Time flew. In the blink of an eye, a year had passed.
In that year, the ones who had changed the most were Sakura and Tenten. Enveloped by some mysterious power, the two of them learned magecraft at an astonishing speed.
In just a single year, they could already use most basic magecraft. Tenten had even replaced an unnamed E-rank sword-type Noble Phantasm, whose effect was to increase damage against snakes by one hundred percent.
It counted as a rather useless Noble Phantasm, but even so, the money it had cost was terrifyingly high.
And Tenten had only succeeded with that one. Every attempt afterward had failed. Clearly, that time had only been luck. The countless failures that followed made Tenten calm down again and study Replacement Magecraft properly, no longer throwing money at it like mad.
On the other side, Sakura's training had also entered the proper track. Though it was not as exaggerated as Tenten replacing a Noble Phantasm, she could already use most basic magecraft with practiced ease.
Especially Reinforcement Magecraft!
She had mastered it to perfection!
As for Naruto, there had not been much change. He had grown a little taller, but he still could not pass the second level of the Illusion Trial. He even still had to rely on tactics to win the first level.
The only relatively big change was that the kid no longer wandered around on the road for half a day before arriving at Shiro's place right on time like before.
Now, he basically always came early. Of course, his true intention lay elsewhere.
At this moment, inside the huge underground cavern in the Land of Rain, Orochimaru and Shiro were standing beside a magic circle that was slowly completing itself.
This enormous cavern was a backup Orochimaru had unconsciously