9: Chapter 09: Why Should I Refund Money I Earned Fair and Square?
9: Chapter 09: Why Should I Refund Money I Earned Fair and Square?
The scar-faced Ame shinobi once again blocked Aoba’s path.
“Trying to leave?
A shinobi like you doesn’t deserve to participate in the Chunin Exams.
Get the hell out of the examination room, trash!” “Hahaha!” Quite a few people around them burst out laughing.
That was simply how the shinobi world worked.
Fists were what spoke.
Once you were seen as weak, you would be subjected to all kinds of bullying.
Even Aoba, despite his normally easygoing temperament, wouldn’t tolerate such blatant humiliation.
“Who the hell do you think you are?
You’re just a disposable cannon-fodder character.
Don’t you think you’re sticking your nose into too much business?!” He had already recognized the identities of the three Ame shinobi standing before him.
In the original story, the three of them were effortlessly crushed into paste by Gaara in the Forest of Death.
Well, literally paste.
Talking to cannon fodder who were about to die anyway felt like nothing more than a waste of his time.
“What did you say?
Looks like you Ame shinobi are being underestimated!” The scar-faced Ame shinobi revealed a feral grin and suddenly lunged at Aoba, launching a combination of taijutsu attacks.
“Hey!
That’s not how you fight fair!” Aoba barely managed to evade the sneak attack and immediately used taijutsu to defend himself.
His taijutsu wasn’t particularly good.
At the moment, he was only at genin level.
Fortunately, the scar-faced shinobi who had ambushed him wasn’t particularly skilled in taijutsu either.
He was a little stronger than Aoba, but not by much.
The two exchanged several blows in the blink of an eye, and Aoba soon found himself at a disadvantage.
After his first 10 pull, his basic shinobi strength hadn’t improved.
He was still at genin level.
He had obtained the Flying Thunder God Technique, but he couldn’t just use it whenever he wanted.
The moment he revealed it, he would inevitably be plagued by trouble afterward.
For now, staying low-key in Konoha was the best option.
It was better not to reveal his trump cards too early.
“Why are you attacking Aoba-niisan?!
That’s too much!” Seeing Aoba being attacked, the justice-loving Naruto immediately moved to help.
“Naruto, stop.
I’ll deal with him myself!” Aoba didn’t need Naruto’s help.
There was no reason to call in reinforcements just to deal with a piece of cannon fodder.
As he continued exchanging blows, he opened his gacha panel.
It was time to start pulling.
System, I want to buy ten bags of Soldier Pills and do one 10 pull!
His balance instantly dropped from 124,000 ryo to 24,000 ryo, and the giant gacha screen began spinning.
[Obtained: Soldier Pills ×3, Medical Kit ×1, Shuriken ×2, Standard Kunai ×1, Chakra Blade ×1] [Congratulations, host!
Your luck has exploded!] [You obtained Water Dragon Jutsu (B-Rank)] [Congratulations, host!
Your luck has exploded!] [You obtained Shadow Clone Jutsu (B-Rank)”] Two B-Rank ninjutsu notifications popped up at once, leaving Aoba thoroughly satisfied.
He hadn’t gotten a jackpot in a single pull this time, but two B-Rank ninjutsu were already far beyond the guaranteed minimum.
Of the two techniques, Shadow Clone Jutsu was practically a god-tier skill.
It was common as dirt in Konoha.
Using it during the Chunin Exams wouldn’t make anyone suspicious about where he had learned it.
Unlike other B-Rank ninjutsu, which would immediately raise questions if he casually used them without a clear source.
And among the ordinary items he had obtained, there were some good things too.
You could never have too many shuriken or kunai.
Then there was that Chakra Blade.
Its value was completely comparable to a B-Rank ninjutsu.
Ordinary weapons had no way of cutting a puppeteer’s chakra threads.
The Chakra Blade, however, contained rare special metal with excellent chakra conductivity.
It could easily sever the connection between a puppeteer and their puppet.
