There Are Still Experts

He immediately became alert, fully activating Kagura's Mind's Eye to sense everything around him.

"Are you a Hidden Leaf ANBU ninja? No, you aren't wearing ANBU attire. Could you be a passing ninja? I never expected you to deal with the ninjas from our village so quickly."

A deep voice came from the shadows of the forest.

Naruto turned around and saw a black-clad, masked ninja slowly step out.

He looked much harder to handle than the previous two ninjas. At the very least, his equipment was far more complete. Now that was proper attire for infiltrating a ninja village!

One look told Naruto he was a dangerous opponent! Naruto secretly observed the newly appeared ninja with Kagura's Mind's Eye. The chakra in his body was somewhat stronger than that of the earlier ninjas.

But it had not reached jonin level. Was he an elite chunin?

"Which ninja village are you from?" Naruto asked.

This was merely a tactic to lower his opponent's guard. After all, Naruto possessed the Heavenly Mouth, which could make others subconsciously believe what he said.

At the same time, he secretly gathered chakra, ready to deal with a possible attack at any moment.

"Which village I belong to isn't important. What's important is that I must take the intelligence in your hands. Since you've encountered me, I can't let you live to spread the news!"

The black-clad ninja spoke coldly.

Naruto knew this man was somewhat stronger than the ones before.

But Naruto was no pushover either!

He took a deep breath. Chakra began circulating through his body, which was gradually enveloped in a faint glow of chakra.

"Then we'll see whether you have what it takes!" Naruto's voice was firm and powerful.

The black-clad ninja said nothing more. His body suddenly vanished from where he stood, and in the next moment, he appeared before Naruto.

He gripped a sharp kunai and thrust it straight toward Naruto's heart.

Naruto reacted extremely quickly. He shifted slightly to the side and avoided the fatal blow.

At the same time, his fist was poised to strike. He pretended to attack with his fist, but his feet had not been idle. A Leaf Gale smashed fiercely into the black-clad ninja's abdomen.

It was a feint!

The black-clad ninja clearly had not expected Naruto's reaction speed to be so fast. While evading his attack, Naruto had even had the presence of mind to launch a feint!

His body was sent flying, and he crashed heavily onto the ground. But he quickly rose to his feet, the icy killing intent in his eyes growing stronger.

"Your strength has indeed exceeded my expectations. You're very strong. Are you a ninja specially assigned to capture us?" the black-clad ninja asked, a trace of doubt in his voice.

Naruto did not answer. He knew villains died from talking too much, and he was not some idiot who answered every question!

His body exploded with astonishing speed once more as he launched a fierce assault against the black-clad ninja.

The two engaged in an intense clash amid the trees.

Naruto's taijutsu was powerful, and his physical strength was immense!

Although the black-clad ninja's physical abilities were inferior to Naruto's, his skills were equally impressive, and his combat experience was seasoned.

Every one of his attacks was filled with killing intent, and every dodge was incomparably precise.

The battle continued for quite some time, and the black-clad ninja's stamina was rapidly draining away.

Naruto, on the other hand, only grew braver as the battle went on due to his powerful bloodline!

There was not the slightest hint of exhaustion on him.

The black-clad ninja knew he had to end this battle as soon as possible.

He began searching for Naruto's opening, preparing to launch a fatal strike.

Since taijutsu couldn't take you down, then it was time to use ninjutsu!

Just then, the black-clad ninja suddenly retreated and rapidly formed hand seals.

Naruto sensed a powerful fluctuation of chakra and immediately realized that his opponent could not match him in taijutsu and was preparing to ambush him with ninjutsu!

Naruto did not hesitate. His body instantly vanished from where he stood, and in the next moment, he appeared behind the black-clad ninja.

The kunai in his hand was already prepared, thrusting straight toward the other's vital point.

However, at that moment, the black-clad ninja's hand seals were not slow. He had already completed them.

"Wind Release: Great Breakthrough Technique!" he shouted softly.

A violent gale burst from his mouth, seeking to restrain Naruto.

Seeing that the opponent was using nothing more than a C-rank ninjutsu, Naruto did not take it seriously.

With his superb speed, he dodged the Wind Release attack.

By then, the commotion from their battle had created quite a bit of noise.

Within Naruto's perception through Kagura's Mind's Eye, several ninjas were rapidly approaching!

"Looks like I need to end this quickly! Since you've used ninjutsu, then I won't hold back either!"

Naruto rapidly formed hand seals and shouted, "Multi Shadow Clone Technique!"

Naruto instantly created several hundred shadow clones!

"How is that possible? That number of shadow clones... How could you possibly have so much chakra? An ordinary ninja could never accomplish this. Could you be the Nine-Tails jinchuriki of Konoha Village?!"

