Becoming the Tsuchikage in the Naruto World

Chapter 249: Arrangements

However, although Himeki Suda had learned the Great Fireball Technique, both her hand seal speed and its power were mediocre, and it didn't provide a significant boost to her combat strength.

Fortunately, her ninja cat, Fūka, had made great progress during this time. After more than a year of training, Fūka's various stats had all improved. The little ninja cat's chakra amount had also grown rapidly, already no less than that of the weakest Genin. Coupled with a ninja cat's natural talent for speed, the combat power it displayed was already able to provide Himeki Suda with immense help.

It was just that Fūka's chakra amount was still not enough to cast a C-rank Wind Release, and even if its chakra amount reached the requirement for a C-rank Wind Release, it didn't mean Fūka could cast it. The difficulty for ninja animals to learn ninjutsu is very high. For example, Fūka's mother, Dango, was now a ninja cat specializing in taijutsu; Dango currently didn't know a single ninjutsu.

Starting today, Ishiro would teach Fūka chakra control. Previously, with Dango, there wasn't much Ishiro could do. But the current Ishiro knew Sage Jutsu. After entering Sage Mode, Ishiro could communicate very well with ninja animals. Ishiro in Sage Mode also more easily attracted the affinity of ninja animals.

Leveraging this advantage, Ishiro formulated a chakra control training plan for Fūka and would guide it in related training every day.

As for its master, Himeki Suda, Ishiro's training direction was still taijutsu. The little girl's physical constitution was relatively good, but her personality was carefree, not suitable for ninjutsu. Ishiro only had one requirement for her ninjutsu: to be able to proficiently cast the Great Fireball Technique, so she could coordinate with Fūka for a burst of power in the future.

It was just that Ishiro was not skilled in taijutsu, so when guiding Himeki Suda, Ishiro mostly used sparring, letting the little girl explore on her own.

Himeki Suda's teammate, Kazumasa Yoshimura, was relatively easy for Ishiro to guide. Kazumasa's specialty was hand seals. Over the years, under Ishiro's guidance, he had already increased his hand seal speed.

Currently, Kazumasa's two-handed seal speed had reached 4.5-5.0 seals per second. More importantly, through special training, he had developed several hand seal forms that were only suitable for himself, including the one-handed seals that Ishiro had spent great effort to master back then.

Although Kazumasa's one-handed seal speed was still very slow and basically couldn't be used in actual combat, the momentum was very good. Kazumasa's path was one that Ishiro had walked before, a very mature path, so his progress was also the most obvious.

However, limited by his insufficient chakra amount, Kazumasa's endurance in fighting with ninjutsu was not high. But his burst power was already very good. With the advantage of rapid hand seals, Kazumasa could often quickly defeat opponents of the same level.

But the ninjutsu Kazumasa currently knew were only C-rank. The major weakness of insufficient chakra made it so he still couldn't cast B-rank ninjutsu.

Speaking of hand seals, after Ishiro became Kage-level, his seal speed had reached 6.0-6.5 seals per second. In terms of seal speed alone, probably no one in the entire ninja world could surpass him.

However, this advantage of seal speed was not well utilized by Ishiro because his training focus was not on improving combat power. He had been striving to elevate his level of life.

As for one-handed seals, Ishiro hadn't spent any time practicing them these years. Now, Ishiro could only manage 3.5 one-handed seals per second. And even then, he could only form a portion of the seals; it couldn't replace all conventional seal forms.

With no time for hand seal development, Ishiro placed his hopes on Kazumasa Yoshimura. After he developed more one-handed seals and unique seal forms, Ishiro could just learn them then.

Finally, there was Katsumata. Katsumata's talent for genjutsu was truly good, but unfortunately, the help the village could provide was too little. Although he had learned all the village's C-rank genjutsu and even several B-rank ones, his combat power was still insufficient.

The reason was none other than that very few of the genjutsu he knew could be used in actual combat. His combat style was too monotonous and easily countered by opponents.

So Katsumata was the weakest among Ishiro's six disciples, even weaker than Yuran Kawazoe, who specialized in sealing jutsu.

However, like Yuran, Katsumata could play a significant role when coordinating with companions in battle. The genjutsu Katsumata was best at now was interfering with the opponent's five senses.

In a group fight, Katsumata could subtly change the enemy's perception of the outside world. Don't underestimate this. Imagine a kunai flying towards you from the front, but you think it's coming from your side-front. You naturally swing your blade to block its path of advance.

The result is you block nothing. The question is, is there still time to remedy the situation?

Because this move was effective, Katsumata spent a lot of effort on it. From large-scale changes at the beginning to later small-scale, detailed changes, Katsumata had been constantly adjusting it to be suitable for combat.

Squad Three and Squad Four had been under Ishiro for over a year. As was customary, they were about to take the Chunin Exams.

