The morning sun had barely risen above the horizon when Xia Yan got up right on time.
After a quick wash, he set off for Anbu.
After such a long break, Xia Yan had made progress with both the sealing-type seed and the Flying Thunder God Technique, so he had no complaints about returning to work now.
In fact, he was even looking forward to returning to work this time.
Several days had passed since his conversation with Minato Namikaze. Although he had not received a particularly definite answer, he knew he had a chance.
Minato Namikaze had been somewhat cautious about Xia Yan's proposal.
Xia Yan had explicitly told him that, with Kakashi's entry into Anbu as a precedent, even promoting an Anbu force of his own would not cause an outright falling-out between him and the Third.
Yet he still hoped to carry this out through normal procedures. Xia Yan had nothing to say to that; after all, he was fairly confident in himself.
The normal procedure for promotion to Anbu Captain involved passing a series of assessments.
Xia Yan did not think those assessments would pose a challenge, but doing things this way was somewhat troublesome and introduced more variables.
But Minato Namikaze was unwilling to break the rules, and Xia Yan could not force him to do anything.
To put it plainly, although his interactions with Minato Namikaze did not resemble those of a superior and subordinate, and often felt more like those of partners or even teacher and student, that was all.
Xia Yan still understood the fundamental nature of their relationship very clearly.
And no matter how good-natured Minato Namikaze was, some boundaries simply could not be crossed.
At this point, apart from regretting that he could not obtain the Captain position directly and