The system was also restricting the pace at which I awakened my eyes. Requiring me to raise my Yin Attribute before awakening them was actually a way of protecting me.
Otherwise, I might have ended up like other Sharingan users, driven mad by the enormous drain on my mental energy.
Xia Xueqing pinched Su Bai hard around the waist. Putting on a "fierce" expression, she huffed, "You're such a stubborn mule. Fine, I'm done with you!"
Su Bai's nonchalant attitude nearly drove her crazy!
Still, despite her sharp words, Xia Xueqing never let go of the hand supporting Su Bai.
Su Bai gave a wry smile and could only nod along to placate her before sitting on the ground to recover his mental energy.
He'd only copied two ninjutsu, and his mental energy had nearly run dry.
"Yin Attribute... I'm afraid I'll have to keep putting points into it even after I awaken the Mangekyo Sharingan."
With a sigh, he looked at the panel in his mind.
"Lightning Release: Lightning Snake: LV1 (101/200)"
"The Copy Eye is amazing! I don't even have to practice the ninjutsu—I can use them right away!" Su Bai was overjoyed!
With his earlier ninjutsu, he'd always needed several days of hard training before he could use them. Only after a new ninjutsu entry appeared on his panel and he raised it to Level 1 by adding a point could he use it.
But the Two-Tomoe Sharingan was something else. It let him skip the whole process, bypassing the hard work of training and giving him the effect of having already added a point!
"This will not only save me a ton of time practicing ninjutsu, but also give me an advantage in fights against other ninjas. I won't end up getting countered!"
He knew that battles between ninjas were contests of strategy and skill, of countering one another, and of comparing mastery of ninjutsu, hand-seal speed, chakra, and more.
To Su Bai's delight, when he copied a ninjutsu, he formed the hand seals just as fast as the person he was copying. That ability was simply outrageous!
Chakra on Blue Star was incredibly powerful, but also extremely volatile. One mistake could make it tear your body apart. That was why Su Bai was slow at forming hand seals.
It wasn't that he was so clumsy it took him forever to make a few signs. Hand seals were just an aid for guiding chakra along its proper path. If the chakra flowed slowly, forming the seals faster wouldn't help. Did people think a few hand gestures were enough to make a ninjutsu appear?
It wasn't that simple...
Thinking it over, Su Bai realized that copying a ninjutsu drained so much of his mental energy because his Sharingan didn't just copy the opponent's chakra pathways. It also forcefully suppressed the chakra inside him, making it obedient and as easy to control as his own limbs.
"Looks like I really need to spend time on basic training."
Su Bai thought of the basic exercises from the original story, like Water Walking and tree climbing.
Before, he'd focused entirely on training ninjutsu, refining chakra, and completing missions.
Now Su Bai had no missions to do for the time being, and he'd just learned two new ninjutsu, so he had time to work on basic training.
PS: I'll let you all in on a little secret: Xiao Wang's pre-New Year obligations are finally over. After the holiday, I'll do my best to become a Three-Watch Beast and update like crazy every day!
Xiao Wang isn't very bright, and I often get stuck while writing. I type slowly, too, so it's common for me to keep writing late into the night. Please bear with me.
Bows repeatedly!
And finally, wishing everyone a happy Year of the Tiger! May you be as fierce as a tiger...
(This isn't padding out the word count. These are Xiao Wang's heartfelt words. This chapter has 2,250 characters, excluding the PS.)
Chapter 57: The Iron-Horned Sheep's Astonishing Value
"Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!" Li Lei spat out a fireball over a hundred meters across, sending it hurtling toward the Iron-Horned Sheep!
"Xueqing, quick, help me up! I can still copy one more ninjutsu!" At the sight of a new ninjutsu, Su Bai grew anxious where he sat on the ground and struggled to get up.
Xia Xueqing glared at him and pressed down hard on his shoulder with her small hand.
"Are you trying to get yourself killed? Sit right there and behave!"
"Aw, what a great opportunity!" Su Bai looked completely drained, yet he was still thinking about copying ninjutsu. Xia Xueqing gritted her teeth and punched him hard on the head!
Thud!
"If you want to copy ninjutsu, I'll find people for you to copy from when we get back. You can copy as much as you want, okay?"
Su Bai: "..."
"Lightning Release: Lightning Snake!"
