The white arm reaching out of the crack instantly seized Liu Jiajia's ankle.
The next moment, Liu Jiajia let out a piercing scream.
"Ah!"
Hearing her scream, Yang Jie hurried over and drew the Tachi from his back.
A flash of steel followed, severing the white arm in a single stroke.
Seeing the Scientific Ninja Tool display a gain of 50 points, Yang Jie concluded, "It's a Novice Rank Three monster!"
At the same time, seven or eight white humanoid creatures burst out of the ground and surrounded the two of them.
"Holy crap, they're actually White Zetsu!" Luo Yu, who had come running at the scream, looked at the humanoid creatures in mild surprise.
These creatures, mere cannon fodder in the original series, were a nightmare for rookie ninja in this world.
For starters, aside from a few exceptions, most White Zetsu were low-level creatures that only roamed low-level Secret Realms.
Newbie ninja ran into them fairly often.
Killing a White Zetsu gave a chance of obtaining a white-quality White Zetsu legacy.
Although low-level White Zetsu legacies could serve as cultivation materials, absorbing them would not teach anyone any ninjutsu.
Among white-quality legacies, they were nothing more than cultivation materials.
However, the fact that White Zetsu dropped White Legacies also meant their stats were clearly superior to those of Common mutant beasts.
Furthermore, with the aid of the Impersonation Technique, an advanced Transformation Technique, ordinary sensing methods were essentially useless.
Once a White Zetsu disguised themselves as a teammate, inexperienced newbie ninja had no way to tell.
Of course, the biggest problem was that White Zetsu liked to appear in groups.
Unless a ninja's rank was far above theirs, they would surround and kill them.
"Luo Yu, it's you..." Liu Jiajia's expression turned complicated when she saw him.
Luo Yu's stats were high, and he possessed a rare Kekkei Genkai like Wood Release.
But this assessment was an actual combat test, after all. Without a Wood Release master teaching him its ninjutsu, he shouldn't have performed particularly well.
That was what she had thought, but after seeing the Scoreboard, she had been disappointed once again.
Luo Yu had remained firmly in first place, crushing the competition!
"You don't need to help. These White Zetsu are our prey."
Yang Jie glanced at Luo Yu, his tone stubborn.
This was the perfect chance to show off his masculine charm in front of Liu Jiajia. How could he let someone else steal the spotlight?
With that thought, Yang Jie raised his Tachi and charged forward like a thunderbolt. "Shadow Clone Technique!"
As his words rang out, Yang Jie created two Shadow Clones to fight the White Zetsu.
Those Novice Rank Three White Zetsu quickly buckled under his masterful swordsmanship.
Three White Zetsu died gruesome deaths in an instant.
With 180 points, Yang Jie overtook Luo Yu and claimed the top spot on the Scoreboard.
Meanwhile, in the Supervision Group's work area.
Recognizing Yang Jie's swordsmanship, the heads of the Jiangli Families exclaimed in admiration.
"Konoha-Style Kenjutsu! Could Yang Jie have integrated Gekko Hayate's legacy?"
As everyone knew, although Gekko Hayate's legacy was also a White Legacy, it was extremely unusual.
Genma Shiranui's legacy offered a high baseline of effectiveness: mindlessly combining Shadow Clones with Senbon Rain to sweep a wide area was enough to deal massive damage.
In contrast, inheritors of Gekko Hayate's legacy possessed an exceptionally high level of proficiency in Konoha-Style Kenjutsu.
In actual combat, its baseline performance fell short of Genma Shiranui's legacy.
But with careful attention to detail and tactical mind games, its performance ceiling could even rival some Blue Inheritances.
Most importantly, wielding a sword looked cool!
Furthermore, once its inheritor reached Chunin strength, he would learn an incredibly useful special technique: Transparent Release.
It made the user transparent and concealed their presence.
Thus, many die-hard devotees would rather abandon a Green Legacy to choose Gekko Hayate's white-quality one.
