Chapter 196: Reconnaissance Ability
What Ishiro had said about having long since arranged Matsutani Shinya's training path was, naturally, false. Ishiro himself hadn't yet succeeded in practicing Sage Mode, so it was almost impossible for him to teach it to Matsutani Shinya.
Ishiro merely hoped Matsutani Shinya wouldn't lose his true nature.
However, Ishiro wasn't trying to harm Matsutani Shinya either. Although Ishiro himself couldn't yet practice Sage Mode, he still had some insights. Judging by Matsutani Shinya's degree of affinity with small animals, it was still worth putting effort into this aspect in the future.
Once Matsutani Shinya had grown to a certain extent, Ishiro would naturally guide him slowly onto the path of practicing Sage Mode. As for whether he could succeed, Ishiro naturally couldn't guarantee it.
After guiding the three, Ishiro said to them again, "Tomorrow, I need to leave the village for a trip. Do you want to go with me?"
"I want to go, I want to go!" Ogura Saki was the first to cheer. Her new ninjutsu development was successful, and she was eager to go out and explore, looking for suitable opportunities to practice.
Takumi and Matsutani Shinya had no objections either. With youthful hearts, they all yearned for the outside world.
Thus, the next day, after Ishiro conveniently accepted a mission to the capital for Team Two, the group of four set off.
The mission Ishiro accepted was still a relatively simple escort mission. However, they were no longer escorting a merchant caravan, but an official. In the current Land of Earth, it was much safer for merchant caravans to travel than before.
The trade routes had specialized ninjas performing patrol duties, making business safety arguably the best in the ninja world. Therefore, many merchant caravans no longer paid to hire ninjas for protection.
Unless it was those merchant caravans traveling far from the Land of Earth, but the missions they posted often required ninjas to rendezvous with the caravan at the Land of Earth's border to save costs.
However, when officials traveled long distances, they still habitually hired ninjas to accompany them. In Ishiro's view, this was less about escorting and more about the officials' display of status.
But these things didn't concern Ishiro much. As long as they paid the remuneration according to regulations, other matters had little to do with Ishiro. Ishiro had no intention of cracking down on corrupt officials, much less any thoughts of abolishing the Daimyō structure like many of his transmigrator predecessors.
Ishiro felt that the model of the Daimyō managing the economy and the Kage being responsible for military affairs was quite good. Currently, in the ninja world, the two basically didn't interfere with each other.
Although the Daimyō controlled the ninja villages' expenditures, the Daimyō of various countries weren't fools either. They knew the importance of a ninja village to a country and generally wouldn't meddle with military expenses. Daimyō like the one from the Land of Wind were a minority.
And even the Daimyō of the Land of Wind, despite reducing expenditure for Sunagakure, was still paying the bulk of it. It was just that Sunagakure had just finished a war and had encountered difficulties with the reconstruction and recovery efforts they had originally hoped the Daimyō would fund. But Sunagakure's normal military activities could still be maintained.
In short, Ishiro was not an ambitious person and had little interest in abolishing the Daimyō and consolidating both military and economic power in his own hands.
Ishiro's pursuits did not lie in this area; achieving the sublimation of his own life was what Ishiro desired.
On the way, Ishiro took out two B-rank Wind Release ninjutsu scrolls and handed them to Ogura Saki.
These were exchanged by Ishiro from the village the previous day using Ogura Saki's notes. Of course, what the village exchanged to Ogura Saki was merely the eligibility to redeem two B-rank ninjutsu.
The contribution points required for redemption were originally supposed to be borne by Ishiro. However, Ishiro already possessed these two Wind Release jutsus, so he didn't need to spend contribution points.
Of course, Ishiro was now an advisor, and the benefits provided by the village were very high. Ishiro was no longer very concerned about contribution points. Ishiro didn't even know how many contribution points he hadn't claimed yet.
And Ogura Saki didn't need to immediately pay Ishiro contribution points either. The contribution points she owed Ishiro could just be slowly deducted from her future mission earnings, and this price was also much lower than a normal exchange.
