Commission: Collect Animal Corpses

"Lady Mito wanted to see me?"

"Yes. She said we should go together after work. I don't know what Grandma wants either. It might be because of Kushina, so be careful when you go."

After reminding Jingyi to wait for her after work so they could leave together, Tsunade hurried away.

There was still far too much work waiting for her in the Medical Department.

Strange.

Jingyi could not quite figure it out. If there was something important, Mito Uzumaki could have summoned him now instead of waiting until after work for him to visit the Senju ancestral residence with Tsunade.

That could easily cause some unnecessary misunderstandings.

It was foreseeable that once he personally visited the Senju ancestral residence and met Mito Uzumaki, the Hokage Office would certainly be unable to sit still.

Mito Uzumaki's status was simply too special. Her every move tugged at the nerves of the Third Hokage and the others.

Forget it. Why was he overthinking this? Mito Uzumaki wanted to see him; it was not as if he had gone begging for an audience. Why worry about it?

He was only creating trouble for himself.

In the break room, Jingyi assembled the various materials, and a brand-new puppet was born in his hands.

Perhaps because it was his first attempt, the puppet looked rather ugly.

"Damn, that's ugly!"

Jingyi knew that he had successfully made his first puppet, but he was also disappointed.

He had ended up with a defective product, one so flawed that even he could barely stand to look at it.

Even if puppets were meant to be consumables, he should not have made one so bizarre. It looked neither human nor animal.

After studying it for a while, Jingyi finally could not bear to look at it any longer and decisively dismantled it. The materials were the cheapest kind anyway, so he did not feel bad about ruining them.

Wasting a few materials was better than producing a pile of ugly things.

After taking the puppet apart, Jingyi began reviewing his mistakes.

A moment later, Jingyi realized that he had fallen into a misconception.

Konoha had very few puppet masters, as rare as giant pandas in his previous life. The related books and scrolls were pitifully scarce, and most had been acquired by the village from Sunagakure through various means.

The puppets made by Sunagakure came in all sorts of strange shapes because they needed various functions and attack methods. As a result, none of them could be called attractive.

Jingyi was not a puppet master, so there was no need for him to make puppets according to Sunagakure's style.

With the Tenseigan, he did not even need to control puppets himself. He only had to grant them life and give them orders.

Therefore, the puppets did not need so many functions, nor did they need all sorts of messy extra parts.

With an idea in mind, Jingyi continued assembling.

Before long, a humanoid puppet less than fifty centimeters tall stood on the table.

The materials he had on hand were limited, so the final product still fell short of satisfaction.

He needed to find a chance to buy more parts and materials.

Besides, there was no need to insist on humanoid puppets.

He could also use the corpses of powerful animals to make puppets.

That seemed like a good direction.

There were too few puppet masters in Konoha, so materials were relatively expensive. Combined with the general atmosphere, anyone in Konoha who used ninja corpses to make puppets would definitely be branded as dark.

Jingyi had no interest in using ninja corpses to make puppets either.

Compared to ninja corpses, the powerful animals of the Shinobi World were undoubtedly the best choice. They were also quite mobile and could even be used as mounts.

Having made up his mind, Jingyi decided to collect some animal corpses.

After lunch, Jingyi went to the Hokage Office Building and posted a commission to collect animal corpses. The reward would be tied to the animals' strength.

Due to the influence of chakra, there were many powerful creatures in the Shinobi World.

For example, wild boars as large as houses, giant snakes like trains, and birds that looked like fighter jets when they spread their wings.

Such creatures were not uncommon in the Shinobi World. There were even rather a lot of them.

Every year, Konoha posted quite a few related missions for the village's ninja to eliminate these creatures.

Aside from their strength and enormous size, these creatures had another trait: their meat tasted awful.

Ninja who accepted extermination missions would only kill them, take the necessary body parts as proof of completion, and discard everything else.

In other words, apart from a little research value, the corpses of these creatures were worthless.

Only after posting the commission did Jingyi return to the hospital to work.

"Lord Hokage, these are the missions and commissions the Mission Department sorted out today."

The Mission Department organized the day's missions and commissions before sending them to the Hokage Office for the Third Hokage to screen. Important missions would have suitable ninja teams personally assigned by the Third Hokage, while unimportant ones would be handed back to the Mission Department for the village's ninja to accept freely.

For ninja, the income brought by missions and commissions supported many of them.

Even Konoha would see more than half its ninja facing unemployment and hunger if it lost a large number of outside missions and commissions.

After all, ninja did not engage in production, and the village did not have enough positions to support so many of them.

If too many missions and commissions failed, damaging the village's reputation and causing outside missions and commissions to decrease, it would be a disaster for the ninja who depended on them to survive.

That was why, even during wartime, even when the fighting on the front lines was urgent, the village would still dispatch some ninja to carry out missions and commissions.

Whether it was a small ninja village or one of the Five Great Ninja Villages, none could afford to lose that reputation or neglect missions and commissions.

Sunagakure had grown poorer and poorer since the Second Shinobi World War. The fundamental reason was that the daimyo had become angry, believing his investments had gone down the drain and that Sunagakure was not strong enough, so he reduced his investment in Sunagakure.

He also handed a large number of missions and commissions from the Land of Wind to Konoha.

That directly forced Sunagakure into a life of tightening its belt.

Therefore, the Third Hokage placed particular importance on the Mission Department's commissions and missions. Every day, he personally reviewed them, throwing the low-paying, simple ones to the Mission Department.

As for missions that required attention, he selected suitable teams to carry them out.

As usual, the Third Hokage quickly screened the various missions. However, when he reached one particular commission, the hand holding the document paused.

"Collect a large number of powerful creature corpses. Mission rewards will be tied to the animal corpses. This mission will remain valid long-term."

The Third Hokage read the mission details aloud, then stared at the person who had posted it and fell into thought.

Hyuga Jingyi!

Why had this child posted such a mission? Was he collecting powerful creature corpses long-term for research?

Jingyi's application to study in the Medical Department and become a medical ninja had stated his reason: to treat Bloodline Disease.

Researching in order to cure an illness was hardly strange.

Many ninja even conducted experiments in order to research ninjutsu and increase their strength. Orochimaru often did such things.

A long-term mission was absolutely good news for both the village and its ninja, especially a mission like this one that collected powerful creature corpses.

After thinking for a moment, the Third Hokage said to the Mission Department staff member, "Go to the Medical Department and find Tsunade. Have her look over this document, then find Hyuga Jingyi and confirm the corresponding rewards for the various creature corpses."