The correct way for the Uchiha to rise

"A fairly large caravan, escorted by only three ten-year-old kids..."

Hearing Yagi Nobuto's mutterings, his companions nearby knew what he was thinking, and one of the horse-faced ninjas said worriedly.

"Boss, look at their headbands. Those three are Konoha ninjas. We can't afford to mess with them."

Yagi Nobuto's eyes flickered as he struggled. Then, as if having made up his mind, his gaze turned fierce.

"Let's do it. They're just three kids. Can't we handle them? At worst, we can hide for a while. Judging from the size of this caravan, if this job goes through, we won't have to worry for at least half a year."

Hearing their leader's words, the three henchmen hesitated for a moment before deciding to obey. They had never dared to dream of such a large caravan before, and now that they'd encountered one with such "weak" defenses, they were naturally prepared to take the risk. As rogue cultivators who lived on the edge, they were no pushovers and were willing to take the plunge.

Uchiha Kiyoshi, who was walking at the front of the caravan, seemed to have sensed something.

"Stop! It seems like we're being watched."

Hearing Uchiha Kiyoshi's shout, Ishimura Yukito, though not finding anything, still stopped the convoy.

Nawaki and Sarutobi Saku also became alert and maintained a fighting stance. Uchiha Kiyoshi's senses were always sharp, and although they didn't sense anything amiss, they immediately trusted his judgment.

Uchiha Kiyoshi also adopted a defensive stance, while searching for potential enemies.

He had just sensed a trace of killing intent, indescribable, but he was certain it was killing intent. Thanks to his powerful soul, his senses had been quite acute since childhood. After cultivating his body-nourishing techniques, his physical senses had improved even further, making him even more acutely aware of changes in the surrounding atmosphere.

Chapter Forty-Five: Battle

Secretly, Orochimaru had already discovered the enemy's presence. These were several chunin-genin, mostly rogue cultivators, whose disguise and concealment skills were rather poor, and Orochimaru saw right through them.

However, Orochimaru was not in a hurry to deal with this group of people.

"They've got some nerve. They dared to intercept a caravan escorted by Konoha ninjas, a group of genin and a trash chunin."

"Forget it, let those three kids handle it. Uchiha Kiyoshi should be able to handle a Chunin now."

Uchiha Kiyoshi and his companions were unaware that Orochimaru had discovered the enemy about to attack them and had no intention of intervening. Of course, even if he had known, it wouldn't have been surprising. It had been agreed beforehand that they would complete the mission themselves, and Orochimaru was merely observing along the way as a test.

Yes, a test.

This will test the effectiveness of this training.

Just as Uchiha Kiyoshi and the others had set up their formation, Yagi Nobuto, hiding in the shadows, cursed under his breath, "Are these brats really that perceptive?"

The reactions of Uchiha Kiyoshi and the others exceeded his expectations; they were more professional than he had imagined.

"Is this what ninjas from a major ninja village are like? Even a teenager like this has such high moral character?"

Nobuki Yagi murmured.

The target's reaction was unexpected, and Yagi Nobuto even regretted his actions, wishing he hadn't been so reckless.

"But now the arrow is on the bowstring, and there's no turning back. Damn it, I'll risk it all. This job will give me more than half a year to cultivate."

Thinking about the potential gains, Nobuto Yagi gritted his teeth and decided to continue with his plan.

A combination of one Chunin and three Genin is indeed a formidable force against ordinary people or samurai.

If you come from a ninja village, you can do even more. Of course, that's assuming you don't encounter any truly formidable enemies, the kind that are two ranks higher.

Unfortunately, he was just a rogue cultivator, and his ninja training was incomplete; he also lacked ninjutsu. Even more fatally, he was unaware of this.

"Whizzing!"

Several whooshing sounds rang out, and Uchiha Kiyoshi knew that the enemy in the shadows had made their move. He breathed a sigh of relief. The use of ninja tools in a sneak attack meant it wasn't a one-sided victory, meaning they could fight back.

The throwing technique devised by a group of independent cultivators was not sophisticated, and Uchiha Kiyoshi and his two companions easily dodged it.

At the same time, Uchiha Kiyoshi also pinpointed the enemy's approximate location.

"Come with me, over here."

Nawaki and Sarutobi Saku followed Uchiha Kiyoshi and rushed into the dense forest to the side.

