Money Was Only Lubricant

In his previous life, Aburame Tetsumaru had belonged to the ruling class, but he himself had been one of the ruled.

In this life, he not only belonged to the ruling class, but had been born as one of its rulers, though his status was not high enough.

In short, Aburame Tetsumaru had never viewed the world from a ruler's perspective, so he had never experienced what it meant for "money to be merely lubricant among the tools of rule."

Now, after being tossed around by Konoha's wartime purchase restrictions, Aburame Tetsumaru understood it deeply.

Under the purchase restrictions, despite having savings of over ten million ryo, he could not buy what he wanted. There were no channels.

What was he supposed to do?

Pull strings and work his connections. Through his social network, Aburame Tetsumaru managed to buy over a hundred kilograms, but it was still not enough.

Konoha's system of rule was, generally speaking, still feudal. Having money was not as good as having power.

The power held by Konoha Ninja depended entirely on their distance from the Hokage and the closeness of their relationship.

Take the three Hokage advisors, for example. Especially Danzo—he definitely had no purchasing limits. Otherwise, what would he use to build Root?

And the red-haired girl, Uzumaki Kushina—had she ever lacked anything, or ever been short on study materials?

But that route took too much effort and time, and most importantly, Aburame Tetsumaru had no talent for it. The Instructor's approach suited him better.

Self-reliance brought abundance.

Aburame Tetsumaru eliminated insects that did not meet his requirements, such as those with insufficient reproductive capacity, inadequate metal accumulation, or poor controllability. In the end, he selected three types.

First was the Gold-Eating Insect, a wingless beetle that reproduced and grew quickly and loved devouring metal. It was about the size of a melon seed. Metal accumulated in its carapace, strengthening its defenses. Remarkably, the metal in its shell existed as a mixture of elemental metals, making it a high-quality resource that could be smelted directly.

Though it borrowed the name of Han the Elder Devil's spirit insect, Aburame Tetsumaru's Gold-Eating Insects had no combat ability whatsoever.

No, these little bugs had to struggle with all their might just to stay alive. Their shells were too heavy, leaving them poor at moving and foraging. Raising them on a large scale required human intervention, and Aburame Tetsumaru was not about to do that himself, so he decided to pair them with two other insects.

The Tunneling Worm was a segmented worm resembling an earthworm. Adults were around two centimeters in diameter and forty centimeters long. Tunneling Worms had no eyes but possessed a keen sense of smell. They excelled at digging tunnels, and the mucus secreted from their bodies hardened to reinforce those tunnels.

The Tunneling Worm's weakness was its weak bite. It could not handle rock. It could swallow small stones whole, but when it encountered large ones, it could only go around them.

The Mole Cricket Aburame Tetsumaru selected last was an insect skilled at burrowing through rock. Besides its shovel-like forelimbs, which were excellent for digging, it had a hammer-shaped specialized appendage that could build up force and strike like a mantis shrimp, shattering rock.

Moreover, the Mole Cricket's saliva was a strong acid. It corroded especially hard rocks before smashing and excavating them.

The Mole Cricket was also responsible for transporting minerals. After crushing excavated ore, it carried it back to the Insect Hive to feed the Gold-Eating Insects.

He soaked the insect eggs in specially prepared hormone solution, then injected Chakra and growth hormones during pupation. After this modification process, which had a ninety-five percent mortality rate, they successfully mutated into giant insects.

What pleased Aburame Tetsumaru most was that he had successfully created flaws in all three giant insects—massive weaknesses in their life systems that made them exceptionally easy to tame.

The Gold-Eating Insects grew to the size of thumbs, while their six legs shrank by half. After their second molt, they completely lost the ability to walk and relied entirely on Mole Crickets for feeding.

The Mole Crickets grew to palm-size. Their speed and strength increased considerably, but their consumption increased even more. Their digestive systems were so fragile that they could only survive on artificially manufactured feed.

The Tunneling Worms became terrifying giant insects as thick as bowls and twelve meters long, but they lost the ability to regenerate through division. Their eggs could no longer hatch naturally either. They had to remain in an artificially maintained environment of constant temperature and humidity, under steady illumination, for a hatch rate of only two to three percent.

