Task

Hyuga Qingchuan blinked when he heard that.

"Recently, I've been training with Guy. Once my physical fitness improved, it suddenly all clicked."

Physical training did help with the Body Flicker Technique, so it was not exactly a lie.

Hyuga Kaze did not seem suspicious.

"Your body is still developing. Back then, perhaps your physical fitness simply wasn't enough for you to use it."

He sighed, looking somewhat self-reproachful. "It was Dad's oversight. I failed to teach according to your abilities."

Then he recalled the fierce punching style Qingchuan had used during their exchange. "Did Guy teach you the Strong Fist too?"

"After training with him for so long, I picked up some of it just by watching. My body naturally remembered how to exert force." Hyuga Qingchuan gave a vague reply.

Hyuga Kaze slowly nodded.

After a long silence, he finally finished processing all that information.

Yet the shock and excitement in his heart took a long time to settle.

He looked at Hyuga Qingchuan, and a gratified smile suddenly appeared on his face.

Only at this moment did he begin to feel that life held hope. His son had grown up and was starting to become sensible.

These past years had been terribly hard on him.

Ever since his injury, his entire world had changed.

His strength had stagnated. He could not take B-rank missions, nor could he get C-rank ones.

A member of a great clan, a Senior Chunin for many years.

Yet he had to compete with freshly graduated Genin for D-rank missions, enduring countless scornful looks.

With elderly parents above him and a child below him, he could only swallow his anger.

And that child had been disappointing too, held back and unable to graduate.

Even when attending the clan assessments at family meetings, he had repeatedly been embarrassed.

Countless emotions welled up in his heart. He pulled Hyuga Qingchuan over and hugged him tightly, his voice joyful yet slightly choked.

"Yokatta, Qingchuan. You've finally grown up."

Hyuga Qingchuan let Hyuga Kaze hold him and patted his back. "Dad, I'll support the family from now on."

"Train hard from now on. Don't go back to how you used to be."

"Don't worry, Dad!"

The father and son embraced for a while. When Hyuga Kaze came to his senses, he finally realized something was wrong.

It was a good thing that this brat had awakened his Bloodline Limit, but why had he shot arrows at his own father?

He placed both hands on Hyuga Qingchuan's shoulders and pushed him out of the embrace, ready to demand an explanation.

But quick-witted Hyuga Qingchuan grinned and beat him to it.

"Dad, today was pretty exhausting. I'll head back and rest first."

With that, he ran off in a flash.

"Wait, you little brat! You sure reacted fast!"

Hyuga Kaze's face was filled with rage, veins popping on his forehead.

"Who taught you to shoot arrows directly at your father? That arrow was this close to my ear."

"I won't do it again."

How could Hyuga Qingchuan dare stop? He only ran faster.

"There'll be a next time? You little brat, stop right there..."

The next day.

Hyuga Kaze brought Hyuga Qingchuan to the foot of a mountain forest in the Land of Fire.

Hyuga Kaze panted heavily. "It's been a long time since I ran this far."

He rubbed the muscles in his leg, which were somewhat swollen and sore.

Ever since his right leg was injured, he had relied entirely on his left leg to support his movements.

Not only had his speed slowed, but the distance he could travel had shortened as well.

"How are you?" Hyuga Qingchuan asked with concern.

"I'm fine, just not used to it." Hyuga Kaze waved a hand to indicate that he was all right.

His expression turned serious as he entered mission mode. "Let's investigate the situation first. It has been a long time since this mission was posted, so the intelligence is already outdated."

As he spoke, he formed hand seals. Veins bulged around his eyes.

"Byakugan!"

The veins around his eyes instantly bulged, and his vision abruptly shifted to black and white. Distant scenery rapidly drew closer, while the flow of chakra became clearly visible.

He cautiously adjusted his viewing distance and carefully inspected the surroundings, especially the activity in the village ahead.

A moment later.

He deactivated the Byakugan.

"There's a village ahead. It should be Shantan Village on the map. Let's go take a look."

"Okay," Hyuga Qingchuan replied.

Before long, the two arrived outside Shantan Village.

However, they did not enter directly. Instead, they first found a concealed spot on high ground outside the village and hid there.

To conserve chakra, it was Hyuga Qingchuan's turn to activate the Byakugan.

He scanned the situation within the village.

The doors and windows of every household along the roads were tightly shut.

There were few pedestrians on the streets, and they hurried along with numb expressions.

Scorched walls and shattered doors and windows.

The entire village bore traces of having been plundered by bandits.

Some wooden walls even still had shuriken and kunai embedded in them.

"As expected, missions always come with unexpected complications," Hyuga Qingchuan remarked.

"What is it?" Hyuga Kaze asked.

Hyuga Qingchuan roughly described the situation to Hyuga Kaze.

After hearing him out, Hyuga Kaze merely chuckled.

"This mission appears to be C-rank, but when you see that the reward is as high as fifty thousand ryo, you should expect there to be a considerable chance of complications."

Hyuga Qingchuan was somewhat surprised. "Dad, do you mean this kind of accident happens often during missions?"

Hyuga Kaze smiled and nodded. "More accurately, it often happens in the more difficult missions within a given rank."

"For a C-rank mission like ours, with a reward of fifty thousand ryo, it would not be unreasonable to classify it as B-rank."

"Then why not just classify it as B-rank from the start?" Hyuga Qingchuan asked in confusion.

"It's not that simple." Hyuga Kaze shook his head.

"By the rules, any mission where no ninja appears among the targets is classified as C-rank or below."

"The intelligence provided by the client and the targets to be eliminated are only ordinary people. The village cannot forcibly classify it as B-rank."

"However, during its evaluation, the village already foresaw that the mission might not be simple, so it pushed the reward to the highest end of the C-rank range."

At this point, Hyuga Kaze's face turned stern. He continued to instruct Hyuga Qingchuan earnestly.

"So, whenever you accept missions in the future, you need to be prepared."

"Any mission whose reward is maxed out within its rank is never as simple as it looks."

Hyuga Qingchuan nodded.

He had not expected there to be so many intricacies even in accepting a mission.

These were things the Ninja Academy had never taught.

Or rather, things it could not teach.

Because they were unspoken rules. One could only learn them through missions, unless one had a mentor to guide them.

This was the greatest difference between great clans and civilians.

No matter how fair the system was, the advantages brought by inheritance would still allow descendants to take far fewer detours.

Hyuga Qingchuan suddenly recalled that Kakashi had mentioned changing a commission's rank in the original story.

So he asked, "If we encounter an accident that exceeds the mission's scope, can't we return to the village and change the mission rank?"

"We can, but few people do that."

Hyuga Kaze cleared his throat. "Take our mission, for example."

"Even if ninja appear, if they are not very strong, returning to the village to change it to B-rank would only increase the reward by ten or twenty thousand at most, because the original fifty thousand ryo was already budgeted generously."

"And we already spent several days traveling here, then more time gathering intelligence."

"To earn that little extra, we would have to return to the village and come back again. More than ten days would be gone, and by then, because of timeliness, we would have to investigate the intelligence all over again."

"With that time, we might as well finish the mission and return to the village to take the next one."

"So during missions, as long as the enemy is only a little stronger than expected, people usually complete it directly. Very few return to the village to change the rank."

Hyuga Qingchuan nodded to show that he understood.

Hyuga Kaze also looked at his son with satisfaction.

The fact that he could ask such questions showed that his son was truly thinking.

"Then let's go into the village and have a look."

The father and son descended from the high ground, both with their Byakugan activated, and infiltrated the village one after the other.