“In that case, being a Konoha Chunin isn’t half bad.” Comparing his current status and income to his previous life, he was basically a senior corporate slave at a tech giant in one of the five permanent UN security council member nations.
And he was the kind of senior slave who would not be easily laid off by the company, working all the way until he died.
The only drawback was that, like those corporate slaves, he faced the risk of sudden death—and the risk was ridiculously high.
“But I don’t want to die young.” No, he still had to work hard to master a few high-level Ninjutsu.
The Ninja World was simply too dangerous.
Only knowing the Three-Body Technique and a C-rank Water Style: Water Prison Technique gave him absolutely no sense of security.
This body was naturally only of the Water affinity.
With his strong mental energy and decent Chakra control, if he could develop a second Chakra nature, he might be able to resolve his severe deficit in Chakra quantity.
But the question was, how does one develop other Chakra natures?
He had absolutely no idea.
Damn this Ninjutsu monopoly.
No matter where you went, you could not escape the monopoly on upward mobility and class rigidity.
Round and round it went, always leading back to risking his life to work for Konoha, striving to complete all kinds of high-level missions to earn enough merit points to exchange for Ninjutsu.
Wasn’t this just selling your blood, only to chase a sliver of hope to pass the civil service exam?
What made it even more frustrating was that so many people did not even get this chance.
Damn this Ninja World, and damn Hiruzen Sarutobi.
The top-level design for civilian shinobi was so tightly sealed, even establishing a monopoly.
Why didn’t you design the ninja clans this way too?
I guess only civilian shinobi are easy to push around, huh?
He was all too familiar with the various overt and covert preferential policies enjoyed by Konoha’s clan children.
His squad included a clan scion, Inuzuka Ryo, who came from a branch of the Inuzuka Clan.
Although the Inuzuka Clan was not a Konoha titan like the Uchiha or the Senju—nor were they even a second-tier grand clan—they were a solid second-rate ninja clan in Konoha.
While a second-rate clan was not massive, it was not small either, and they did not miss out on any of the benefits a ninja clan should have.
If nothing else, just looking at the most critical channel for acquiring Ninjutsu, Inuzuka Ryo had absolutely no worries in this regard.
He could easily learn various Secret Techniques from his clan that perfectly suited him.
There was absolutely no need for him to risk his life earning merit points for Konoha just to exchange them for Ninjutsu.
Furthermore, the Secret Techniques of the Inuzuka Clan not only provided decent combat power but also possessed exceptional sensory abilities.
Shinobi were typically “glass cannons” with high attack power and low defense.
There were many counters and unforeseen variables in combat, and even Kage-level powerhouses could be killed by a Kunai.
Naturally, regular ninja warfare put an extreme premium on intelligence.
Gaining information on the enemy was essentially grasping their lifeline.
Let alone regular skirmishes; even in large-scale battlefield engagements, key victories were often secured because core intelligence had been mastered.
Coming from the Inuzuka Clan, Inuzuka Ryo naturally possessed good sensory capabilities, making him an excellent scout.
Precisely because of Inuzuka Ryo’s presence, his cannon-fodder squad with its cannon-fodder pedigree now seemed a bit less “pure.” Logically speaking, a clan ninja and highly sought-after sensory ninja like Inuzuka Ryo should not have ended up in his squad.
It had to be said that the wisdom of his ancestors from his previous life was practical no matter where he went.
He had obtained Inuzuka Ryo only after trading a short saber from the Land of Wind and having a friendly exchange with the Nara Chief Strategist.
This Land of Wind short saber was not some incredibly valuable item, nor was it high-quality to a Konoha Jonin.
But the Sand Village was poor.
Despite the vast amount of minerals mined in the Land of Wind, the weapons and swords distributed to the Sand Ninja were the most pathetic among the five great nations.
When Konoha’s cannon fodder bled on the battlefield, even if they died, they would at least receive a bereavement payout.
As long as their war orphans did not catch any unwanted attention, they could still live decently.
But when those Sand Ninja went to war, they bled and wept.
Even Sunagakure was treated like an unloved stepchild by their Daimyo, to say nothing of the plight of the low-ranking ninja on the ground.
It was enough to make anyone weep.
Capturing a custom Shinobi Saber from Sunagakure was a rare feat, and the sheer prestige value attached to it went without saying.