After simple training, the three insects formed a metal-mining system capable of extracting extremely low-grade metal ore at minimal cost.

Aburame Tetsumaru controlled them by hatching worms, supplying feed and Insect Feed, spraying pheromones, and other methods. He named this combination of three insects the Mineral Insect Swarm.

It was a resource fully controlled by Aburame Tetsumaru, belonging solely to him and unaffected by the outside world.

By the time the vacation was half over, the Mineral Insect Swarm's population had expanded to the limit Aburame Tetsumaru had expected: three hundred Tunneling Worms, four thousand seven hundred giant Mole Crickets, and fifteen thousand Gold-Eating Insects.

Centered on his family's courtyard, the Mineral Insect Swarm excavated wildly beneath a four-hundred-meter radius, constructing a complex underground labyrinth five hundred meters deep and roughly seventeen kilometers in total length.

By luck, they unearthed a hematite vein. Although it was waste ore so low-grade that it had no mining value, the Gold-Eating Insects could extract seventy kilograms of pure iron from this not-so-worthless ore every day, fully meeting Aburame Tetsumaru's needs.

Aburame Tetsumaru did not want anyone to know about this metal income. His thinking was completely at odds with the feudal ninjas of the Shinobi World. From a worker's perspective, he was deeply dissatisfied with the return he had received after contributing Ant Sugar.

You people don't care about money, right? Then I won't tell you about this new source of income. I'll enjoy it all by myself.

Regrettably, he could not carry out that idea. In the end, Aburame Tetsumaru's strength was still insufficient, and his technological reach was not broad enough.

First, the Gold-Eating Insects' shed shells consisted of mixed metals and had to be smelted. To keep it secret, he would have to expand the furnace in the basement and smelt the metal himself every few days.

Could one person smelt seventy kilograms of metal in a day? And what about when the scale grew even larger in the future?

And how was he supposed to solve the issue of fuel for smelting metal?

Second, even if he obtained vast amounts of metal, it would eventually be used to raise Summoning Insects. Once Aburame Tetsumaru produced tens or hundreds of thousands, or even more insects, how was he supposed to explain it?

After much deliberation, he could only take out all the Gold-Eating Insects' shells and hand them over to the Sarutobi Clan for smelting, purification, and separation, letting them take their cut.

Fortunately, he did not have to spend any more money from start to finish.

With the source of metal materials settled, insect breeding and cultivation soon got on track.

Aburame Tetsumaru finally relaxed. He rested properly for several days, enjoying delicious food and lazy mornings, while sharing frontline stories with his father, who had returned home on leave.

Having been tempered by the battlefield, Aburame Tetsumaru could understand his father's advice. As a veteran who had experienced two great wars, his father had seen far more than he had.

The environments of different countries, the specialties of ninjas from various regions, the strengths and weaknesses of each nation's ninja forces, combat experience, Konoha's high-ranking ninjas, and famous high-ranking ninjas from other countries—Aburame Tetsumaru diligently absorbed his father's experience, took notes, and memorized them repeatedly.

After learning from his father's experience, Aburame Tetsumaru finally made a choice between the Summoning Technique and the Shadow Clone Technique, which he had struggled over for so long. He temporarily gave up the Shadow Clone Technique.

Aburame Tetsumaru had earned considerable merit on the front lines and could have exchanged it for the C-rank Summoning Technique long ago. The reason he had not exchanged for it immediately was that it would have been useless on the front lines.

The Summoning Technique was divided into two types based on the summoning target. One summoned contracted Summoning Animals through a blood pact, while the other summoned objects.

There was no difference in the technique itself. The hand seals and formula were identical, and so were the effects. The caster performed the Summoning Technique, sensed the target's Chakra, resonated with it, and then transferred the target to their side.

Summoning Animals possessed their own Chakra. More importantly, they had a certain degree of intelligence, allowing them to distinguish whether the caster was their contractor and actively respond to complete the summoning.

Summoning objects, however, was troublesome. The object itself needed special preparation.

The first method involved an object capable of containing Chakra, such as the Seven Swords of the Mist. A Sealing Technique could be fixed onto it, and the Summoning Technique could be activated using a summoning scroll inscribed with the corresponding Sealing Technique, but it could only summon in one direction.

