helpful for his future research endeavors.

So he chose to learn them directly.

The moment he confirmed the learning, a flood of knowledge poured uncontrollably into his mind. It took a while before he recovered.

Then he closed his eyes and focused for a moment, finding that the knowledge seemed etched into his brain—he doubted he could forget it even if he tried.

A faint smile curled at the corner of Kyosuke's mouth, and then he lay down and went to sleep.

Over the following period, aside from training at the Military Police Force every day and occasionally attending classes at the academy, he kept working on clearing more Instance Dungeons.

After many attempts and countless deaths and failures, he finally managed to clear two more dungeons.

"Kunai Throwing Technique" ×5

"Chakra Refinement Technique" ×2

"Trap Creation Technique" ×2

"Shuriken Throwing Technique" ×1

These were all the gains he had so far.