Time flew by. In the blink of an eye, it was December 10, with only ten days left before the international conference in the Land of Iron.
These had likely been the quietest two months since the Third Great Ninja War began.
The Five Great Ninja Villages seemed to have reached some unspoken understanding, all lowering the intensity of the war at once.
Previously, even when neither side fought any major battles, they still engaged in messy skirmishes, harassing each other now and then to probe their strengths and weaknesses. These past two months, however, had amounted to a de facto ceasefire.
The opposing forces merely faced each other from a distance, remaining vigilant. Unless they happened to run into each other in close quarters, they could not even be bothered to fight a skirmish.
Beneath that outward calm, however, undercurrents never stopped churning. In private, every side was busily stockpiling supplies, gathering strength, and adjusting troop deployments.
They were also waiting to see whether the conference in the Land of Iron would bring any substantive change to the course of the war.
But regardless of how the situation developed after the conference, one thing was certain.
When spring arrived next year, all sides would bare their fangs again after months of preparations. A major battle would be inevitable. The current peace was merely a brief respite before the next storm.
Meanwhile, the Ninja Way Origins Research Society, which had drawn the attention of more than half the Shinobi World from its very inception, had spent these two months unveiling
one thing after another that stunned the world.
First came the Three-Yang Water, which seemingly appeared out of nowhere and took the market by storm upon its release. Fortifying-Yang Water, in particular, soon sparked a buying frenzy among wealthy merchants