The second method was to construct a massive Sealing Technique array and place the summoned object inside it. The object could then be summoned at great cost, but like a Summoning Animal, it could travel both ways. Rashomon could be summoned this way.

What Aburame Tetsumaru wanted to summon were various insects, to meet his unique logistical supply needs.

As an insect user who fought with insect formations, Aburame Tetsumaru's control limit had already reached four thousand insects. If he simultaneously deployed autonomous insects with extremely simple functions, such as Landmine Insects, the number could exceed fifteen thousand.

Such a vast scale could only be drilled within Konoha. The combined weight of fifteen thousand insects exceeded two hundred kilograms, more than twice Aburame Tetsumaru's personal carrying limit. He simply could not carry them.

Fortunately, the Shinobi World possessed ready-made ninjutsu. The Summoning Technique, a black technology capable of transporting supplies, living creatures, and even intelligent species across time and space, could fully meet Aburame Tetsumaru's needs.

Even giant toads weighing over ten tons could be summoned at will, much less insects that would ultimately weigh only a few kilograms.

What? The Summoning Technique required enormous amounts of Chakra?

Sorry, although Aburame Tetsumaru did not have as much Chakra as the blond kid at this stage, his greatest concern now was having too much Chakra to use up.

Nothing wrong with that.

However, although Summoning Insects could absorb Chakra, their intelligence was zero, so they could not actively respond to a summoning blood pact. Therefore, he could only use the second method: make the Insect Hive the summoning target, with the insects hidden within it, and summon them indirectly.

That required spending money to construct a Sealing Technique array, then learning an adjusted Summoning Technique based on the secret pact established within the Sealing Technique.

This was a massive project that Aburame Tetsumaru could not complete alone. He did not even have the channels to find ninjas from the Sealing Squad. Other than paying, the entire matter could only be handled by the clan.

Therefore, the summoning Sealing Array could only be clan property. He needed to persuade his father and the Elders to fund its construction, and once it was complete, he would still have to pay "rent" to use it.

This economic model truly represented the pinnacle of feudal society. Only Blue Star real estate developers could respond with a scornful smile.

He first persuaded his father, then visited Elder Aburame Shihui once again.

Aburame Tetsumaru was genuinely a little embarrassed. In the few months since returning to Konoha, he had asked the Elder for help every few days. It was truly discourteous.

"The summoning array your Aburame Clan wants is enormous!"

A captain from the Sealing Squad carefully flipped through the planning scroll and could not help scratching his head. "It's going to cost a lot of money."

Several old men of the Aburame Clan sighed in relief together. If the problem could be solved with money, then it was not a problem. Then they all froze, their expressions dazed.

"So our Aburame Clan has finally reached a time when we don't need to worry about money."

With money, Konoha as their backing, complete materials, mature techniques, and ample manpower, the largest project undertaken by the Aburame Clan since Konoha's founding swiftly began.

First, they tore down the buildings in the clan's forbidden grounds. Elder Aburame Shihui and several other Elders personally joined the work, creating a thunderous racket while laughing and chatting loudly.

"I've hated this shabby house for ages. We can finally tear it down."

Then they hired fifteen Earth Release ninjas to lift up the entire ground and excavate straight down seventy meters.

Next, they filled the pit layer by layer with massive stones engraved with Sealing Techniques. The stacked stones formed a layer ten meters thick, leaving a central space thirty meters long, wide, and high.

After reserving passageways of various sizes, they sealed the top of this Core Space and covered it with another ten meters of massive stone. Then they built the clan's secure vault level, followed by an ordinary warehouse level and a training room level above it.

Once the ground was leveled, the basic construction was complete.

Next, according to the plan, the Sealing Squad built the summoning Sealing Array on the lowest level, while clan ninjas built the secure vault and warehouse.

They also had to erect a two-story building above ground and construct walls. Ordinary craftsmen from the village were hired to handle the work, and they also needed to complete the underground training rooms.

After forty days of intense construction, the entire project was complete. The Aburame Clan had not only spent all its savings but also accumulated a debt of seventy million.