It was practically a divine weapon for dealing with puppeteers.
After becoming significantly richer from one 10 pull, Aoba was ready to strengthen himself properly.
Water Dragon Jutsu was rather lackluster.
Killing enemies with it was simply too troublesome, especially since it was still the version requiring forty-four hand seals.
Dismantle it.
Dismantle it immediately!
Dismantling a B-Rank ninjutsu gave him 100 skill points.
Adding the 60 points he already had, he now had a total of 160.
Without hesitation, Aoba spent 100 skill points to upgrade his taijutsu to intermediate level.
He then spent another 20 to upgrade Shadow Clone Jutsu from beginner to proficient.
His current strength information was now as follows, ━━━━━ STATUS ━━━━━ Name: Natsume Aoba Balance: 24,000 ryo Skill Points: 40 Chakra: C-Rank (Chunin) Taijutsu: Intermediate Genjutsu: Basic ━━━━ Ninjutsu: ✧ Flying Thunder God Technique (Proficient) ✧ Shadow Clone Jutsu*(Proficient)* ✧ Three basic Technique (Mastered) ━━━━ Items: ⚔︎ Chakra Blade ×1 ⚔︎ Special Marked Kunai ×3 ⚔︎ Standard Kunai ×1 ⚔︎ Shuriken ×2 ⚔︎ Soldier Pills ×27 ⚔︎ Medical Kit ×2 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Looking at the panel after all the changes, Aoba could feel that he had become stronger.
Taijutsu at the level of a chunin was more than enough to handle the Chunin Exams.
After his taijutsu improved, Aoba became increasingly at ease against the scar-faced Ame shinobi’s attacks.
With his current taijutsu ability, he was even beginning to gain the upper hand.
The scar-faced shinobi immediately noticed something was wrong.
He was utterly baffled.
“Why did your taijutsu suddenly get so much stronger?
Were you playing with me just now?” He had clearly been on the verge of deciding the winner moments ago.
Now he was the one being suppressed.
If that wasn’t deliberately toying with him, what was?
The shinobi watching the fight also found it rather strange.
Kabuto, in particular, pulled out the Ninja Info Card containing Aoba’s intelligence and repeatedly compared the information.
He pushed up the frame of his glasses with his index finger.
“Looks like my intelligence-gathering abilities aren’t quite perfect after all~” Originally, he had even planned to find some Oto shinobi and stage a scene where he got injured.
Now he didn’t have the slightest interest in doing that.
Naruto, meanwhile, shouted loudly.
“Way to go, Aoba-niisan!” Only Hinata remained completely calm.
She had already witnessed Aoba using the Flying Thunder God Technique and knew that the young man hadn’t been serious at all.
Otherwise, he probably could have killed his opponent with a single move.
After seeing Aoba fight the Ame shinobi, the shinobi who had bought his information finally felt completely reassured.
Someone with decent strength and a genuine chance of becoming a chunin had no reason to deceive them.
After all, just by forming a team and completing a few C-Rank missions, they could easily earn tens of thousands of ryo.
“Damn you, brat!
I’m getting serious!” After being struck by Aoba’s taijutsu several times, the scar-faced shinobi was thoroughly enraged.
He removed the umbrella from his back, clearly intending to unleash a killing move.
“No way.
This is an examination site!
Don’t take things too far!” Aoba hurriedly retreated to widen the distance.
He wasn’t stupid.
A little scuffling at the Chunin Exams was one thing, but causing a major incident here would be nothing short of suicide.
Bang!
At that very moment, a cloud of smoke suddenly enveloped the front of the examination hall.
The proctors of the first Chunin Exam made their dramatic entrance.
At the forefront, Morino Ibiki forcefully kicked the scar-faced shinobi away.
“Idiot!
Private fighting is forbidden in the examination room!” With the proctors stepping in, the fight was forcibly brought to an end.
Aoba naturally had no objections.
There was nothing to gain from fighting right now.
