Hatake Sakumo Incident

On the way home, Kamiya Keiyun was still studying the meridians in his legs.

He had originally planned to strengthen his entire body at once, but quickly realized that was unrealistic.

There were simply too many meridians!

The major meridians were already mapped out, and there were not many of them, but the minor meridians were countless, impossible to tally. (Fun fact: the human body contains 250 trillion blood vessels, stretching a total of 150,000 kilometers.)

For the meridians in his legs alone, Kamiya Keiyun could sense more than three thousand with his current control over Chakra.

And beneath those meridians were branches, beneath those branches were more branches. Their total number was as vast and innumerable as a sea of stars!

If he strengthened his entire body, first, his mental capacity was limited and he would not be able to control it all. Second, his Chakra reserves were limited too. Right now, he could only fill one-tenth of the meridians in his legs!

Only then did Kamiya Keiyun realize that his Chakra reserves were actually quite low. They were not even enough for both legs.

So he could not pursue something broad and all-encompassing. He should first pursue something small and refined.

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

Chakra was the product of bodily energy and spiritual energy fused together. Spiritual energy was easy enough to handle; the Pure Tranquil White Lotus Sutra was made for that.

But there was no shortcut for bodily energy. He could only eat.

Kamiya Keiyun did not have the genes of a competitive eater. He could not eat much in one meal. If he wanted to eat more and eat better, he had to improve his digestive system.

He needed to turn himself into someone who could eat and digest.

This world was far from peaceful. In the years since Kamiya Keiyun had transmigrated here, war had never stopped. The reason they had moved was also because ninja were going to fight in that village.

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

Only with intelligence could he know where the enemy was, and the best tools for gathering intelligence were naturally the eyes, ears, and nose.

The meridians around the five senses were all extremely delicate. Familiarizing himself with them would consume a great deal of energy, and Kamiya Keiyun did not have that much time. He could only choose one.

As for the eyes, he had heard that the Hyuga Clan could see very far, so he did not need to train them yet. As for the nose, he could raise a dog. Both had substitutes.

Only his ears had to rely on himself.

"Right, there's also skill naming!" Having worked on projects before and written too many proposals, he placed great importance on this part.

"There are many leg-training techniques, and quite a few famous ones. Heavenly Foot Sense fits the Chakra system fairly well, but I'm not a monk. Close at Hand, World Apart is also good, but it's mainly for running away. There's Geppo and Lan for fighting and fleeing, but why should a Huaxia man use Japanese names?"

Although he was called Kamiya Keiyun in this life, that was only because changing his name was inconvenient. Whenever he could name something himself, Kamiya Keiyun still wanted a Huaxia-style name, so he could remember where he came from!

"So, it's decided. Wind God Leg!"

The idiom for eating and digestion was called Life Return in the One Piece system.

Huaxia had plenty as well, and many sounded good and impressive. After thinking it over, Kamiya Keiyun decided to name it: Cooking Gold, Serving Jade!

Cooking with gold and burning jade as firewood!

There were also plenty of idioms suitable for an auditory ability. Catching Wind and Shadow was actually quite fitting, but unfortunately, it was a move from Wind God Leg.

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

By hearing sounds, one could clearly perceive reason. It was precisely the application of hearing in intelligence analysis.

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

Name: Sun Keiyun (Kamiya Keiyun)

Age: 31 (5)

Skills:

Chakra Refining Technique: Mastery (63%)

Hand Seals: Proficient (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 home, Wind God Leg's proficiency continued to rise slowly.

When he arrived home, Kamiya Keiyun discovered that Kamiya Koromo was not there!

"That's 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 answered from upstairs.

"Huh? She's not even a ninja. What mission could she be doing?" Kamiya Keiyun asked.

"It's a mission Dad gave her. He told her to go around the streets and discuss a ninja named Hatake Sakumo. He said that if she did it well, it would help the Kamiya Family a lot!" Kamiya Sanyō shouted. "Do we really have to yell at each other through a floor?"

"Fine, I'll come up!" Kamiya Keiyun thought about it. Hatake Sakumo sounded both familiar and unfamiliar.

Oh, right, my deskmate Kakashi is also named Hatake!

What was his relationship with Hatake Sakumo?

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

She seemed far more diligent than Kamiya Keiyun. She clearly only knew the Chakra Refining Technique, yet she could persist like this. Kamiya Keiyun knew exactly how boring it was when that was the only thing one could train.

