The Hatake Sakumo Incident

On the way home, Kamiya Keiyun was still studying the leg meridians.

He had initially thought about directly strengthening his entire body, but quickly realized that wasn't feasible.

Because there were simply too many meridians!

The large meridians were all pre-existing, not many in number, but the small ones were countless, impossible to tally (trivia: the human body has 250 trillion blood vessels, totaling 150,000 kilometers in length).

Just for the leg meridians alone, with his current control over chakra, Kamiya Keiyun could perceive over three thousand.

And beneath those meridians were branches, and beneath those branches were more branches, the total number immeasurable, vast as a sea of stars!

If he strengthened his whole body, first, his mental energy was limited and he couldn't control it all; second, his chakra reserves were also limited—he could currently only fill a tenth of his leg meridians!

It was at this point that Kamiya Keiyun realized his chakra reserves were actually quite small; even two legs weren't enough.

So, he couldn't pursue breadth and completeness; instead, he should first aim for refinement and precision.

Kamiya Keiyun chose to start with his digestive system, legs, and ears.

Chakra was the product of merging physical energy and mental energy. Mental energy was easy to handle—the Pure Tranquil White Lotus Sutra was for that.

But physical energy had no shortcuts; it could only rely on eating.

Kamiya Keiyun didn't have any big-eater genes; he couldn't eat much in one meal. To eat more and eat well, he had to improve his digestive system.

To make himself someone who could eat and digest well.

This world wasn't exactly peaceful. In the years since Kamiya Keiyun had transmigrated, there had been constant war. The reason he moved was because ninjas were fighting in that village.

Becoming a Gundam pilot was a long-term goal; the short-term goal was naturally to survive in this harsh world.

With intelligence, you could know where the enemy was, and the sharp tools for gathering intelligence were naturally the eyes, ears, and nose.

The meridians around the five senses were very fine, and familiarizing oneself with them consumed a lot of energy. Kamiya Keiyun didn't have that much time, so he could only choose one.

For the eyes, he had heard the Hyuga Clan could see very far, so he could skip training that for now. For the nose, he could raise a dog—both had alternative methods.

Only the ears relied solely on oneself.

"Right, and skill naming!" Since he was used to project work and had written many opening reports, he placed great importance on this.

"There are many leg-training techniques, quite a few famous ones. Heavenly Foot Sense fits the chakra system well, but I'm not a monk. Close at Hand, World Apart is also good, but it's mainly for running. For both fighting and running, there's Geppo and Rankyaku, but why would I, a Huaxia person, use a Japanese name?"

Even though he was called Kamiya Keiyun in this life, that was because it was inconvenient to change his name. Where he could name things himself, Kamiya Keiyun still wanted to use Huaxia-style names, to remind himself of where he came from!

"So, I've decided on you, Wind God Leg!"

For eating and digestion-related idioms, in the One Piece system, it was called Life Return.

Huaxia had plenty too, and many that sounded good and had high style. Kamiya Keiyun thought for a moment and decided to name it: Cooking Gold, Serving Jade!

Cooking with gold, burning jade as fuel!

For hearing-related names, there were also many idioms. Catching Wind and Shadow was actually quite fitting, but unfortunately, it was a move in Wind God Leg.

Kamiya Keiyun thought for a moment and decided to name it: Listen to Sound, Perceive Reason.

Hearing a sound and being able to perceive the truth—that was exactly the application of hearing in intelligence analysis.

Thus, three more lines appeared on Kamiya Keiyun's system panel.

Name: Sun Keiyun (Kamiya Keiyun) Age: 31 (5) Skills: Chakra Refining Technique: Proficient (63%) Hand Seals: Skilled (24%) Bright Virtue Method: Beginner (15%) Wind God Leg: Beginner (12%) Cooking Gold, Serving Jade: Not Learned Listen to Sound, Perceive Reason: Not Learned Pure Tranquil White Lotus Sutra: Passive Skill, No Level.

As he jogged all the way home, the proficiency of Wind God Leg was still slowly rising.

When he arrived home, Kamiya Keiyun found that Kamiya Koromo wasn't there!

"How strange, isn't she usually home cooking at this time?" Kamiya Keiyun scratched his head and called out, "Sis, where's Mom?"

"She went out on a mission!" Kamiya Sanyō replied from upstairs.

"Huh? She's not a ninja, what mission?" Kamiya Keiyun asked.

"Dad gave her a mission to go discuss a ninja named Hatake Sakumo on the streets. He said if she did it well, it would be very helpful for the Kamiya Family!" Kamiya Sanyō shouted. "Do we really have to shout across a floor?"

"Alright, I'll come up then!" Kamiya Keiyun thought for a moment. Hatake Sakumo—somewhat familiar, yet somewhat unfamiliar.

Oh, I remember now! My deskmate Kakashi's surname is Hatake!

What's the relationship between him and this Hatake Sakumo?

"What's going on?" When he arrived at the training room, Kamiya Sanyō was still cultivating.