"Fire Release: Phoenix Sage Fire!"
"Baa!"
Li Lei and Chu Yuan unleashed their strongest ninjutsu. The Iron-Horned Sheep let out a cry of pain and collapsed, its body either charred black or torn open, until the two of them finally wore it down and killed it.
"Damn, that beast finally died. I'm exhausted!" Chu Yuan's forehead was beaded with sweat. He sat on the ground, panting heavily.
Li Lei was just as pale. Although he was a Chunin, the fight had taken a lot out of him. After all, he'd been the main force in the battle.
Miao Qiu was in better shape. She was a sensor ninja, and usually did the work Xia Xueqing handled. She wasn't much of a fighter.
Holding two palm-sized porcelain bottles, Miao Qiu hurried over to them and handed them out. "Quick, have some Military Ration Pills to restore your chakra and stamina."
Military Ration Pills were made by scientists using a special substance found in the Secret Realm, mixed with high-calorie foods. They could restore chakra and stamina.
However, chakra replenished rather slowly, so ninjas still had to rely on their own constitution to recover it.
When the fight was over, Su Bai and Xia Xueqing walked over and curiously examined the Iron-Horned Sheep lying on the ground.
The Iron-Horned Sheep was over ten meters long. Lying motionless on the ground, it looked like a bus that had rolled onto its side. Not a patch of its body was uninjured; only the two metallic-looking horns on its head remained mostly intact.
"So strong. Now this is a real Magic Beast. The Long-Eared Rabbit was nothing compared to it." Su Bai studied the beast on the ground, his heart shaken.
And this was only a D-Class Magic Beast. It had taken Li Lei, a Chunin, and Chu Yuan, a seasoned Genin, more than half an hour of hard fighting to hunt it down... What would the stronger beasts be like?
Among D-Class Magic Beasts, the Iron-Horned Sheep was only above average. It wasn't one of the strongest.
For example, the Black Scale Horse Su Bai had seen in Base City. Although its main purpose was to carry ninjas around, it was even stronger than the Iron-Horned Sheep!
Xia Xueqing was also examining it curiously. Before, she'd only "seen" Iron-Horned Sheep on the dinner table. This was her first time observing one up close.
"It's so strong. I wonder how much this Magic Beast will sell for," Xia Xueqing murmured.
Chu Yuan had eaten some Military Ration Pills and walked over, smiling. "Don't worry. You won't be disappointed."
"Usually, the Iron-Footed Sheep we hunt are only about five meters tall, and have no more than 300 chakra. Even those sell for two hundred million Federal Coins. This one... must be worth at least five hundred million, right?"
"Worth that much!" Su Bai was stunned.
Good grief, Brother Li's ninja squad had made five hundred million in less than half a day?
That was way faster than printing money!
Chu Yuan took out a C-Rank Chakra Conductive Equipment long knife and cut off the Iron-Horned Sheep's pair of metal horns, each more than two meters long. He weighed them in his hands a few times, then turned to Su Bai and Xia Xueqing.
"The most valuable part of an Iron-Horned Sheep is its horns. They can be used to make Chakra Conductive Equipment and usually account for sixty percent of its total value."
"The hide and meat are worth something, too. But we ruined the hide, so we can only sell the meat."
As he spoke, he took out a large Storage Scroll and sealed the entire Iron-Horned Sheep's corpse inside.
Su Bai had seen these at the Ninja General Store. One cost 100,000 Federal Coins and contained a hundred cubic meters of space—ten times as much as the Storage Scroll he'd bought for 10,000 Federal Coins, which had only ten cubic meters.
Chu Yuan was cleaning up the battlefield. With nothing else to do, Li Lei and Miao Qiu came over and asked the pale-faced Su Bai curiously, "What happened to you? Why do you look like you're about to collapse?"
"Haha, I used up a lot of mental energy. It's..." Su Bai rubbed his nose, but before he could finish, Xia Xueqing cut in with an exasperated complaint.
"He's tired, that's all. He awakened the Two-Tomoe Sharingan and can copy ninjutsu now. Then he copied two of your ninjutsu and ended up like this."
Xia Xueqing stuck out her tongue and explained for him, sounding annoyed.
She thought Su Bai was being far too reckless with his body.
He'd only just awakened his ability, yet he was already pushing it to its limits. She'd been worried sick.
