First Mission

Yu could guess some of the effects today might have. He had made quite a show of himself, and earlier, he had also told Red Cat and Snow Charm to reveal some of their abilities.

He had never hidden where Red Cat and Snow Charm came from. Anyone interested only needed to do a little investigating to connect the two of them to him.

It was important to hide some of your strength. Keeping a trump card, for example, could improve your chances of winning a battle. But hiding too much of your strength was just being a coward, and it wouldn't do you much good.

In the laboratory, Yu held a sheet of Chakra Paper in his hand.

By channeling your Chakra into the paper, you could find out its nature.

Generally speaking, a ninja's Chakra could have seven natures: Wind, Fire, Earth, Lightning, Water, Yin, and Yang.

Most ninjas had one of the first five natures. Yin and Yang were special cases.

Yu had actually tested himself many times already, but every result had left him baffled: his Chakra had no nature.

Ordinary ninjas had at least one Chakra nature. The gifted could have two or more. According to legend, super-genius Hiruzen Sarutobi had all seven.

There were probably two kinds of people with no Chakra nature: those with terrible talent and those with mediocre talent.

Terrible talent and mediocre talent were two different things. A ninja with terrible talent might never become a Chunin, while a ninja with mediocre talent could still reach a high level despite having no Chakra nature.

After all, you didn't need to have a matching Chakra nature to use a particular ninjutsu. But if you did have the corresponding nature, you could use that type of ninjutsu with twice the effect, as if you had a buff.

Yu didn't care much about that little boost anyway. As long as he was willing to pour in enough Chakra, his ninjutsu would naturally become more powerful. It was wasteful, sure, but he had so much Chakra that there wasn't much he could do about it!

Wasting it was part of the fun.

But having no Chakra nature meant his talent wasn't great, which made him feel a little ashamed as a transmigrator.

"This must be the slime bloodline at work. Oh well. I already have so many powerful abilities. I can't ask for too much."

Yu tossed the unchanged Chakra Paper aside.

Over the past few years, aside from conducting experiments, he had constantly trained in ninjutsu. The Naruto anime had said that even without an innate Chakra nature, you could acquire one through training. But after all this time, he still had none.

His experiments had hit a bottleneck. He needed to find a stronger bloodline to fuse with the slime, and he also needed to make the slime stronger so it could withstand a more powerful bloodline.

The day passed just like that. He had thought someone from Konoha might come looking for him, but everything remained as peaceful as usual.

Early the next morning, he arrived at the mission office in the Hokage Building.

He was the last to arrive. Though he had shown up at the agreed time, the others had already been there for quite a while.

People were most afraid of being around someone more diligent than themselves. You might not be lazy on your own, but next to someone else, you suddenly seemed far behind.

That was exactly how Yu felt now.

Yamashiro Aoba glanced at Yu, then quickly looked away.

He straightened his expression and addressed the three members of Team 99. "Today, we'll take on the most important duty of a ninja—accepting missions."

"According to Konoha's rules, ninjas who don't hold positions in the village don't receive a salary. So our main source of income is the reward for completing missions. Ninja missions are divided into five ranks: S, A, B, C, and D..."

Yamashiro Aoba gave the three of them another basic lesson.

Yu and the others had already learned this at the Ninja Academy.

According to Konoha's rules, freshly graduated Genin like them could only take D-rank missions at first. Once they had completed enough missions, they could take C-rank ones. In theory, only Chunin could accept B-rank missions, and so on.

[D-rank mission: Capture the chickens that escaped from Konoha's No. 3 Farm. Reward: 3,000 ryo]

This was the first mission Yamashiro Aoba accepted for them.

Sai and Fujiwara Chima naturally looked down on this kind of mission. Wasn't it a waste of a ninja's abilities to chase after a few escaped chickens?

Of course, Yu felt the same way. He really didn't want to do this kind of mission.

Back when I watched the anime, I thought it was hilarious when Team 7 went off to find cats and dogs. Now that it's my turn, why does it feel so damn miserable? Yu thought.

But there was nothing he could do. It was Konoha's rule, and no matter how unwilling he was, he had to follow it.

The farms weren't inside Konoha. They were in the Great Forest of Death outside the village.

Not every part of the Great Forest of Death was dangerous. Many areas had already been developed for producing all kinds of goods.

The No. 4 Farm they had arrived at was one of them.

Yu had thought the mission was just to catch a few chickens. Instead, he discovered they had to catch over a hundred.

"Over a hundred chickens, and the reward is only 9,000 ryo. As the team leader, Yamashiro Aoba gets half, leaving each of us with just over a thousand ryo." Yu turned to Sai and Fujiwara Chima. "Based on Konoha's prices, a thousand ryo is probably worth a little over a hundred yuan in my old world."

And there were over a hundred chickens, scattered throughout the Great Forest of Death. The workload was ridiculous.

"Teacher Aoba, could we make a deal? We could go back and switch to a different mission," Yu said to Yamashiro Aoba.

But Yamashiro Aoba shook his head. It wasn't allowed.

"Once you accept a mission, you can't change it. If you abandon it, your record will show a failed mission, which will make it much harder for you to get promoted in the future."

After getting turned down, Yu had no choice but to accept reality.

"Don't worry, Yu. I'm fast, so I can catch all the chickens in no time." Fujiwara Chima suddenly came over and spoke to him.

Fujiwara Chima, who had seemed so aloof before, was acting strangely today. Her eyes kept drifting toward Yu, and now she had even come right over to him to ingratiate herself.

Yu knew exactly what Fujiwara Chima was thinking.

Girl, you won't win your Yu-nii over with little tricks like that. Yu watched Fujiwara Chima dart into the Great Forest of Death and thought.

"Sai, let's get started too. The sooner we build up our mission record, the better. I really don't want to take another tedious, boring mission like this." Yu spoke to Sai, then hurried into the Great Forest of Death.

Sai was acting a little strangely today too. Most notably, his trademark fake smile had disappeared.

Sai recalled what Lord Danzo had told him that morning.