Tobirama: "Sir, he's slandering me!"

Three hours later, all the preliminary tests had ended.

A total of 276 ninja had passed the preliminaries and advanced to the next round.

The weakest among them were Tokubetsu Jonin; more than ninety percent of the rest were regular Jonin...

Of course, there were surely far more Jonin in the world than just this many.

But that was aside from the Five Great Villages.

Don't think Jonin were just any old nobodies.

In other small countries, a Jonin was basically the strongest fighter in the village, powerful enough to dominate it—or even govern an entire city.

Take Gato, for instance. Even though he owned a shipping company that controlled the economic lifeline of the entire Land of Waves and could hire a large number of wandering samurai and thugs, he still couldn't recruit a single Chunin from even a moderately powerful major village. In the end, a badly wounded Zabuza had slaughtered them all.

That showed just how valuable Jonin were across the world.

Of the 276 competitors in this advancement round, Konoha ninja alone made up more than half. The rest had been gathered from other countries and villages.

And if you excluded the competitors from mid-tier powers such as Sunagakure, the Land of Iron, and the Land of Grass, along with some remnants of the Cloud, Mist, and Stone Villages...

There were barely any promising competitors left from small countries and villages.

Your clan's secret jutsu, the one you were so proud of, might not be as advanced as some random A-rank ninjutsu from a great nation or major village.

They weren't even in the same league.

Of course, that was what most competitors from small countries were after: to make a name for themselves at the Ninja Way Tournament, fight for a good ranking, and win