Kumogakure

At the edge of Kumogakure in the Land of Lightning, two figures were sprinting one after the other.

The person in front was dressed like a merchant, clutching a common samurai sword, and glared bitterly at the rapidly closing figure behind him.

Dammit, if I wasn't lacking a proper weapon on hand, a Kumogakure brat would dare chase and kill me?

Wait, how on earth was I exposed? To think my identity was seen through by a Genin?

This was a Konoha intelligence ninja hiding within Kumogakure, but now it was obvious he could no longer maintain his cover.

Swish. A young shinobi wearing a Kumogakure forehead protector suddenly formed three hand seals, executed the Body Flicker Technique, and appeared behind him.

The youth held a long blade in each hand, coordinating seamlessly from top to bottom as he slashed toward the Konoha ninja.

"Wind Release: Wind Blade!" The Konoha ninja unleashed the Wind Release ninjutsu he had prepared long ago.

The wind blade struck the long blade in the youth's left hand, actually cutting the ordinary-grade weapon straight into two sections, and continued shooting toward the youth with undiminished momentum.

The youth's expression changed slightly. He had already exchanged a few blows with this person earlier, and he had not expected the opponent to still be hiding such a fierce trump card.

The youth barely leaned his body toward the rear-left, dodging the subsequent attack of the wind blade.

Yet as a result, his right-hand blade also revealed an obvious opening.

The Konoha ninja wore a ferocious smile, thinking: Still too naive!

He only needed to gently tap the youth's left-hand blade with his samurai sword to leave the youth's center completely open.

The Konoha ninja fluidly thrust his long blade forward, preparing to cut down the youth.

Yet right at that moment, another flash of blade light was suddenly caught in the corner of the Konoha ninja's eye.

He shuddered, his immediate reaction being that there were other enemies, so he focused his attention on the youth's surroundings.

After all, this was Kumogakure. Although he had not been exposed for long, it was normal for the commotion of battle to draw other shinobi.

Still, very soon he knew his judgment had been wrong.

The third blade was actually being gripped by one of the youth's legs.

A blade can even be used like that? This was the final thought of the Konoha ninja.

The next instant, the blade light swept across from the lower-right to the upper-left, directly severing his neck.

Spitting out several mouthfuls of blood, the Konoha ninja looked at the youth with lingering resentment before losing all vitality.

Naturally, he felt resentment. To hide in Kumogakure, he lacked more convenient ninja tools like kunai and Explosive Tags, and after being exposed he had not dared to use Fire Release because of the massive commotion, or else he would not have been defeated so quickly!

The youth retreated a few steps, vigilantly scanning his surroundings. He had also been grazed by the opponent's final sword strike, though fortunately the wound was not heavy.

Confirming that the opponent was dead, the youth finally put away the two intact blades and tended to his wounds.

The youth had slightly dark skin, was named Chiba Shun, was thirteen years old, and was a transmigrator.

Only, unlike other transmigrated protagonists, he had not transmigrated to Konoha, but had come to Kumogakure instead.

Thirteen years had passed, and his ninja rank in Kumogakure was still only that of a Genin.

Still, it was fine; with today's affair, presumably becoming a Chunin was not far off.

There were five ranks of shinobi in total: Genin, Chunin, Jonin, Elite Jonin, and Kage Level.

The differences between the various ranks mainly depended on the grade of chakra.

Under normal circumstances, a ninja's chakra grade needed to be elevated through the processes of battle, learning ninjutsu, and developing ninjutsu.

To put it in more high-sounding terms: the firmer a ninja's ninja way, the higher their chakra grade, and the higher the ninja's rank.

Of course, besides quality, there was also quantity.

If the volume of chakra was insufficient, advancement remained impossible.

Although Chiba Shun had always been a Genin in Kumogakure's ninja files, his chakra grade and chakra volume had both already reached the Chunin level shortly before.

It was just that this merely meant his strength had reached the Chunin tier; he had not gained Kumogakure's recognition nor acquired the title of Chunin.

For a Genin to advance to Chunin, they either had to pass the Chunin Ninja Exams or complete a special mission and receive a special authorization from the higher-ups.

If not for this current incident, Chiba Shun would have participated in the next Chunin Ninja Exams hosted by the village.

Yet now it was unnecessary.

A Genin who could track down an enemy village's Chunin-level intelligence ninja and achieve a solo kill was bound to be promoted.

After another moment passed, swish, swish, swish, several ANBU members appeared nearby. They first glanced at the situation in the arena, then sharply interrogated Chiba Shun.

Chiba Shun did not think anything of it. This timing was rather special; only seven years had passed since the Second Shinobi World War, and the village's vitality had not yet recovered. It was normal for these people, who were all powerhouses that had survived the Second Shinobi World War, to possess high vigilance.

Once Chiba Shun's identity was confirmed, their attitudes improved somewhat, and they inquired about the sequence of events.

Upon learning that Chiba Shun had killed a Konoha intelligence ninja and that the opponent was at least a Chunin, their expressions relaxed considerably.