Within Konoha, the largest violent organization in the Shinobi World, the Aburame Clan occupied the third tier of the power structure. They lacked neither influence nor connections; they simply lacked business talent and therefore money. For a long time, financial shortages had constrained them in everything they did.

Aburame Tetsumaru watched Shihui, Shizuo, and the other Elders wave their hands expressionlessly before outsiders as they spent hundreds of thousands or millions. The moment they turned away, their faces became frozen with disbelief.

He secretly used a Slime to photograph the expressions of all seven Elders and hid the pictures away. If those pictures were discovered before the Elders passed away, Aburame Tetsumaru, as the culprit, might be beaten to death.

In fact, ninja clans and merchant associations throughout Konoha and even the Land of Fire were actively looking for chances to lend money to the Aburame Clan. The clan now had a monthly net income of over a million ryo, and everyone wanted a share.

Therefore, when the Aburame Clan wanted to launch a major project and announced that it lacked funds, influential figures from all over Konoha and the Land of Fire took the initiative to help, contributing money, labor, personnel, and technology.

What intoxicated the Aburame Elders was not merely being able to "spend money freely." The greater thrill came from tasting this kind of "doing whatever they wanted" power for the first time.

So money really was only lubricant, but not having it could truly grind one down.

Aburame Tetsumaru carefully set down the final Insect Hive, then looked back. The summoning hall, which had been thirty meters long, wide, and high only a few days ago, had become completely unrecognizable.

The summoning hall was now circular, twenty-four meters in diameter and only eight meters high. At its center stood a four-meter-tall hexagonal stone pillar, its surfaces engraved with countless Sealing Technique runes.

Around the middle of the pillar was a list of names engraved with summoning contracts. There were already thirty-five Aburame ninjas listed.

The Sealing Technique runes on the pillar extended all the way to the floor, where they divided into twelve tree-like branching patterns that spread across the entire floor of the summoning hall. Upon reaching the walls, they continued upward for another three meters.

Raised walkway boards were laid across the floor for people to walk on, preventing them from touching the runes.

Based on large, medium, and small sizes, the floor had been divided into three circular summoning zones. The center contained twelve large summoning positions, the middle held three hundred and sixty medium summoning positions, and the outermost ring held one thousand small summoning positions.

Aburame Tetsumaru looked around. The central area was completely empty. In the middle zone, only he had placed eighty-four large Insect Hives, each two meters high. More than a hundred groups of objects were scattered sparsely around the outer ring—scrolls, swords, bundles of Kunai, and all manner of miscellaneous things.

Well, forty of those hundred-plus groups were also Aburame Tetsumaru's half-meter-tall small Insect Hives.

Aburame Tetsumaru chuckled. One large Insect Hive contained a secret weapon, one was packed with supplies and medicine, one was filled with ninja tools and research equipment, and the remaining eighty-one Insect Hives held one million one hundred and fifty thousand dormant Summoning Insects.

This army of over a million insects included nineteen species, covering six combat types: scouting, camouflage, attack, defense, disruption, and battlefield control.

After strictly selecting them based on more than half a year of combat experience and eliminating impractical insects or those with overlapping functions, Aburame Tetsumaru had finally chosen them. He proudly named these nineteen species the Legion Insect Swarm, his second insect population after the Mineral Insect Swarm.

With a million insects ready to be summoned at any time, unless he encountered an area-of-effect ninja like a Jinchuriki, Aburame Tetsumaru felt he had achieved his small goal of escaping alive from the hands of an Elite Jonin, or even a Kage.

However, the million insects had also drained Aburame Tetsumaru's reserves. Only eggs and newly hatched nymphs remained at his home and ranch. The earliest batch of insects would not mature for another three months.

After arranging the Insect Hives, Aburame Tetsumaru left the Aburame Clan's forbidden grounds.

The Aburame Clan's forbidden grounds now had walls, gates, and numerous guards. It was finally a proper forbidden ground.

His remaining task for the day was to go shopping with his parents, stroll the streets, eat a grand meal, and soak in hot springs with his father.

Tomorrow, Aburame Tetsumaru would return to the Land of Rain. The war had accumulated fresh energy amid its steady rhythm, and the next opportunity for collision had ripened.