The Turbulent Shinobi World

The losses suffered by Konoha and Sunagakure were not of much concern to Yichen, as he was still tasked with continuing his patrol duties at the border. However, the gains made by Iwa ninja this time were largely due to Yichen.

This time, under Ōnoki's arrangement, Konoha suffered another major setback. In addition, with the ransom from the Sunagakure successfully arriving, Ōnoki directly rewarded all the Anbu Squad involved in the operation with an A-rank mission.

Yichen, having achieved some success with his Sensory Ninjutsu, earned an additional A-rank mission record.

Furthermore, the rewards for these two A-rank mission are higher than those for regular missions.

More importantly, at the border, Xiao said something to Yichen, the gist of which was: Yichen's strength has improved rapidly, especially in Taijutsu, where he has made up for his weakness. The village has decided to promote Yichen to Special Jonin and let him lead an Anbu Squad on his own. At this stage, Yichen needs to learn how to be a good squad leader under Purple Lightning, while improving his strength as much as possible.

As for when the actual appointments will be made, that's uncertain. First, the High-ranking officials need to reach a consensus. Second, within the Anbu, suitable members need to be prepared to ensure that the Team 18 can carry out its missions normally, while also ensuring that the squad that Yichen wants to form has suitable members.

The subsequent patrol missions proceeded without incident. All the countries' targets were Konoha, and Konoha itself was preoccupied with its own problems. Yichen and his team were patrolling near the Sunagakure, where a power transition was underway. So, things remained peaceful.

After the remaining mission time was up, the Team 18 returned to the village.

As expected, upon returning to the village, Owl announced the village's decision regarding the promotion of Yichen to Special Jonin.

The village rewards newly promoted Chunin with an opportunity to learn and practice Ninjutsu. However, for Special Jonin, the village is much more open, allowing them to make their own choices.

You can choose a more common B-rank Ninjutsu, but the village only provides Ninjutsu, not instruction or Medicinal Food.

You can choose between Medicinal Food and instruction in Ninjutsu; in that case, you'll have to exchange for the Ninjutsu yourself.

It can be exchanged for supplies and silver; this option is generally only chosen by members of large families.

You can choose 12,000 Contribution Points, which is cheaper than a regular B-rank Ninjutsu.

They can choose to serve in certain positions, since ninjas place great emphasis on individual ability, and the person who knows ninjas best is the ninja himself. However, this is not a position that members of the Anbu can choose.

After some hesitation, Yichen chose to Contribution Points.

Yichen needs 25,000 Contribution Points to exchange for a B-grade defensive sword technique. He previously had 10,000 in his account, and now, with the addition of a team A-rank mission and an individual A-rank mission, he has reached 14,000, still 11,000 short.

Therefore, Yichen chose 12,000 Contribution Points and exchanged them for this B-rank Sword Technique.

Although, according to Purple Lightning, his foundation was still far from sufficient and he hadn't reached the level to practice B-rank Sword Technique, it wasn't a bad idea to secure the prize early.

Upon learning of Yichen's promotion to Purple Lightning gave Yichen some pointers on what to keep in mind as a team leader, and then put Yichen in command during a subsequent mission.

This made Shironeko and Little Stone extremely envious and jealous. So much so that every time Shironeko finished a mission, the first thing he would do was ask Yichen to bring Dango to his residence.

Yichen knew that the Shironeko was worried that if it wasn't in the same team as Yichen, Dango would have fewer opportunities to stay with Yichen. So Yichen discussed it with the Barrier Team members, and the little Dango, as a Ninja Beast, could be taken into the Natural Energy Seal area by a colleague from the Barrier Team when Yi Chen was not around.

Two more months passed, and after the Team 18 carried out two missions, Yichen received a notice to form the Team 7 Anbu Third Squad.

It turns out that the captain of the Team 7 had retired from the Anbu and become a Guiding Jonin. The other original members were also reassigned. The other three members of Yichen's newly formed Team 7 were all new members of the Anbu, and their ages were similar to Yichen's.

Upon receiving the notification, Yichen arrived early at the Anbu Training Ground where the former Team 7 often trained. Seeing that it was still early, Yichen took out the wooden puppets used for swordsmanship training from the Sealing Scroll and arranged them. He could come here often in the future, so this set of training tools would be kept here specifically.

From now on, all members of the Team 7 can use it; they can buy a new set when they get back.

Looking at the arranged human-shaped wooden puppets, Yichen took out a wooden spear and began to test the results of his cultivation over this period of time.

Taking a deep breath, Yichen thrust at the puppet 26 times in succession. The first 19 thrusts all hit their mark, but the last 7 were less accurate and started to miss.

Yichen was fairly satisfied with the result. Although in terms of the number of attempts, his progress was only twice that of when he was at the border, the difference in strength was far greater than just one or two times.

In other words, if we only consider Taijutsu, the current Yichen could easily suppress and defeat the ten versions of himself from before.

Now Yichen understands a bit about how the Shironeko and Little Stone felt when they fought against him; it was just like playing with children.

The reason Yichen has improved so quickly is not because he has reached the level of Shironeko and Little Stone in Taijutsu. Rather, it is because Yichen's overall strength has improved too fast. For one thing, Yichen's Chakra level is already very close to that of a Jonin.

