Starting with Naruto, I'll become stronger through my own efforts.

Chapter 230 The Dragon Vein Development Plan Passed

The Fourth Raikage was convinced, but he still insisted on researching a weapon that could kill the Fifth Hokage.

Meanwhile, in Iwagakure, the village of the Land of Earth, the Third Tsuchikage was completely at a loss, because his beloved disciple had run away again.

As the eldest of the Five Kage—no, the Four Kage—his sensitivity to aura was no less than that of the Fourth Raikage, and he also had more direct experience with it.

In his youth, he had personally witnessed Madara Uchiha and Hashirama Senju at their peak and felt their aura as vast as the heavens.

Just like the Fifth Hokage, Sasuke, when he was intercepted by Black Zetsu, and how he reacted with shock—

In that instant, Onoki's psychological trauma, which he had hidden for 50 years, was suddenly brought to the surface, scaring him so much that he almost had a heart attack.

Although he did not suffer cardiac arrest, his hands and feet were numb, and he fell directly off the flying rocks.

If Deidara hadn't reacted quickly and created a giant clay bird to catch him, Iwagakure would have had a new Fourth Tsuchikage in charge.

What Onoki didn't expect was that after he told Deidara about the terror of the Fifth Hokage, Deidara actually chose to run away from home again.

Before running away, the golden retriever said, "Old man, you have absolutely no chance of defeating the Fifth Hokage. I'm going to follow a powerful ninja who can beat him."

"I, Deidara, will never follow behind a loser!"

The word "loser" completely broke the Third Tsuchikage, Onoki. He collapsed, his vision blurred, and unfortunately twisted his back in the fall, leaving him groaning in pain in the hospital.

Before he could even catch his breath, the Fifth Hokage's reprimand letter arrived in front of him, almost making the old man's blood vessels explode with anger.

The old man shouted the order: "Assemble the demolition team! Recall Roshi! I'm going to fight Konoha to the death!!"

Then, the blood vessels on his forehead really burst, and fresh blood gushed out.

The ruptured blood vessel rendered the Third Tsuchikage completely incapacitated, but it also lowered his intracranial pressure, restoring his mental clarity.

When his son, Huang Tu, came to him listlessly and asked, "Third Tsuchikage, the Iwagakure demolition team has assembled. When will they launch an attack on Konoha?"

Onoki smiled in disappointment: "Yoto, if only you had stopped me earlier, even if you hadn't done anything after you left. You really aren't suited to be the Tsuchikage."

"Let them all disperse."

Huang Tu was completely bewildered: "Aren't we going to fight anymore?"

Onoki sighed, "What's the point of fighting? It's just asking for death."

"I am the Tsuchikage. My duty is to protect Iwagakure, not to let it be destroyed for my sake."

Huang Tu gave a muffled "Oh" and left.

The Third Tsuchikage was so angry that he rolled his eyes. He had had enough of this stupid son.

With Onoki backing down, the Iwagakure ninjas, however unwilling, had no choice but to accept reality.

When Zabuza Momochi returned to Kirigakure with the only genin squad, he told Genji and Mei Terumi everything, and finally suggested, "For the sake of Kirigakure, let Mei Terumi become the Fifth Mizukage."

Genji asked with a mixture of satisfaction and curiosity, "Zabuza, why did you recommend Mei Terumi?"

Zabuza Momochi said, "I went to Konoha and witnessed its strength and prosperity, as well as the power, tyranny, and treachery of the Fifth Hokage."

"Now, the Fifth Hokage's Konoha Village is the only one that is strong, and it is far too strong. Even if the four great ninja villages join forces, they will not be able to defeat Konoha Village."

"Whoever becomes the Fifth Mizukage is destined to be a punching bag, and his most important task is to maintain good diplomatic relations with Konoha Village."

Zabuza pointed to his triangular eyes and sneered, "Look at me, I have no friendliness whatsoever, and I'm not the kind of guy who can swallow his pride."

"My becoming the Fifth Mizukage will only bring more harm to Kirigakure, not more help."

"So, it's settled then."

Master Yuan breathed a long sigh of relief and nodded, saying, "That's what I thought too, so it's settled then."

"Mei Terumi, you will become the Fifth Mizukage."

Mei Terumi rolled her eyes: "Fine, I'll be the Fifth Mizukage, the one who gets bullied. You know I can still give orders to the two of you."

