The correct way for the Uchiha to rise

Nawaki looked at Uchiha Kiyoshi with envy. He greatly admired Kiyoshi's ability to learn ninjutsu so quickly. He himself had enough chakra to practice ninjutsu since he was six, yet in four years he had only learned five C-rank ninjutsu: three water-style and two earth-style. For the past three months, Orochimaru had been relentlessly controlling his mastery of ninjutsu and chakra, preventing him from learning any new techniques. He felt both envy and jealousy towards his classmate who so quickly learned one technique after another, and the pressure was immense.

Although he was modest, Uchiha Kiyoshi was actually quite satisfied. Learning a new ninjutsu so quickly not only meant having an extra means of fighting enemies in a short time, but more importantly, it showed that his idea of ​​learning a large number of ninjutsu and organizing the effects of his small cycles was feasible, and he could see results within ten years.

Just then, a chilling aura appeared, but Uchiha Kiyoshi and the other two were used to it and knew that Orochimaru had arrived.

Orochimaru approached the three people, glanced at the spot where Uchiha Kiyoshi had just used the Earth Spike Technique, and inwardly praised his student's talent in ninjutsu.

There's a thrill in finding a bargain.

And that was indeed the case. Back in the Ninja Academy, Uchiha Kiyoshi hadn't shown much talent, only revealing a high aptitude for medical ninjas and some peculiar personality flaws. This is why not many people bothered him. Even Danzo didn't really think Uchiha Kiyoshi was that talented; perhaps his potential was simply unleashed under the pressure of death, which is why he learned medical ninjutsu so quickly? After all, Uchiha Kiyoshi spent four years in the Uchiha Archives; overall, the time he spent learning medical ninjutsu was quite long.

The reason why Uchiha Kiyoshi is slowly revealing his ninjutsu talent is because he has Orochimaru as his teacher, and he is now considered to be one of Orochimaru's people. With the protection of the clan, his safety is basically guaranteed.

Moreover, only those with ninjutsu talent can extract more ninjutsu scrolls from Orochimaru; it's a process of mutual influence.

"Over the past three months, you have become familiar with the mission process and have made great progress in your abilities, making you capable of undertaking more advanced missions. Today, you will be taking on a C-level mission."

After hearing Orochimaru's words, the three were very excited, but none of them made a sound. Nawaki, in particular, covered his mouth with his hand to prevent himself from cheering out loud. There had been a time before when Orochimaru was halfway through speaking when Nawaki shouted and interrupted him. The consequences, well, were quite unpleasant, and Nawaki still had a lingering fear of that.

However, although they couldn't immediately celebrate loudly, they were genuinely excited. C-level missions, whether escort or bandit suppression, generally require leaving the village.

This was quite appealing to them, who had never left the village since birth. Uchiha Kiyoshi was no exception; he hadn't seen the world since arriving in it, so he was naturally very happy to have the opportunity.

Not to mention, C-level missions also offer merit points that D-level missions don't provide.

Unlike D-rank missions, which are like mundane daily tasks, C-rank missions are the real missions that ninjas must carry out.

One can take on two or three D-level missions a day, each worth seven or eight thousand taels of silver. C-level missions, on the other hand, take at least three or four days, with a final reward of only fifty or sixty thousand taels. Moreover, C-level missions are far more dangerous than D-level missions.

However, many ninjas are still willing to take on C-rank missions.

This is mainly because, starting from C-level missions, the rewards will include merit points. Although there is no specific quantification, these merit points are very useful.

Ninja ranks require a certain amount of mission merit to be earned; even registering for the Chunin Exams requires this.

Furthermore, merit points are the primary way for ninjas to acquire ninjutsu from the village. Generally, completing around ten C-rank missions will allow you to choose one C-rank ninjutsu. Higher-rank ninjutsu can only be selected after completing ten missions of the same rank.

This is also the main way for ordinary ninjas to acquire ninjutsu, and even some clan ninjas acquire ninjutsu through this method.

The village has a very comprehensive collection of ninjutsu. Even clan ninjas inevitably need some ninjutsu that their clan doesn't have, and they can only obtain them through this method.

Although Uchiha Kiyoshi had Orochimaru as a channel to learn many ninjutsu, he couldn't get everything from him. This would inevitably lead to Orochimaru controlling all his training progress, which was not a good thing.

