After all, a clone's cognition acquisition efficiency was only half that of the original body.
Although the tournament's audience reach far exceeded previous years, the people paying attention were still mainly intelligence departments and high-ranking officials from the great ninja villages.
As for the ordinary citizens of the Shinobi World, most cared little about the distant neutral samurai nation known as the Land of Iron.
Many had never even heard of the Land of Iron at all.
Whether the attention of the entire Land of Iron, along with the intelligence circles and upper echelons of the great ninja villages, would be enough to push Master Swordsman to the threshold of Saint Swordsman remained uncertain.
As he considered this, a new idea quietly surfaced.
"Perhaps it's time to upgrade the Clone talent."
Once the Clone talent advanced, it would very likely further improve the clone's efficiency in acquiring cognition.
For this clone, a fifty-percent efficiency penalty had not seemed particularly burdensome when dealing with low-level talents.
But once he reached blue-grade and purple-grade talents, where cognition requirements became enormous, it was increasingly dragging him down.
Therefore, for the sake of future development, upgrading the Clone talent needed to be placed on the agenda as soon as possible.
There was another issue that could not be ignored.
The strength of this clone had already begun to lag behind that of the original body.
There was no helping it.
At present, a clone can equip only a single purple-level talent.
And the only purple-grade talent Isshin possessed was Lightning Speed Reflex.
Meanwhile, the original body already had four purple-grade talents and more than twice the total number of talents carried by the clone.
The two talents, Splitting Rocks and Cleaving Gold and Bronze Skin and Iron Bones, possessed tremendous potential, but they had not yet fully matured. Their actual effectiveness lay somewhere between blue-grade and purple-grade quality.
Overall, the power gap between the clone and the original body was steadily widening.
Thus, whether for long-term development or simply to raise the current upper limit of this clone's strength, upgrading the clone talent was an unavoidable step.
"However, which purple-grade talent should I sacrifice?"
While maintaining an enthusiastic smile on stage and waving toward the audience, Isshin was already calculating repeatedly in his mind.
Upgrading the Clone talent required sacrificing a purple-grade talent.
And every purple-grade talent he currently possessed was irreplaceably important.
"I'll need to think this through carefully afterward."
As he pondered the matter, another question quietly emerged in his mind.
"What comes after Saint Swordsman? And how would it be upgraded?"
According to the correspondence with the ninja system, Apprentice Swordsman corresponded to academy students, Swordsman corresponded to Genin, Master Swordsman corresponded to Chunin, and Sword Saint corresponded to Jonin.
Then what came next?
What corresponded to the fifth rank of the ninja system, the kage General?
Or...
Still maintaining that warm and proper smile as he waved to the cheering spectators around him, Isshin sank into deep thought.
...
At the Land of Waves, this was a tiny island nation, small in terms of territory.
Under normal circumstances, this small country surrounded by sea winds and fishing nets would attract almost no attention, but at this moment, its geographical position had suddenly become critically important.
It happened to lie on the mandatory route for Village Hidden in the Mist's transportation of supplies and manpower from the mainland of the Land of Water to the front lines, serving as an unavoidable transit hub in the entire supply chain of Village Hidden in the Mist's overseas expedition.
The weather here was now even worse than in the Rinkai City region.
Violent winds carried torrential rain, lashing the entire island at nearly horizontal angles. Visibility was extremely poor; everywhere one looked was a gray curtain of rain, and the silhouettes of trees bent over by the wind's pressure.
A Konoha force of several dozen people was slowly advancing through this muddy wetland.
It was Minato Namikaze, Hiashi Hyuga, and their group.
Leading several elite members of the Hyuga Clan, Hiashi Hyuga walked at the very front of the team, responsible for scouting and gathering intelligence.
In such harsh conditions of relentless rainstorms, the Inuzuka Clan's scent tracking and the Aburame Clan's kikaichu detection abilities had almost completely lost their usefulness.
The heavy rain washed away all lingering scents, while the fierce winds scattered insects in every direction.
Only the Hyuga Clan's Byakugan could still penetrate the layers of rain, clearly observing chakra traces and hidden enemy positions within several kilometers away.
However, this terrible weather was not entirely without benefits for their side.
Although the Village Hidden in the Mist was famous throughout the Shinobi World for the Hidden Mist Jutsu, that mist was artificially created and mixed with the caster's chakra. Precisely because of this, Kirigakure ninja could use their perception of their own chakra distribution to locate enemies within the mist.
But the violent storm now covering the Land of Waves was a purely natural phenomenon, with no chakra traces or artificial markers.
The Village Hidden in the Mist side could likewise only rely on their eyes and experience to navigate such an environment.
In other words, this storm was a natural barrier for both sides.
Yet within this barrier, Konoha, possessing the Byakugan, actually held the advantage.
Meanwhile, Minato Namikaze walked in the middle of the formation.
Every so often, he would flip his wrist and silently send a specially made three-pronged Flying Thunder God Kunai into a concealed location. Then, based on the situation, he would quietly retrieve several others, ensuring that every remaining kunai occupied the optimal tactical position.
His figure would occasionally disappear from where he stood, only to quietly reappear among the team moments later.
Hiashi Hyuga's Byakugan provided long-range warning.
Minato Namikaze's Flying Thunder God Technique provided instantaneous mobility.
With the cooperation of the two, this squad was like a fish slipping into the deep sea, silently weaving through the heavily defended rear waters of Village Hidden in the Mist.
Their purpose in venturing deep into the Land of Waves was to locate the Village Hidden in the Mist's logistical core among the countless islands.
However, three consecutive days had passed, and they had practically searched every location on the main island of the Land of Waves, yet still had not found the Village Hidden in the Mist's logistics headquarters.
Clearly, Village Hidden in the Mist had gone to tremendous lengths to conceal and protect its logistics operations.
A short while later, the group gathered within a concealed cave.
Days of tension and the constant drain of the harsh weather had left visible traces of exhaustion on everyone's faces.
Even this final suspicious location had turned up empty.
Although they had discovered several scattered logistics warehouses of varying sizes over the past few days, they had refrained from acting in order to avoid alerting the enemy.
After discussing matters for some time, Minato Namikaze finally spoke.
"I'll return to headquarters first and report the situation."
Hearing this, Hiashi Hyuga nodded.
Although Minato Namikaze's Flying Thunder God Technique could not teleport him directly back to headquarters in a single jump, the distance between the Land of Waves and the coast of the Land of Fire was not particularly great.
He had left a sufficiently dense network of Flying Thunder God Kunai along the route as stepping stones.
Using those coordinates for segmented jumps, he could return to headquarters in an extremely short amount of time.
"Stay hidden. I'll be back shortly."
As soon as he finished speaking, Minato Namikaze disappeared from the spot.