Since they wanted to crash the party, they naturally had to prepare the best candidates.
Didn't the three kids want a more exciting mission? Causing trouble in another ninja village right in front of the Five Great Nations...
No matter how you looked at it, this mission would be thrilling enough.
As for the team leader, naturally, he, the Hokage himself, would take the helm.
Hearing Jie's plan, a thoughtful expression washed over Tsunade's face. The other Four Great Ninja Villages were allying against Konoha.
If not handled well, the Fourth Great Ninja War could break out at any moment. And once a war erupted, Konoha would be thrust right into the heart of the storm.
The disastrous scenario of fighting one against four would repeat itself.
Thinking about how tragic such a massive war would be, Tsunade felt a chill run down her spine. However, as she looked at Jie's face, she realized her worries were entirely unfounded.
Five years ago, Jie had easily defeated the Fourth Raikage and forced Kumogakure into submission.
Now, five years had passed. These were the exact years where his body had developed rapidly and his strength had soared.
The current Tsunade couldn't even fathom just how powerful Jie Uchiha had become. She honestly felt that even her grandfather, Hashirama Senju... the God of Shinobi, might not be a match for him now.
With such a stabilizing pillar holding up the village, coupled with the dedicated administrative efforts of herself and her peers, fighting a multi-front war wouldn't actually be a difficult task for Konoha.
Furthermore, over the past five years, war reparations from Kumogakure and Iwagakure had been continuously pouring into Konoha, supplemented by massive military funds allocated by the Fire Daimyo.
Sitting on the combined resources of three ninja villages, Konoha's development speed was completely unimaginable to the outside world.
Because Tsunade practically lived in the Hokage's secretariat, handling matters big and small, she was the only one who truly grasped the scope of Konoha's explosive growth. T
ake the simplest example... flush with resources, the Ninja Academy had been expanded three times in just five short years. More and more refugees had been drawn to Konoha to settle down, bringing with them a vast number of commoners with excellent ninja talent.
After five years of relentless development, the number of registered civilian ninjas in Konoha alone exceeded 50,000. If one added the elite shinobi from the various ninja clans, assembling an army of 80,000 ninja would be an absolute breeze.
Recalling the data in her head, Tsunade was startled. It really was a case of not knowing until you ran the numbers; she was shocked to realize how overwhelmingly powerful Konoha had become.
With this kind of military might, even annihilating the other Four Great Ninja Villages in one fell swoop wouldn't be much of a problem. There seemed to be no need to worry about their little alliance posing a threat anymore.
Thinking of this, Tsunade fell silent for a long time.
Only after a long while did she let out a heavy sigh. "Grandpa choosing you to be Hokage was truly the most correct decision!"
Hearing Tsunade's sudden outburst, Jie was completely baffled.
Weren't they just discussing how to deal with the joint exams? Why did it suddenly shift to him being Hokage? And what did this have to do with Hashirama Senju?
However, it was obvious that Jie, acting as a completely hands-off leader, had no idea just how terrifying his own village had become. If he did, he might not have even found the upcoming exams interesting enough to participate in.
Tsunade had no desire to explain herself. She decided to let the slacker Hokage stay in the dark. As for his reckless plan, Tsunade simply washed her hands of it and allowed him to do as he pleased.
Having true power gave one that kind of confidence.
Even if Jie completely messed up and triggered the Fourth Great Ninja War... so what? At worst, Konoha would just deploy its troops to wipe the other four villages off the map entirely.
If you removed the people causing the problems, then the ninja world wouldn't have any problems.
Jie couldn't understand Tsunade's sudden change in attitude. No matter how much he thought about it, he couldn't figure out what she was planning. After a moment, he gave up trying to guess and simply moved on.
But since she had no objections, it was naturally a good thing for him.
And since the mission for the trio was set, Jie happily tossed the rest of the administrative paperwork back onto Tsunade's desk. This time, however, she didn't even bicker with him. She readily let him slip away to slack off.
Through her earlier reflections, Tsunade had finally figured it out.
What was a Hokage's job? Wasn't it to lead the village to greatness and protect the villagers from being bullied by outsiders?
Right now, even though Jie was entirely hands-off, under his reign, Konoha had reached a staggering peak that the previous four Hokages couldn't even hope to achieve.
With such glorious results and such a foundation, what could she possibly be dissatisfied with?
In short, having absolute strength bred absolute confidence. After all, this Konoha belonged to the villagers, belonged to the Uchiha clan, and above all, belonged to her Senju clan.
Tsunade smiled silently to herself.
The next day, Jie summoned the three kids once again.
Although the strength of the trio was already unimaginably high compared to their peers, this time, Jie wanted to take them to the stage set by the Five Great Nations to truly show off Konoha's prestige.
Therefore, he felt that the stronger they were, the better.
Ideally, each of them would be able to completely suppress the younger generation of the other four ninja villages until they couldn't even lift their heads.
There was still half a month until the joint exam.
During this time, Jie wanted to push their strength up by at least another tier. To achieve this, he decided to conduct a brutal special training session.
Child's play like tree climbing and water walking had been mastered by the trio back when they first learned to refine chakra. So, if Jie wanted to rapidly increase their strength, he had to find another way entirely.
For Naruto, the fastest method to increase his combat power was to master the Tailed Beast Cloak. Even if he could only safely use one tail, it would be a massive leap in strength.
Because of this, Jie took some time to personally visit the seal space and have a 'friendly' chat with the Nine-Tails.
Although the process was slightly turbulent, the result was good.
The Nine-Tails agreed to slowly merge its chakra into Naruto's system, allowing the boy to adapt to its corrosive effects as quickly as possible. This way, when using the Tailed Beast Cloak, Naruto would be able to handle significantly more power without losing his mind.
With that issue resolved, Naruto just needed to spend the remaining two weeks learning to control it.
As for Sasuke, his path was also simple. He had already awakened the Three-Tomoe Sharingan, but his frail body couldn't support the tremendous visual prowess it provided.
Moreover, in terms of pure taijutsu talent, Sasuke was still slightly inferior to Hinata. Thus, while both were learning the Lightning Release Body Enhancement and the Lightning Release Chakra Mode, Sasuke's progress lagged far behind hers.
Since Sasuke's natural talent wasn't enough to learn it smoothly, Jie decided he couldn't be blamed for forcefully accelerating his growth. Sasuke wouldn't suffer permanent injuries, nor would it affect his future potential, but a period of absolute living hell was inevitable.
As for Hinata... what kind of grueling special training did she really need? Her current strength was already more than enough.
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