As one of the Four Otogakure Ninja, Kidomaru possessed the strength of a Special Jonin.
He was completely different from the cannon fodder shinobi of Otogakure.
No one knew whether Orochimaru would seek revenge after losing such a capable subordinate.
But no one could pin their hopes on the possibility that an enemy wouldn’t make a move.
Relying on luck was out of the question!
The most urgent thing right now is still figuring out how to make money, draw from the gacha, and become stronger.
It had to be said that making money in the shinobi world was both easy and difficult.
The legitimate route was to continuously increase one’s ninja rank and take on higher-level missions.
An S-rank mission could easily pay a million ryo.
But shinobi advanced through the ranks far too slowly.
Even the fastest route would take several years.
Even if Aoba used the Flying Thunder God Technique to make an astonishing display during the Chunin Exams, at most he could be promoted to Special Jonin as an exception.
And that would bring quite a few troubles along with it.
As for becoming a true Jonin, he simply didn’t have the strength yet.
The illegitimate route was to take missions from the underground black-market bounty stations.
But to do that, he would need someone outside the village to act as his contact, someone who could provide him with detailed intelligence on bounty targets at any time.
If Aoba relied on himself to search for people throughout the entire shinobi world, far too much time would be wasted.
The returns simply weren’t worth the effort.
The route was viable, but he needed to recruit subordinates first.
That would require careful consideration.
For now, making money from intelligence about the Konoha attack was his best option.
If he wanted to make money, he first needed to choose a target.
He had two targets in mind.
Orochimaru, as an S-rank missing-nin, had at least four research bases under his command.
Scientific research required money.
That proved Orochimaru was absolutely swimming in wealth.
If Aoba sold him information about the Third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, and his knowledge of the Reaper Death Seal…
Would asking for a million ryo be too much?
The problem was that Orochimaru currently carried the title of missing-nin and had a terrible relationship with Konoha.
Cooperating with Orochimaru was equivalent to becoming an enemy of Konoha.
That option would have to be put aside for now.
The other target was naturally the Third Hokage.
If Aoba could save him from Orochimaru’s Four Violet Flames Formation…
“Forget it.” Aoba shook his head.
“Maybe the Third Hokage dying during the Konoha Crush would be the most dignified ending for him.” He decided to keep his target focused on Orochimaru.
But this would require careful planning.
Selling intelligence directly wasn’t a viable option.
There was still a month before Orochimaru’s attack.
He only needed to make proper arrangements and ensure that everything went off without a hitch.
By then, not only would he make money, but he wouldn’t have to expose his identity either.
With a thought, Aoba opened his personal panel.
He kept 1,000 ryo from the 5,000 ryo he had on hand as living expenses and deposited the remaining 4,000 ryo into his balance.
At that moment, a notification automatically popped up on the interface.
[Host has been detected completing a 10 pull.] [A more luxurious Advanced Prize Pool is now available.] Aoba switched to the gacha interface and took a look.
Sure enough, another purchase option had appeared alongside the original choices.
━━━ NOTIFICATION ━━━ [Advanced Prize Pool] Spend 1,000,000 ryo to purchase 1 bag of Special-Grade Soldier Pills and one 10 pull from the Advanced Prize Pool, with a guaranteed reward of your choice.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ The contents of the prize pool were even more extravagant, enough to make one’s eyes linger.
Mangekyo Sharingan (requires possessing the Sharingan to upgrade) Wind Release: Rasenshuriken (requires learning the Rasengan beforehand) Tailed Beast Power (One-Tail through Nine-Tails) Sage Mode Eight Gates …
Every single ability had the potential to make its owner a Kage-level powerhouse.
Unfortunately, Aoba didn’t have any money right now.
He could only stare at them greedily.
For the sake of his mental and physical health, he left the gacha interface and returned to his personal panel.
He checked his remaining Skill Points.
He still had 60.
The only thing he could do was upgrade his abilities.
First, he looked at his chakra volume, C-rank.
Among shinobi, this was barely passing.
After using the Flying Thunder God Technique just once, he would already be panting heavily.
To advance to the next level, B-rank, he needed 1,000 Skill Points.
Right.
He couldn’t afford that.
Then he looked at his Taijutsu and Genjutsu.
Both were currently at the basic level.
Raising either one to intermediate level required 100 Skill Points.
Still unaffordable.
As for the Flying Thunder God Technique, reaching mastery required 500 Skill Points.
In the end, he spent a total of 30 Skill Points to upgrade his three E-rank ninjutsu.
