Becoming the Tsuchikage in the Naruto World

Chapter 236: Time and Tide Wait for No Man

The ninja world was full of ups and downs. One moment, war clouds might be gathering; the next, it could be calm and peaceful.

Ishiro watched as Ikura secretly organized an elite unit. At that moment, Ishiro believed that if anything else happened in the ninja world, it would probably be difficult for any party to hold back.

But in just three short days, this elite unit was disbanded, and the surging undercurrent in the ninja world immediately returned to calm. Whether from public opinion or intelligence, no information related to war could be seen anymore.

However, this matter still reminded Ishiro that the peaceful times in the ninja world were not as long-lasting as he had previously thought; war could break out at any moment.

"It seems the research on applying sealing jutsu to actual combat needs to be accelerated. Preparing for a rainy day is something that should be done in advance."

After all, as time went on, Ishiro was also gradually entering the Kage-level tier. But his techniques were still stuck at the Elite Jonin stage. He lacked a powerful signature move and had too little burst power.

The advantage of sealing jutsu was its low chakra consumption, making it a good way to defeat the strong as the weak. It was very suitable for a possessor of a 'gram' of "chak-ra" like Ishiro.

Yuran Kawazoe's success gave Ishiro a great deal of inspiration. Ishiro first tried to break down a simple sealing jutsu into several parts, using chakra to draw them on his Porcelain Release that had been hardened into rock.

Then, Ishiro manipulated these rock pieces to approach the target and then activated the runes on them. These runes combined with each other to finally form a complete sealing jutsu.

The process was very smooth, simpler than Ishiro had expected.

But there were also a few small problems. First, directly drawing runes on rock from a distance with chakra was quite difficult and took too long. There was nothing to say about this but to practice more.

Second, the rock pieces with sealing jutsu runes attached were too large and could easily alert the enemy. The enemy didn't need to know what Ishiro wanted to do; they just needed to dodge after sensing something was wrong.

In response to this situation, Ishiro's solution was to break down the sealing jutsu as much as possible. Finally, Ishiro simply tried to break the sealing jutsu down into individual pieces based on single runes.

This method was feasible, but because the runes were scattered, there was a significant delay when finally activating the sealing jutsu. Additionally, having the runes too scattered placed a great demand on Ishiro's mental power; Ishiro needed to remember the position of each rune.

Of course, Ishiro was not a one-track-minded ninja and quickly thought of a way to reduce the consumption of mental power: divide the runes into various types, inscribe many of each type, and when needing to activate a sealing jutsu, temporarily search for them among the tiny rock shards near the target.

This way, the time to activate the sealing jutsu would be even longer, but the demand on Ishiro's mental power would undoubtedly be greatly reduced.

Although the long-range sealing jutsu still had many flaws, now that it was on the right track, Ishiro believed that with an increased number of practice sessions, his proficiency would quickly catch up.

Ninjutsu training had always been like this; the difficulty of getting started was always countless times greater than increasing proficiency later on.

On this day, Ishiro was on a C-rank mission with the three members of Squad Three: Kazumasa Yoshimura, Katsumata, and Himeki Suda.

After Ishiro's guidance, the foundation of his six disciples was already good. Now, Ishiro had changed from one D-rank mission per day to one C-rank mission every few days.

The goal of the missions had also changed from the initial familiarization within the team to adapting to the ninja world environment and becoming a truly qualified ninja.

The mission Ishiro and his team were on this time was an escort mission. He had no choice; the general environment in the Land of Earth was relatively good, and it was hard to find a mission suitable for newcomers to experience the cruelty of the ninja world.

There were no missions like exterminating bandits in the Land of Earth at all. There were quite a few missions to find and kill rogue ninjas, but at this stage, neither Squad Three nor Squad Four was qualified.

Among the six disciples in the two squads, only Takuhiro Uchiyama of Squad Four was barely strong enough; the others could only be considered rookies.

Ishiro had hoped to stir up some action during the escort mission to let his disciples experience a ninja battle, but they reached their destination without any incidents.

This made Ishiro a bit depressed. He didn't feel like talking much on the way back, with most of his attention focused on thinking about the long-range sealing jutsu.

The atmosphere within Squad Three, however, was quite good. The three of them were very happy to be able to leave the village for a mission, and the three members of Squad Three were much more lively than Squad Four.

Three children plus a little kitten made for a very active atmosphere. They chatted about training matters while slowly following Ishiro's pace back towards the village.

"Himeki, have you thought of a name for the little white cat?" The one asking was Kazumasa Yoshimura. He was quite envious that Himeki Suda had a ninja animal, but if he had to raise one himself, he didn't have the patience.

"Not yet. I feel like no name is good enough for him," Himeki Suda said, somewhat deflated.

Ishiro, leading the way in front, rolled his eyes but didn't interject.

Katsumata said, "Then do you know what attribute the little white cat is?"

Not many ninja animals could use ninjutsu, but they weren't non-existent. Ninja animals generally also had chakra attributes, but not many could learn chakra nature and shape transformation.

Speaking of this, Himeki Suda's face lit up with excitement: "I know, I know! He's wind attribute! Teacher said that if wind attribute chakra is used well, it's very suitable for close combat."

"And, I'm fire attribute. With wind and fire combined, we can use combination ninjutsu!" At this point, Himeki Suda was full of confidence for the future.

Kazumasa Yoshimura shot her down, "Give me a break. You haven't even learned a single C-rank ninjutsu yet."

