Two Hundred and Fifty Tons

Yuya followed Kagami Uchiha to the Land of Lightning.

The journey took six and a half days.

If Yuya and Kagami Uchiha weren't ninjas, it would have taken an ordinary person at least half a month to cover this distance.

After all, they were traveling from Konoha in the Land of Fire to the border of the Land of Lightning.

Upon arriving at the makeshift command post on the front lines, Yuya met his martial uncle, Senju Tobirama.

Once Senju Tobirama dismissed the others, his icy, indifferent expression turned somewhat urgent.

He then rubbed his hands together and told Yuya about what he had encountered while training his Water Release.

Yuya's eyes lit up the moment he heard it.

If it was already producing pure gold sand, there had to be a massive gold mine underneath!

Kumogakure were truly a bunch of muscle-headed idiots; they couldn't even detect a gold mine this large.

Well, it was originally buried beneath a riverbed, after all.

Yuya hurriedly asked for the coordinates: "Martial Uncle, where is the gold mine?!"

Senju Tobirama, however, composed himself and spoke softly to Yuya: "Yuya, this gold mine can improve your strength, can't it?"

Yuya nodded repeatedly. Ever since his gold reserves had surpassed one ton, he felt that his overall abilities had increased significantly.

Senju Tobirama nodded and continued: "Then let me ask you, who do you think is the primary contributor to finding this gold mine?"

Yuya's excitement instantly vanished, and he stared at Senju Tobirama with dead fish eyes: "Just say what you want to say, Martial Uncle."

Senju Tobirama coughed: "Well, you see, after you use your ability to extract the gold, let's not be greedy—how about we split it fifty-fifty?"

Yuya was shocked: "What kind of nonsense are you talking about, Martial Uncle? Fifty-fifty?! I only get half? What if I use my ability to absorb the gold and I'm just short that half you took to reach the next level of strength?"

Senju Tobirama stopped smiling and looked at Yuya calmly: "Then how do you think it should be divided?"

Yuya: "Sixty-forty. I take sixty, you..."

Senju Tobirama turned and walked away: "Forget I ever mentioned it."

Yuya panicked: "Don't be like that, Martial Uncle! Fine, fine, fifty-fifty, we'll split it right down the middle!"

Senju Tobirama finally nodded with satisfaction.

Afterward, the two arrived at the riverbank, and Yuya crouched on the ground to begin exploring with his ability.

A moment later, Yuya looked at Senju Tobirama with a strange expression.

"What is it?"

Yuya: "My ability can currently only extract gold within a ten-kilometer radius of myself, and within this range... there is only about..."

Senju Tobirama grew anxious. Was it very little?

"...only about a hundred tons or so."

Senju Tobirama: "What? Only a hundred... wait, tons?"

Senju Tobirama's expression changed instantly; his mind was already calculating how much one ton of gold was worth, and how much over a hundred tons would be.

After a while, Senju Tobirama still hadn't finished the math, so he simply told Yuya to extract the gold first.

Yuya activated his ability and pulled the hundred-plus tons of gold up from underground.

A hundred tons sounds like a lot, but in reality, it would only form a cube about five meters wide.

Senju Tobirama clicked his tongue, then looked at Yuya and sighed: "This Kekkei Genkai of yours is truly useful. Although the gold you create with your ability turns back into its original form when it touches water, this naturally occurring gold doesn't have that limitation. Plus, you can bypass the refining process and pull the gold directly from the soil...

If you had been born twenty years earlier..."

Senju Tobirama lamented for a moment, then asked Yuya to divide the gold into two equal portions.

After watching Yuya absorb his half into his body, Senju Tobirama's mouth twitched.

What a wasteful brat. If this gold were used to develop Konoha, it would be...

What Senju Tobirama didn't know was that Yuya could absorb gold, but he could also spit it back out.

One suck and one release, and the gold wouldn't lose much at all.

However, Yuya certainly wasn't going to tell Senju Tobirama that.

It was better to let him think the gold had been consumed by the absorption process.

"Right, what else were you going to say? You can continue now."

Yuya nodded: "Oh, what I meant to say was that there are several thousand more tons of gold down there, but because my ability only has a ten-kilometer range, I can't absorb it all."

Senju Tobirama froze in place.

A moment later, Senju Tobirama rushed over with blood-red eyes (which were already red to begin with) and grabbed Yuya by the shoulders: "I am going to teach you Earth Release!

You will learn Earth Release within a single day, or else!"

Senju Tobirama was clearly acting a bit obsessed.

But then again, it was impossible for anyone to remain indifferent when faced with several thousand tons of gold.

Unless he didn't know the value of gold.

And so, for the next week, Senju Tobirama set about teaching Yuya Earth Style.

The main objective was to force Yuya to find every possible way to get underground and haul that gold back up.

One week, seven days; for Senju Tobirama himself, that would have been enough time to create an entirely new jutsu.

Yet, Yuya had barely managed to learn three Earth Style techniques.

Strictly speaking, all three techniques were of the same type, relying on chakra to soften the earth and manipulate its form.

In theory, once you learned one, the other two should have come naturally, but it took Yuya an entire week.

Senju Tobirama sighed, though he knew in his heart that while Yuya couldn't compare to him, he wasn't much worse than the others in his elite squad.

But right now, time was money.

After learning Earth Style, did Yuya bring back more this time?

The pile of gold he brought up was a full ten meters high.

Senju Tobirama's heart skipped a beat, but it quickly recovered.

Because he knew he couldn't afford to collapse.

After splitting it in half and happily sealing his share into a Sealing Scroll, Senju Tobirama grew puzzled: "The amount you just brought up, that was several thousand tons, right?"

Yuya: "No, it was only 500 tons in total; you have 250 tons there, Uncle-Master."

Senju Tobirama was furious: "Didn't you say several thousand?!"

Yuya sighed: "That would be much further down, dozens of kilometers deep."

Senju Tobirama frowned: "You can't go down that far?"

Yuya rolled his eyes: "Uncle-Master, you can try it yourself. Once I hit two kilometers underground, I can't go any further. The soil is too hard, and if I burn through too much chakra, I'll be stuck down there for the rest of my life."

Senju Tobirama understood; the little brat was just being cowardly.

Senju Tobirama offered to take him down there himself.

Yuya shrugged and suggested that Uncle-Master try it on his own first.

Senju Tobirama tested it and discovered that he could only Earth Style down about three kilometers before the rock layers, seemingly saturated with other elements, prevented him from going any deeper.

Sighing, Senju Tobirama realized that if he couldn't go further, then Yuya certainly couldn't either.

He abandoned the plan.

However, he still memorized the location of this gold vein, intending to sneak back here with Yuya once the boy was stronger and strip the entire vein right out from under the Land of Lightning.

Besides, those brutes in Kumogakure would only waste it anyway.

And so, Senju Tobirama took Yuya back to their temporary camp.

Yuya was secretly delighted; his gold reserves were growing even larger.

He had a premonition that his next stage of evolution would occur once he absorbed over a thousand tons of gold, at which point his detection, perception, and absorption abilities would surely become even stronger.

But Yuya certainly wouldn't tell anyone about this.

Wealth should be kept hidden; he understood that principle well enough.

That very night, an elite Kumogakure unit launched a night raid on the temporary camp where Konoha was stationed...