Not only were the viewers stunned, but even Madara thought he was hearing things.
Roast crabs?
Me?
Are you kidding me?
I am the Asura of the Ninja World! Hashirama Senju's lifelong enemy!
And you're asking me to roast crabs?!
Lin Xiaoran: "I'll tell you when you were resurrected."
Madara: "..."
Damn it, he actually had no reason to refuse!
"Hmph! It's only a crab."
Madara leaped down in a flash. Facing the enormous crab charging toward him, over two meters tall, his expression did not change in the slightest. From several meters away, he immediately formed hand seals. "Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!"
It was only a crab. One fireball would be enough.
After all, with Madara's strength, any level of Fire Release could produce S-rank effects, or even surpass S-rank, if he wished.
[Hiss! Is this Madara's ability? The ability to control fire?!]
[Wait, you're really using your ability to roast a crab?]
[Madara: Roast crabs? What a joke! Classmate Lin: In exchange for information! Madara: I'm on it!]
[This domineering Heroic Spirit is already completely wrapped around Classmate Lin's finger!]
[Well done, Classmate Lin!]
[Looking at it this way, Madara doesn't actually have a bad attitude. That's just his personality.]
[I love this kind of scene! His mouth says he hates it to death, but his body is very honest!]
[Look! The crab's cooked!]
Under the scorching heat of Fire Release taken to its extreme, the originally blue-green crab had turned completely red. Its aroma wafted out, giving Lin Xiaoran quite an appetite.
[Announcement: Challenger Master Lin Xiaoran from Country L and her Heroic Spirit, Madara Uchiha, have successfully killed an E-rank ferocious beast. Points +10!]
Lin Xiaoran landed and walked over. As soon as she approached, a wave of heat washed over her face.
Under these circumstances, eating it right now would be rather difficult for Lin Xiaoran. It was too hot.
After some thought, Lin Xiaoran used her ability to break off one large claw and put everything else into her spatial backpack.
Fortunately, the spatial backpack was spacious, and everything inside remained completely suspended. Once the piping-hot crab was placed inside, it would retain its temperature no matter when she took it out.
Lin Xiaoran thought it might be better to eat it at night, because the desert weather went between two extremes from day to night. During the day, it was so hot that people felt as though they would melt, but at night, it was so cold that they felt as though they would freeze solid.
The large crab claw floated beside her. In no hurry to eat, Lin Xiaoran instead looked toward the large pit the crab had crawled out of.
The pit had already shrunk considerably as the flowing sand filled it in. Lin Xiaoran was unsure whether a crab's nest lay beneath it, or whether there were any treasure chests and ordinary supply crates.
Fortunately, she had the ability to control gravity.
Lin Xiaoran let go, and the parasol floated in the air on its own. Then she crouched and pressed both hands against the sand. As a ring of purple light spread, the still desert began to churn, rolling outward in overlapping layers like ocean waves with the pit at their center, exposing the deeper ground below.
Sure enough, two boxes emerged amid the flowing, surging yellow sand.
"Found them!"
Lin Xiaoran stood and pointed. Purple light flashed silently, and the two boxes flew over on their own.
Beside her, Madara curiously examined Lin Xiaoran's every move, probing how these so-called "superpowers" differed from his ninjutsu.
Through careful observation with his Sharingan, Madara had reached the following conclusions: first, superpowers required no so-called chakra and were instead driven by an unknown energy; second, superpowers required no hand seals and were convenient to use.
Madara still did not know the upper limit of Lin Xiaoran's superpower. If she could only move lightweight objects like these rocks and sand, he would have no need to take it seriously, because it was too weak.
[Congratulations to challenger Lin Xiaoran for opening a supply crate and obtaining 3 bottles of ice water, 2 ice creams, and 2 servings of cold noodles!]
[Congratulations to challenger Lin Xiaoran for opening an E-rank treasure chest and obtaining an E-rank temperature-controlled tent!] [E-rank temperature-controlled tent: Automatically adjusts its temperature, providing coolness or warmth. Comes with air conditioning!] [Ten-thousandfold supply return: 10,000 E-rank temperature-controlled tents have been randomly distributed among all residents of Country L!]
[First a parasol, now a temperature-controlled tent. Looks like the National Fortune Game really does look after its challengers.]
[Looks after them? First you have to avoid a ferocious beast's ambush, then kill it, and finally find the supply crate and treasure chest beneath the desert and retrieve them!]
[No matter how you look at it, that's not looking after them. Without some strength, you'd probably die of thirst or starvation in the desert!]
[Speaking of which, Classmate Lin's gravity control is actually this convenient? It seems like she can make anything fly. She doesn't even have to hold her own parasol.]
[There should be a weight limit. So far, the maximum weight is a meteor from outer space, on Uncle Issho's level. I wonder what fraction of his strength Classmate Lin has.]
[How much power she has isn't important. After all, the National Fortune Game still comes down to the strength of the Heroic Spirits. Looking forward to Madara's performance.]
[You can do it, Classmate Lin!]
Lin Xiaoran put away the supplies and tent, then glanced at the silent Madara beside her. "Your Impure World Reincarnation body really has it good. You don't need to eat, and you don't mind the heat or cold."
Madara: "?"
What was that supposed to mean?
Didn't she know that having no sensation whatsoever in this body had robbed him of even his passion for battle?
Could a fight where you couldn't feel pain even be called a fight?
