Tsunade's Call

The Ancient Tomb Sect was still the Ancient Tomb Sect, and Little Dragon Girl was still called Little Dragon Girl.

It was called the Ancient Tomb Sect, but in essence, it had become the Free and Unfettered Sect. Wu Yu had also changed Little Dragon Girl's age to Tianshan Child Elder's ninety-six.

As for the martial arts... Wu Yu subconsciously felt that if he wrote martial arts based on the principles of ninjutsu, it would make it easier to pad out future settings and training scenes to his heart's content... So he did not plan to directly copy Tianshan Child Elder's Everlasting Youth and Eternal Spring Skill.

If he was turning the three elders of the Free and Unfettered Sect into distorted versions of the Sannin... then Orochimaru could only wear Li Qiushui's skin. Anyway, he should have already become Snake Aunt by now. This was called respecting the facts!

Li Qiushui—or Orochimaru—would cultivate a skill called the Nine Yin Manual.

It was called the Nine Yin Manual, but it was actually Yin Release ninjutsu.

If Wu Yazi was going to be a distorted version of Jiraiya... then he should not be called Wu Yazi either. The Sannin were Huang, Gambling, and Poison—Jiraiya's character might as well take the surname Huang!

Huang Yaoshi?

Hmm... Huang Wuji, then.

Huang Wuji would cultivate the Nine Yang Manual!

In this altered Ancient Tomb Sect, the founding patriarch, Xiaoyaozi, was a supreme grandmaster who had fused Nine Yin and Nine Yang into one—Yin-Yang Release! But by the era in which the novel began, such a godlike figure would surely have vanished without a trace.

Wu Yu scribbled a few strokes with his pen and felt that having the protagonist and Little Dragon Girl, as a master-disciple duo, continuously discover the various legends, inheritances, and even former beauties and daughters left behind by Xiaoyaozi throughout their long adventure... ought to be a great way to pad word count in a Liu Bei Novel.

Naturally, Little Dragon Girl, based on Tsunade and Tianshan Child Elder, cultivated the divine skill formed by uniting Nine Yin and Nine Yang.

At the beginning of the novel, Little Dragon Girl was at a critical juncture in cultivating her Yin-Yang Divine Skill when Li Qiushui, based on Orochimaru, snuck into the ancient tomb and ambushed her, leaving her seriously injured...

Should Yang Guo's entry point be placed before or after Little Dragon Girl was injured?

Wu Yu tapped the paper with his pen tip. Before it was, then!

Before Little Dragon Girl was injured, she would be rather cold toward Yang Guo—lonely at the heights, unattainable, high above all others... Then Li Qiushui would ambush her and leave her badly wounded. Yang Guo would do this and that, saving Little Dragon Girl in short. The severely injured Little Dragon Girl would be overflowing with fragility, soft and weak, lowering herself to ask Yang Guo for help. With his assistance, she would escape the ancient tomb and evade Li Qiushui's pursuit... To heal her injuries, Little Dragon Girl would teach Yang Guo the Yin-Yang Divine Skill. He could directly copy the Jade Maiden Heart Sutra's formula and start with some tame teasing to lure in readers...

They were all old formulas from Liu Bei wish-fulfillment novels. He just did not know whether readers in the ninja world would buy it.

Oh, right. Wu Yu added another note: after Little Dragon Girl was seriously injured, she also had to undergo Rejuvenation like Tianshan Child Elder. Though the healthy version of Little Dragon Girl also retained her youthful looks, Rejuvenation was still a different matter.

At ninety-six years old, the Rejuvenation process would take eighty-one days, returning her to the state of a fifteen-year-old. Her cultivation would likewise revert to the mediocre internal energy she had possessed when she had first begun training at fifteen. Then, after another eighty-one days—one day equaling one year—she would return to her peak at ninety-six.

If there was always a max-level powerhouse in the party, there would be no sense of danger... Wu Yu, who himself had Mysterious Kaguya as a bodyguard at his side, pondered this and changed the Tsunade-version Little Dragon Girl's Rejuvenation cycle from Tianshan Child Elder's once every thirty years to once every ten days. She could only maintain it for ten days before undergoing Rejuvenation again—turning young, then old...

Wu Yu drew circles and lines across his notebook, jotting down all sorts of ideas. Whenever he wrote something entertaining, he could not help letting out a snort of laughter.

"What are you so happy about?" Wu Yu's Shadow Clone carried over steaming dishes, looking at him with helpless disgust. "Seeing yourself in the third person is seriously weird."

While the original body picked up his chopsticks to eat, the Shadow Clone snatched the notebook and flipped through it. The fragmented scraps of writing were scattered all over the place, wildly imaginative and disjointed, one sentence in the heavens and the next on the ground, like a sheet of rough draft paper.