The three of them stared wide-eyed as soon as Xia Xueqing finished speaking!
Copy ninjutsu!
That was way too overpowered, wasn't it?
They knew from experience how hard it was to get ninjutsu. Hadn't they spent all these years scrabbling around the Wasteland Zone just to get their hands on a few Ninjutsu Scrolls?
Take Li Lei, for example. His chakra was already enough to use B-Rank or even A-Rank ninjutsu, but all he had were the C-Rank Phoenix Sage Fire and C-Rank Great Fireball.
Why? Because ninjutsu were far too precious!
"Man, you really are... making me jealous!" Li Lei sucked in a sharp breath!
Chu Yuan put away his long knife and asked in amazement, "You can even copy my Lightning Release? Have you trained a third nature?"
Miao Qiu was amazed, too. But after that initial surprise, all of them felt a pang of regret, because Su Bai was destined to be a flash in the pan...
What good was talent?
A genius had to be alive to count as one.
At that thought, the three of them put aside their envy and gave Su Bai a few words of warning, advising him not to use his Sharingan too often from now on.
Su Bai smiled and nodded. He knew they meant well. After all, ninjas with Sharingan on Blue Star usually met a grim end.
Chu Yuan patted his shoulder. "Xueqing's right. You really shouldn't push yourself so hard."
"If you want to copy a ninjutsu, couldn't you just wait until you recover and have me use it again?"
"Xiao Yuan's right, Su Bai. You're too impatient," Li Lei chided him. "We're all teammates in the same squad. We should be helping each other. Using a ninjutsu for you is no trouble at all."
"All right, all right, that's enough, you two. Su Bai just graduated. Maybe he's shy and feels awkward asking for help," Miao Qiu said quickly, smoothing things over and speaking up for Su Bai. Xia Xueqing nodded, too.
Su Bai felt touched as he looked at everyone. He nodded repeatedly and promised to be careful.
He was glad Chu Yuan had brought him along and introduced him to such wonderful teammates...
The group returned to the Old Stronghold to rest. It had been a bumper day even for Li Lei's squad!
They usually had to go out for several days before they could hunt an Iron-Horned Sheep. Today, they'd finished in just half a day... The whole team valued Xia Xueqing's Byakugan even more now!
And, of course, Su Bai, too.
Su Bai now knew more ninjutsu than anyone else in the squad! He just didn't have much chakra...
Chapter 58: A Huge Haul! (Third Update!)
The setting sun was like blood, staining the sky red. Li Lei led the whole squad on the journey back.
They'd had an incredible haul today, and everyone wore a happy smile.
"Su Bai, this is the first time I've earned money through my own efforts!" Xia Xueqing said with a giggle, proudly showing off to Su Bai.
She'd earned a fifteen percent share for handling reconnaissance for the squad. That worked out to roughly seventy or eighty million.
Although that wasn't much money to Xia Xueqing—her parents casually gave her more than that at a time—the meaning was different.
It was the first time she'd fought in the Wasteland Zone like a ninja and come away with spoils...
Su Bai looked at the lively girl beside him, amused.
She was this happy over seventy or eighty million?
What about the four ninjutsu he'd picked up today?
And they were all C-Rank ninjutsu!
After hunting the Iron-Horned Sheep, the group had returned to the rooftop of the mall where they'd left their vehicle and rested for a while. Once Su Bai had recovered his mental energy, Li Lei and Chu Yuan "taught" him two more ninjutsu.
One was Chu Yuan's C-Rank ninjutsu, "Lightning Release: Lightning Beast Tracking Fang," and the other was Li Lei's C-Rank ninjutsu, "Fire Release: Great Fireball."
Su Bai vaguely remembered that this was one of Kakashi's ninjutsu in the original story. When activated, it gathered the power of Lightning Release in the palm, forming a lightning beast shaped like a "dog." The user could then control it freely and attack enemies.
It was powerful and was now Su Bai's strongest offensive ninjutsu.
There was no need to say much about Li Lei's Great Fireball. Everyone knew that casual technique.
Su Bai hadn't expected to gain so much on his first day in the Wasteland Zone. Not only had he obtained the corpses of two Long-Eared Rabbits worth three or four million Federal Coins, he'd also acquired four ninjutsu in one go!
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