As Uchiha Kiyoshi summarized the function of chakra circulation in small cycles, his learning speed of ninjutsu became faster and faster, even exceeding the norm. Therefore, Uchiha Kiyoshi needed to shift his attention and slow down the speed at which he learned the ninjutsu given by Orochimaru.

Orochimaru led the three excited kids to the mission department next to the Hokage's office building and went inside.

Rank A Mission: Travel to the Land of Rain to gather intelligence on the Hidden Rain Village. Note: You are required to know the movements of the Hidden Rain Village. Details can be viewed after accepting the mission.

Rank B Mission: Escort the Sun Moon Merchant Guild's caravan into the Land of Earth. There is a possibility of encountering ninja ambushes. Note: Encounters with Chunin are possible. It is recommended that a team of three Chunin be formed to accept this mission. Details can be viewed after accepting the mission.

Rank B Mission: Investigate the Cloud Ninja within the Land of Fire. Note: It is recommended to team up with multiple Chunin to accept this mission. Details can be viewed after accepting the mission.

C-level mission...

After searching for about ten minutes, I finally found a satisfactory task, went over and took it.

Rank C Mission: Bandits have appeared near Liuyue Village. Please go and eliminate them.

After receiving the mission details, I was told: A band of bandits has appeared near Liuyue Village, and there are suspected samurai of genin level among them. ... Mission reward: 70,000 taels.

Nothing special, just a simple bandit suppression mission. However, there might be samurai involved, so it's considered challenging for a C-level mission. The reward of 70,000 taels is quite substantial.

Of course, the mission itself was quite ordinary, but it seemed a bit unusual for Team 3. Uchiha Kiyoshi was also baffled by Orochimaru accepting such a mission; was it really a good idea to start with something like this?

Suppressing bandits, suppressing bandits, will definitely kill a lot of people. It will be difficult for a rookie ninja who has never seen blood. If he can't handle the mental pressure after killing someone and reacts too violently, he might even be killed in return!

However, seeing Rope Tree walking so excitedly that he almost floated away, Uchiha Kiyoshi roughly understood what was going on.

Chapter Thirty-Four: Leaving the Village

Bandit suppression missions are only issued when local villagers are attacked or harmed. Usually, once accepted, the mission is immediately dispatched.

Orochimaru led the three members of Team 3 to the location specified in the mission instructions to meet with the mission issuer.

The rendezvous point was not far from the mission department, and the four of them arrived at the rendezvous point soon.

The person in charge of making contact was a young man in his twenties or thirties, dressed like a farmer. When he saw Orochimaru arrive with three people—three children—he initially wanted to complain, but upon seeing Orochimaru, he couldn't bring himself to speak. Orochimaru's cold, sinister aura, coupled with his snake-like vertical pupils, was incredibly intimidating, something an ordinary farmer like himself couldn't withstand. Even though Orochimaru had concealed his aura because the others were ordinary people, his appearance was still somewhat frightening.

"Are you the one who posted the task? Could you please provide more details about the task?"

Seeing that the other party remained silent, Orochimaru frowned and broke the silence first, asking about the details of the mission.

The young farmer hadn't reacted yet and remained silent, stunned.

"Don't worry, these three ninjas may look young, but they are truly qualified ninjas, more than capable of completing your mission. What's more, there's also Lord Orochimaru, who is a Jonin. For a C-rank mission, being able to hire a Jonin is already a bargain."

The ninja who had been in charge of greeting the young man explained the situation to him.

The young farmer knew that he hadn't been unlucky this time; on the contrary, he'd struck gold—a C-rank mission with a Jonin accompanying him. At the same time, the young man's fear of Orochimaru grew even stronger. Orochimaru's aura was the epitome of a villain; anyone else would probably have reacted the same way, even an ordinary person.

After giving Orochimaru a cautious glance, the young farmer stammered out the details of the mission.

“I am a villager from Liuyue Village. Recently, a group of bandits has appeared on the green mountains near our village. They come to our village every few days to wreak havoc, which is why the village sent me here. Moreover, according to the conversations we heard from the bandits, the bandit leader is very strong and seems to be a warrior.”

