Naruto: Cultivating to Immortality

Chapter 33 Unexpected Battle

As dawn broke, last night's intelligence-destroying operation was successfully completed.

Back at the camp, Hyuga Kanan got a rare rest and immediately went back to his tent to begin his training.

Hyuga Kanan didn't participate in yesterday's battle, but he watched the whole thing. He increasingly realized that his strength was insufficient. Jonin were still beyond his current capabilities.

Jonin are ninja masters with virtually no obvious weaknesses. Their taijutsu, ninjutsu, and genjutsu are all above average, and they possess their own signature techniques. In major ninja villages, Jonin are considered mid-to-high-level ninjas with considerable influence. After all, even in Konoha, the number of officially registered Jonin is only a little over a hundred, a number that is only found among more than 20,000 ninjas—truly one in a hundred.

Yesterday, the Jonin leading the team put up a fierce resistance against a combined attack from Konoha ninja, including Orochimaru and Jiraiya, and almost escaped when Konoha was unwilling to pay a heavy price. If Orochimaru hadn't injected snake venom into the attackers, many of the Konoha ninja would likely have been injured.

Now, what Hyuga Kanan needs to do is cultivate and increase the amount of energy within his body. Through several battles, he has gained a clear understanding of his current strength. First, there's genjutsu (illusionary techniques). That's useless against him; with his powerful soul force, ordinary genjutsu has no effect. Second, there's taijutsu (body techniques). His body has already been optimized by the natural energy refined through the Taoist Qi Refining Technique, and it will become stronger over time. He can currently maintain a level comparable to an elite Chunin, and under burst damage, he can easily contend with Jonin-level taijutsu. However, his internal energy is too low, which significantly reduces his stamina to maintain powerful taijutsu. Finally, there's ninjutsu. Unfortunately, Hyuga Kanan cannot use ninjutsu at all because he has no chakra. He cannot use the fragments of the Sage of Six Paths' will within his chakra to influence the rules of heaven and earth and unleash ninjutsu. His current level is not yet high enough to access the rules of heaven and earth. Only after reaching at least the Innate Realm can he formally access the power of the rules of heaven and earth and mobilize a small portion of the rules to use attacks similar to ninjutsu.

Therefore, Hyuga Kanan's current overall strength is probably at the Chunin level, a Chunin skilled in taijutsu. He would be in a very awkward position when facing ninjutsu attacks, as he could only rely on the Eight Trigrams Palm - Rotation for defense and had no way to attack. If his information were leaked, a Chunin skilled in ninjutsu attacks could easily suppress him.

Ninja combat is a profession that highly values ​​enemy intelligence. Leaked information can easily reveal weaknesses, which can be exploited to defeat the opponent more easily. Unless there is a significant difference in strength between the two, this doesn't matter as much.

Hyuga Kanan is clearly still in the novice stage of Taoist cultivation. In the Earth's cultivation era, novices would quietly cultivate within their sects, only venturing out to gain experience after reaching a certain level. However, the ninja world obviously doesn't have a novice protection period; as long as someone has a little strength, they're immediately sent out on missions. The Sage of Six Paths has clearly conducted a thousand-year-long ideological education of the entire ninja world, preventing them from developing a concept of unity; his goal is constant infighting among them.

If Hyuga Kanan wants to survive in the ninja world, he has no choice but to desperately and rapidly improve his cultivation level. Otherwise, in a war like this, his precarious situation won't improve. Therefore, as soon as Hyuga Kanan returned, he immediately began training.

Konoha's first step in its plan was a success. The Iwa ninja waited for a whole day but did not see their reconnaissance team return, so they guessed that the reconnaissance team had been eliminated by Konoha.

This delayed Konoha by another day.

In the following days, the Iwa ninja began to mobilize large-scale teams to conduct reconnaissance activities against Konoha. Hyuga Kanan also followed Orochimaru on many occasions. However, there were too many Iwa ninja, and true and false information kept leaking out.

"Boom!" An explosion rang out not far from the Konoha camp. This time, the Iwa ninja had discovered Konoha's true strength. Three Iwa ninja squads, each led by a Jonin, discovered that Konoha's supplies were being depleted and that the number and quality of their ninjas did not match the intelligence revealed during their first battle. They immediately prepared to retreat and report back.

In fact, Orochimaru had anticipated that once the Iwa ninja conducted a large-scale reconnaissance of the Konoha camp, they would quickly discover clues about Konoha.

Although they had tried their best to prevent the leak of intelligence, Konoha's powerful ninjas were too few in number. Orochimaru, Jiraiya, and Tsunade hadn't had a proper rest for several days and had been constantly annihilating Iwa ninja reconnaissance teams. However, the disparity in numbers still led to an unexpected incident, and Iwa ninjas managed to uncover Konoha's intelligence.

Orochimaru, Jiraiya, and Tsunade were all held back by Iwa ninja from other places. This time, the Iwa ninja left with information and no other Konoha strongmen could stop them. They could only rely on numbers to block the Iwa ninja's retreat. Even Hyuga Kanan joined the team to stop them.

In fact, when supporting the blocking team, Hyuga Kanan knew that it would be difficult for him and his men to stop the Iwa ninja's retreat, as the opposing Iwa ninja had three Jonin leading the team.

