"You finally caught on."
"You think you can take me?"
"I do."
Hyuga Akira hopped lightly down from the branch and slowly spread his hands into a Gentle Fist stance.
"And it'll be a fair fight. Not everyone gets an opportunity like this."
Never fight head-on when he could stab someone in the back; never clash directly when he could play dirty. That was Hyuga Akira's way of fighting.
This was his first head-on battle to the death, and the thought made him a little excited.
Kusen stared incredulously at Hyuga Akira's stance. "Gentle Fist. You really aren't Muyu."
The Hyuga Clan's Gentle Fist was far too famous. The entire Shinobi World practiced Steel Fist, while only the Hyuga Clan practiced Gentle Fist. It was hard not to know about it.
"Why make your move now?" In that instant, Kusen already understood what the other man meant.
He was going to silence him.
Kusen was the only one who knew everything about Muyu.
Amegakure's ninja were different from those of the Large Ninja Villages, which had Ninja Academies to teach them and experienced ninja to train them.
Amegakure's ninja were all about figuring things out for themselves. Generally, only a Rain Ninja's direct superior knew everything about them.
If Kusen died, no one else would know exactly how strong the ninja under him were until they demonstrated it themselves.
"Because now is the best time."
Before this, Hanzo had not even known who Muyu was. Even if Hyuga Akira wanted to continue working undercover, he had no route upward.
But Kusen had already given his name to Hanzo. Once Kusen died, he could contact Hanzo directly.
Naturally, continuing his undercover work would become easier too.
In other words, Kusen had outlived his usefulness.
"Don't even think about running." Hyuga Akira slowly approached Kusen. "The wire I ignited just now has shifted all the traps. The traps here are completely different from what you knew."
Hyuga Akira had not spent all these years doing nothing.
Although he had a game interface, his body itself had not been digitized. There were many things the interface could not reflect.
His ability to set traps was one of them. It simply could not form a skill on the interface.
Kusen took a deep breath. "So you're a Chunin too? What are you trying to accomplish?"
Hyuga Akira shook his head. "I'm still a Genin. Aside from silencing you, I also want to test exactly how strong I am."
And as a precaution, he had deliberately weakened Kusen. The Kunai at the very beginning had been meant to alert Akishima and the others so they would not plunge straight into the traps.
It was all to make Akishima wear down Kusen's strength.
But judging from the fight just now, without his trap, Akishima probably would not merely have worn Kusen down. He would have killed him outright.
Is this Kusen guy the absolute bottom of the Chunin barrel?
Anyone can push him around.
Hyuga Akira was somewhat disappointed.
"Test your strength?" Kusen gritted his teeth, his expression turning vicious. "A Genin dares to use me, a Chunin, to test his strength? You Konoha people are far too arrogant."
His hands rapidly formed seals.
"Water Release: Water Shuriken Technique!"
Shuriken rapidly formed in midair. Holding a Kunai in one hand and maintaining a seal with the other, Kusen charged at Hyuga Akira.
"Then test it with your life, you bastard!"
Watching Kusen charge, Hyuga Akira chose not to cancel his Transformation Technique. A faint eight-trigram diagram slowly formed beneath his feet.
"Gentle Fist Art: Unknowing Fire: Eight Trigrams: Sixty-Four Palms!"
His figure instantly vanished from the spot. Fierce flames blazed over his hands, and his palms struck rapidly at Kusen like raging fire.
One palm.
Three palms.
Eight palms.
The water Shuriken Kusen controlled attacked first, only to turn into steam against Hyuga Akira's palms.
His Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms was fundamentally different from the Hyuga Clan's Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms.
The Hyuga Clan's Eight Trigrams Palm struck sixty-four chakra points, completely sealing the enemy's chakra points.
Hyuga Akira's Eight Trigrams Palm, however, focused on the form. Every palm strike carried a flame attack, along with the enhancement from Kumate.
A single palm strike could take a life.
This was Hyuga Akira's strongest attack, even more powerful than his Shuriken.
The instant Kusen and Hyuga Akira collided-
Nine palms.
Fifteen palms.
Eighteen palms.
The Kunai was knocked flying. Kusen's hand and arm were instantly shattered, burning into charcoal in the flames.
His chest, head, and abdomen were struck almost simultaneously.
The tremendous force sent his body flying backward, but the fierce flames burned him completely to ash.
Hyuga Akira slowly came to a stop at the twenty-third palm strike.