The Fifth Hokage, Natsume, through a series of clever maneuvers, used his own version of the "Konoha Crush Plan" to completely subdue Sunagakure and gain control of a nearly uninhabited area.

He exploited the Joint Chunin Exams plan, which was a serious humiliation for the four great ninja villages.

However, under Xia Zuo's strong suppression, none of the four major ninja villages expressed dissatisfaction. On the contrary, considerable controversy arose within Konoha Village.

Many Konoha ninja believe that the Fifth Hokage made a mistake, ruining the large-scale event he had organized without bringing any real benefit to Konoha.

-

Some ninjas even believed that the Fifth Hokage's behavior was extremely rude, severely damaging Konoha's reputation and the Fifth Hokage's credibility.

Xia Zuo paid no attention to these rumors circulating among the villagers and low- to mid-level ninjas.

This wasn't because Xia Zuo was mature, determined, and unaffected by others' opinions, but because these words and people didn't align with his thoughts and weren't topics they truly cared about. Therefore, they were undoubtedly rumors spread by others.

If one day the villagers were to discuss how high prices are and how hard it is to find work, and the lower-ranking ninjas were to complain about how few missions there were and how their income was insufficient to support their families, Xia Zuo would be terrified and break out in a cold sweat.

He would jump for joy, immediately convene relevant departments to launch a major investigation, and adjust the village's policies in the shortest possible time.

Similarly, when the three legendary Sannin of Konoha, the 15 department heads, and the two former Hokage all raised objections, Xia Zuo could not ignore them.

Orochimaru, who was involved in and presided over the entire "Konoha Crush Plan," has questions that require a clear explanation.

Therefore, Xia Zuo specially convened a meeting of 20 Jonin from Konoha Village to explain the purpose of this incident to the village's higher-ups and to inform them of the specific gains Konoha Village had made.

Orochimaru was equally unconcerned about the rumors and did not worry about damaging the Fifth Hokage's reputation, because he dismissed them as nonsense.

Do the Third Tsuchikage and the Fourth Raikage have any credibility?

Does the Fourth Kazekage, who betrayed Konoha twice while acting as an ally, have any credibility?

The Fifth Hokage did not actively attack other ninja villages this time; he merely staged a scene with Orochimaru in Konoha. As a result, the Fourth Kazekage disregarded their status as allies and launched an assassination attempt against the Fifth Hokage.

The Fifth Hokage detected the betrayal in his ally and removed the danger for Konoha in advance. Where did he go wrong?

If nothing was wrong, why was their reputation damaged?

Orochimaru's explanation and rhetorical question made Jiraiya and Tsunade realize something. Jiraiya laughed awkwardly, "Haha, I knew something felt off. I never imagined what kind of reputation the Fifth Hokage had lost. It turns out it was the reputation that could only be used for passive defense."

Xia Zuo sneered, "Oh dear, if we don't teach them a lesson for a while, they'll start getting out of control!"

"It's only been a year since I conquered a certain ninja village, and these bastards in the village dare to apply the Third Hokage's governing philosophy to me and then criticize me for not acting like the Third Hokage."

The root of the problem lies within Konoha Village, which is within Xia Zuo's next strike range, so he doesn't plan to act prematurely.

However, the spread of rumors was not solely due to the opposition ninjas. Indeed, many Konoha villagers and ninjas had high moral standards and believed that the Fifth Hokage's actions were not aboveboard.

Xia Zuo was helpless and could only let them say whatever they wanted.

In political and sociological theories, there is a concept of 5%, which means that in a normal society, there must be two groups of people with high and low moral standards, and the minimum limit ratio is 5%.

Under normal circumstances, without intervention, the number of people with high moral standards will always decrease, but once it falls below 5%, there will be a catastrophic collapse of society, and social order will cease to exist.

However, if the intervention is too drastic, aiming to reduce the number of people with low moral standards to 5% or even eliminate them all, it will inevitably lead to social stagnation and moral hypocrisy, and will also cause the collapse of social order.

In any case, for the Fifth Hokage, whose prestige was at its peak, this small injury was completely bearable, so he let it go and did not intend to make any public explanation.

This is one of the reasons why Xia Zuo launched the operation to seize Loulan only after he had served as Hokage for two years and gained enough prestige.

Because he knew that the true value of Loulan could not be made public, he preferred that people say that taking Loulan was a disastrous and unprofitable operation.

However, the core ninjas of Konoha Village were aware of this, because Xia Zuo needed Konoha ninjas to research the Dragon Vein and decipher the secrets of time.

