Time passed and Shiki's plans were enacted with almost disappointing ease.
Howling Wolf Village was going to experience a very sudden economic downturn but the boy was too busy cataloguing all of the goods he stole.
The three Land of Iron Ladies were naturally aware of his actions and could only look upon Shiki with accusatory eyes and disbelief.
Why had they even gone through the trouble of buying supplies!?
They might as well just have waited and asked Shiki for a portion of his spoils in exchange for their silence.
But now that they were well supplied, they had no reason to ask and could not well sell the boy out. He was an important ally after all, not to mention their young mistress seemed rather fond of him.
Which did not stop her from sending disapproving looks Shiki's way for his bandit-like actions.
Stealing a powerful beast from a single clan's shrine was one thing but wiping out an entire town's goods, thereby destroying their trade and economy?
That felt like a little too much.
Not enough to translate into action though, or even words for that matter.
Long stares of disapproval were all Shiki had to face and he was way too thick skinned to be bothered by such tactics.
*
When it came to the caravan group, Saburo acted in line with their expectations.
There were a lot of eyes closely spying on their group but once it became clear that the three ladies were not amongst them, this vigilance became almost perfunctory.
Instead, the whole Land of Iron became a target for scouring as the various interested parties in the country felt that the ladies might have used the caravan as a decoy and entered the Land of Iron separately.
Kurogane Saburo was not without enemies and political rivals, eager to tear him down from his barely warm seat by using Beni's status to give their claims validity, hoping to steal the wealth, territory and secrets of the Kurogane clan for themselves.
In their greedy scheming minds, they simply could not imagine the ladies not wanting to return and claim the wealth and power that should have been rightfully theirs and so, they sought to take advantage of these feelings for their own ends.
Alas, sometimes, the wicked cannot even consider that their wickedness is not a universal trait everyone shares.
And so, while chaos began to spread in the Land of Iron, the caravan swiftly concluded their business and left.
Normally, Saburo might have had someone tail the caravan just in case but his recent two big losses left the man unwilling to risk any more assets so while the caravan was tightly watched until they reached the Land of Iron's border, the surveillance ended there.
Now, the only worry for the whole group was potential attacks by Kumogakure.
*
'Honestly, I've had enough excitement for this little journey. For the objective in the Land of Hot Water, I think I'll just sneak into the target's territory and leave the scroll Mito-sama prepared, don't want to get involved in more trouble before I'm Kage Level. Shiki thought to himself.
He also hoped Kumo would wise up, not send anyone after them and switch to negotiation instead.
"You're not thinking of making more trouble are you?" Inori interrupted his thoughts.
Seeing the boy in his deep pondering "stance" always gave her a bad feeling.
"On the contrary. I was thinking how nice it would be if we had no further trouble on this mission." Shiki casually replied.
The Violet Rose glanced at him with suspicion.
"I sure hope so." She said.
"Our group's sensory abilities allowed us to always take the initiative and ambush our enemies which made the fights plenty winnable but we can't expect that to always be the case." Inori cautioned.
"This is for you two as well." She spoke towards Mei and Shinka.
"In a frontal battle, even Shiki would have trouble with an Elite Jonin, needing to rely on self destructive methods combined with unorthodox tactics to eke out a win."
The Yamanaka did not want her students to fall into the trap of overconfidence due to their recent string of victories.
The only reason things went as well as they had gone, was due to the massive advantage their group gained through perfect undetected ambushes and extensive tactical preparation.
If not for that, Elite Jonin would be far tougher enemies to beat.
All it took was for their plans to go of course, or their enemies to detect them before the ambush or one of Shiki's risky gambits to fail and things would have turned out very differently.
Keiko, the Swift Release user's appearance, had nearly resulted in Shiki's death.
If, instead of just kicking him away, the woman had instead used a blade to lop off his head, the boy likely would not have been able to defend himself.
Basically, Keiko's carelessness and overconfidence were what allowed the situation to be turned around.
Even after all Shiki and Beni did, if the Swift Release user had kept her calm and fought smart, their group likely wouldn't have made it without at least some casualties.
Shiki understood what his sensei was saying and Inori knew he did, but she was aware of the boy's utter madness so her worries were never abated.
'At least Shinka and Mei seemed to have interiorized it." The Violet Rose thought.
'But . . ." Her face scrunched up slightly as she looked at the still ponderous Shiki.
'If this brat decides to attempt something insane again, he'll easily convince those two to go along with it." The Yamanaka could only sigh with exasperation.
In reality however, Inori didn't have to worry . . . For the time being.
Shiki was intent on avoiding any and all trouble, returning safely to Konoha at the earliest possible time.
Simply put, the boy now had a great amount of knowledge to study, as well as plenty of resources.
Now was the time to start converting that knowledge into more tangible power.
'The physical limitations imposed by age are too troublesome. Even if I were to exhaust all possible training methods from the Ryumon clan and standard shinobi, I would at most reach Elite Jonin, not even the peak of the rank.' The boy deduced.
It was a calculation he had done many times before.
'While certainly better than I am now, that is far from enough to protect myself. Even if I were to use double edged techniques to temporarily push my combat power from a base of Elite Jonin to the Kage level, it would not be enough to preserve my life in many scenarios.'
Shiki was a firm believer in preparing for the worst after all.
'If I can push my base state to Kage level then, with my riskier techniques, I'll be able to at least protect myself and escape even when faced with Super Kage level powerhouses. That is the goal.' The boy decided.
His thoughts inevitably turned towards his planned solution, the Nirvana Seal: Transcendence.
'The Dark Release from that merc gave me a few ideas to improve the seal and enable it to function even in an imperfect and incomplete form, allowing me to start using it much sooner if all goes well . . .'
'If I can obtain some genetic samples and records from that clan when I deliver Mito-sama's scroll. Hmm . . .'
Alas, Shiki's resolve to avoid any more trouble at all costs, was quite flimsy indeed.
+++++
Hey, Author here!
To promote the novel I will be releasing BONUS CHAPTERS on SUNDAYS based on the previous week's power stone count.
100 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter
500 Power Stones = 2 Bonus Chapters
1000 Power Stones = 3 Bonus Chapters
Every earned BONUS CHAPTER on Webnovel will also be posted on Scribble.
Just a reminder that you can read up to a FULL MONTH ahead of this site on pa-treon.
I'm trying to become a full time Author now and I'm not going to be starting any new novels just so I can make sure this one is properly completed.
Find those sweet advanced chapters on pa-treon.com/lusoba without the -