The Mysterious Shop

"You lost!"

Long Ye's voice pulled Tsunade back to reality.

"You must have cheated just now!"

Tsunade's temper flared, and she looked thoroughly unwilling to accept the result.

"How else could your strength have increased so much in an instant?"

She looked exactly like a gambler who had lost: frustrated and unable to let it go.

"If you're not satisfied, we can go again. I'll put up another fifty million. But I'm afraid you have nothing left to lose to me!"

"Catch one punch from me, and I'll give you the necklace!"

Before anyone could react, Tsunade swung her fist at him.

Long Ye had been ready for a desperate move. As she attacked, he figured she meant to drive him back with one punch, then slip away.

He had no intention of letting her. Still in Sage Mode, he raised a hand and caught her oncoming fist.

Behind them, Shizune stared in shock!

Someone had caught Tsunade's Chakra Enhanced Strength with his bare hand—and come away unscathed. Nothing Shizune had ever seen had shocked her as much.

Tsunade went pale. She tried to pull her fist free, but his hand held it like an iron clamp. No matter how hard she pulled, she could not escape.

Then she noticed something unusual about Long Ye's eyes.

"Is that... Sage Mode?"

Tsunade cried out in astonishment.

She considered herself well-traveled, but she had never seen this kind of Sage Mode before.

"No wonder your strength suddenly increased so much. You used Senjutsu Chakra."

Yet even as she said it, her shock deepened.

For one thing, Senjutsu was exceedingly difficult to master. Even she had failed when she tried. Yet this Masked Man, whom she had never heard of, had mastered the legendary art.

For another, entering Sage Mode was not something