These devoted ninja were therefore jokingly called the Gale God Cult.
"Yang Jie's stats are also at Novice Rank Three, right...? Taking down a Novice Rank Three White Zetsu with every slash-that's impressive!"
"As expected of someone confident enough to choose Gekko Hayate. From the talent he's shown, I'd say he's no worse than Luo Yu."
"If Luo Yu is a heavily armored artillery emplacement, Yang Jie is an assassin who kills without a trace."
"I'd really love to see him face off against Luo Yu."
"Honestly, Luo Yu relies on Great Fireball to deal damage, which makes him a little cumbersome. Yang Jie is definitely his natural counter."
The knowledgeable big shots showered him with praise.
Listening nearby, the Yang Family Head couldn't help feeling pleased, though he said, "You're all too kind."
"How could my son compare to a ninjutsu prodigy like Luo Yu?"
President Bai's smile grew even brighter. "They're both Jiang Li's future. Don't be so modest."
Sure enough, these ninja families needed a little pressure before they would reveal what they truly had up their sleeves.
Then President Bai chuckled. "Old Jiang, those ten White Legacies of yours aren't looking so safe anymore."
Curator Jiang remained calm. "I have complete confidence in Luo Yu."
With Luo Yu's Mangekyō Sharingan, he could see through Yang Jie's swordsmanship in no time.
And Yang Jie would never be able to handle that absurd Intangibility ability, not in his entire life.
Seeing that Curator Jiang's confidence didn't seem forced, everyone grew even more puzzled.
Both contestants could overwhelm Novice Rank Three opponents, and White Zetsu were even higher-quality prey than Water Lizards.
Just what was so special about Luo Yu that made Curator Jiang think so highly of him?
Elsewhere.
White Zetsu remains littered the surrounding area.
Having finished off all the White Zetsu, Yang Jie returned to Liu Jiajia's side with a flourish.
"Luo Yu, let me introduce you. This is my new boyfriend, Yang Jie."
Liu Jiajia affectionately linked arms with Yang Jie while giving him a meaningful look.
Yang Jie immediately understood.
He had already heard that someone named Luo Yu had offended Jiajia. She wanted him to back her up.
"You're Luo Yu, right? Please stop pestering Jiajia from now on."
Having figured it all out, Yang Jie immediately staked his claim in front of Luo Yu.
"What the hell? She's the one pestering me!"
Luo Yu's face darkened.
The class monitor must have spread that rumor.
Forget it. The priority right now is finding Yamato's legacy fragments.
I'll teach that class monitor a proper lesson later. Her mouth isn't for making things up.
Liu Jiajia gave Luo Yu an apologetic smile.
She was a girl, and a popular one at school. When venting to her male best friend, how could she admit that she was chasing someone who had nothing going for him except his looks?
Wouldn't that make her seem hopelessly obsessed with handsome faces?
So she had made a perfectly reasonable few billion little adjustments to the story.
Just as the three of them were about to split up and search for Yamato Fragments.
The ground began shaking again.
Seeing this, Yang Jie smiled proudly. "More of them?"
As he spoke, he drew the Tachi from his back once more.
Luo Yu also stood ready to unleash Great Fireball at any moment.
This time, he couldn't stand by and watch while Yang Jie took all the points.
More importantly, there were attribute points to be had!
At that moment, an Aberrant Variant formed from several White Zetsu fused together burst out of the ground.
In the room, the Yang Family Head's expression changed as he stared at the gigantic White Zetsu on the screen. "It's a Merged White Zetsu!"
Merged White Zetsu were exceedingly rare Aberrant Variants.
These deformed monsters, created by fusing multiple White Zetsu together, possessed a qualitatively greater level of strength.
Not only were they at least Genin-level, but they were also guaranteed to drop a fragment of Yamato's legacy.
As such, their quality was a full tier above Common White Zetsu.
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