Uchiha Kiyoshi was the first to bear the brunt, guarding against possible sneak attacks and searching for traces of the enemy.

The four-person team led by Yagi Nobuto were quite clever; they didn't use their chakra, or rather, they didn't let it escape, making it difficult for Uchiha Kiyoshi and the others to search for them by following their aura.

However, hiding isn't a solution.

Nobuto Yagi took the lead.

Earth Release: Earth Bullet Technique

Five or six earthen bullets, each the size of a human head, appeared and hurtled towards Uchiha Kiyoshi and his two companions.

This is Yagi Nobuto's only ninjutsu, a C-rank technique, which he acquired from the black market at a considerable cost.

"That's it?"

Being ambushed already put him a beat behind, and when he saw the attack, Uchiha Kiyoshi was completely stunned.

It wasn't that the opponent's ninjutsu was particularly powerful, but rather that it was too weak. It wasn't even considered a top-tier ninjutsu, let alone a C-rank one.

Caught off guard and momentarily stunned, Uchiha Kiyoshi had no time to dodge.

Yagi Nobuhito was overjoyed. As expected, his previous worries were unnecessary. The ninjas from the great ninja village weren't all that great. They were so easily frightened that they didn't even know how to hide.

Nawaki and Sarutobi Saku didn't seem to notice anything amiss and dodged the earth bullet attack immediately.

Uchiha Kiyoshi locked onto Yagi Nobuto's location when he made his move. He sensed the Chunin-level chakra of the opponent, which was too different from the Earth Bullet ninjutsu, and was stunned for a moment.

Little did he know the value of ninjutsu scrolls. It was only in Konoha, and with the support of a powerful clan, that he was able to acquire so many ninjutsu techniques, and receive such comprehensive basic knowledge and education. Outside, a C-rank mission was already quite impressive, representing extraordinary power.

Although both are C-rank ninjutsu, the Earth Bullet Technique is vastly different from the ninjutsu Uchiha Kiyoshi learned. If the power of an ordinary person is 0-10, then the power of a C-rank ninjutsu is roughly defined as 20-100. The Earth Bullet Technique would at most have a power of 30-40, while Uchiha Kiyoshi's ninjutsu are at least 80. Uchiha Kiyoshi's self-created Earth Shield could even withstand more than 20 units of damage.

Of course, if the power is stronger, it will be a little more difficult to learn, but the increase in difficulty is not that significant.

Seeing that Uchiha Kiyoshi was the leader of the three, Yagi Nobuto focused his attack on him, which explained his surprise at Kiyoshi's stunned expression. The most difficult one was immediately intimidated; the remaining two were easy targets.

Uchiha Kiyoshi was unaware of Yagi Nobuto's thoughts and had no time to pay attention to Yagi Nobuto's daydreams.

Reacting a beat too slow, Uchiha Kiyoshi had no choice but to tough it out when faced with three earth bullets blocking his path.

The hands were not joined together; each hand was forming a mudra.

"Earth Shield"

Two earthen shields appeared and, under Uchiha Kiyoshi's control, deflected two incoming earth projectiles at a special angle.

The two earth projectiles were deflected diagonally by the earth shield, swerving to the sides and shattering the shield. However, Uchiha Kiyoshi ignored the shattered shield, rolled forward, and passed through the gap that appeared after the two earth projectiles deflected.

His movements were so fluid and graceful that even Orochimaru, who was watching from the shadows, was full of praise. To be able to perform such a small technique like this, Uchiha Kiyoshi was truly a genius.

"But how did he form the hand seal just now?"

Orochimaru recalled the scene just now. His focus was not on how Uchiha Kiyoshi responded, but on the way Uchiha Kiyoshi formed hand seals.

"Can you form hand seals with just one hand?"

I hadn't thought of that; I never imagined it would work.

When he encountered something that interested him, Orochimaru became quite excited and stuck out his tongue to lick the corner of his mouth.

"One-handed hand seal, interesting, interesting."

That's right, it's one-handed hand seals. Since he was six years old, over the past four years, Uchiha Kiyoshi has intermittently studied one-handed hand seals whenever he had time, and now he has made some progress.