The Shadow Clone read aloud, "Yang Guo said: 'Women are like fine wine—the older...' Wait, no, so he's Yang Soldier Boy Guo now?" He burst out laughing. "Just as expected of me!"

Wu Yu shoveled food into his mouth while thoughtfully studying his own Shadow Clone. "The fact that a Shadow Clone's thoughts don't synchronize with the original body in real time is genius... That way, I can make a Shadow Clone before writing. Once I finish a chapter, I can have the Shadow Clone critique it."

The Shadow Clone also grabbed a pair of chopsticks. "Well said. We can't say we're any good at writing, but we're definitely good at picking faults—and very good at it!"

Smack! Wu Yu knocked his chopsticks away. "What are you eating for? You're a clone!"

"Can you have some manners?" The Shadow Clone rolled his eyes. "Besides, even if the Shadow Clone is satisfied with it, that only means it suits your own tastes. If you want to make big money in the ninja world, you need the readers of the ninja world to enjoy it."

"My Shadow Clone will handle the first draft, then I'll have Kakashi Hatake, that old hand, look it over for the second draft."

Wu Yu spoke regretfully. "Too bad Jiraiya isn't here, or I could have him give it a look."

"The prototype is Tsunade," the Shadow Clone reminded his original body.

The original body smiled. "If you're going to pursue excitement, you might as well carry it through to the end."

"You're such a pervert," said the Shadow Clone.

Wu Yu burst out laughing.

"..."

Late at night, while Wu Yu slept in his bedroom, the pile of manuscript pages scattered across the living room coffee table suddenly began moving without wind. One page after another rose into the air and floated there. Mysterious Kaguya's face quietly emerged in the air, her three eyes shifting back and forth as they swept over the circle of hovering papers.

What kind of incoherent nonsense was this?

When Wu Yu opened his eyes the next day, he yawned and sat on his bed to refine Chakra for a while. Then he reviewed the nature transformations of Fire Release and Water Release, before picking up the forehead protector beside his bed and practicing Yin Nature Transformation for another half hour, with modest results.

With only his meager Stamina and Chakra Reserves 2 worth of Chakra, he was nearly drained dry after all that.

He washed up, made breakfast, and recovered his strength after Chakra depletion while eating... Having little Chakra had its benefits too—at least it recovered quickly!

Why was he suddenly trying to comfort himself like Ah Q?

Wu Yu shook his head and gathered up the scattered manuscript pages. He had wanted to leave a Shadow Clone at home to write, but with so little Chakra, no matter how proficient he was, a Shadow Clone could not possibly last longer than an hour. And with Stamina and Chakra Reserves 2, he could not even make a second Shadow Clone. It was far too shabby.

That one Shadow Clone's worth of Chakra was better saved for training.

Wu Yu put on his ninja tool pouch and headed out to work.

And so, ten days passed without him realizing it in the dull, monotonous but fairly profitable D-Rank Mission life of a rookie Genin. As long as a mission was not especially draining, Wu Yu would make a Shadow Clone responsible for it while he hid away to train.

Driven by his example, the other three members of Team Seven were too embarrassed to loaf around.

Naruto Uzumaki in particular, relying on his abundant stamina, would fiercely make a huge number of Shadow Clones every time. Never mind whether his training yielded results—simple missions often ended up taking twice the effort for half the result because he fumbled around with so many hands.

Sakura Haruno trained hard and finally caught up with the other three. She, too, could make one Shadow Clone and have it handle D-Rank Missions while she trained herself. Previously, whenever her original body began training, her Shadow Clone would automatically dispel itself. Sakura could not figure out why and merely assumed she was clumsy.

During that time, Wu Yu wrote the first three chapters, around thirty thousand words, of Carefree Wandering and showed them to Kakashi Hatake, a seasoned reader of Liu Bei Novels. Kakashi's feedback was, "The Liu Bei parts are written quite well, but this martial arts stuff, and the overall worldbuilding... feel a little distant."

Not immersive enough? Wu Yu thought it over and decided to play the transmigrator card, making Yang Guo a transmigrator who had crossed over from the ninja world... Why not make his previous life an Uchiha who had died during the Uchiha Clan Massacre?

Wu Yu pondered maliciously...

[Women are like fine wine... Heh, what a little genius I am...] Wu Yu muttered to himself when he suddenly heard Jade Rabbit's voice. [Wu Yu, wake up. Wu Yu, wake up.]

[Hm?] Wu Yu opened his eyes and realized he was no longer in bed. He had arrived in the depths of his spiritual world, lying atop an endless expanse of water. The gray Jade Rabbit was cutely hopping all over him, stepping on him again and again.

[What is it, Little Jade? Did you need something?] Wu Yu asked as he sat up.

[I sensed Haotu's Chakra trying to connect over.] Jade Rabbit blinked her ruby-like eyes while Wu Yu held her in his hand. [It seems Tsunade is looking for you.]