The subsequent handling had nothing to do with Chiba Shun. He did not even need to dispose of the corpse, as these professionals naturally took it away to a specialized department.

He returned idly to the village to await good news.

Chiba Shun went back to his own home, which could be described as crude, and pondered his future.

At the start of his transmigration, he too had wanted to use the advantage of hindsight to reach the pinnacle of life.

However, reality struck hard and fast.

By the time he was old enough to train, the Second Shinobi World War had long since broken out. The front lines were tight, and the quality of the ninja the village could spare to mentor brats like them plummeted.

Worst of all, Kumogakure did not have a Ninja Academy at that time, and ninja learning relied entirely on the transmission of knowledge between squad leaders and their subordinates.

Chiba Shun's talent did not lie primarily in Lightning Release, so he failed to catch the eye of any powerful squad leader.

His squad leader was merely a middle-aged ninja who had barely managed to become a Chunin, so naturally he could not teach Chiba Shun much of anything useful.

The man had taken Chiba Shun on as a subordinate not for Chiba Shun's sake, but because he had his eyes on the village's subsidies.

The Shinobi Village provided subsidies for all squad leaders who took on subordinates, which was the village's primary method of training ninja outside of the ninja clans.

What made it most agonizing for Chiba Shun was that ninja were, in essence, a military unit. Once someone became a ninja, even if only as an academy student, they were subjected to a military-style administration.

Every single action Chiba Shun took required the consent of his squad leader, which stripped all of his ideas of any possibility of execution.

Going out to search for potential fortuitous encounters was completely out of the question!

He could only train and execute missions as a civilian ninja in the unfamiliar Kumogakure.

Even the missions they undertook could only be decided by his squad leader.

His squad leader was nothing like the teachers of the Konoha 11 from the original story.

His squad leader viewed the three so-called members of his squad purely as tools for making money.

The squad leader himself needed a large amount of money for his own training, so there was simply no way he would give Chiba Shun and the others any benefits.

All of this was still manageable, and Chiba Shun had not completely despaired. He still knew many things related to training, and back then he still believed he could become a genius.

However, once he truly set foot on the path of cultivation, he realized that everything was wrong.

Training was not something that could be accomplished by hiding away at home.

Training required a massive supplement of energy.

Both taijutsu and ninjutsu required chakra, and chakra was not generated out of thin air, nor was it absorbed from the natural world.

Instead, food was converted into physical energy, which was then combined with spiritual energy to form chakra.

Therefore, theoretically, for every fraction of chakra consumed, a bit of food had to be replenished.

The harder one trained, the greater the consumption, and the more food needed to be replenished!

Moreover, food capable of rapidly restoring physical energy was exceptionally expensive, so Chiba Shun couldn't even dream of training madly like Might Guy in the original story; he didn't even have enough supplies for daily training.

Consequently, his training progress had always been extremely slow.

It took him seven or eight years, yet Chiba Shun had only learned some taijutsu, kenjutsu, and the basic Three Body Technique.

The Body Flicker Technique he used before killing the Konoha ninja was actually something he had secretly learned from a companion, which was not fit to see the light of day.

Meanwhile, the taijutsu, kenjutsu, and Three Body Technique he learned from his own squad leader all cost money.

The village allowed these squad leaders to impart certain jutsus to their subordinates, but did not require them to do so free of charge, so practically all squad leaders charged fees.

Fortunately, everything was about to change.

He was going to become a Chunin.

A Chunin was the backbone of a village, possessing considerable freedom and the ability to do some of the things he wanted to do.

Yearning for the future, Chiba Shun bought some ingredients and began preparing dinner.

Before he could finish cooking dinner, an energetic teenager rushed inside.

Shun, I smell meat, and there's more than one kind. You're buying so many good things—are you not planning on living through the days? The newcomer unceremoniously picked up chopsticks and started eating the dishes while curiously questioning Chiba Shun.

This teenager was Chiba Shun's neighbor, named Sakai Yushi—a boy with a name that sounded like a girl's.

Their fathers had been Genin in the same squad and had died in the very same battle.

Ever since, the two orphans had grown up together, relying on each other.

Sakai Yushi could be considered Chiba Shun's only remaining bond in Kumogakure.

Sakai Yushi's luck was better than Chiba Shun's. He excelled in the Lightning Release and possessed decent talent, so he had been spotted by a Special Jonin and taken on as a subordinate.

As early as a year ago, he had already become a Chunin.

The Body Flicker Technique Chiba Shun used was something Sakai Yushi had secretly taught him.

In return, Chiba Shun hadn't let Sakai Yushi lose out. Based on Killer B's Eight-Sword Style from the original work, he developed the smoothly utilized Three-Sword Style and taught it to Sakai Yushi.

Combining his kenjutsu with Lightning Release ninjutsu, Sakai Yushi grew rapidly, becoming a Chunin a step ahead of Chiba Shun.

After all, Lightning Release and kenjutsu happened to be Kumogakure's strengths, making it easy to obtain guidance from predecessors.

Chiba Shun placed the last dish on the table, then said, "This meal used up all my money, but it doesn't matter. A huge fortune is about to be deposited!"