Himeki Suda was furious, "I'll learn one soon! Don't you be so smug."

Himeki Suda's talent was very average, and it would have taken her a long time to learn ninjutsu step-by-step. The hateful Ishiro had also made her spend most of her time on basic training. In addition, she had to take care of the little kitten, so she simply didn't have enough time to learn ninjutsu.

The result was that she hadn't learned a single ninjutsu yet.

On the contrary, Kazumasa Yoshimura's talent in learning ninjutsu was good. With his flexible fingers, it was easier for him to mobilize chakra with hand seals than for an ordinary ninja. He had already learned two C-rank ninjutsu.

It was just that the ninjutsu Kazumasa Yoshimura knew had too many hand seals and couldn't be used in actual combat yet. He was currently practicing simplifying them.

Katsumata did not interject on this topic. No matter what, the others still had many ninjutsu to choose from, but there were too few genjutsu he could learn. He had already learned two C-rank genjutsu, but neither was for actual combat.

What made Katsumata even more upset was that the village's collection of genjutsu was too small. There were few C-rank ones that could be used in combat, and B-rank and above were practically non-existent.

He was more like he was researching genjutsu than learning it.

Ishiro was quite generous with Katsumata. He had given him all the Uchiha clan's ocular genjutsu and all the B-rank genjutsu Ishiro knew.

Because these genjutsu were either tinkered with by Ishiro himself or obtained from Konoha, their secrecy level in the village was not high.

Seeing Himeki Suda angry, Kazumasa Yoshimura quickly changed the subject, "Katsumata, how is your research on interference genjutsu coming along? Can it be used to coordinate with us in battle?"

Squad Three was in an awkward position now. Their team had a problem that most teams in the ninja world had: no specialty.

None of the three had any ninjutsu or genjutsu for practical combat. In a fight, the three were equivalent to three taijutsu ninjas. And to make matters worse, none of them had good talent in taijutsu.

Ishiro felt that if all the Genin squads in Iwagakure were to participate in a strength ranking competition right now, Squad Three would definitely be in the bottom batch.

Takuhiro Uchiyama from Squad Four could take down Squad Three all by himself.

So Squad Three was very anxious. They wanted to come up with a set of tactics that suited them. Since their individual combat power was a major weakness, their teamwork couldn't be bad as well.

After thinking it over, they felt the breakthrough could only be Katsumata's genjutsu.

Himeki Suda's little kitten would take a long time to grow, possibly measured in years. Kazumasa Yoshimura's ninjutsu learning also needed time, and according to Ishiro's description, one or two combat-ready ninjutsu didn't actually have much effect. Only Katsumata's genjutsu could quickly improve the team's strength; genjutsu could easily catch people off guard.

Himeki Suda was a carefree little girl and was easily led astray by Kazumasa Yoshimura's words. She also looked at Katsumata with anticipation.

Just as Katsumata was about to speak, Ishiro, who was leading the way, suddenly stopped. At the same time, he made a few hand signs to the three of them.

The three were wondering why Ishiro had stopped. Seeing the hand signs, their hearts immediately tensed, and they subconsciously assumed a battle formation.

The four of them cast their gazes forward.

After a short while, a person slowly walked over from directly in front of them. The newcomer was extremely tall, wore a mask, had green eyes, and the exposed skin had obvious suture marks. Most importantly, the person's forehead prominently displayed a Takigakure forehead protector with a line slashed through it.

Seeing this person, Ishiro, as a fan of the original story, naturally recognized the other party's identity at first glance: Kakuzu. Kakuzu of the five hearts and the Earth Grudge Fear.

Ishiro's attention had been on researching sealing jutsu, so he didn't immediately notice Kakuzu entering his Mind's Eye's perception range. But Kakuzu's undisguised killing intent and violently fluctuating chakra were too obvious. So although his attention was not focused, his Mind's Eye still instinctively sounded an alarm.

Watching Kakuzu slowly approach, Ishiro naturally wouldn't be foolish enough to wait. With Kakuzu's posture, it was clear the two sides were enemies. Ishiro had never been known for his "talk-no-jutsu"; he never wasted time with talk against someone he could fight.

So although Kakuzu was still far away, Ishiro's ninjutsu had already been activated.

Porcelain Release, Mud Clone.

Ishiro rarely used this move in actual combat because using clone jutsu required a knack for controlling chakra amount. Ishiro's chakra amount was not large, so he seldom used clones in battle. But facing Kakuzu, Ishiro had to change his tactics. Kakuzu had five hearts, which was equivalent to five people with perfect coordination fighting together. Ishiro dared not be the slightest bit careless.

The moment the Mud Clone appeared, it launched a continuous stream of Porcelain Release, attacking Kakuzu with various forms.

Seeing this, Kakuzu paused his steps and no longer approached blindly. He also chose to attack from a distance. A large number of black tendrils suddenly surged out from the stitched parts of his arms. The number of black tendrils was no less than the porcelain mud created by Ishiro's clone.

A large number of kunai formed from porcelain struck the black tendrils and were all blocked. However, these black tendrils also suffered considerable losses, with large swathes being broken by the kunai.

While the clone was controlling the Porcelain Release, Ishiro's main body formed hand seals and cast a Fire Release. A great fireball with a diameter of ten meters rolled towards Kakuzu.

"Water Release, Water Shockwave!" Kakuzu was no slouch either. He also quickly formed hand seals, and a large-area Water Release jutsu blasted forward, directly dissipating the great fireball.