Threat Level

A moment later, the cloaked man appeared where Satoru had landed earlier and let out a bitter laugh.

"Whoosh—"

With a soft sound, a busty... stunning beauty with a ponytail appeared beside the cloaked man.

Konoha jonin, Tsunade.

"Ha ha... So? Isn't that little guy interesting?"

Tsunade patted the cloaked man on the shoulder and laughed heartily.

"I actually won the bet this time! Pay up!"

The cloaked man removed his hood, revealing a pale, handsome face.

Long black hair, vertical golden pupils, purple eyeshadow extending to the sides of his nose—Konoha jonin, Orochimaru!

Orochimaru's handsome face looked somewhat awkward. With his strength, he had been played by a child not even nine years old...

"Good thing Jiraiya isn't here..."

Mocking himself, Orochimaru smiled as he took out his wallet and tossed it to Tsunade.

"I never expected the fat sheep to win too."

"Tch! Don't tell me you were deliberately holding back!"

Pulling out the bills, Tsunade tossed the wallet back to Orochimaru. Winning money from Orochimaru gave her immense satisfaction.

"Feels great!"

"Then Satoru is in your hands—I'll explain things to Advisor Mitokado. Since I took your money, I have to get the job done!"

"All right..."

Orochimaru looked helplessly at the excited Tsunade, but he still could not resist reminding her.

"Talk properly. Don't start fighting."

"Oh, come on, am I the kind of person who starts throwing punches at the slightest disagreement?"

Tsunade waved her hand dismissively.

"Relax, I'm off—get ready for tomorrow. Nawaki is in your hands too, so make sure you discipline him properly!"

"Don't hold back. Train him hard. Just don't let him die—if he gets hurt or anything, I'm here!"

"..."

Tsunade vanished with a whoosh, leaving Orochimaru standing there in thought.

"Hmm, no matter how I look at it, what Tsunade did..."

"It seems like she gave me both a research assistant and research material..."

"But which one is the research assistant, and which one is the research material... Heh heh heh..."

"I really look forward to it..."

Meanwhile, Satoru had just run home and caught his breath. He was also thinking about the attack he had encountered earlier.

"Those techniques that guy used just now..."

Satoru pulled out the catalog of ninjutsu and Genjutsu he had collected over the years and searched through it carefully.

Though it did not contain specific training methods, through his deliberate collecting, Satoru had learned the names, ranks, and approximate effects of most mainstream Konoha ninjutsu and Genjutsu.

This was an important part of his knowledge base.

"Demonic Illusion: False Place Technique... Found it. It isn't a particularly powerful Genjutsu..."

Satoru smacked his lips. If it had been used by a genin or chunin, it should not have had such a powerful effect, much less lasted so long!

"Next, Wind Release: Great Breakthrough... Although it's a C-rank technique, it's fundamentally meant for restraint and doesn't have much destructive power..."

The attack he had taken had clearly carried the force of a B-rank technique. If Magic Suppression had not weakened its effect on him, he would not have broken free so easily.

By this point, Satoru basically had an answer.

The cloaked man who had "attacked" him was definitely not a chunin.

At the absolute minimum, he was a Special Jonin, though a jonin was far more likely.

"Maybe even..."

Satoru could not help thinking of the mysterious person suspected to be Orochimaru who had been secretly tailing him some time ago.

And that deliberately raspy voice.

"What the hell? Has this guy been so quiet lately just to make me lower my guard before attacking me?!"

"But if it really was Orochimaru, there's no reason he would have let me escape so easily."

"In other words... someone is watching him, keeping him from going too far?"

Tsunade's... face surfaced in his mind, and Satoru rubbed his nose hard.

"Heh! Is this ever going to end?!"

"Other than the refrigerator, I've used every trump card I have... Just as I thought, you can never have too many trump cards."

Satoru put away the ninjutsu and Genjutsu catalog, stared blankly for a while, then pulled out his research notes on the Summoning Technique and continued studying.

"No matter what Orochimaru wants, given both his status and mine, he can't act recklessly for the time being!"

"And if it isn't Orochimaru, but someone else..."

The face of that old pot king surfaced in his mind, and Satoru frowned deeply.

"If it's that old bastard, then Father's endorsement has already drawn his attention. He wants to start with me and obtain the so-called 'Clan Secret Technique.'"

"If that's the case, then the upcoming combat training, exams, and battlefield deployment could all be opportunities for him to make a move."

"No, I have to develop the Summoning Scroll into something practical as soon as possible... As long as I can decipher this final formula, I can use The Book of Medivh to reconstruct it and convert it into a magic circle!"

"That way, I can make magic scrolls!"

With single-use magic scrolls, Satoru's methods would become far more varied, and the problem of some spells taking too long to cast could also be solved.

Their power would be somewhat reduced, but it would be worth it.

"And... I still need to tell the old man about this. No matter which possibility it is, the fact remains that I was attacked in the village. So what if I can't beat them? Can't I report them?!"

At dinner, Satoru gloomily shoveled rice into his mouth.

Across from him, Mitokado Homura was unusually wearing a placating smile. "Satoru, your dad gave them a proper scolding. When Tsunade first told me about this, she never said they had already acted!"

"This was also a good thing for you, so of course I agreed... Then Tsunade told me that Orochimaru had personally tested you!"

"Of course, they were simply fooling around. At first, I insisted on punishing them, but they are the Third Hokage's students after all, and Tsunade even invoked Lady Mito..."

What Mitokado Homura was talking about was clearly Satoru's "attack" earlier that day.

To Satoru's relief, this really had been Tsunade and Orochimaru's doing and had nothing to do with that old pot king.

That lowered Satoru's danger level by several grades.

The Lady Mito his father mentioned was Mito Uzumaki, wife of Hashirama Senju, the First Hokage; the first Jinchuriki of the Nine-Tails, who was still alive; and Tsunade and Nawaki's grandmother.

Konoha's true national mother.

Though Tsunade definitely could not have informed the old lady, since that crazy woman had invoked Lady Mito, with the Third Hokage putting in a good word beside her, and more importantly, since Satoru had actually made Orochimaru suffer a setback...

Mitokado Homura did not feel much resistance toward his son having been set up either.

After all, Orochimaru was the most talented of the Third Hokage's three disciples. There were even rumors that Sarutobi Hiruzen was grooming him to become the next Hokage.

Among the previous academy graduates, not a single one had caught Orochimaru's eye. His refusal to take students had earned him considerable criticism from Hiruzen, Homura, Koharu, and even Danzo.

Yet now he had actually taken the initiative to teach Satoru, which greatly tempted Homura.

Although Homura had originally intended to find another teacher for Satoru... if it was Orochimaru, he also possessed qualifications that person lacked, making him more beneficial to Satoru's future development.

Thus, Tsunade's proposal was accepted.