There are drawbacks to using one hand for hand seals. In many ninjutsu hand seals, the chakra flow is controlled by the same seal simultaneously, but the corresponding one-handed seals for these flows are not the same. This is the tricky part. In such cases, it's not even possible to complete the seals with one hand directly, so it can only be considered a minor technique.

When Uchiha Kiyoshi developed the Earth Release: Earth Shield, he also took this into account to avoid operating different hand seals simultaneously.

Besides this, there's another drawback: the number of hand seals required also increases. A three-seal earth shield would require five to complete with one hand. And this is only a bottom-tier C-rank ninjutsu; there would be even more for powerful A-rank ninjutsu. That's why it's considered a minor trick, only usable in low-level ninjutsu.

Uchiha Kiyoshi dodged the attack and located Yagi Nobuto's position. Not only him, but Nawaki and the others also discovered Yagi Nobuto's hiding place.

Seeing that his attack had been dodged, Yagi Nobuto was dumbfounded. If his teammates hadn't reminded him, he wouldn't have noticed the three people rushing towards him.

Uchiha Kiyoshi didn't want to waste time playing hide-and-seek; a quick battle was the best option. He charged straight in, and the two quickly clashed.

With Uchiha Kiyoshi keeping him occupied, Yagi Nobuto was unable to create distance and was forced into a direct confrontation.

It's a pity that a self-taught Chunin is far inferior in skill compared to Uchiha Kiyoshi, who is on the verge of becoming an elite Chunin. However, he is quite ruthless. If Uchiha Kiyoshi hadn't focused all his taijutsu on defense, he would have suffered some serious injuries.

While Uchiha Kiyoshi's side was engaged in a "tangle of fighting," the other side was a completely different story—a total massacre.

Aside from the Three Body Technique, how could three rogue genin, who had no other ninjutsu, possibly withstand the ninjutsu bombardment from Nawaki and his companion?

Nawaki's two C-rank area-of-effect Water Release techniques, Water Arrow Technique, instantly rendered the opponents incapable of fighting. Sarutobi Saku then unleashed a Wind Release: Great Breakthrough, killing three genin on the spot.

Yagi Nobuto never imagined that there was such a huge gap between himself and the ninjas trained by the village. In just an instant, three of his subordinates were gone. He no longer had the mind to fight Uchiha Kiyoshi and was already planning how to escape.

Unfortunately, the question now is not whether he wants to run, but whether he can run at all.

It was unbelievable that Rope Tree and the other two had dealt with the minions, but they quickly realized that they should finish the battle first.

Despite the combined efforts of the three, Yagi Nobuto was ultimately unable to escape and was killed by Sarutobi Saku's Wind Release technique.

Chapter 46 The Land of Earth

After killing Yagi Nobuto, the three did not return to the convoy immediately.

After standing there for a long time, Rope Tree finally broke the silence.

"This...we just killed four ninjas like that? That's too weak!"

"No, there's one who looks like a Chunin, the one Kiyoshi was dealing with."

"This is even more unbelievable. It was too easy to kill them. I feel like it was not as easy as the Matsuoka Four Brothers last time."

"Too."

Uchiha Kiyoshi finally understood and explained to the two of them.

"It's different. These four are considered rogue cultivators, and their ninjutsu is all terrible. In fact, those three genin don't know any other ninjutsu besides the Three Body Technique, and I suspect even the Three Body Technique isn't very good. They've just refined their chakra and are stronger than ordinary people, and they're a bit more ruthless in their attacks."

Compared to them, the Matsuoka brothers were samurai from the start, possessing rich practical experience and combat skills, which they further developed after switching to chakra training.

"So pathetic? You don't even have ninjutsu? You haven't even mastered the Three Body Techniques, and you still dare to rob people? And you even dare to rob us Konoha ninjas."

The rope tree is unbelievable.

Uchiha Kiyoshi gave him a disgruntled look.

"Do you think ninjutsu is like cabbage, something you can just come across whenever you want? It's only because we have villages and clans that we can obtain a lot of powerful ninjutsu. Outside, ninjutsu is extremely difficult to acquire. I used to only read about it in books, but now I realize how difficult it is. Even a Chunin only has one trashy C-rank ninjutsu."

"Sigh! It's really tough for independent cultivators. They lack systematic guidance, and ninjutsu is so hard to acquire. Compared to them, we're much luckier."