His information now read: ━━━━━ STATUS ━━━━━ Name: Natsume Aoba Balance: 4,000 ryo Skill Points: 30 Chakra Volume: C-rank (Chunin) Taijutsu: Basic Genjutsu: Basic ━━━━ Ninjutsu: ✧ Flying Thunder God Technique (Proficient) ✧ Three basic Technique (Mastered) ━━━━ Items: ⚔︎ Special Marked Kunai ×3 ⚔︎ Soldier Pills ×14 ⚔︎ Medical Kit ×1 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Looking at his completely revamped personal panel, Aoba was deeply moved.
He was still far too poor!
Without money, he couldn’t draw from the gacha.
Without powerful ninjutsu, he couldn’t obtain more abilities to dismantle into Skill Points.
His overall strength remained relatively low.
What he desperately needed right now was one particular ability.
The power of money!
There were less than three days until the Chunin Exams.
During this time, Aoba didn’t simply give up and laze around.
He took two more missions and earned a total of 2,000 ryo.
He also made ample preparations for his actions later on.
After comprehending the Flying Thunder God Mark, he could place the mark on any person or object.
Once a Flying Thunder God Mark was placed, it would never disappear.
As long as he had enough marks, all of Konoha could become his backyard.
Aoba spent all 2,000 ryo he had earned on several kunai.
He placed Flying Thunder God Marks on every single one of them.
Next, all he had to do was wait for the exams to begin.
Only as an examinee could he freely enter the Training Grounds.
Normally, it wouldn’t be convenient for Aoba to go inside.
After all, he was only a Genin.
If he wandered around important locations in the village for no reason and was discovered, it would be difficult to explain himself.
Orochimaru would fight the Third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, on the roof of the Training Grounds.
He would also have the Four Sound Ninja activate the Four Violet Flames Formation, trapping the Third Hokage inside so that he couldn’t escape.
However, Kidomaru had already been killed by Aoba.
Aoba was quite curious.
What would Orochimaru do when the time came?
Still, given Orochimaru’s abilities, it probably wouldn’t be a problem.
Over these two days, Aoba made time to visit Hinata.
Because her injuries weren’t serious, the girl had returned to the Hyuga household that same day.
That made it inconvenient for Aoba to visit her too often.
Participating in the Chunin Exams required registering as a team.
The day before the exams, Aoba went to meet his two teammates, the brothers Koki and Otsuki.
The two had graduated from the Academy in the same class as Aoba.
Later, they were assigned to a team and followed their Chunin team leader on missions.
After their cannon-fodder teacher died, the two brothers immediately joined other teams at lightning speed, leaving Aoba completely bewildered at the time.
However, they were still Genin even now.
Their talent and strength were obvious enough.
“Aoba, you said you have information about the exam.
You’re not messing with us, are you?” “The Chunin Exams have always been extremely strict.
Is your information actually reliable?” The brothers’ relationship with Aoba wasn’t particularly good because of how their previous encounter had ended on bad terms.
Otherwise, knowing that they were guaranteed to fail this year’s exams, Aoba wouldn’t have chosen to trick them.
“When have I ever lied to you two?” Aoba’s expression turned displeased.
Koki curled his lips.
“We only agreed to register for the Chunin Exams because you said you knew a way to pass.” Otsuki added, “Otherwise, we wouldn’t have bothered registering this year!” The two brothers had a bizarre amount of confidence in their own abilities.
They believed the reason they hadn’t become Chunin was simply because they’d had terrible luck in the Chunin Exams every year.
As long as they could make it to the third round, getting a Chunin position would be a piece of cake.
As Genin, they weren’t doing well in the village.
Their missions were limited to D-rank and C-rank assignments.
On top of that, they liked spending money extravagantly, so their lives were rather difficult.
After finally hearing that there was a way to pass the Chunin Exams, they naturally wanted to give it a try.
“I can only guarantee that I’ll get you through the first two rounds.
As for the third round, there’s nothing I can do.” Aoba deliberately put on a troubled expression.
“That’s enough!” “You’re pretty good, kid.
You didn’t forget your brothers when you found something good!” The two brothers knew Aoba’s character fairly well.
They knew that if he had given them his guarantee, he definitely wouldn’t deceive them.
Once he confirmed that the two wouldn’t back out, Aoba calmly waited for the following day.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ That night, in the forest on the outskirts of Konoha.
Orochimaru took a piece of cellular tissue from a tank of cultivation fluid.
Using a living human as a sacrifice, he activated a forbidden ninjutsu.
“Edo Tensei!” As the sacrifice struggled continuously, Kidomaru’s face gradually appeared.
“Orochimaru-sama!” The reanimated Kidomaru respectfully knelt on one knee.
After looking at him, Orochimaru’s raspy voice carried a sinister laugh.
“Hehehe…
Now, you can tell me.
Who was the one who did this?” CREATORS’ THOUGHTS Hidden_Quill Thank you so much for reading!