Chapter 26: Half a Year
In the blink of an eye, half a year passed.
"Hoo…
Finally back!"
At the gates of Konoha Village, Ryūya—now noticeably taller—looked at the familiar scene before him, let out a breath, and murmured softly.
"We're back in the village. Shisui, Itachi, I'll head back first. We'll get together another day!"
Breathing in the familiar air, Ryūya turned to Uchiha Shisui and Uchiha Itachi, said a quick farewell, then strode off toward the Akimichi clan compound.
After being away for so long, Ryūya couldn't wait to go home.
Behind him, Shisui and Itachi—equally travel-worn—had excitement flickering in their eyes at the thought of returning to the village.
Watching Ryūya leave, a glint of light flashed through Itachi's eyes.
Thinking of Shisui's evaluation of Ryūya a few days earlier, a surge of fighting spirit rose in Itachi's heart.
A few days ago, Shisui had privately told him that Ryūya's strength had already surpassed that of most of the village's chūnin.
Itachi didn't doubt this. During their missions, he had clearly witnessed Ryūya's abilities himself.
From this former "dead last" at the Ninja Academy, even Itachi—hailed as a genius of the Uchiha clan—felt pressure.
Over these six months, Ryūya's days had been extremely fulfilling.
In half a year, the three of them had completed three A-rank missions.
Through these missions, Ryūya's experience, insight, and mentality had all undergone tremendous improvement.
Aside from the A-rank escort mission protecting Yoshida Jin, the other two A-rank missions involved hunting down Konoha's missing-nin.
These two missions left an especially deep impression on Ryūya.
Both missing-nin had been Konoha jōnin who defected during the Third Great Ninja War.
On the bloody and brutal battlefields of the ninja world, not everyone could withstand the immense psychological pressure and persist to the end—especially members of the Hokage's ANBU, who were often assigned to assault missions.
In urgent battlefield situations, these assault squads were frequently ordered to carry out missions that were essentially suicide.
These two ANBU jōnin had defected precisely because they could no longer endure the pressure while executing such a doomed assault mission.
Because they came from ANBU, they were extremely familiar with tracking, counter-tracking, and Konoha's intelligence network, making them very difficult to apprehend. Only after repeatedly sending out ANBU teams without success did the village finally post these two missions at the mission center.
The village had hoped to mobilize more manpower to complete the tasks, yet unexpectedly, they were completed by three underage youths.
The battle of wits and courage with these two ANBU seniors consumed a great deal of the trio's time. If not for Shisui—the immensely powerful Uchiha prodigy—Ryūya and Itachi wouldn't even have been qualified to participate in such missions, let alone complete them.
Even if Ryūya and Itachi had managed to locate the targets through every possible means, with their current strength they would not have been a match for the two ANBU veterans.
The desperate struggles and furious accusations of the two missing-nin before their deaths dealt a profound spiritual shock to the still-inexperienced Ryūya.
The ninja world was an incomparably realistic and cruel place.
There was no right or wrong, no black or white—only differences in stance and ideology.
From the perspective of the two missing-nin, they had once been meritorious jōnin of Konoha, having rendered countless services to the village. Simply because they were unwilling to carry out a mission that amounted to throwing their lives away, they were ruthlessly purged by the village under the label of "traitors."
They merely wanted to live—what was wrong with that?
From the village's perspective, however, any ninja who disobeyed orders and refused to submit to discipline—no matter their past status or achievements—became expendable once they were no longer useful.
Without rules, there can be no order.
These rules might be unfavorable to certain individuals, but they were absolutely beneficial to Konoha as a whole.
Otherwise, how could the so-called strongest ninja village in the world restrain the vast ninja forces under its command?
This had nothing to do with personal feelings or gratitude—it was simply the need of Konoha's governance.
To break free from such shackles, only sufficiently great strength could shatter them.
Although the tightly packed training and mission journeys were grueling, the gains were enormous.
Psychologically, Ryūya had completely cast aside the small kindness and timidity of a peaceful era, becoming decisive and hard-hearted.
He had completed a perfect transformation from a transmigrator into a true ninja of the ninja world, achieving significant growth both in mentality and in personal strength.
While carrying out missions alongside the meticulous Shisui and Itachi, Ryūya had pushed his skills in tracking, concealment, intelligence gathering, and related areas to the highest level he could currently learn. What remained could only be accumulated through richer experience.
In terms of strength, ever since earning ample funds from Yoshida Jin, Ryūya's ninja career had entered the fast lane, with substantial improvements across all aspects.
With Ryūya's assistance using the Sealing Disease Method, Yoshida Jin not only rapidly lost weight, but also saw a significant improvement in all aspects of his physical condition.
Overjoyed, Yoshida Jin naturally spared no expense—he not only gave Ryūya an additional one million as sponsorship, but also agreed to help him take in Guren.
This time, when returning to the village, Ryūya did not bring Guren back to Konoha directly.
On one hand, the village maintained strict control over such matters. With Ryūya's current strength and status, it wouldn't be easy to rashly bring an outsider of unknown background into the village.
On the other hand, Ryūya also valued Guren's potential.
Once Guren —who possessed the Crystal Release kekkei genkai—grew up, her strength could quickly reach the level of an elite jōnin.
After his own strength reached a certain level, Ryūya planned to personally train Guren.
With sufficient food to support him, Ryūya had cultivated his body-activation secret technique to an extremely high level, and the functions of the Sealing Glutonny Mark on his body were operating at high output.
It could be said that Ryūya's physical abilities now far surpassed those of ordinary ninjas his age; even some weaker special jōnin might not necessarily be able to defeat him.
The enhancement of his physical condition not only greatly increased the upper limit of chakra his body could contain, but also noticeably improved the quality of the Yang-attribute chakra within him.
This was directly reflected in the power of the Akimichi clan's inherited secret techniques when he used them.
He had once secretly tested it: if the current Ryūya were to unleash the Akimichi clan's secret techniques with full force, their power was almost more than double what it had been half a year ago.
While his physical condition and chakra reserves had increased dramatically, Ryūya hadn't neglected his research into ninjutsu—especially his understanding of sealing techniques, which had advanced at a rapid pace.
With the assistance of the "biological chip" cheat, Ryūya felt that his attainments in sealing techniques already surpassed those of most ninjas in the village.
Due to limitations of identity and strength, what Ryūya could currently study were still only relatively basic sealing techniques. He didn't yet have the clearance to access more advanced ones.
Without sufficient knowledge reserves, even the biological chip couldn't independently derive higher-level sealing techniques.
However, Ryūya believed that day wouldn't be far off.
Most importantly, after this period of completing missions together, Ryūya's relationship with Uchiha Shisui and Uchiha Itachi had clearly grown much closer. They no longer regarded him as just another ninja from the same village, but as a reliable teammate.
In a sense, all three were willing to consider issues from the village's perspective.
With shared ideals, their interactions naturally became increasingly harmonious.
As his strength gradually increased, Ryūya also began to think more about the future.
The reason he had proactively drawn closer to Shisui and Itachi was precisely to prepare for what lay ahead.
In Konoha Village, Shisui and Itachi could both be considered top-tier talents, with combat power not to be underestimated. If possible, Ryūya didn't want to watch them walk the same tragic path again.
With this bond of friendship and trust in place, there would be many things in the future where Ryūya could finally lend a hand.
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