If they really wanted to settle things, they could decide the winner in the Forest of Death.
When the scar-faced shinobi glared viciously at him, Aoba didn’t care in the slightest.
Those three Ame shinobi were about to be killed by Gaara anyway.
He wasn’t going to waste his energy getting angry at dead men.
Next, Ibiki began announcing the examination rules.
When Aoba received his question paper, he was still quite interested.
He thought that, based on the level of problem-solving ability he’d had before transmigrating, getting more than half the questions right shouldn’t be a problem.
But after taking a careful look at the questions, he realized that his previous conclusion had been a little too hasty.
He didn’t know whether he’d returned all the knowledge he’d learned back to his teachers, or whether the Chunin Exam was simply too difficult.
Either way, he ultimately decided that handing in a blank paper would be better.
Although the first exam was actually testing a shinobi’s ability to gather intelligence, and the result might later be taken into consideration when determining whether someone qualified for promotion to chunin, this year’s Chunin Exams were special.
So none of it really mattered.
After learning the true rules of the test, many of the shinobi began displaying their various ingenious cheating techniques.
Of course, there were also those whose skills weren’t good enough.
Their cheating methods were far too crude, and after being caught five times, they were eliminated.
At this point, the most nervous people were undoubtedly the four teams that had purchased Aoba’s information.
It wasn’t that they hadn’t realized what the exam was actually testing.
It was testing the ability to cheat, in other words, the ability to gather intelligence.
But they genuinely didn’t have that kind of ability.
Otherwise, they wouldn’t have bought the answers and tried to take a shortcut.
They had already paid the money, so all they could do was wait until ten minutes before the end of the exam.
Then came Ibiki’s classic tenth question.
Answer correctly, and you passed.
Answer incorrectly, and you’d remain a genin for the rest of your life.
And so, some people began forfeiting the exam.
Even one of the teams that had purchased Aoba’s information couldn’t resist and gave up.
Then came Naruto’s classic passionate declaration of “never giving up.” A smile appeared on Morino Ibiki’s face, a face that looked practically like that of a living demon.
“Congratulations.
You’ve all passed.” Aoba was so bored that he nearly fell asleep.
Since he knew the plot, he felt absolutely nothing about the result.
The first nine questions had tested a shinobi’s ability to gather intelligence.
The tenth question tested whether a shinobi was willing to risk their life for a mission.
The candidates who forfeited the exam had essentially chosen safety over completing the mission.
They could not become qualified chunin.
After the candidates were led away by the proctor for the second exam, Mitarashi Anko, Ibiki began collecting the answer sheets.
When he saw Naruto’s blank paper, he smiled.
Someone had actually handed in a blank paper and passed under his supervision.
That was a first in all his years.
But when he saw Aoba’s blank paper, his expression became somewhat strange.
“Looks like this year’s exam questions overlooked the loophole that allows someone to pass by handing in a blank paper.” Then he saw another blank paper.
And another.
And another…
Ibiki’s entire face turned green.
“There is absolutely nothing wrong with my exam questions!” He muttered the words coldly to himself.
At that moment, the confidence he’d built as the captain of the Torture and Interrogation Force began to waver.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ On the way to the location of the second exam, the Forest of Death, Aoba was stopped by two shinobi teams.
The people blocking his path were the genin who had bought his information.
“Guys, the second exam is about to start.
Why are you stopping me from going?” The moment Aoba saw them, he had a bad feeling.
They want a refund!
But he’d already dumped all that money into the system.
Where was he supposed to get the money to refund them now?
Refund the money?
No way!
Not in this lifetime!
He’d earned that money through his own skills.
Well, convinced them through his own skills…
Ahem.
Money I earned fair and square.
Why the hell should I refund it?!
However, when he remembered how easily these people had been fooled by him, and how they didn’t seem particularly bright, Aoba immediately calmed down.
He looked at the people before him with a composed expression.
He wanted to hear exactly what they had to say.