Striving to Become Stronger

Because of the Kannabi Bridge battle, Ōnoki had already admitted defeat in the war. If Rock ninja attacked Konoha's shinobi at this point, it would be very disadvantageous for the Land of Earth—at the very least, reparations would increase. Danzō saw this and made a hasty judgment that the attackers were Rock ninja.

In Danzō's mind, this was all for the village.

"Hiruzen, why are you still so naive? It's most beneficial for us if the attackers were Rock ninja. That's all that matters. I'll send Root operatives with evidence to demand an explanation from the Tsuchikage. Leave this to me." The speaker had a cross-shaped scar on his chin and bandages wrapped around his head. He was one of the Hokage Advisors and the leader of Root, Shimura Danzō.

Beside him, Utatane Koharu and Mitokado Homura were like rigid old antiques, silent and hesitant, offering no opinion.

Knock knock knock. Just as the Third Hokage was about to say more to persuade Danzō, the office door was knocked.

"What is it? If it's more intelligence about the Land of Lightning border skirmishes, bring it later." The higher-ups were in a meeting. If it wasn't urgent, the Third Hokage would speak through the door and send the knocker away.

"Reporting! I'm Morino Ibiki. There's new information about Team 16's annihilation..." A loud report came from outside the door, completely different from the gloomy tone he'd used when interrogating Xing Ran earlier, carrying a soldier's brisk decisiveness.

"Come in..."

Before awakening Superman's power, Xing Ran was limited by his talent. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't become a strong ninja. Reaching Special Jonin in his lifetime would be burning incense to the heavens; normally, Chunin was his peak form.

So back then, Xing Ran had let himself go a bit. Laziness and indifference to getting stronger had gradually become his labels.

But people are like that. When there's no hope of becoming strong, those who still struggle desperately are rare, stubborn geniuses. Most people give up. Yet once those who gave up see clear hope, the burst of determination to grow strong is no less than those stubborn geniuses.

This theory has a real basis. A simple example: online games thrive on this principle. Why do so many people love them? Because there, you can clearly see the path to your goal. Step by step, you'll eventually become the strongest. That's addictive. When the road and the goal are both clear before you, who's worse than who?

After awakening Superman's abilities and spending some time observing while sunbathing, Xing Ran discovered he was in a constant state of growth. As long as he could still soak up the sun, this process wouldn't stop.

But this process was very slow. For quantitative change to become qualitative change, it would take at least a decade or even decades of accumulation.

But so what? Slowness isn't the problem. The fear is that your finish line is only near someone else's starting line. Even worse is a finish line you can never reach in a lifetime.

After awakening Superman's abilities, Xing Ran had the confidence to say that in the entire shinobi world, most people's finish lines were only near his starting line, and the finish line he would inevitably reach was a place even Kaguya Otsutsuki couldn't touch.

It was as if life had been refilled with motivation. Even after realizing he had serious weaknesses, Xing Ran quickly bounced back from the blow. Find the problem, solve the problem, become a world-shattering powerhouse—that was his current mindset. He was already the luckiest existence in the world. What couldn't he overcome? Overcoming his own weaknesses and growing stronger was what made it interesting.

Xing Ran quickly made a plan for future growth. First, sunbathing every day was essential. Second, he needed to master his current abilities as soon as possible. Even if these abilities weren't strong, an uncontrollable ability wasn't truly his. He'd understood this principle in his past life.

He needed to quickly learn to turn Super hearing and Super vision on and off at will, study how his current level of Heat vision could help in combat, and adapt to his explosively increased muscle strength and speed. As for freezing breath... he'd set that aside for now. It was easy to detect and had little practical combat effect. Xing Ran put it at the very bottom of his priorities.

He needed to start combining Superman's power with Chakra as soon as possible, unleashing multiplied effects.

Most importantly, he had to train harder in the Yamanaka Clan's mental secret arts to improve his weakness.

Once he fully adapted to the explosive increase in power, he could prepare to seek out Orochimaru and scheme for the mental soul secret arts within the Living Corpse Reincarnation.

Over the next few days, Xing Ran ignored everything outside his window, focusing entirely on training to adapt to his new power.

Super hearing and Super vision were the first abilities Xing Ran fully controlled. In Superman's Steel Body, General Zod had taken only a very short time to adapt to the boost from Earth's sun—the explosive increase in strength, speed, the chaotic sounds from a wide range, using his eyes to see distant things, controlling the power of Heat vision, and so on. As long as he worked hard enough, he could adapt and control them quickly.

Xing Ran wasn't as impressive as General Zod, but fortunately, all his abilities were underdeveloped. Adapting in a short time wasn't a difficult task.

As he gained a deeper understanding of his abilities, Xing Ran discovered that they had likely been accumulating over the past year or more, until that day in the hospital when they finally burst out and became overt abilities.

But this burst was a process of gradual stabilization. Although there hadn't been another explosive increase in power over these few days, all his abilities were still in a growth phase. Comparing before and after, Xing Ran could feel that this rapid growth period would last about a month. It was hard to say what level his abilities would ultimately reach, but relying purely on physical strength without Chakra enhancement, reaching the level of a taijutsu-type Chunin should be no problem.

"Swish, swish, swish—"

That day, Xing Ran was training his Shuriken Throwing Art alone in a remote corner of Konoha.

This was an attack method he'd discovered that perfectly matched his current powerful neural reactions and visual tracking abilities.

Nearly half a month of training had made Xing Ran realize a powerful ability he'd overlooked from the start: Superman's brainpower. It possessed extremely strong calculation and learning abilities, as well as the neural reactions and visual tracking abilities that inevitably came with adapting to Superman's super speed.

This was also why, when he'd fought the Anbu with the Dog mask, everything had felt so clear and under control.