What does a ninja battle usually look like?
First, everyone throws a few shuriken to set the mood—after all, if you've got shuriken in your pouch and don't throw them, how are you supposed to get reimbursed?
Then you toss out a couple of ninTechnique, which burns a fair amount of chakra. After that comes some taiTechnique exchanges, and finally you finish things off with a carefully prepared trap or a decisive technique.
As long as you don't get killed halfway through, everyone basically follows this routine.
Who the hell starts a fight by throwing shuriken like they're free?
Crack.
The rock finally shattered completely.
Panic spread across the two men's faces.
Were they about to face that endless storm of shuriken again?
No.
Please no.
They really couldn't block it anymore.
The two of them had practically resigned themselves to death.
…
Silence.
"Huh?" Both of them looked at Hyuga Arin in confusion.
Hyuga Arin gave them an apologetic smile.
"Sorry. I ran out."
What are you apologizing for?!
"Brat!! It's your turn now!!" The two men snarled at the same time and charged toward Hyuga Arin.
The vicious expressions on their faces made them look downright ugly.
But just as they felt something was wrong beneath their feet, they suddenly stopped, lowering their heads to look at the glowing explosive tags on the ground.
"You f—"
BOOM!!
A violent explosion erupted, flames surging up and completely swallowing their figures.
"I still have explosive tags, you know."
The raging wind stirred Hyuga Arin's clothes as he stood there, wearing an innocent expression.
It wasn't like he'd gone brain-dead from throwing shuriken. He'd clearly noticed that he was about to run out.
While the rock was being shattered by the barrage, he'd already attached explosive tags to the last few shuriken and thrown them over.
The moment the two of them stepped onto the tags was exactly when they detonated.
Like he said—this was a shooting game.
And shooting games naturally came with bombs.
If you weren't playing ranged combat with the Byakugan, that would just be a waste.
[EXP: 156]
[EXP: 135]
The two bodies had been blown into pieces.
On the ground lay a bronze battle saber, a set of bronze armor, a blue scroll with a white core, and a red pouch.
[Bandit's Battle Saber: +10~15 Attack]
[Bandit's Battle Armor: +15 Defense]
[Skill Book: Fire Release · Unknown Flame]
[Money Pouch: 100 taels]
"A skill book dropped." Hyuga Arin was pleasantly surprised.
He swept everything into his inventory, then took out the skill book separately.
He'd always wanted more skills. The ones he currently had weren't particularly helpful to him.
After all, he played ranged. A body full of close-combat skills was basically useless.
The Hyuga clan actually possessed quite a few ninTechnique, but the problem was that these people were stubborn to the extreme—they were obsessed with Gentle Fist and barely valued other techniques at all.
Only the main family held many ninTechnique scrolls. For the branch family, aside from Gentle Fist and Byakugan-related scrolls, it was rare to get anything else.
It was honestly hard to put into words.
If you wanted ninTechnique scrolls, you either worked for Konoha—
Or you knelt in front of the main family and became their dog.
And Hyuga Arin had long since decided on a third path.
Farm mobs.
Grind skill books.
He could grind not only Naruto-world skills, but also skill books from other worlds.
It was just that items from other worlds only dropped from specific monsters, and all depended on RNG.
He directly chose to use the skill book.
A flood of ninTechnique knowledge surged into his mind.
[Fire Release · Unknown Flame (Lv1) EXP (0/100) Traits (None)]
Unknown Flame was a D-rank technique in terms of learning difficulty. After activation, it temporarily imbued attacks with fire damage.
"This skill's actually pretty useful for me."
The best part of Unknown Flame was that it could enchant weapons with fire—like shuriken.
"Flaming shuriken have real potential."
Hyuga Arin began forming hand seals.
Snake – Goat – Tiger.
Only three seals.
When the seals were completed, he felt the chakra in his body begin to drain continuously. He thrust his palms forward, flames flashing briefly in his hands.
He picked up a shuriken from the ground and threw it into the distance.
The shuriken ignited, flying out like a small fireball.
"Decent power. Worth leveling up."
There were two ways to level up skills.
One was diligent practice—but that didn't increase EXP. Only after leveling up would the panel values change.
The other was directly consuming EXP from the EXP pool to raise the skill instantly.
Aside from the Substitution Technique, which he'd leveled using EXP, all his other skills were trained the hard way.
He glanced at his EXP pool.
[EXP Pool: 311 + 918 = 1229]
"So I farmed over a thousand this time. Eight hundred more and I can level up again."
Putting those thoughts aside, Hyuga Arin equipped all the gear in his inventory.
[Equipment: (Bandit's Left Greave)(Bandit's Right Greave)(Bandit's Right Bracer)(Bandit's Battle Saber)(Bandit's Battle Armor)]
There was no visible change to his body, except that a bronze saber appeared in his hand.
With a thought, the saber vanished. Another thought—and it reappeared.
"Too bad there's no attribute panel."
Because he'd entered during the closed beta, the attribute panel hadn't been fully implemented.
As a result, even here he couldn't see his stats directly.
Otherwise, he could've seen his growth much more clearly.
Equipment durability also hadn't existed during the beta—it was just a hidden mechanic.
All of that was supposed to be finalized for the official launch.
Unfortunately, he never made it that far.
With a push off the ground, Hyuga Arin charged up the mountain.
He didn't know how many mobs were left up there, but maybe he could finish farming the entire Bandit Set in one go.
The Sap skill was god-tier in the early game.
He'd been drooling over it for a long time.
When he reached the mountaintop, he saw Tsunade and the Hyuga brothers standing there, clearly waiting for him.
Tsunade looked at him expressionlessly.
Hyuga Hiashi leaned against a nearby tree, his hand wrapped in bandages.
Hyuga Hizashi stood beside him, glaring at Hyuga Arin with hostility.
Hyuga Arin's gaze turned unfriendly as well.
"What about the bandits?"
Don't tell him these three had stolen his mobs.
He scanned the area—and didn't even see a single corpse.
Tsunade frowned slightly.
"They ran away before we arrived."
This kid's killing intent was a bit too heavy.
Charging up here with a bronze saber, bristling with murderous aura—don't tell her Hyuga Arin had come up here to hand out warmth and kindness.
Hyuga Arin let out a regretful sigh.
He'd delayed a bit while testing his new skill. Otherwise, he probably could've caught them.
Tsunade looked at Hyuga Arin, full of regret, and felt her headache worsening. Then she glanced at Hyuga Hiashi.
This mission could only be considered partially completed.
One injured person.
Enemies almost entirely wiped out.
Before she came up, she'd seen that only seven or eight bandits had escaped.
The bandits' combat power had basically all been erased by Hyuga Arin.
And that fighting style… well… it was expensive.
The only injured person was someone who'd hurt himself during internal conflict.
It was honestly hard to describe.
This mission was supposed to help Hyuga Hiashi grow—not for Hyuga Arin to go on a killing spree.
Tsunade had no idea how she was supposed to report this when they got back.
Seeing that there were no mobs left, Hyuga Arin flicked his wrist, and the bronze saber disappeared.
Even Tsunade couldn't tell where he'd stored it.
Hyuga Arin turned around and started walking away.
Tsunade called out, "Where are you going?"
"Cleaning up the battlefield," Hyuga Arin waved his hand.
"There are still tons of shuriken lying around. I've gotta pick them all back up."