Among the six, Ishiro was most worried about Katsumata. Yuran Kawazoe specialized in sealing jutsu and didn't need to be promoted like a normal ninja. But Katsumata couldn't; the village didn't have a special promotion channel for genjutsu ninjas.

So Ishiro would have to spend more time on Katsumata next. The focus of Katsumata's training was to give him some ability to fight alone.

The genjutsu that confuses the five senses was very practical, but it was too delicate and required Katsumata's full attention, which meant he couldn't spare a hand for extra attacks. What Ishiro had to do was cooperate with him to find a way to attack while maintaining the genjutsu.

Ishiro had no experience in this area. Ishiro had encountered a similar problem in his early years; at that time, the method he adopted was to hide some mechanisms like sleeve arrows on his body.

Later, Ishiro's strength grew rapidly, and the help from genjutsu became smaller and smaller, so this move was no longer used.

To put it bluntly, Ishiro had not thought of a solution to the problem back then.

The difficulty of maintaining a genjutsu is very high. There should be many solutions in Konoha because whether it was the Uchiha clan or Kurenai Yuhi, they were all able to cast genjutsu while killing people.

But unfortunately, Iwagakure currently did not have such means.

Ishiro had to spend a lot of time discussing and researching with Katsumata.

In fact, Iwagakure had been conducting research in this area for years, especially after trading for several genjutsu with Konoha, but the results were not ideal. The main reason was that the time was too short.

Ishiro had gone to check on the progress of genjutsu research in Iwagakure.

But the village's research efforts in genjutsu were far less than in Lightning Release. The foundation for Lightning Release R&D was very good, with a large number of A-rank ninjutsu as a reference. In addition, there was Qi, that special talent who was very dedicated to Lightning Release, so the research was very fast.

Furthermore, Lightning Release was, after all, an elemental ninjutsu; the research difficulty was much lower than for genjutsu. And the village's support for Lightning Release R&D also far exceeded that for genjutsu. Ōnoki and the others probably felt that spending too much time on genjutsu wouldn't produce much and wasn't cost-effective.

In any case, before the war fully broke out, Ōnoki would not allow Ishiro to leave the village. It was a good opportunity to calm down and plan the future for his six disciples.

However, Ishiro had oversimplified Ōnoki. In a time of war like this, how could Ōnoki let Ishiro be idle? Ishiro had only been training with his disciples for a little over ten days when he received a notice from Ōnoki: Ōnoki wanted him to preside over this year's Chunin Selection Exams.

This Chunin selection was completely different from the joint Chunin Exams two years ago. This time, the selection exam was held internally by Iwagakure alone.

Similar to the Chunin Exams that Ikura had presided over for the first time four years ago, this one was also to select a batch of outstanding Genin in preparation for the war, allowing them to be promoted early.

Just like that year, the threshold for this Chunin selection exam would be relatively low, and the format would be very simple: pure combat trials.

This kind of selection didn't have high requirements for the chief examiner; there was no need to rack one's brains thinking about the exam content. But it did have certain requirements for the chief examiner's eye for talent because most of those selected this time would be candidates for squad leaders in the upcoming Fourth War, so it could not be taken lightly.

Ōnoki was still confident in entrusting this matter to Ishiro. Although Ishiro was lazy, his judgment was very unique. With Ishiro at the helm, the screening of outstanding ninjas would not be a problem.

Ishiro presiding over the Chunin Exams was not good news for his disciples. Himeki Suda and the others felt even greater pressure. They understood that Ishiro would not go easy on them. Not only would he not go easy, but he might even increase the difficulty for them.

This made the few who already lacked confidence in their own strength even more nervous.

Apart from Takuhiro Uchiyama, the other five all spontaneously accelerated their training pace.

Ninjas are experts at gathering intelligence. The news of the Chunin Selection Exams spread quickly. Of course, everyone also understood that this was the village's response to the impending war.

Those who received the news and believed they had a chance to be promoted all began to prepare for the Chunin Exams. Because many people had observed the selection four years ago, everyone was relatively clear about the process of this Chunin Exam and were preparing with specific targets in mind.

However, this time there wouldn't be as many spectators as there were four years ago. During wartime, few people had the leisure to pay attention to matters that were not so closely related to their own interests.

Ishiro just found a larger training ground in the village, set up a small viewing stand, and the matter of the venue was considered complete.

More than a month later, the Genin, after a round of intensive training, all came to the exam site.

This kind of selection prepared for war had one advantage: everyone could participate in the Chunin Exams as an individual. Therefore, some Genin who were held back by other members of their squad in normal Chunin selections took this very seriously.

The list in Ishiro's hand showed that more than half of the ninjas were participating in the exam alone or in pairs. It was a minority for a full three-man squad to come together.

Of course, Ishiro's six disciples, Han's three disciples, along with Chiko Tomoe's three disciples, all participated as full three-man squads.

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