Forced to Compete and the Ice Release Kekkei Genkai

Luckily, Teacher Shinku, along with Shibi and Zhao, had been considered too weak by Shimura Danzō and hadn't been allowed to enter the Land of Swamps. They had stayed outside, which gave them a chance to contact Touma.

Touma didn't know what to say when he heard how brazen Danzo had been. When he'd entered the Land of Swamps before, he'd gone in with the Twin Xiao-Destroying Bugs. And because he was afraid of being discovered, he'd flown in disguised as a Kestrel.

But this time, Danzo had actually led his men straight through the Land of Swamps' barrier in broad daylight. Even the most foolish person behind the Land of Swamps wouldn't let them leave so easily. Getting lost might only be the first problem they ran into. It was a wonder they hadn't died in one of those poisonous marshes.

Touma could only ask Teacher Shinku to speak with Lord Hokage first. He couldn't get there quickly himself, because when he'd slipped aboard a merchant ship, he hadn't noticed that it was a slave ship.

Yes, you read that right. There were slave ships in the Shinobi World.

However, these ships didn't capture ordinary slaves. They hunted down wandering shinobi and those with rare kekkei genkai from overseas island nations, turning them into battle slaves for the noble lords of various countries.

These battle slaves would eventually be brought to an arena in the Land of Lightning to compete. Xueyue City in Hell Valley had one of the venues, which was specially used for the round of sixteen.

Touma had snuck aboard by taking down one of the slave ship's patrol shinobi and assuming his identity. But before he could figure out what was going on, the ship had docked. The identity he'd stolen had already been registered with the monitoring barrier, so he had no choice but to join the group escorting the battle slaves to their destination.

Fortunately, nothing unexpected happened along the way. The battle slaves might have grown used to this sort of life; none of them seemed inclined to escape.

Once they arrived at the Xueyue City arena, all the city's inner and outer barriers and gates were sealed to keep the noble spectators safe. Touma could only break out by entering Sage Mode and fighting his way through.

But if he did that, his identity would be completely exposed. The nobles of the Land of Fire would send their complaints straight to Konoha, and even with a good reason, Touma wouldn't be able to explain himself.

After all, the tournament was backed by the nobles of the Five Great Nations, all of whom held shares in it. The annual profits from those shares were substantial!

If Touma really dared to disrupt the competition, the nobles would have no qualms about publicly placing a bounty on him. Even with former Land of Fire daimyo Yuan Jiuxiong and the current Third, Sarutobi Hiruzen, backing him, it wouldn't help much. With the nobles offering such a huge reward, even Konoha might not be as safe as it used to be.

So the best option was to wait for the weeklong round of sixteen to end. Once the inner and outer barriers opened again, he could find a way to slip out.

But sometimes a person's luck could get so bad that even drinking cold water made them choke. One of the battle slaves Touma was escorting had suddenly suffered a kekkei genkai disease.

The contestant possessed a dōjutsu kekkei genkai called the Spirit Ghost Eye. Its power could pull a target's soul from their body and search the information stored in it.

In terms of how it worked, the Spirit Ghost Eye was extremely powerful. But the more powerful the kekkei genkai, the more severe the disease it could cause.

He'd used the Spirit Ghost Eye repeatedly in the earlier matches and hadn't rested or taken proper care of himself. As a result, the pressure in his eyes now averaged over 120 mmHg—six times the maximum normal eye pressure.

Even eyes with dōjutsu kekkei genkai had higher pressure than ordinary eyes, but not by that much.

So if he used his special ocular chakra again, his eyeballs would likely burst. The resulting blood loss alone would be enough to kill him on the spot.

The battle slave with the Spirit Ghost Eye had cost the Land of Water's Kishibe Clan a great deal of money to acquire. They had also invested heavily in his training. If something went wrong, the clan would lose everything they'd put into him.

To keep the Spirit Ghost Eye battle slave from becoming a total loss, the Kishibe Clan had no choice but to find another kekkei genkai user to take his place temporarily. Even if they lost the match, that would be far less costly than losing a battle slave with the potential to become a champion.

The Kishibe Clan chose the person Touma had replaced. Only then did he learn that the patrol shinobi he'd randomly picked was an Ice Release user from the Yuki Clan.

The Ice Release shinobi was named Yukie Sakura. Both his name and appearance were very feminine, but he was definitely a man.

When Yukie Sakura was young, his parents had sent him to live with relatives in the Land of Water's capital because of the Bloody Mist Village policy. But after he awakened Ice Release and the consequences proved too great, the relatives broke their promise and sold him to the Kishibe Clan as a battle slave for a high price.

However, Yukie Sakura had been too young at the time to be worth training as a battle slave, so he'd first served as a personal guard and attendant to the Kishibe Clan's younger members.

His gentle nature made him popular with the clan's young masters and ladies. Within a few years, they'd voided his slave contract, and he'd become an official employee of the Kishibe Clan.

According to what Touma had overheard others saying, Yukie Sakura wasn't weak. At sixteen, he'd already developed his Ice Release to an advanced degree and could hold his own against a jonin.

Only Touma's Heavenly Storm Sky Dance, which allowed him to enter a fully elementalized state, let him slip past the senses of shinobi with insufficient sensory abilities. That was how he'd managed to ambush Yukie Sakura and render him unable to fight back.

Touma wasn't worried that he wouldn't know how to use Ice Release and would give himself away. When he'd ambushed Yukie Sakura, he'd picked up quite a few Ice Release-related traits from the ground, including a purple "Ice Release Kekkei Genkai Awakening" trait. It would be more than enough for him to develop his own Ice Release techniques from scratch.

He was only a little worried that he might not be able to control how hard he fought. If he went too easy and lost the match, the Kishibe Clan might blame him, growing suspicious of his identity.

But if he fought harder and won, the Kishibe Clan might keep him around and demand that he compete in the round of eight and the rotating points matches. By then, it might be too late for him to escape!

Touma found a training room and sent everyone else away. Then he placed the "Ice Release Kekkei Genkai Awakening" trait in his system status bar.

This wasn't the first time he'd picked up a kekkei genkai-related trait, but it was definitely the first time he'd activated one himself. After all, he still didn't know much about kekkei genkai, and he had no idea what changes might occur in his body once one awakened!

Someone might ask, hadn't he used the "Wood Release Kekkei Genkai Creation" trait? He had, but that trait had only awakened the Yang Release Chakra nature transformation and given him an affinity for Water Release and Earth Release. It hadn't granted him Wood Release outright. So he could say that his body was still completely "clean"!

As soon as the trait activated in the system, white vapor began pouring from the pores across Touma's body. The vapor was water mist formed when the water vapor in the air instantly cooled and condensed.

Before long, the training room grew colder and colder. A thin layer of ice crystals covered the walls. Even Umibozu, Kaiyumaru, inside the Sea-Swallowing Gourd felt the chill and frantically burrowed deeper into the gourd's space.

Touma, sitting in place, slowly changed as the cold seeped into him. His skin grew more and more translucent until he had gradually become an ice sculpture in the shape of a man sitting cross-legged.