The First Blood

Chapter 9: The First Blood

Uchiha Shin arrived at the Briefing Room. He greeted the clan member standing guard outside and showed him his mission scroll.

Only after the guard gave his permission did Uchiha Shin open the Briefing Room's doors and go inside.

The so-called Briefing Room was where the Uchiha Clan stored the intelligence they had gathered.

It wasn't a place just anyone could enter whenever they wanted.

You needed either a written order from the clan head or a scroll for a mission issued by the clan.

And even then, you could only enter and consult the relevant intelligence files after the guard had inspected your credentials and granted permission.

After all, the intelligence in the Briefing Room had been gathered by the clan's scouts and reconnaissance ninja at great risk to their lives.

The importance of the Briefing Room went without saying.

Of course, the Uchiha Clan wasn't the only one with a Briefing Room. The other ninja clans in the Ninja World had their own, too.

Inside the Briefing Room, Uchiha Shin hurried over to the shelves holding intelligence on the Hagoromo Clan and the Uzuki Clan. He took down the files on both clans.

Carrying the files, Uchiha Shin went to a table at the side of the room and sat down. He opened them and began reading carefully.

There was quite a lot of information on the Hagoromo Clan. After a while, Uchiha Shin had finally finished reviewing all the files on both the Hagoromo Clan and the Uzuki Clan.

The Uzuki Clan wasn't worth worrying about. It was just an ordinary ninja clan, with no special Kekkei Genkai or signature secret techniques or ninjutsu.

The Uzuki Clan had a small population and a small territory. Its overall strength was mediocre, and it had no particularly outstanding ninja. It usually didn't dare provoke the powerful clans.

The Hagoromo Clan, on the other hand, was far stronger than the Uzuki Clan. Its Kekkei Genkai was unknown, and its overall strength was second only to the Senju Clan and the Uchiha Clan.

The Hagoromo Clan could be considered one of the powerful ninja clans in the Land of Fire.

According to the intelligence, the Hagoromo Clan's head was especially powerful. His strength was said to be on par with Uchiha Tajima and Senju Butsuma.

The good news for Uchiha Shin was that the Hagoromo Clan wasn't hostile to the Uchiha Clan. On the contrary, it was the Senju Clan that they were enemies with.

According to the intelligence, the Hagoromo Clan might also be one of the Sage of Six Paths' descendant clans, just like the Senju Clan and the Uchiha Clan.

It seemed the Hagoromo Clan had a distinguished lineage, too.

When Uchiha Shin read that, he couldn't help thinking of the demons in Journey to the West: the ones with powerful patrons got taken back and taught a lesson, while the wild ones without connections were all killed. Haha.

Still, based on the intelligence, this was definitely good news for Uchiha Shin.

He had thought that wiping out the bandits on the frontline would be easy. The only thing he was worried about was running into patrols from either clan and getting dragged into an unnecessary fight.

After all, how did that saying go? Only magic could defeat magic—and, by the same logic, only ninja could defeat ninja.

Besides, Uchiha Shin was just a rookie who had only recently entered the Ninja World and hadn't even earned his Genin title yet.

So the situation was that the Uzuki Clan wouldn't dare provoke the Uchiha Clan, while the Hagoromo Clan wasn't hostile to them. That meant this clan trial mission should go smoothly.

Still, Uchiha Shin knew he had to stay cautious. You could never be too careful around other people.

Having learned what he wanted to know, Uchiha Shin left the Briefing Room and headed home.

He had to set out early the next morning, so he needed to prepare his ninja tools, provisions, water, and a few other things.

By the time Uchiha Shin had packed everything he would need the next day, night had fallen completely.

Before long, Uchiha Tajima and Uchiha Aoi returned together.

That evening, the family enjoyed a hearty dinner together. After chatting happily for a while, Uchiha Shin went to bed early.

To be safe, before going to sleep, Uchiha Shin also soaked the Kunai, Shuriken, and short blade he'd prepared in poison.

That was right—Uchiha Shin planned to coat all his weapons with poison.

However, in the Warring States Period of the Naruto world, animal toxins were difficult to extract, scarce, hard to preserve, and prone to losing their potency.

On top of that, the Uchiha Clan wasn't known for using poison, so it had no methods or techniques for extracting and preserving animal toxins.

So the poison Uchiha Shin used on his weapons was a common plant-based toxin of the era. It was easy to extract and convenient to store.

Every ninja clan in the Warring States Period of the Naruto world kept some in reserve.

After all, ninja would do whatever it took to win. That was only natural, wasn't it?

They weren't samurai, who insisted on facing their opponents head-on.

Time passed quickly, and the night was soon over.

Just after dawn, Uchiha Shin set off quietly, carrying his supplies and following the route marked on the map.

The Uchiha Clan's territory bordered the territories of the Hagoromo Clan and the Uzuki Clan.

Around noon, Uchiha Shin finally left the Uchiha Clan's territory and reached the border of the Hagoromo and Uzuki territories.

To be honest, the Naruto world wasn't as small as people thought.

Ninja traveled much faster than ordinary people.

Based on his own walking speed, Uchiha Shin figured he covered around forty kilometers an hour. After all, his current strength was at most that of a peak Genin.

If Uchiha Shin could already travel on foot at nearly forty kilometers an hour, then there was no need to mention how fast Chunin and Jonin were.

Uchiha Shin had set out from the Uchiha Clan's base at around five in the morning and reached the edge of its territory at noon.

Suppose the Uchiha Clan's base was at the exact center of its territory.

If Uchiha Shin had traveled in a straight line that morning, then the diameter of the Uchiha Clan's territory would be forty kilometers × seven × two, or 560 kilometers.

Since the area of a circle is π times its radius squared, the Uchiha Clan's territory would cover more than 5,000 square kilometers.

That was nearly half the area of an average city in Uchiha Shin's previous life.

With that calculation, the size of the territory seemed much more reasonable to him.

After all, the territories of powerful ninja clans like the Uchiha Clan in the Warring States Period of the Naruto world must have included plenty of ordinary civilians.

Otherwise, if the clans of the Warring States Period didn't farm, where would they get the food to survive and raise their families?

On top of that, agriculture in the Warring States Period of the Naruto world was relatively underdeveloped. There were no agricultural machines or equipment, and most farming had to be done by hand.

So naturally, the territory controlled by the Uchiha Clan had to be fairly large.