Lost

Ever since Minato departed, Ye Wuji had been training while making his way toward the Land of Rivers. It had been over half a month since Minato left, meaning Ye Wuji had now been in the Naruto World for a full month. His progress over this month could be described as astonishing; while his strength was nothing compared to the ninjas of the entire world, compared to his former self, Ye Wuji felt that if he were to return to Earth now, he would certainly qualify as a superhuman.

Over the past half-month, Ye Wuji had reached the point where he could walk about five meters up a tree trunk using his feet. He could even walk on water now, though he would fall in before even a minute had passed.

To others, this result would be considered abysmal. Even that guy Naruto, who had such poor chakra control, seemed to have mastered walking from the base of a tree to the canopy in just a single day. Trees in the Naruto World were generally over ten meters tall, and the higher one climbed, the stricter the requirements for chakra control became. This was because the higher one went, the less weight the tree could support; by the time one reached the canopy, there were only leaves and very fragile twigs. At that point, one not only needed precise chakra control under their feet but also had to use chakra to lighten their own weight, otherwise, the twigs would never be able to support them.

Ye Wuji had slowly discovered these things for himself. At first, he practiced at the base of the tree, but later, wanting to slack off, he jumped directly onto the tree and climbed toward the canopy before trying to use his feet to adhere to it. He soon realized that the two were completely different concepts. Fortunately, Ye Wuji's reflexes were decent, and he didn't suffer any serious injuries when he fell.

Ye Wuji was currently alone; he couldn't afford to take risks or engage in speculative training. Naruto and Sasuke could practice so desperately because they had Kakashi looking after them. Not to mention that, even without supervision, look at their backgrounds: one had the Nine-Tails and an astonishing recovery rate, while the other was a direct descendant of the prestigious Uchiha clan, who knew what secret techniques they might have had since childhood to strengthen their bodies.

Ye Wuji had nothing. He was walking through the wilderness alone; if he got injured, he wouldn't even need anyone else to finish him off—he could just slowly wait for death.

However, compared to his previous understanding, Ye Wuji could now jump three or four meters high and walk on water. On Earth, regardless of anything else, even the martial arts seen on television would consider this the pinnacle of light-body techniques—if not quite "leaving no trace on snow," it was certainly "skimming over water."

From this, one could see that the martial power of this world was likely far above that of the martial arts worlds of his past life. After all, what Chinese person didn't harbor a martial arts dream? Even in the difficult circumstances of his previous life on Earth, there were still people who persisted in practicing those martial arts that, whether useful or not, could at most strengthen the body.

Therefore, when Ye Wuji discovered he could jump three or four meters high and leap from one tree to another, he couldn't have been happier. This could truly be called "leaping onto roofs and vaulting over walls."

Unfortunately, the result was that Ye Wuji got too excited. Thinking he could now vault over walls, he kept jumping around in the forest. He knew he shouldn't stray from the path and kept jumping in circles, but when he saw a massive white wild rabbit, he thought about how he had been eating dry rations or picking non-toxic fruits in the forest. His appetite suddenly flared up, and he wanted to catch that rabbit, roast it, and finally have a real meal.

Furthermore, Ye Wuji now believed he had achieved some success in his cultivation, so catching a rabbit shouldn't be a problem. Didn't rabbits on Earth sometimes get caught by people?

Regrettably, Ye Wuji completely forgot that he was now in the Naruto World. The result was that he chased it until dark without ever catching it. By the time he regained his senses, he was already deep in the forest, and the rabbit had vanished from his sight the moment he stopped.

Ye Wuji spent seven or eight days wandering in the forest before he finally saw a road at the foot of a mountain from a peak. However, when he compared it to the map Minato had drawn, he couldn't see any resemblance.

At this point, Ye Wuji knew he was thoroughly lost. This wasn't like Earth with its GPS positioning. If an ordinary person got lost in the forest in this world, they were basically waiting for death. Not to mention how long it would take to walk out, the various wild beasts in the forest were not something an ordinary person could handle.

Ye Wuji was lucky enough to eventually walk out, but his clothes were nearly reduced to rags by the forest beasts. Although most of those beasts ended up in his stomach, they left quite a few scars on his body, especially on his right shoulder, which had been clawed by a bird of prey similar to an eagle. Although Ye Wuji had left scars on the bird's talons, his shoulder was still wounded. His bad luck was that the dry rations Minato had prepared for him were lost during the struggle with that bird. Fortunately, the bird seemed to decide that Ye Wuji wasn't easy to mess with and stopped attacking him.

From then on, Ye Wuji walked with extreme caution. Luckily, he didn't encounter any other powerful beasts, which allowed him to successfully emerge from the forest.