Even on the black market, it could fetch a high premium, especially with the tiny chip he had deliberately added to the blade.
It was a masterstroke, adding immensely to its apparent history and prestige.
Of course, if one thought a mere short saber from the Land of Wind could buy a connection with the Nara Chief Strategist, they were vastly underestimating the caliber of a Konoha noble Jonin.
Even if a common cannon-fodder Chunin tried to kiss up to them, these noble Konoha Jonin would not even look his way.
Though the ninja of the Nara Clan seemed polite and affable to everyone, they possessed extremely high political acumen and were incredibly pragmatic.
If he had not been born into the Sarutobi faction—which made him a natural ally to the Ino-Shika-Cho trio—how could a mere civilian Chunin like him build a rapport with the Nara Chief Strategist?
As one of the few clans in the Ninja World possessing exceptional political wisdom, the Nara Clan’s subtle protection of the Third Hokage’s faction was ubiquitous, and it was as silent and gentle as a spring rain.
That he could be deployed to the Land of Rivers front and assigned to a low-risk sentry patrol, rather than being thrown into the meat grinder of the Land of Rain, was largely due to the political considerations of being a Sarutobi Clan vassal.
Believing in pure luck was less plausible than believing the Nara Chief Strategist simply found him handsome.
Surely, it could not be because his teammates had been wiped out and replaced two and a half times while he remained in one piece, showing incredible survival skills?
For the Nara Chief Strategist, temporarily assigning Inuzuka Ryo, a sensory ninja, to his squad was a trivial matter—it was merely placing a casual piece on the board.
But for the Umino Patrol Squad, it was a life-altering event.
To keep this somewhat naive clan scion, Inuzuka Ryo, permanently in his squad, Sasuke had put in a lot of effort.
Unfortunately, while Inuzuka Ryo was not arrogant like most clan children, he still suffered from their rigid adherence to rules.
He behaved like a textbook shinobi, following the arrangements of his clan and superiors in everything.
The benefit was that Sasuke, as captain, did not need to establish much authority; he could just issue orders directly, and Ryo would be extremely obedient and easy to manage.
The downside was that if the Inuzuka Clan or the higher-ups called, Ryo could be transferred away at any moment.
He could not fully secure him.
He had thought Inuzuka Ryo would be reassigned soon, but he had not expected Koshino, the most unremarkable new member of the squad, to effortlessly capture the heart of this Inuzuka scion and keep him anchored there.
Koshino was not a great beauty.
On the contrary, she was a chubby twelve-year-old girl, standing at 1.3 meters tall and weighing nearly 200 pounds.
However, her natural Chakra affinity was quite good—the rare Lightning Style.
Aside from the Three-Body Technique, she had mastered a D-rank Lightning Style technique.
The girl’s ninja talent was decent but otherwise average, a standard Konoha civilian ninja without even a surname, meaning her ancestors had likely left her no hidden bloodline.
She was optimistic, kind-hearted, mentally strong, and highly approachable.
She had even managed to turn her physical shortcomings into a personality asset.
Within half a day of joining the squad, she had successfully won over Inuzuka Ryo’s best friend, the Ninja Dog Akutamaru.
Perhaps the clan scion was tired of rich, heavy food and genuinely preferred simple greens; in less than a week, he had fallen for Koshino.
A week after that, he had turned into a total simp.
He had quite the resemblance to Akutamaru in that regard.
If he had not believed that the kind and mentally strong Koshino was truly that charming, he would have suspected that turning into a simp was a side effect of the Inuzuka Clan’s Beast Mimicry Secret Technique.
Unfortunately, it was a one-sided crush.
Koshino actually fancied another member of the squad, Tekudo, whose physical build was a whole size larger than hers.
Tekudo was one of his veteran subordinates, a capable hand he had carefully selected after his previous squad had been wiped out by the Sand puppet master.
Naturally, those from ninja clans or those with outstanding talent were not for him to choose from.
Tekudo’s Ninjutsu talent could only be described as average.
He had Fire and Earth affinities, which was quite a decent dual-affinity distribution, but in terms of nature-transformation Ninjutsu, he only knew the Three-Body Technique.
The only reason Sasuke had chosen him was because Tekudo had mastered a powerful Secret Technique: Money Style.