The significant improvement in Yichen's strength was primarily due to the boost from his higher-level Chakra. Had Yichen been in a period of rapid growth, it would have taken him at least ten times longer to reach his current level in swordsmanship.

It was precisely because of this that Xiao originally wanted to wait until Yichen's strength improved further before letting him form the Team 7.

But no one expected that the situation in the Ninja World would change again.

Konoha White Fang committed suicide!

This surprised everyone. Danzo hadn't expected this outcome. Although he wanted to suppress White Fang, his goal was to control him, or at least keep White Fang away from the Hokage position.

However, White Fang did not compromise and chose to commit suicide, which was not what Danzo wanted to see either. In fact, Danzo regretted it the moment he received the news. The Ninja World had only been at peace for a short time, and Konoha had already lost a Kage-level Combatant, which could very likely plunge Konoha back into the quagmire of war.

Although Danzo wanted to start a war, he also knew that Konoha's strength was far from recovered. Starting a war now could very well cause Konoha to lose its status as the leading Ninja World.

Even more regretful than Danzo was Hiruzen Sarutobi. He hated himself for not stopping the rumors in time, and even more so for his selfishness at the time, which included wanting to see White Fang suffer.

But what troubles Hiruzen Sarutobi the most right now is how to face the village's ninjas.

While commoners can be easily swayed, how many ninjas are truly foolish? White Fang's suicide was tantamount to slapping Hiruzen Sarutobi across the face in public.

This incident was enough to cause Hiruzen Sarutobi to lose the support of most of the ninja.

In the original story, when White Fang committed suicide, Second Shinobi War had already passed for quite some time, Konoha's strength had recovered, so the impact of White Fang's suicide was relatively small.

Moreover, the seeds of the Third Shinobi War were already sown at that time, allowing Hiruzen Sarutobi to easily direct the main conflict towards other countries and temporarily secure his position Hokage.

But as a result, he had to step down Hokage position as soon as the war ended. How much of this was due to the White Fang Incident is unclear to everyone.

This is easy to understand: which ninja can guarantee a 100% success rate in completing a mission, and which ninja can achieve the same feats as White Fang?

Even under these circumstances, White Fang was still forced to his death by the High-ranking officials. What would happen if he offended High-ranking officials one day?

Therefore, Hiruzen Sarutobi faced the biggest crisis since becoming Hokage. However, there was one comforting thing: he had a steadfast ally, Danzo.

Danzo will absolutely not agree to Hiruzen Sarutobi down this time. Everyone knows that Danzo was the mastermind, but Hiruzen Sarutobi is the Hokage, so he bears greater responsibility.

However, if Hiruzen Sarutobi down because of the White Fang incident, then Danzo, the mastermind behind it, will also lose his qualification to become Hokage.

Therefore, after White Fang's death, the various countries of the Ninja World were restless. While the four countries of Lightning, Water, Wind, and Earth were constantly testing Konoha because of its successive losses, Konoha was also engaged in a power struggle of forming alliances and counter-alliances.

Hiruzen Sarutobi and Danzo ultimately chose to shift the blame, but they didn't target the Shikoku region, because at that point, Konoha could hardly guarantee that it wouldn't be at a disadvantage when facing the Shikoku head-on.

Therefore, they shifted their focus of conflict to the Uchiha Clan.

While the White Fang incident was making headlines, the Konoha Police Force clashed with civilians due to several verbal altercations during law enforcement operations.

Then, surprisingly, public attention turned to demanding justice from the Uchiha clan.

Hiruzen Sarutobi and Danzo thus weathered a major crisis in their political careers.

After this incident, some distance developed between the Konoha ninja and the higher-ups, but this distance was mostly directed at Danzo.

After the hype surrounding White Fang Incident subsided, Hiruzen Sarutobi publicly stated that White Fang's death was due to his dereliction of duty as Hokage, and that he bore significant responsibility. He also clarified White Fang's innocence and stated that he would personally tutor White Fang's posthumous child after the child was born.

By doing this, Hiruzen Sarutobi gave everyone the impression that Danzo was the one who Danzo the mistake, and that he was just taking the blame as the Hokage.

Danzo couldn't come forward to refute this, so the Pot King successfully took the blame again.

These are internal disputes within Konoha. Outside Konoha, the Four Great Nations each gathered a group of ninjas and launched an attack on a region within the Land of Fire.

In particular, the Land of Lightning immediately destroyed several of Konoha's Border Outpost.

At that time, Konoha was slow to react due to its own reasons, which led other countries to see an opportunity and follow suit, all of them setting their sights on Konoha's outposts.

Yichen was appointed as a squad leader ahead of schedule under these circumstances. Due to the conflict with Konoha, the workload of the Anbu increased, leading to a shortage of manpower, and Ōnoki had to urgently expand the Anbu.

Yichen was stunned when he heard the news. Had his actions almost wiped out Kakashi Hatake?

Letting Yichen lead the team alone isn't a big problem, but he's still quite apprehensive about facing Konoha. There are just too many plot holes in Konoha Yichen.

"Should we take a look beforehand at what bugs Konoha currently has?" Yichen thought to himself.