Although the number of Konoha ninjas blocking their way was much greater, they were mostly genin. Hyuga Kanan still gritted his teeth and went to support the Konoha ninjas who were blocking their way.

If this group of Iwa ninja successfully delivers the intelligence, then the main force of Iwa ninja may immediately launch a full-scale attack. In that case, the melee will be even more dangerous for me. After all, in the last melee, I was besieged by many Iwa ninja. If Yuan Fei and Quan Xiong hadn't opened an opening for me to escape, my body would probably be rotting by now.

When Xiang Jianan arrived at the scene, the Konoha ninja had already lost two-thirds of their personnel, but the Iwa ninja only had four left, and one of them was about to break through the blocking force.

Hyuga Kanan deliberately headed towards the Iwa ninja who was about to break through. He could hold out here for now; his job was to delay the Iwa ninja's progress. The other Konoha reinforcements should be arriving soon.

Hyuga Kanan moved quickly and arrived not far from the Iwagakure ninja.

"Oh. You little brat, you're going to stop me too? Now you're all alone, aren't you going to give up?" Iwa ninja said in a deep, hoarse voice to Hyuga Kanan, who appeared in front of him.

The tall Iwa ninja snapped the neck of the Konoha ninja beside him, tossed the body aside, and strode toward Hyuga Kanan.

Hyuga Kanan's heart sank.

The tall Iwa ninja opposite him was at least a Jonin, and a very experienced one at that. He had just used an extremely powerful defensive ninjutsu that covered his entire body. He had withstood the attacks from several Konoha ninjas and even launched a swift counterattack, killing the Konoha ninjas before they could react.

Seeing that Hyuga Kanan didn't answer, the tall Iwagakure continued talking to himself:

"Judging from your appearance, your eyes, and how quickly you spotted your weaknesses and blocked my way, you must be a ninja from the Hyuga clan of Konoha! You have such beautiful eyes. Could you be from the main Hyuga clan? Am I really that lucky?"

After saying that, he looked at Hinata Kanan's eyes with great interest.

"Hmph!" Hyuga Kanan tensed up and used his Byakugan on the tall Iwa ninja: "If you want to know if they're from the main branch, why don't you try it yourself?"

“Yes, that’s exactly what I think.” Gao Daiyan Shinobu said with some delight:

"But it's rare to encounter a lone Hyuga clan ninja, especially one who is still a budding member and might even be a member of the main branch, so I couldn't help but get excited."

“However…” Takao Iwashi straightened his back, a smile playing on his lips, his eyes gleaming with lucky delight: “I think you’re right! I’ll take you down myself.”

The tall Iwa ninja raised his arm and charged towards Hyuga Kanan: "Earth Release - Fist Rock Technique!"

The chakra emanating from his palm quickly drew in earth element, covering his entire arm like a stone pillar. A huge yet incredibly sharp, metal rod-like pillar, carrying the force of a fist, attacked Hyuga Kanan.

It is extremely fast and has tremendous power.

"Whoosh!" The Body Flicker Technique was activated, and the huge rock fist instantly shattered the trees and ground behind Hyuga Kanan into pieces.

"Tch! Quickly activates Body Flicker Technique... Not bad, kid."

The Iwa ninja were very dissatisfied with Hyuga Kanan's ability to dodge his B-rank Earth Split Fist using the Body Flicker Technique.

Fortunately, I was on the safe side and prepared the Body Flicker Technique in advance!

Hyuga Kanan, panting heavily and still shaken, had barely dodged the attack after quickly moving her body.

This towering Iwa ninja, despite his enormous size, possessed incredible speed and strength when using ninjutsu! No wonder so many Konoha ninjas died or were injured without being able to stop him. He was on a completely different level from the Jonin we encountered in the Land of Rain.

The battle continues.

Hyuga Kanan swallowed hard, observed the position of the tall Iwa ninja, and launched an attack using the Eight Trigrams Palm.

"Eight Trigrams Palm - Deadly Strike!" Hyuga Kanan instantly teleported behind the tall Iwa ninja and launched a direct attack using his most powerful ninjutsu.

A Bagua pattern appeared around Hyuga Kanan and Takao Iwagakure, enveloping him and creating countless streams of air that bound his body, preventing him from moving. His sword finger then fiercely attacked towards his heart.

"Hehe." Gao Daiyan chuckled softly, standing still without moving or breaking free from the restraints, his hands forming a hand seal: "Earth Release - Earth Spear Technique!"

A thick layer of Earth Release chakra surged from his body, then condensed into a gray-black skin with a metallic sheen, enveloping the tall Iwa ninja's entire body.

The fatal sword-finger strike hit the body, but it was blocked instantly, just like hitting a steel plate. It didn't penetrate the defense, leaving only a small dent.

Takada Iwa-nin turned around and threw a punch, his already dark skin instantly turning his fist completely black.

The black fist slammed into Hyuga Kanan's body with such speed that Kanan had no time to react before it struck his abdomen. His figure flew backward instantly and crashed into a boulder.

Cracks instantly appeared around Hyuga Kanan on the boulder and continued to extend outwards.