With such a massive amount of chakra, other than a tailed beast jinchuriki renowned for their chakra reserves, the black-clad ninja could not think of anything else capable of it.

"You guessed right, but I won't give you a reward. Take this—Leaf Great Barrage!"

Naruto had originally wanted to call it the Naruto Uzumaki Hundred Barrage, but the name felt a little stupid, so he came up with one on the spot. Anyway, it was just a group beatdown using superior numbers!

The black-clad ninja felt a powerful sense of danger. Looking at the hundreds of Naruto shadow clones, his body instinctively reacted.

To hell with this mission! Under these circumstances, he could not see any hope of victory at all. Persisting when he knew it was impossible would be truly foolish!

Run for it! The black-clad ninja instantly pulled away, preparing to make his escape!

Naruto saw through the black-clad ninja's intentions. "Heh heh, do you think you can still run?"

Naruto's shadow clones did not hesitate. Their bodies instantly erupted with astonishing speed as they chased after the black-clad ninja. They were incredibly fast, catching up to him almost immediately.

The black-clad ninja clearly had not expected Naruto's shadow clones to be so fast, able to catch him so quickly.

His body was instantly struck by the Leaf Rising Wind attacks of Naruto's shadow clones, and he was kicked into the air.

Naruto's original body did not let this opportunity pass. His body spun rapidly through the air, and a Naruto Barrage slammed fiercely into the black-clad ninja's body.

The black-clad ninja's body was battered wildly through the air before crashing heavily onto the ground, unable to move again.

Sensing that ninjas were about to arrive, Naruto searched the black-clad ninja and found several ninja scrolls, placing them in the system.

Remembering that Konoha had specialized interrogation ninjas, he knew his identity absolutely could not be exposed.

Naruto picked up the kunai belonging to the three men and, with swift movements, stabbed them into all three of their heads, violently stirring their brains.

"I refuse to believe you can still torture information out of the corpses like this!"

Naruto quickly used a Transformation Technique, changing into another appearance.

Although his body was somewhat tired, his mind was extremely exhilarated.

He knew that while this battle had been a little difficult, he had ultimately won.

For his first real battle since arriving in the world of Naruto, his performance had been fairly good.

Taking advantage of the ANBU ninjas around him not noticing, Naruto returned to his residence.

Through this battle, he had also realized many of his shortcomings.

First, his talent was strong. His physical talent was excellent, and he had plenty of strength, but his technique was lacking.

If he improved his combat skills further, he could easily deal considerable damage.

Although the Hidden Leaf basic taijutsu was quite powerful, it could not kill in a single blow.

That made it easy for battles to turn into drawn-out fights.

Furthermore, he had still been too nervous during the battle, and his lack of combat experience was obvious.

He had even forgotten that he possessed the Sharingan. If he had activated the Sharingan earlier, even just a single tomoe, it would have greatly improved his combat ability.

"Let's see what intelligence is in these scrolls!" Naruto took the intelligence scrolls out of the system.

After carefully reading their contents, he felt that killing those ninjas had been somewhat wasteful.

This intelligence was completely insignificant to Konoha, merely trivial matters. However, some of it was indeed information that would be difficult for other ninja villages to obtain.

He had also obtained several ninja scrolls from the ninjas.

Upon opening them, he found money inside. There was quite a lot of it—several tens of thousands!

It was already comparable to several months of Naruto's current relief payments.

From some of the documents, it appeared that these had been ninjas from the Hidden Sand Village.

There were also two ninjutsu. He happened to be lacking ninjutsu at the moment.

One was the C-rank ninjutsu, Wind Release: Great Breakthrough Technique.

The other was the C-rank ninjutsu, Fire Release: Phoenix Flower Fire Technique.

Though they were only two C-rank ninjutsu, having them was better than having nothing.

Late at night, Naruto lay in bed, his thoughts drifting far away.

He thought of Rock Lee, of their battle, and of Rock Lee's dream.

He knew that Rock Lee and he were both people pursuing their dreams. Though their paths were different, their goals were the same.

That was to become outstanding ninjas. Compared with Rock Lee, Naruto was fortunate. He had a bloodline and a system.

Come to think of it, Rock Lee was a little too close to that small forest.

But judging by the usual conduct of Hidden Leaf ninjas, Rock Lee had nothing to do with this matter. They would let him go after asking a few questions.

After all, he was already Might Guy's student. He had some connections in the Hidden Leaf now.

Thinking back to today's battle, Naruto should have been able to easily defeat that opponent.

But real combat experience could only be honed through more real battles.

There was still a long road ahead!

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