Karn had made all the arrangements in Konoha, including the handover of the medicine and everything else. This time, Konoha seemed to have received funding from the Daimyo, so they paid only a small portion in gold and settled most of the balance in the Shinobi World's currency.
It came to a full seventy million ryo, more money than he could spend. After leaving Kawaki Miwa some funds to prepare for opening shops and two months' funding for the orphanage, Karn took the rest with him.
He couldn't keep this stuff on hand for long. In Karn's eyes, these banknotes were nothing but useless scrap paper unless he spent them.
On his way out of the village, Karn considered how to spend the money.
He would leave twenty million ryo with Xia Chuan so she could keep expanding their business in the Land of Fire, then spend ten million to bring Kakuzu over to teach him ninjutsu. The rest would go toward buying gold and jewels. If he came across any unusual antiques with a long history, he would buy those too and take them back to sell to those foolish Japanese.
While Karn was in Konoha, Xia Chuan had also made rapid progress. She found two people well suited to running the casino and brought them straight to Kawaki Town. She also recruited some wandering samurai and hired muscle, twenty-three people in total. However, only four of them could use chakra, and none were ninja.
Recruiting ninja who knew ninjutsu outside the villages was incredibly difficult. Only missing-nin really fit the bill. Given how tightly the ninja villages controlled ninjutsu, even joining a small village wouldn't make it easy to learn.
Konoha was already the ninja village most open to civilians, yet six years of schooling taught them little more than the Three Basic Techniques. That alone showed how precious ninjutsu was. Otherwise, Kakuzu wouldn't have become the Underground Bounty Station's star attraction. Bounty hunters as powerful as him were simply too rare.
"Well done, Xia Chuan. I really can rest easy leaving things outside the village to you."
Karn spoke with a smile. Over this period, he had watched Xia Chuan's abilities steadily improve as she gained experience in business and management. At first, she had needed to ask him even where to put the merchandise. Now, Karn could confidently leave a great many things in her hands.
Xia Chuan was talented. She wasn't particularly strong, but she was very useful to Karn.
"Xia Chuan, from now on, your pay will be tripled. Your year-end bonus will be separate."
At Karn's words, delight spread across Xia Chuan's face. Her original pay had already been enough to give her child a comfortable life. Now that it had tripled, she felt she could consider preparing medicinal baths once her child entered the ninja academy.
That was a privilege generally reserved for the prodigies of ninja clans, but her new pay would let her afford it too.
As for profit-sharing, Karn had considered it, but he wouldn't bring it up now, or anytime so soon. She would have to devote at least ten years to working for him before he offered it. Rewards needed to increase step by step. Giving someone everything at once only hurt both sides.
Things went smoothly after that. With staff, machines, premises, and guards all in place, the casino soon opened. A shortage of customers at first was perfectly normal. After a few days of publicity, customers began coming in. Once they experienced the novel ways to gamble, they would gradually grow fond of the place.
They still needed to recruit more guards. Kawaki Town had not only the casino, but also the Confectionery Factory, cocoa plantations and supply operations, and other shops. Ideally, thirty to forty guards would be enough to intimidate everyone in Kawaki Town and keep them from daring to cause trouble.
Afterward, Karn had someone contact Kakuzu. Before Kakuzu arrived, however, he also asked Xia Chuan about chakra and ninjutsu.
"Boss, you want to learn ninjutsu?"
Xia Chuan gave Karn a puzzled look. With his wealth, couldn't he simply keep hiring ninja to protect him? Besides, learning ninjutsu at his age would be difficult and unrewarding. Despite those thoughts, Xia Chuan still told Karn everything she knew.
"To learn ninjutsu, you first have to learn to extract chakra. Then you use hand seals to mobilize it through your chakra pathways. Once the seals are complete, the ninjutsu activates. As for chakra, it's a combination of physical energy and spiritual energy."
After explaining this to Karn, Xia Chuan demonstrated the Clone Technique. Then she told him the key points of the Chakra Extraction Technique and let him try it himself.
How was Karn supposed to manage that? Xia Chuan had given him only a single instruction: focus on combining his physical energy and spiritual energy, then control and maintain the result. That would count as successfully extracting chakra.
It sounded simple, but Karn wasn't from the Shinobi World!
After trying for a while, Karn still had no idea what physical energy and spiritual energy actually were. He gave an embarrassed smile and said to Xia Chuan, "Xia Chuan, could you let me feel your chakra? Maybe by sending it through my body or something?"
"Like that? It should be fine."
Following Karn's instructions, Xia Chuan placed her hand on his back, then extracted chakra and fed it into his body.
In an instant, Karn felt energy flowing into his body from the hand on his back. It was an extraordinary sensation that made his whole body feel much lighter.
"That's the feeling."
Karn felt as though he had suddenly grown stronger. He immediately formed hand seals, hoping to use that sensation to extract chakra.
In this state, Karn felt his body brimming with vitality, and he was considerably stronger than before. As he slowly focused on the sensation, he almost seemed able to feel the physical energy and spiritual energy Xia Chuan had described.
"Hm? Xia Chuan, why did you stop?"
Karn had only just begun to get a feel for it when the flow of chakra from the hand behind him cut off. Turning around, he saw fine beads of sweat on Xia Chuan's face. She looked utterly exhausted.
"I... I need a rest, boss."
Feeling a little embarrassed, Karn nodded and said, "Then take a break. Let me know if you need anything."
It was a shame. He felt he had been on the verge of extracting chakra. But with Xia Chuan in that state, he couldn't very well push her further. After all, overusing chakra could be fatal.
A day later, once Xia Chuan had recovered, Karn asked her to try again. The result was the same as the day before: Xia Chuan was worn out, and Karn still hadn't extracted any chakra.
After getting the same result twice, Karn stopped asking Xia Chuan to transfer chakra to him. Perhaps it was because she had too little chakra, or perhaps the problem lay with his body.
But Xia Chuan needed a full day's rest after each transfer. If they kept experimenting like this, nothing in Kawaki Town would get done.
A few more days passed. After finishing his current bounty assignment, Kakuzu hurried to Kawaki Town. But when he heard Xia Chuan's request, his expression immediately darkened. "You called me over just for this... As it happens, I haven't got much going on lately. We can try transferring chakra in a moment."
His tone changed like a roller coaster, which had something to do with the case Karn had brought out.
With that, Kakuzu opened the case Karn had pushed in front of him, and his green eyes immediately swept over its contents several times.
At least nine million, probably a round ten million. What a generous client!
Kakuzu's mood improved considerably. As he counted the money, he thought, So he wants a ninjutsu teacher? Nothing could be easier for me.
He was, after all, an elite ninja from Takigakure who had fought the First Hokage!
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