Quest Rewards and the Second Money-Making Plan

The battlefield was cleared, and the team successfully retreated to the temporary base in the Land of Hot Water without any complications.

Looking at his excited subordinates, Neji felt a sense of pride. It had been a quite successful assassination; they had wiped out fourteen enemy ninjas, including the target and all his attendants, while his own team had only suffered minor injuries.

While cleaning up the battlefield, they had also scavenged nearly six million ryo in banknotes from the target, which counted as an extra harvest.

Neji sent Sakiki-Danlong with two Chunin to take the merchant's head to the Black Market to collect the mission reward. Meanwhile, Neji sat in meditation to recover from the exhaustion caused by opening the Four Gates.

Through these two battles, Neji had a rough idea of his current strength: he possessed combat power roughly equivalent to an Elite Jonin. However, because his chakra reserves were still insufficient, he had explosive power but lacked the ability to sustain a long-drawn-out fight. For the foreseeable future, his priority would be increasing his chakra, with physical training as a secondary focus.

After resting for the night, everyone had fully recovered.

Neji summoned the four of them to the meeting hall. They looked at the twenty million ryo reward Sakiki-Danlong had brought back, combined with the six million from the battlefield and the three million surplus from Sakiki-Danlong's previous scavenging.

Nearly thirty million ryo was a decent sum, but it was still not enough to establish a substantial base in the capital of the Land of Hot Water.

Thinking of this, Neji laid out his second money-making plan: the one he had used before—gambling.

Upon hearing Neji's words, the four were stunned. The style didn't match his usual demeanor; it felt a bit out of character. However, none of them dared to say much, so they listened in silence while complaining inwardly!

It wasn't until they heard Neji's complete plan that the four exclaimed that it was feasible. Since there were more people this time, Neji had them split up to scout. Each person was responsible for watching two targets, carefully observing their words and actions to ensure they didn't give themselves away. Because they had Neji assisting them with his cheating, the four were very diligent in selecting suitable targets, so Neji didn't have to worry about them.

It took only three days for all four to find suitable targets and become familiar with their situations. On the fourth day, Neji began his grand gambling enterprise once again.

Each person prepared 500,000 ryo as gambling capital. After going over the necessary details, Neji acted as the coordinator. The four used the Transformation Jutsu one by one to head to the gambling dens. They agreed that each transformed persona would win no more than two million ryo before stopping, and then the operation began.

It took about two more days for everyone to successfully reach their targets and withdraw. Although they tried their best to control their greed and kept the winnings from being excessively large, two of them still attracted unwanted attention. People secretly followed them, intending to kill them and steal the money. However, under Neji's Byakugan, they had nowhere to hide and were easily killed in counter-attacks by Neji.

After dealing with the eight disguised pursuers, Neji and his four subordinates tallied their gains: over fifteen million ryo. Neji was very satisfied, and Sakiki-Danlong and the three Chunin were equally pleased. It was true that following a good boss meant having meat to eat.

The subsequent matters went smoothly. Neji spent twenty million ryo to buy a large estate on the outskirts of the capital of the Land of Hot Water. The nearly ten-acre property was nestled against the mountains and near the water; if it weren't for the slightly remote location, it would never have been sold at that price. This estate would become the first official base for Neji and his subordinates, with Sakiki-Danlong in charge of overseeing it.

Following Neji's requirements, a second laboratory was built beneath the estate, which would be primarily used for researching Senjutsu.

Senjutsu played a pivotal role in the ninja world. Techniques activated by absorbing natural energy from the environment were known as Senjutsu.

The difficulty of practicing Senjutsu could be described as devilish, generally divided into three steps:

Step 1: Sensing the natural energy in the environment.

Step 2: Guiding the natural energy from the environment into the body.

Step 3: Controlling the natural energy guided into the body and activating it according to different methods; the techniques activated this way are Senjutsu.

The first step alone—sensing natural energy—stumped 99.9% of people. Not to mention that natural energy in the ninja world was thin, even in the Three Great Sage Lands where natural energy was relatively abundant, almost no one could sense it on their own; they all relied on external aids to assist their perception.

The second and third steps were equally difficult and carried extremely high risks. One careless mistake could lead to a miserable end.

The reason Neji dared to research Senjutsu in the ninja world, despite having no support and facing a scarcity of Natural Energy, was because he had a bold idea: the "Natural Energy Purification Plan."

Although the Natural Energy in the ninja world was thin, this indirectly indicated that it did exist. It was just so scarce that the vast majority of people could not perceive it, and therefore could not cultivate Senjutsu.

If he could purify and concentrate the Natural Energy found in the ninja world—if ten times wasn't enough, then a hundred; if a hundred wasn't enough, then a thousand—he would continue until it could be perceived.

To achieve this goal, a significant amount of equipment was required. Some of the necessary instruments didn't even exist in the ninja world and would have to be developed by Neji from scratch. However, as long as the path wasn't completely blocked, it didn't matter if it was narrow; as long as it was passable, that was enough.

After reiterating the laboratory renovation requirements and the list of equipment to be procured to Samaki-Tanryu, Neji prepared to leave. He had been away from Konoha for seven or eight days, and he was genuinely worried that something might go wrong with his Shadow Clone.

Samaki-Tanryu looked at the list of laboratory equipment Neji had left behind: large air compressors, large centrifuges, large compressors, and various other auxiliary machines.

Samaki-Tanryu suddenly felt that the twenty-plus million ryo he had left in his hands didn't seem so appealing anymore! It looked like he would have to find a way to work and earn more money; otherwise, how could he afford to buy all this equipment?

Neji ignored Samaki-Tanryu, packed his things, and set off for Konoha.