She seemed even more diligent than Kamiya Keiyun. Even though she only knew the Chakra Refining Technique, she could persist so stubbornly. Kamiya Keiyun knew firsthand how mind-numbingly boring it was to have only that one training item.

"Earlier, Hatake Sakumo led a team out on a mission. Then his teammate was captured by the enemy. The enemy wanted to use his teammate to force him to abandon the mission, so he gave it up. But it caused huge losses to the village," Kamiya Sanyō said.

"Huh, how do you know so many details?" Kamiya Keiyun asked curiously. As far as he knew, ninja mission details were usually kept pretty confidential, right?

"It's spread all over the village. It's just that you're at the ninja academy and don't know!" Kamiya Sanyō shrugged. "Dad told me to go too, but I wanted to train, so I couldn't be bothered. Oh, right, there's something more detailed here. Want to take a look?"

She handed over a piece of paper.

"This—" It was a sheet that looked handwritten but also somewhat printed. The paper quality was garbage, the kind no one would even use as toilet paper. On it was written a rough summary of the mission process for the jonin named Hatake Sakumo.

In short, he had received a mission involving a conflict with another village. Hatake Sakumo's teammate was captured by the enemy.

His strength was formidable—he could have completed the mission even without his teammate. But if he insisted on carrying it out, his comrade would die.

For the sake of his comrade, he abandoned the mission.

Tch.

Kamiya Keiyun shook his head and put the paper down.

"What do you think?" Kamiya Sanyō asked.

"What?" Kamiya Keiyun looked up and saw Kamiya Sanyō staring at him very seriously.

"What do you think of his actions? The whole village is cursing him right now!" Kamiya Sanyō said. "I want to know your take on it."

"I remember the village's rules forbid abandoning missions, so giving up on one like that is definitely wrong. If he'd let his teammate die and just done the mission, no one could have said anything to him," Kamiya Keiyun said.

"Is that so..." Kamiya Sanyō's tone dropped considerably.

"Of course, choosing to save a comrade and abandon the mission isn't a wrong choice either. Human life is at stake. The cost of training a jonin is huge. If this ninja survives, how many missions can he carry out? He'll make up for this loss sooner or later!" Kamiya Keiyun added.

"Huh?" Kamiya Sanyō smiled. "So, you support him?"

"Yeah, from a personal standpoint, I definitely support him!" The main reason was that Huaxia had a ready-made example—Fighter Jet pilots.

A single plane cost tens of millions, even hundreds of millions. If it was a new model, it was even more expensive.

If a plane malfunctioned in the sky, did the pilot choose to save himself or try to operate it and save the plane?

The rule the country gave was: save yourself.

Planes could be built anytime, but if the pilot was gone, nothing was left.

But in reality, most pilots chose to save the plane. And pilots who chose to crash a plane worth tens of millions into a mountain for the sake of people's property worth less than a few million were not uncommon.

Applying that here, Kamiya Keiyun thought the village should set a rule: if absolutely necessary, allow mission abandonment.

And if the ninjas themselves chose to give up their lives rather than abandon the mission, that would be the best of both worlds.

But the village had no such rule, and the captured ninja hadn't given up his own life. So the problem arose. Hatake Sakumo, forced to make a choice, became the target of everyone's accusations.

"But, where did this come from?" Kamiya Keiyun tapped the paper.

"Oh, someone slipped it under the door," Kamiya Sanyō said.

"So, this guy made some enemies, didn't he?" Kamiya Keiyun mused. "There's never been a case before where a mission failure stirred up the villagers to attack someone. The villagers don't even know what the ninjas are doing all day."

After all, he was a villager himself. But before entering the ninja academy, he knew nothing about ninjas. He didn't even know the Village Head was the Hokage.

"Huh?" Kamiya Sanyō was taken aback.

"This Hatake Sakumo might be a pretty formidable person. Ordinary methods can't take him down, so they have to use such underhanded tricks!" Kamiya Keiyun said.

"This, underhanded?" Kamiya Sanyō frowned deeply. "But isn't this the opinion of the whole village?"

"Is the opinion of the whole village necessarily right? That's textbook Populism!" Kamiya Keiyun shook his head. "What judgment do ordinary people have? They encounter situations like this maybe once in their lives. Of course, they'll make a judgment based on momentary impulse. That judgment is short-sighted, one-sided, and lacks experience."

"This—" Kamiya Sanyō didn't quite understand.

Kamiya Keiyun didn't feel like explaining further. Things like this relied on a foundation of solid facts and historical stories to grasp. Explaining it dryly and asking someone to imagine it out of thin air was indeed hard to understand.

But Populism usually came from incompetence at the top. Konoha probably wouldn't be like that... right?

Still, the possibility that someone was using the common people's voices to accomplish something was high.

Kamiya Keiyun felt that his talent had been exposed a bit too early. He'd naively assumed this place was just like his past life in Huaxia. But judging from this incident, Konoha wasn't that simple either!

Better keep a low profile for a while and see how this guy named Hatake Sakumo gets dealt with!