When Xia Zuo revealed the information about the Dragon Vein to the 20 Jonin of Konoha, it immediately caused a stir.

Orochimaru's eyes widened, and he excitedly confirmed, "The Dragon Vein can jump through time?"

Xia Zuo replied, "Based on the intelligence we have gathered so far, quite a few people have unintentionally jumped through time, but we haven't noticed any unusual changes in the time we are in."

"Therefore, I think it's more likely that it jumped to a point in time in a parallel universe, rather than to a past time in the current timeline."

Orochimaru became even more excited: "That's even better! Parallel worlds are even more valuable!"

"Fifth Hokage, I misunderstood you. The value of the 'Konoha Crush Plan' is simply too great; it's the most successful operation Konoha has undertaken in the last two years!"

"Time, parallel worlds, spacetime networks—this is just amazing!"

In reality, apart from Orochimaru, none of the 20 Jonin members of Konoha Village understood the value of the Dragon Vein.

But in the past two years, Orochimaru has proven his authority in research, and the Konoha Jonin have come to trust his judgment and recognize the value of Loulan.

Yu Nu Zhiwei asked, "If we are to develop and study the dragon vein, are there any special circumstances that we need to be aware of?"

'

Xia Zuo replied, "Dragon veins are a new thing for our Konoha Village. Before we begin any specific research, the most important thing we need to do is keep it a secret."

Nara Shikaku, recently transferred to the Ministry of Finance, asked a question that concerned him: "Will research on dragon veins generate particularly large expenditures?"

Xia Zuo looked at everyone and said, "Everyone, please share your thoughts and report them to Minister Nara for evaluation."

You Nu Zhiwei spoke first: "The dragon vein is in Loulan. According to intelligence, Loulan was destroyed more than ten years ago, but the specific reason for its destruction is uncertain. I guess it was related to water shortage."

"Therefore, we need to build a water supply system in the desert, and this project will definitely cost a lot."

Kakashi Hatake said, "I fought in the Land of Wind for a period of time, and the sandstorms there left a deep impression on me. The weathering was very severe."

"We'd better build the structures to the specifications of a fortress, and then there's the cost of transporting supplies to the no-man's-land."

Orochimaru chuckled and said, "Time is a realm I've never ventured into before; everything must start from scratch."

"Designing and manufacturing related research equipment will consume a lot of resources, and the expenses will definitely be outrageous."

The Konoha Jonin all spoke up, proposing various expenses according to their own understanding. Nara Shikaku compiled and calculated these, ultimately arriving at a preliminary estimate of the required funding.

The sheer amount of money spent on developing the dragon vein astonished everyone present, but Nara Shikaku, who was in charge of finances and was used to large sums of money, remained remarkably calm.

Xia Zuo asked, "Minister Nara, does the village have that much money?"

Nara Shikaku replied without changing his expression, "Fifth Hokage, the village currently has sufficient funds and can fully afford it."

"Spending such a large sum of money is completely beyond my authority as a minister."

Xia Zuo laughed and said, "It's alright. All the Jonin on the council are here today, so let's raise our hands and vote."

After understanding the value of the Dragon Vein, the Konoha Jonin naturally voted unanimously in favor of the Dragon Vein development project.

If parallel worlds could be connected through the Dragon Vein, it would be as if Konoha Village had access to endless resources.

If Xia Zuo were to discover the power of time through the Dragon Vein, he would dare to speak loudly to anyone, and wouldn't need to care about figures like Hagoromo Otsutsuki or Kaguya Otsutsuki.

Xia Zuo then suggested, "Judging from the current situation, Konoha Village's income is growing very rapidly, much better than I expected."

"But this means that the previously established restrictions are no longer suitable for the current situation. A project's investment scale is clearly within acceptable limits, but it has far exceeded the Finance Minister's authority."

"This is a highly unreasonable situation!"

"Therefore, I suggest increasing the finance minister's authority tenfold, temporarily."

The Konoha Jonin nodded in agreement with the Fifth Hokage's proposal.

They were all shocked by the village's wealth. In comparison, Nara's authority was too limited. It was like Konoha Village having a huge reservoir but only being able to irrigate it through a single tap – it was such a waste of resources.

The vote to increase authority also passed unanimously.

Nara Shikaku's power has increased dramatically, which naturally makes him very satisfied.

Xia Zuo was also extremely happy because the amount of work that he had to approve had been reduced by more than half.

>