"Well, if a samurai has fallen to this level, he probably isn't very strong. His combat strength is at most around that of a genin."

Uchiha Kiyoshi made a judgment based on what the other party said, and Orochimaru nodded in agreement. Orochimaru hadn't spoken earlier because he wanted the three of them to make their own judgment. The same applied to this mission; he hoped they would complete it themselves, and Orochimaru was merely acting as a safety net to prevent any unforeseen circumstances.

"How many bandits are there? Do you have a count? Besides the leader, are there any other strong members among the bandits? What do they usually do? Is there anything particularly special about them?"

"No, no, we wouldn't dare to make such a count. It's already risky enough for the village to send me to issue this mission. As for the strongmen, we're just a bunch of ordinary people. We can't judge their specific strength. However, we seem to have heard that they have some kind of Third King or Fourth King. They should be brothers with the bandit leader, so their martial arts skills should be quite high."

As for any special places...

Oh, right, there's something I'm not sure if it counts: their leaders have never shown up; we only learned about them from the conversations of those bandits.

Uchiha Kiyoshi didn't glean any useful information from the young farmer's offer. After all, he was just a farmer, not a ninja; his intelligence gathering skills weren't as professional. It seemed they'd have to investigate further once they arrived at the location.

"Alright, we now know the basic situation. Since you seem to be in such a hurry, let's set off now."

Seeing that the other party always seemed very eager, Uchiha Kiyoshi also decided to set off as soon as possible, since he had already made all the necessary preparations.

The young man was also excited and quickly thanked him. He knew that although he was the one who issued the task, he couldn't force the other person to be ninja as fast as possible, and now he had probably met someone easy to talk to.

With one more person, the group of five set off immediately.

After arriving at the entrance of Konoha and registering, the group left the village.

The three members of Team 3 were also very excited. They had finally left Konoha Village. Apart from Uchiha Kiyoshi, who was relatively composed, even Sarutobi Saku was similar to Nawaki, looking around. Even the young farmer was a little skeptical. Was this reliable?

However, after glancing at Orochimaru walking at the back, the young man breathed a sigh of relief. With Orochimaru there, there shouldn't be any problems.

"Qing, the outside world isn't any different. It seems pretty much the same as the village."

After wondering for a while, Rope Tree found that the outside was no different from the village, and became sullen.

"It's not as different as you think. Besides, we're on the road, what could be special about it? It'll be more interesting when we go to other countries or some special towns."

"Huh? Qing, how do you know so much? I don't remember you ever leaving the village, right? Why do you act like you've been there before?"

Pushing aside Nawaki, who was staring at him with wide, curious eyes, Uchiha Kiyoshi began to explain.

"I haven't been there, but these things are all in the books. The books describe most of the special places in this ninja world."

Upon hearing the word "book," Nawaki immediately lost interest. He hated books more than anything, and he even believed that if he didn't quickly distance himself from Uchiha Kiyoshi, the latter would probably try to sell him books...

Ryugetsu Village isn't far from Konoha, which is why they dared to send people to Konoha to issue missions. Otherwise, the journey would take a long time, and the possibility of encountering unexpected events would be much higher. This band of bandits, for some reason, has actually established themselves in a place only a day's walk from Konoha; they must be out of their minds.

This was something Uchiha Kiyoshi couldn't have guessed accurately. A day's journey, calculated at the speed of an ordinary person, translates to about 100 kilometers. If Uchiha Kiyoshi and his group traveled at full speed, they could arrive in about five hours.

"Forget it, I don't want to think about it anymore. Anyway, no matter what, he's definitely not a ninja. Otherwise, he wouldn't have gone so long without using ninjutsu. And being so close, Konoha would definitely be able to detect traces of ninjutsu."

Stopping his thoughts, Uchiha Kiyoshi snapped out of it and headed towards Ryugetsu Village while keeping an eye on his surroundings to avoid being ambushed.

Although this place is very close to Konoha, there's no guarantee that some fool won't make a move here. After all, bandits have appeared so close to Konoha, and Uchiha Kiyoshi doesn't dare to overestimate the intelligence of some people.

If they were careless and Orochimaru attacked before they even reached the mission location, that would be disastrous. Kiyoshi Uchiha didn't even want to think about what kind of fate awaited them when they returned to the village.