"Twenty-three palm strikes to take down a Chunin."
He watched the notification flash before his eyes.
[Experience: 1112]
Kusen was dead.
Chapter 51: A Pretty Good Haul This Time
Hyuga Akira walked over to the charred remains and reached down to collect the dropped item.
[Exorcist Skill Fragment (1/10)]
"That's the second one." Hyuga Akira smiled at Kusen's charred remains.
The two fragments placed in his inventory had already merged.
[Exorcist Skill Fragment (2/10)]
"As expected of my superior. Even dead, you drop good stuff for me."
Even in death, Kusen had brought him something good.
He truly was an excellent superior who cared for his subordinates, loving them deeply even after death.
Hyuga Akira was moved to tears.
(Kusen: Come say that to my face if you've got the guts!)
He composed himself and walked over to Akishima's fragmented remains. The dropped item was another card.
He picked it up. It depicted a figure whose eyes and mouth were black holes.
[Nanika's Wish List Fragment (1/10)]
"Even this can drop?" Hyuga Akira looked at the card in his hand in surprise. He had thought this item could never appear.
Nanika's Wish List was tied to quests. Using this card could grant a wish within certain limits, but afterward, the user would receive a mandatory timed quest.
The quest's difficulty depended on the wish granted.
Failure would result in severe penalties, such as permanently reduced stats, permanent physical disabilities, or even the loss of hundreds of thousands of experience points.
Basically, the account would be ruined.
For players, this kind of punishment was the cruelest thing of all.
An account they had put untold effort into building would be ruined by a single quest.
What player would not break down?
He had thought this item would not appear without the quest system, but he had still managed to get it to drop.
"Even without the quest system, this thing isn't easy to use." Hyuga Akira rubbed his chin.
Even according to the original Hunter x Hunter story, using this wish ability came at a considerable cost. One had to fulfill three of Nanika's demands before having one request granted.
In the original story, the Zoldyck Family had imprisoned Nanika as a monster precisely because they feared those three demands could destroy the entire family.
Whether it followed the original story's rules or the game's method, this thing was a double-edged sword.
In the game, it could not be used to obtain items above level 60.
"Forget it. I'll put it away for now. I might not even collect all the fragments."
This thing also dropped randomly, and its drop rate was even lower than that of the Exorcist skill. Whether he could complete the set was another matter entirely.
He would consider whether to use it after collecting them all.
He took out the cards dropped by the three Genin.
[Consumable: Copy C-40] [Consumable: Lonely Sapphire] [Consumable: Cyclops G-333]
The Copy card could duplicate any item dropped in the Hunter World, but each item could only be copied once.
"But it's not much use to me." Hyuga Akira sighed helplessly. The best use for this card was to copy a rare ability from the Hunter World and then sell it.
That would usually earn quite a lot of in-game money.
But he was the only player in this world. Who could he trade with?
The second item was pretty good. Although it could only be sold for money, gems still fetched a high price in the Shinobi World.
In the original story, this gem had some kind of curse, but that feature had been removed in the game. It had become a purely decorative item.
There were plenty of decorative items like this. As long as he found a chance to sell them, Hyuga Akira would not have to worry about money.
What pleased Hyuga Akira most was the third card. This card could summon a Cyclops to fight.
A Cyclops's strength ranged between level twenty and level thirty. Although it only had two skills, an ordinary ninja still could not eliminate it quickly.
Unfortunately, it could only be used once.
"Not bad, I suppose." Hyuga Akira put away all the dropped items.
That was how drops from Amegakure ninja worked. Most came in the form of cards.
Finally, he checked his experience points.
His experience had now reached [Experience Pool: 4568].
"I'll be able to do my Class Change soon." Hyuga Akira put 3,999 experience points toward leveling up.
[Level: lv16 (3999/4000)] [Experience Pool: 569]
"I still need quite a bit of experience, but I've cleared this area." Hyuga Akira closed the interface.
He had already farmed everything he could in the entire city. The Wandering Ninja hiding there could not provide enough experience for him to level up either.
As for those hidden Konoha Ninja...
"If I farm them all and my identity gets exposed later, my reputation with Konoha will be ruined." Hyuga Akira scratched his head in frustration.
Regular ninjutsu from the Naruto world only dropped from Konoha.
Otherwise, he would have to seek out bosses or mobs in the wild to get regular ninjutsu from this world to drop.
Before you continue