Expansion

Bang!

Dan didn't waste a word. He took out a scroll and released the corpses of four Root ninjas.

The boss was a well-traveled man. The moment he saw the gray armor and animal masks on the corpses, his expression changed. His voice trembling slightly, he asked, "Mr. Araki, could they be..."

"That's right. They're Anbu ninja from Konoha. These four were Jonin from the Yamanaka, Akimichi, Nara, and Hyuga clans."

Dan's revelation was shocking.

"This..."

The boss looked troubled.

The Bounty Exchange was, after all, in the Land of Fire. Now that he knew the corpses belonged to Konoha Anbu, he was reluctant to take them.

But Dan's next words put his doubts to rest. "Don't worry. These Anbu weren't directly under the Hokage. They served other members of Konoha's high command, so they won't bring trouble to the Bounty Exchange. Take a look and tell me what they're worth."

Although none of these Root Ninja had bounties on their heads, their corpses were valuable in their own right. There were plenty of people eager to buy them and take them back for research.

"Since you say so, Mr. Araki, I'll take your word for it."

The boss didn't hesitate for long before deciding to accept the bodies.

He didn't ask any more questions about where they'd come from. Instead, he got right to work, examining them with a practiced hand. When he was done, he held up one finger and named his price.

Ten million Ryo.

"That's all?" Dan frowned, displeased.

"Mr. Araki, please don't be upset just yet. If the corpses were intact, I could offer thirty million Ryo, but they've all been damaged."

The boss shook his head regretfully and pointed to the four bodies on the ground. "Take a look."

He pried open a corpse's mouth. The black, horizontal Cursed Seals carved into each person's tongue were clearly visible.

This was Danzo's Cursed Tongue Eradication Seal.

When a Root ninja died, the technique activated automatically, destroying the victim's brain tissue and wiping out all the information stored in their mind.

The brains of these Root Ninja were ruined. Only their bodies below the neck remained, and those still held some research value.

The most gruesome was the Root ninja from the Hyuga Clan.

He bore both the Cursed Tongue Eradication Seal and the Caged Bird Seal. Not only had his brain turned to mush, but his Byakugan had been completely destroyed as well, leaving him in a horrifying state.

"The corpse of this Hyuga clan member is worthless. If you don't want to sell it, Mr. Araki, you can take it with you," the boss reminded him.

"The Hyuga Clan is despicable. They have no sense of the bigger picture at all."

Dan criticized them coldly, then waved a hand and instructed the boss, "Never mind. Please dispose of it for me."

Once the deal was settled, the boss quickly brought over a box filled with ten million Ryo in cash. Dan took it and left.

After leaving the Bounty Exchange, he found an inn in town and rested for a while.

His business was done for this trip.

In the past, whenever Dan left the village to work as a bounty hunter, it took a lot of time—from picking a target and searching all over the world for them, to killing them and bringing them back to the Bounty Exchange.

Sometimes it took half a month; sometimes two or three months.

And the money he earned was often barely enough to cover his expenses.

This time, the four Root Ninja had come straight to him, which made things much easier and greatly simplified the process. Ten million Ryo was no small sum, either. It would cover food and other necessities for at least half a year.

Building up his body was an expensive hobby, especially in this world.

Over the past twenty-four years, Dan had spent at least two or three hundred million Ryo on himself to complete his physical transformation.

His body had been built with money. Every inch of muscle was less muscle than gold—stack upon stack of banknotes.

One of his arms alone had cost tens of millions of Ryo to build, making it more expensive than an Asuma.

"I wonder how many people the Root has..." Dan muttered, his eyes glinting.

He felt as though he'd found a steady source of income: all he had to do was kill Root Ninja and exchange their corpses for money at the Bounty Exchange. That way, he'd never have to worry about his future livelihood.

After resting for a while, Dan closed his eyes and quietly felt the Chakra flowing through his body. Using his will, he guided it through his meridians and pathways, directing it into his right arm.

When he opened his eyes again and looked at his right arm, it was swelling rapidly, soon becoming completely disproportionate to the rest of his body.

It looked like a giant's arm attached to an ordinary person.

This was the Akimichi Clan's Expansion Jutsu.

Everyone knew that the Sharingan had excellent perception. It could see the flow of Chakra inside an opponent's body and copy the Ninjutsu they used.

Kakashi had used this ability to copy over a thousand Ninjutsu, earning the title "Copy Ninja."

Dan was no different.

During his earlier fight with the Root Ninja, he'd seen through the Expansion Jutsu used by the Akimichi attacker. After experimenting with it, he'd successfully copied it.

The claim that the Sharingan couldn't copy Kekkei Genkai or clan techniques wasn't entirely accurate.

Kakashi could copy the Expansion Jutsu too, but he couldn't use it because his physique couldn't match the Akimichi Clan's.

It was like a five-foot-tall person watching someone six-foot-six dunk a basketball. They could copy the technique, but the tremendous disadvantage in height would still keep them from dunking.

The Akimichi Clan were the six-foot-six person.

Their Expansion Jutsu was a Yang Release nature transformation developed to suit their naturally large and robust physiques.

And Yang Release was one of Dan's strengths.

His body was even stronger than the Akimichi Clan's.

He was like someone who stood ten feet tall. Once he learned how to dunk, doing it would be easy.

As for the other clan techniques, Nara's Shadow Jutsu and Yamanaka's Mind Body Switch Technique were both Yin Release techniques, fundamentally similar to the Uchiha's Sharingan techniques.

However, their principles were far more complex. Even with the Sharingan, they couldn't be copied so easily.

Besides, they didn't suit Dan's fighting style.

As for the Hyuga's Gentle Fist and the Aburame's Kikaichū Technique, those were even harder to copy. Dan had neither the Byakugan nor any insects.

In his room, Dan slipped his enlarged hand under the bed and lifted it slightly. The entire bed rose with it.

The Expansion Jutsu worked by consuming the body's heat to temporarily increase the user's strength.

For the Akimichi Clan, the boost could usually multiply their strength several times over, even more than tenfold.

But Dan's physical strength was already close to its limit, nearly at the peak of what a human body could achieve. So the Expansion Jutsu didn't add much strength for him.

Only thirty to fifty percent.

That might not sound like much, but not many people could withstand Dan's punch at thirty to fifty percent of his strength.

All in all, he'd gained ten million Ryo and the Expansion Jutsu from this trip. It had been a worthwhile haul.

That was enough. It was time to return to Konoha.

Dan hadn't forgotten that he'd promised his sister and brother-in-law he would attend the Uchiha Clan Meeting next month.

He didn't care about the Uchiha's fate, but, well—

He might as well go and see the show.