However, as it turns out, the only case of such idiocy was that of the Green Mountain bandits. The area around Konoha was still quite safe, and there were indeed no unexpected incidents along the way. The five of them arrived at Ryugetsu Village without incident.

Chapter Thirty-Five: Green Mountain Bandits

Upon arriving at Ryugetsu Village, Uchiha Kiyoshi and his companions were settled in an inn.

After inquiring about the bandits from other villagers again, Uchiha Kiyoshi returned to the inn with little success and called out his two teammates.

"The information we get from the villagers' descriptions is incomplete. We only know that this band of bandits arrived in this place about half a month ago. The leaders haven't shown themselves much, but according to the bandits, their strength seems to far exceed that of ordinary people. I guess they should have the strength of a senior genin. I just don't know why they haven't shown themselves yet."

"I'll go to Qingshan in a bit to check the situation and gather some intelligence. You two stay nearby and look around for anything unusual, especially the direction from which these bandits came. Observe carefully."

After saying that, Uchiha Kiyoshi prepared his ninja tools, packed them all into his ninja tool bag, and left the inn.

Now, Uchiha Kiyoshi's ninja tools are no longer all standard-issue. Twenty finely crafted kunai cost him 100,000 ryo! Fortunately, for the past three months, Uchiha Kiyoshi had completed two or three D-rank missions daily, earning about 7,000 to 8,000 ryo per mission. After deducting daily expenses, he had saved 1.2 to 1.3 million ryo, which allowed him to initially escape poverty. Otherwise, Uchiha Kiyoshi might not have been able to afford even these twenty finely crafted kunai.

In addition to the exquisite kunai, Uchiha Kiyoshi also had a custom-made kunai made specifically for close-quarters combat. The entire kunai was about fifty centimeters long, and both the craftsmanship and the materials used in its creation were of high quality, costing a total of 200,000 ryo.

Just those two items alone shrunk Uchiha Kiyoshi's wallet considerably, dropping it to six figures. Not to mention the even more expensive explosive tags, soldier pills, and the like. In total, Uchiha Kiyoshi spent over 700,000 ryo.

The ninja tool pouch was quite good; it contained a space-time sealing technique formula and had about half a cubic meter of space inside, capable of storing a large number of ninja tools. Moreover, it was much more convenient than storage scrolls, allowing users to directly retrieve ninja tools from the pouch. Plus, its lifespan was relatively long, unlikely to break down for at least a year or two. Its performance was excellent, but it was a bit pricey, costing 400,000 ryo. Uchiha Kiyoshi gritted his teeth and bought it; he couldn't shortchange himself, and buying some better ninja tools was a responsible act towards his own life.

In this way, Uchiha Kiyoshi's three months' salary was almost entirely spent.

Uchiha Kiyoshi sighed, "Ninjas really do make money fast, but they spend it just as fast!"

......

At this moment, in an open space outside Aoyama, Uchiha Kiyoshi was dragging a bandit who had been knocked unconscious and brought out from Aoyama.

He patted the other person to wake them up. Uchiha Kiyoshi then began using the basic interrogation methods he had learned from his textbooks.

Since it was his first attempt, Uchiha Kiyoshi didn't quite get the hang of it, but by some twist of fate, the result seemed to be quite good. After being punished a few times, the other party confessed everything.

"It seems I do have a talent for interrogation. Indeed, all geniuses are alike; they are geniuses in every aspect."

Seemingly having overheard Uchiha Kiyoshi's mutterings, the bandit looked at him with eyes full of terror.

"Big brother, are you sure? I've heard of all sorts of interrogation methods, but none are as ruthless as yours. If I hadn't been so determined, I would have passed out by now."

Uchiha Kiyoshi ignored the prisoner and sorted through the information he had gathered.

This bandit gang was formed a month ago, led by the four Matsuoka brothers. All four brothers were samurai, quite talented, and had achieved some success, conquering many with their martial prowess. They formed this gang and became its leaders. After arriving in this area, the four rarely showed themselves, leaving many tasks to their underlings. The Matsuoka brothers were acting mysteriously, having designated a territory on Green Mountain that they forbade anyone to enter and disturb.

After roughly organizing this information, Uchiha Kiyoshi prepared to return to Ryugetsu Village to meet up with the other two.