"What about the information you promised?" Madara asked coldly.
"Let's talk as we go."
Lin Xiaoran jumped onto the meteor. Once Madara climbed aboard, she continued flying forward, speaking while blowing on the large crab claw to cool it:
"Kabuto Yakushi resurrected you with a forbidden technique to prepare for the Fourth Shinobi World War. Understand?"
"!"
Hearing this, Madara immediately thought of his plan!
The Fourth Shinobi World War? In other words, Nagato and Obito might already have finished capturing the Tailed Beasts and begun preparing to resurrect the Ten-Tails!
In that case, even if I hadn't been resurrected through Impure World Reincarnation, Nagato would soon have used Rinne Rebirth to resurrect me under Obito and Black Zetsu's supervision!
Excellent! It seems nothing has gone wrong with my plan!
At this thought, the corners of Madara's mouth could not help lifting.
Seeing this, Lin Xiaoran said, "Don't you want to know how long you've been dead?"
Nearly sixteen whole years had passed after Madara's death before the Fourth Shinobi World War launched by Obito officially began.
It had given the protagonist plenty of time to develop.
Had Obito, who was carrying out the plan, not messed around or slacked off, perhaps it would not have taken so long.
"What do you mean? Has a long time passed?" Madara asked with a frown.
"Not too long, I suppose. Time doesn't matter to you anyway."
"Hmph!" That was true enough. He would be resurrected regardless.
As long as he successfully activated Infinite Tsukuyomi, whatever stage the Shinobi World had reached would mean nothing to him.
"You don't doubt what I'm saying?" Lin Xiaoran asked curiously.
"Since you could speak of my faked death and also know about Obito, Nagato, and Black Zetsu, that's enough to prove you have a source of information unknown to me. In that case, why doubt you?"
Madara was very confident in his analysis.
"Then what if I told you I also know your future? Would you believe me?" Lin Xiaoran smiled slyly.
Madara abruptly turned his head and stared intently at Lin Xiaoran, the Three-Tomoe Sharingan in his eyes rotating slightly.
He considered what her words meant, and whether he should ask Lin Xiaoran about his future-whether he had ultimately succeeded in achieving his goal.
And whether he should believe what Lin Xiaoran said at all.
"Just wait. I'll tell you the next time we trade information."
After saying this, Lin Xiaoran began tasting the crabmeat inside the large claw.
The crab claw was so large that a single bowl could not hold it.
But Lin Xiaoran did not need utensils. She could simply use her ability to eat.
In Lin Xiaoran's hands, gravity control was more like telekinesis, used with greater precision and for more everyday purposes.
Outside the game.
[Madara's eyes are so scary! When he suddenly stared over, I got goosebumps!]
[What kind of eyes are that red?!]
[Also, Classmate Lin said Madara's body was something called Impure World Reincarnation. He doesn't need food or water and doesn't mind heat or cold. Does that mean Madara is actually already...]
[Dead?]
[Hey, hey, hey, this is the National Fortune Game, not some horror story!]
[I think Madara's eyes definitely have some kind of special ability!]
[Ah, I never expected that after Uncle Issho left, Lin Xiaoran would inherit the eating show. I really want to taste that huge crab claw too!]
[Watching this made me hungry.]
The bullet comments were utter chaos. The viewers were all saying their own things, yet, surprisingly, they were all on the same wavelength.
Afterward, by six in the afternoon, Lin Xiaoran's points had reached 300, a hundred higher than the 200 she had earned in the previous round.
This was because Lin Xiaoran had not traveled on foot on the first day, but had kept flying instead, allowing her to go farther and find slightly more ferocious beasts.
Another point was that Lin Xiaoran had basically dealt with all the ferocious beasts herself using the Gravitational Beam Emitter.
She did not let Madara reap any benefits at all.
However, when Lin Xiaoran opened the points leaderboard, she discovered that several of this round's challengers were quite strong.
Sophia from Country Y, in second place, actually had an impressive 250 points too!
And Yimopu from Country A, in third place, likewise had an impressive 210 points!
All three of the top-ranked challengers had over 200 points!
"What's going on? A collective breakout?!"
Although Lin Xiaoran was surprised, she did not panic.
Others did not know Madara Uchiha's strength, but Lin Xiaoran knew it well.
"Tsk, it'll take a bit of effort, but it's no big problem!"
Then Lin Xiaoran saw Sanders in fourth place and Amit in fifth. Their scores were both between 100 and 200, which was likewise not low.
All she could say was that this round's challengers had very high-quality Heroic Spirits!
Six in the evening.
Lin Xiaoran and Madara found a patch of rocky ground to serve as their resting place for the night.
The rock could effectively prevent all sorts of insects, scorpions, venomous snakes, and other ferocious beasts from crawling out from beneath the desert at night.
Lin Xiaoran was still quite afraid of such things.
Sitting on a rock, Lin Xiaoran took out the large crab Madara had roasted during the day.
The piping-hot crab filled the air with its aroma.
Unfortunately, Madara could not smell it. He sat to one side, thinking about what Lin Xiaoran had said: In the end, you lost again.
"Again" was a good choice of word.
Madara had only lost twice in his life.
And those only two defeats had both been at the hands of his fated opponent-Hashirama Senju.
Then what was this third time about?
Would he lose to Hashirama Senju again?
Had he also been resurrected through Impure World Reincarnation?
Madara turned it over a hundred times without finding an answer.