"Jiraiya, don't worry. I've got a temper too, so I hope the toads don't get on my bad side," Qin Yu said with a smile.
"You sure talk big," Jiraiya said, rolling his eyes. "Don't start crying and begging me for help later."
"First, bite your index finger and write your name on the scroll. Then I'll perform the jutsu. Once the contract is sealed, you can't betray Mount Myōboku on a whim, or you'll turn to stone."
Even at the very end, Jiraiya couldn't help reminding him.
Looking at the scroll spread out before him, Qin Yu bit his finger. The moment blood welled up, he quickly wrote his name on it.
As soon as Qin Yu pulled his hand back, Jiraiya rapidly formed Hand Seals. Five-colored light flared, and he pressed his hands down onto the scroll.
White smoke billowed. The seal in Jiraiya's hands instantly joined with Qin Yu's signature, forming an intricate Sealing Jutsu.
As the light faded, Qin Yu felt an inexplicable connection form between him and another dimension.
"All right, the contract is complete. You can give it a try, but I advise you to be careful. Don't embarrass yourself," Jiraiya said, rolling up the scroll and slinging it over his back again.
"By the way, I haven't learned the Hand Seals for the Summoning Technique. Teach me those while you're at it," Qin Yu said, remembering an important detail.
His body had spent more than a decade as a good-for-nothing. He could barely recognize any ninjutsu, let alone such an advanced Summoning Technique.
"You don't know the Hand Seals for the Summoning Technique?" Jiraiya asked, a little surprised.
After all, he'd returned to Konoha after hearing from Minato Namikaze about Qin Yu, the peerless genius who'd been lying low in the village for more than a decade. He'd wanted to see for himself what Qin Yu was capable of.
Now Qin Yu was telling him he didn't know the Summoning Jutsu. It was completely beyond his expectations.
Seeing Qin Yu shake his head again, Jiraiya sighed. "All right, I'll show you. But there's a ninety percent chance your first attempt will fail, so don't take it to heart."
"Watch closely. Don't blink. The sage of Mount Myōboku, Jiraiya, is about to make his entrance!"
Jiraiya announced himself with a singsong cadence. He bit the side of his right thumb, then his hands began whirling through the Hand Seals like spinning wheels.
As he finished the final seal, Jiraiya slammed his right hand onto the ground.
"Summoning Jutsu!"
The hand-seal pattern spread out like a spiderweb, and white mist swirled around them.
A figure about a meter tall appeared before everyone.
It was a toad wearing arm guards on both forearms.
It looked a little like the toad Jiraiya had summoned when he fought Kisame and Itachi Uchiha in the Original Work.
"So that's a summoned beast?" Uzuki Yugao's eyes lit up. "I've heard that once you've signed a contract, summoning a beast on the battlefield can double your fighting strength."
"And summoned beasts are partners who would never betray you."
Qin Yu couldn't help but make a small quip to himself.
If Manda heard that, he'd laugh out loud.
He ate people—and his summoner!
Manda never joked around!
"Big brother, are you sure you can do it?" Itachi Uchiha couldn't help asking.
Qin Yu patted Itachi's head and smiled. "Do you want to see me make a fool of myself too?"
"I'll try my best. Maybe I'll succeed."
As he spoke, Qin Yu reached out to the system within him.
"Ding! The host has learned the Summoning Technique. Would you like to max it out with one click?"
"Max it out now!"
Qin Yu gave the order.
"Ding! Congratulations, host. The Summoning Technique has reached max level."
Knowledge of the Summoning Technique flooded into Qin Yu's mind, making everything suddenly click.
"Qin Yu, if you're still not confident, you can go back and practice first. There's no need to rush," Jiraiya said with a smile, patting Qin Yu on the shoulder. "Don't be discouraged. Nobody's a genius like me, succeeding on their very first summon."
Qin Yu rolled his eyes at Jiraiya's overfamiliar act. "You mean the first time you messed around with a summoning jutsu, you accidentally summoned yourself to Mount Myōboku?"
"I'm not like you."
Jiraiya froze. That was supposed to be a secret.
Aside from the Third Hokage, who knew a little about it, he'd bragged about it to Tsunade.
No!
He'd even boasted about it in front of Orochimaru.
He might have written it in Icha Icha Paradise too.
The more Jiraiya thought about it, the more he realized it wasn't much of a secret at all. In the end, he simply let it go.
"Kid, you sure talk big. Let's see if you're still smiling when you see a tadpole without legs."
Uzuki Yugao also shook her little fist at Qin Yu, clearly cheering him on.
Itachi Uchiha remained silent, as cool as ever, but there was a hint of eagerness in his gaze as he looked at Qin Yu.
"Phew."
Qin Yu exhaled deeply.
The blood on his right index finger hadn't dried yet. He wiped it across his palm, then his hands began whirling through the Hand Seals like spinning wheels.
Jiraiya's expression changed when he saw this.
He'd assumed that even if Qin Yu had learned the Hand Seals, his first attempt would be awkward and clumsy.
But the speed and fluency of Qin Yu's movements completely upended their expectations.
"Summoning Jutsu!"
As soon as he finished the final seal, Qin Yu twisted his hand around and slammed it onto the ground.
Feeling eighty percent of his chakra surge out of him like a raging tide, he couldn't help but change expression.
Boom!
A powerful blast of sound suddenly rang out. White mist billowed skyward, and three enormous figures, each as large as a small mountain, materialized out of thin air.
The shock wave from the summoning swept outward, making Uzuki Yugao and Itachi Uchiha feel as if they could barely keep their eyes open.
But compared to them, Jiraiya nearly bulged his eyes out of their sockets.
He stared at the three toads summoned all at once—the three strongest fighters of Mount Myōboku, Gamabunta, Gamaken, and Gamahiro—and could hardly believe what he was seeing.
"Jiraiya, what happened? Did you run off to fight in the Third Shinobi World War and run into some tough opponents, so you summoned all three of us at once?" Gamabunta said, puffing smoke from his pipe. "That's going to cost you."
"You'll need to find us at least a few thousand jin of bugs. Don't think you can get rid of us without that."
Gamaken and Gamahiro also glanced around.
But they couldn't sense even the slightest danger.
There were only two people standing there in shock, and Jiraiya looking utterly dumbfounded.
"Jiraiya, you should say something. There's no danger at all. You can't just summon us whenever you feel like it and expect to get rid of us so easily," Gamahiro couldn't help saying.
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