Buying Jars the Right Way

Chapter 37: The Right Way to Buy Jars

"I lost." Sasuke looked at Shen Mo, deep unwillingness in his eyes. "Even that Flying Immortal Beyond the Heavens wasn't enough?"

As for battle experience and conventional combat, he had indeed felt the gap.

Although he had not felt as powerless as before.

He still could not see any hope of victory.

But even Flying Immortal Beyond the Heavens, the move into which he had poured all his strength, could not win?

"Flying Immortal Beyond the Heavens is too powerful. Even Kakashi had no choice but to stop holding back." Shen Mo's tone was flat. "If I hadn't intervened just now, you might not have died, but you would have suffered serious injuries, while Kakashi would have sustained no more than minor ones."

"Die?" Sasuke's pupils contracted slightly.

He had been furious just now, thinking only of using his strongest skill—the only one he possessed that carried Sword Intent—without considering the consequences.

Now that he thought about it,

although that move, Flying Immortal Beyond the Heavens, was indeed powerful, it was a sword technique that charged straight ahead without retreat. It had no follow-up move and no defense. He had also poured all his Chakra into it without the slightest restraint. Under those circumstances, if they collided head-on like that—

He really would have died!

Sasuke felt a lingering wave of fear.

"Sasuke." Hiruzen Sarutobi crouched down and personally helped Sasuke to his feet. He even patted the dust off his body before staring into his eyes. "I understand your desire for revenge. But as the battle just now demonstrated, a ninja needs more than strength. You also need combat experience and the ability to judge the situation. So you still have a lot to learn from Kakashi."

Sasuke lowered his head, feeling both ashamed and unwilling to accept it.

He had indeed been dealt a heavy blow by reality just now.

It wasn't enough.

His strength was still not strong enough!

Naruto, standing to the side and watching this warm scene, was incredibly envious. In his eyes, the Third Hokage gramps had clearly acknowledged Sasuke's strength.

"The Hokage is right." Shen Mo, standing nearby, also seemed to reveal a helpless smile. "I saved you purely because you didn't yet understand the properties of the item you bought, and I'll do it only this once. If you continue like this, I'm afraid there won't be a next transaction between us, because you'll very likely die before then."

Hiruzen Sarutobi listened and secretly nodded. He had not expected this merchant to advise Sasuke against acting recklessly.

"For that reason—" Shen Mo suddenly changed his tone. "I strongly recommend that you purchase a few more sets of Battle Experience Series jars!"

Hiruzen Sarutobi: "o_O???"

"There are jars from the Battle Experience Series too?" Sasuke's eyes widened as he cried out incredulously.

"Of course." Shen Mo chuckled and said confidently, "Never try to guess what item is inside a jar. That is the motto of our Omniscient and Omnipotent Merchant Guild. The Battle Experience Series jars can help you effortlessly acquire extremely formidable combat experience—setting traps, defeating the strong while weak, and achieving an ultimate counterkill. If you possessed combat experience surpassing Kakashi's, the outcome of today's battle would truly have been uncertain."

Sasuke indeed found it difficult to imagine.

It wasn't just him.

Even Hiruzen Sarutobi and Tsunade found it utterly unbelievable.

Even if strength could be acquired quickly, how could combat experience and skills be obtained directly? That was not something one could gain through tedious practice alone. It required prolonged battles to the death.

"Your jars really are too miraculous." In the end, Tsunade could only sigh, "Every time I think I've understood these jars well enough, even more miraculous items appear, constantly refreshing my imagination."

Sasuke thought of last night and nodded deeply in agreement.

However, longing appeared in his eyes once more.

Jars!

He needed to buy more jars!

"I want to buy jars too!" someone suddenly shouted from the side, voicing what everyone was thinking.

That person was, of course, Naruto.

Clenching his fists, he squeezed into the middle of the group and pointed at Sasuke as he shouted, "That's way too unfair! You can become this strong just by buying jars? That's outright cheating!"

Although Sasuke had still lost to Kakashi today, even Naruto could see it clearly.

The current Sasuke was strong enough to beat a hundred of him.

Even the eternally optimistic Naruto felt a deep despair in the face of this enormous gap that was visible to the naked eye.

"Hmph." Sasuke snorted coldly. "Those jars come with a price too. I have money. Do you?"

That struck right at the heart of the matter.

Hiruzen Sarutobi took a deep drag on his cigarette, a trace of bitter amusement flashing through his eyes.

Money.

Of course it was great that money could make one stronger, but the problem was that money was not so easy to obtain.

As Hokage, he had racked his brains to obtain more benefits from the Daimyo.

Even the few wars before this had ultimately boiled down to one thing: benefits.

The ninja population was small, and they did not engage in production. They could only rely on ordinary people to support them.

And there were only so many ordinary people.

Using their strength to seize things at will was undoubtedly killing the goose that laid the golden eggs. Any Ninja Village that dared to do so would certainly face a joint attack from all the other Ninja Villages. Such people were madmen who would damage everyone's interests.

"I have money too." Naruto lifted his head, though he sounded somewhat lacking in confidence. He then looked nervously at Sasuke. "How much did you spend?"

"Not much." Sasuke snorted coldly and raised his head. "Two hundred million."

"Two hundred million!?"

It wasn't only Naruto who cried out in shock. Tsunade did too.

How much money was that!?

Naruto counted on his fingers, almost unable to remember how many zeroes there were in one hundred million.

Anyway, it was a whole lot.

Hiruzen Sarutobi's gaze also held astonishment. On one hand, spending two hundred million to obtain such strength seemed like an excessively high price. On the other hand, could it be that the Uchiha Clan had actually left behind that much money? It hurt his heart to think about it. What had the ninja responsible for handling the Uchiha Clan's aftermath been doing?

Actually, they had all misunderstood.

Shen Mo spoke up from the side in a distant voice. "Money isn't the only thing I accept for transactions."

Seriously, why were all these ninjas thinking about finding money to buy jars?

Tsunade too.

She had brought out all the ninjutsu and medical ninjutsu she had developed, then used them to continue developing more ninjutsu.

She could even study the medicinal materials she obtained from the jars, innovate on them herself, and then sell them back.

Wouldn't creating value through such a virtuous cycle be much better?

Shen Mo felt that he needed to offer them some guidance.

He needed to shift their attention

from money to a much broader range of possibilities.

"Tsunade should understand this, right? Here, everything has a value that can be assessed. The price of a jar is merely a number converted from that value." Shen Mo pointed to his forehead. In an instant, the All-Knowing All-Seeing Eye that had once appeared before Tsunade manifested again.

It still carried that same noble aura.

The people seeing it for the first time, including Hiruzen Sarutobi and Kakashi, could not help but show slight changes in expression.

Especially Hiruzen Sarutobi.

Even though Tsunade had described it to him before, that was nowhere near as direct as seeing it with his own eyes.