Ye Wuji had no idea where he was. His only hope of finding out was to head toward a place with people, so he could only walk toward that road. At his current speed, it took him about half a day to reach the edge of the path.

Ye Wuji stood in the middle of the road and looked in both directions, unsure which way to go or which direction would lead him closer to a village or town.

In the end, having no other choice, he decided to leave it to fate. He took a silver coin from his pocket and tossed it into the air. He was facing one direction; if it landed heads up, he would walk in that direction, and if it were tails, he would go the other way.

Fortunately, in his past life, Ye Wuji had always valued money highly. As an orphan, every cent he had was earned by himself, and he hid it very well. Whenever he had free time, he would count his money to see how much he had, plan what to buy, or see when he could save enough for what he wanted.

To be honest, Ye Wuji had never lost a single cent by the time he was twenty in his previous life. After arriving here, he hadn't changed that habit. When Minato left, he gave him nearly thirty thousand ryo. Aside from the large banknotes, Ye Wuji had counted the small coins several times. The currency of the Naruto World was very similar to Earth's, consisting of banknotes and coins, but the value of the coins here was much higher. Banknotes were generally large denominations, with the lowest being five thousand, so coins were the most frequently used. Their purchasing power was equivalent to the Chinese currency Ye Wuji used before he transmigrated. These coins were silver coins. As for why Minato gave him so much money, it was actually money left behind by the Sannin; even though Minato was powerful, he wouldn't necessarily carry that much cash on him at all times.

At this moment, Ye Wuji didn't understand the currency of the Naruto World at all. Habitually thinking in terms of Japanese Yen, he didn't realize that this sum was actually quite significant. If anyone knew Ye Wuji was carrying that much money...

Ye Wuji's luck was decent; the coin landed heads up, which saved him from having to turn around. After picking up the coin, he began to walk forward, continuing his training as he went. By now, Ye Wuji had successfully mastered the Three Basic Techniques. During this period, he had focused solely on training them: the Clone Technique, the Substitution Technique, and the Transformation Technique.

The Clone Technique created an illusory clone. It wasn't the Shadow Clone Technique, which created clones with physical bodies that had attack power and could use ninjutsu and ninja tools. The Clone Technique created a clone that looked real but had no attack power and would vanish into smoke upon contact. Although it was the most basic ninjutsu, if used well, it was no less effective than an A-rank technique; it all depended on how one utilized it.

The Substitution Technique allowed one to instantly swap places with an animal or plant to evade an attack. Ye Wuji had studied this the most during this time. This technique could be used not only for evasion but also for offense. It seemed to be Kakashi's signature move; he often used it to substitute and then appear behind his target. Ye Wuji was currently most afraid of dying, so he practiced this technique the most diligently. However, Ye Wuji discovered a problem: it was easy to use with inanimate objects like plants, but when he tried to use animals in the forest, he never succeeded once. Still, this technique clearly implied that animals could be used. Later, Ye Wuji recalled that when Kakashi first met Zabuza Momochi, there was a snow rabbit. Kakashi had said that the rabbit was raised by ninjas specifically for the Substitution Technique. Ye Wuji wondered if using an animal required prior training. Although he couldn't prove it, he figured it was likely true, given that he had failed to use various animals throughout his journey while succeeding easily with branches, stones, and tables.

As for the Transformation Technique, it allowed one to change into other things, most commonly other people. It was mainly used for infiltration, gathering information, or escaping. This technique was very powerful if used well, but it seemed it could be seen through if the level gap was too great.

The Three Basic Techniques were foundational, but all powerful ninjas could use them skillfully. Their effectiveness depended on the user; in the hands of a Kage-level ninja, they were S-rank techniques, while in the hands of a Genin, they were low-level techniques.

As for another technique that some in his past life categorized as part of the Three Basic Techniques, that was the Body Flicker Technique.

However, Ye Wuji later learned from Minato that there was no unified standard for the so-called Body Flicker Technique. One could even say it wasn't a single technique at all; it entirely depended on the user.

Because any technique that achieved instantaneous movement was collectively referred to as a Body Flicker Technique, it could be divided into two categories: one was the use of taijutsu, achieving high-speed movement purely through physical speed, and the other was the use of space-time ninjutsu to jump directly from one place to another.

In other words, there was no specific way to train the Body Flicker Technique; it mainly depended on the individual. Many ninjas didn't know how to use it. Of course, one could say that against ninjas of a lower level, they could use it, but against those of a higher level, they couldn't. This was why some ninjas could escape during battle while others had to fight to the death—because they couldn't get away.

As for which of these two types of Body Flicker Techniques was superior, it depended entirely on the person using them.