"Earlier, Hatake Sakumo led a team out on a mission. Then his teammate was captured by the enemy, and the enemy used his teammate to threaten him into abandoning the mission. So he gave it up, and it caused enormous losses for the village," Kamiya Sanyō said.

"Uh, how do you know all that in such detail?" Kamiya Keiyun asked curiously. As far as he knew, ninja missions were generally kept secret!

"The whole village is talking about it. You just didn't know because you were at the Ninja Academy!" Kamiya Sanyō shrugged. "Dad told me to go too, but I wanted to train and couldn't be bothered. Oh, right, there's a more detailed account here. Want to read it?"

She handed him a sheet of paper.

"This..." It looked handwritten, yet also somewhat like it had been printed. The paper was terrible, the kind no one would even use as toilet paper. On it was a summary of the mission carried out by the Jonin Hatake Sakumo.

Put simply, he had accepted a mission involving conflict with another village, and Hatake Sakumo's Jonin teammate had been captured by the enemy.

He was strong enough that he could have completed the mission even without his teammate, but if he insisted on carrying it out, his companion would die.

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

Tch.

Kamiya Keiyun shook his head and put down the paper.

"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 what he did? Everyone in the village is cursing him now!" Kamiya Sanyō said. "I want to know what you think."

"I remember that village missions are not supposed to be abandoned, so giving up the mission was definitely wrong. If he had let his teammate die and completed the mission himself, no one could have said anything about it," Kamiya Keiyun said.

"Is that... so?" Kamiya Sanyō's tone became much more subdued.

"Of course, giving up the mission to save a companion is not really wrong either. A human life is at stake, and training a Jonin costs a great deal. If this ninja survived, how many missions could he complete? Sooner or later, he could make up for this loss!" Kamiya Keiyun added.

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

"Yeah. From my personal perspective, I definitely support him!" Huaxia already had a ready-made example: fighter jet pilots.

A single aircraft could easily cost tens of millions, even hundreds of millions. If it was a new model, it would cost even more.

If an aircraft malfunctioned in the air, should the pilot save himself or try to operate it and save the aircraft?

The state's rule was to save oneself.

Aircraft could always be built again, but if the pilot was gone, then everything was gone.

But in reality, most pilots chose to save their aircraft. Pilots who crashed tens-of-millions-worth aircraft into mountains in order to protect ordinary people's property worth only a few million were not uncommon either.

Here, Kamiya Keiyun believed the village should establish a rule: if absolutely necessary, abandoning a mission should be allowed.

And if ninja chose to give up their own lives rather than abandon the mission, then both sides would be satisfied.

But the village had no such rule, and the hostage ninja had not chosen to give up his own life. So the problem arose. Hatake Sakumo, who had been forced to make the choice, became the target of everyone's condemnation.

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

"Ah, someone slipped it through the door crack," Kamiya Sanyō said.

"So this guy must have offended someone!" Kamiya Keiyun mused. "There has never been a case where a failed mission led to people mobilizing villagers to attack someone. The villagers do not even know what ninja do all day."

After all, he himself was a villager. Before entering the Ninja Academy, he knew nothing about ninja. He did not even know the village head was the Hokage.

"Huh?" Kamiya Sanyō froze.

"This Hatake Sakumo might be someone very formidable. Ordinary methods could not get rid of him, so they could only resort to such underhanded tactics!" Kamiya Keiyun said.

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

"Does the opinion of the entire village automatically make it right? This is typical Populism!" Kamiya Keiyun shook his head. "What judgment do ordinary people have? They may encounter something like this only a few times in their lives. Of course they will make judgments based on a momentary surge of emotion. Such judgments are shortsighted, one-sided, and lacking in experience."

"This..." Kamiya Sanyō did not quite understand.

Kamiya Keiyun did not intend to continue explaining. Things like this required a great deal of factual evidence and historical stories to understand. Dryly explaining it and asking someone to imagine it from nothing was indeed difficult.

But Populism was generally caused by brain-dead people at the top. Konoha probably would not be like that... right?

Still, it was very likely that someone was using the mouths of commoners to accomplish something.

Kamiya Keiyun felt that his talent had been exposed a little too early. He had simply assumed this place was like Huaxia in his previous life, but judging from this incident, Konoha was not that simple either!

He should keep a low profile for a while and see how that Hatake Sakumo would be dealt with!