This was precisely one of the benefits of becoming a Jōnin's disciple: the exchange for ninjutsu could often be paid in advance by the Jōnin teacher, and the price would also be considerably lower.
Ogura Saki's strength was still very low. Under normal circumstances, Ishiro, as her supervising teacher, shouldn't have given her B-rank ninjutsu at this time, let alone two at once.
However, considering Ogura Saki's uniqueness, Ishiro made an exception and gave her B-rank ninjutsu ahead of schedule.
Throughout the journey, Ogura Saki was engrossed in pondering the contents of the scrolls, appearing busy and fulfilled.
On the other side, Matsutani Shinya, surprisingly, wasn't idle either. Relying on his special affinity with small animals, he was attempting to gather information about their surroundings.
Matsutani Shinya had never done such a thing before. Let alone doing it, he hadn't even thought about it.
But now, Matsutani Shinya had proactively begun to scout. It seemed Matsutani Shinya truly wanted to make some changes this time.
Ishiro didn't hold much expectation for Matsutani Shinya's scouting.
It wasn't that this method was bad, but that Matsutani Shinya was not yet proficient. This kind of scouting wasn't systematic, and whether he could discover anything depended entirely on luck.
Moreover, when Ishiro traveled with his three disciples, his vigilance was far higher than when he acted alone. His S-rank ninjutsu, "Mind's Eye," was constantly on alert.
Ishiro had become much more proficient with the "Mind's Eye" ninjutsu after his trip to the Land of Whirlpools. Especially the process of spending over ten days meticulously checking the ground inch by inch outside Uzushiogakure had made Ishiro's use of "Mind's Eye" increasingly adept.
Now, when not in combat and when his concentration wasn't overly divided, Ishiro could already effectively maintain vigilance within a radius of 200 meters.
With this layer of vigilance in place, Ishiro didn't think Matsutani Shinya's reconnaissance could play much of a role. However, it was rare for the little fellow to be willing to think and act proactively, and Ishiro was very supportive of this.
Ishiro also offered Matsutani Shinya many suggestions based on his own ninja experience.
Lastly, there was Takumi. His efforts truly surprised Ishiro. Since he had Ishiro, his teacher, around, Takumi didn't have to worry about safety issues. So, he actually used the originally boring travel time for physical training.
Takumi's specialty was speed. This kind of travel process was very suitable for him to conduct load-bearing training.
Ishiro watched Takumi, wearing weights, running back and forth around the team for training, feeling quite emotional. If he himself had possessed such determination in practicing taijutsu back then, his current physical constitution would probably be a level higher.
Of course, if Ishiro had really done that, his ninjutsu aspect would probably have been delayed.
In any case, by comparison, on this journey, it was instead Ishiro, the teacher, who seemed a bit lazy.
There was no helping it; Ishiro had to focus most of his mental energy on guarding their surroundings and didn't dare to be too distracted with training matters.
Just like that, the group of four, while training, escorted a group of civilians without chakra, slowly advancing towards the capital. The team's speed was not fast. After traveling for more than two days, they hadn't even covered half the distance.
On this day, Matsutani Shinya, who was scouting with small animals as usual, suddenly said to Ishiro, "Ishiro-sensei, about two kilometers to our front left, there are several ninjas."
"The feedback from the small animals is rather vague, but their attire doesn't seem to be that of our Iwagakure. They might be rogue ninjas."
Ishiro was stunned. Two kilometers – this distance was genuinely not small. He hadn't expected Matsutani Shinya's reconnaissance range to be this large. And this probably wasn't even his limit.
However, this was a good thing, after all, so Ishiro didn't dwell on it. What truly puzzled Ishiro was, how could there be rogue ninjas nearby?
Ishiro and his team were escorting this official on a direct route. In other words, Ishiro and his team were currently near the direct line between Iwagakure village and the Land of Earth's capital.
This area could be considered a high-frequency activity zone for Iwagakure ninjas. How could rogue ninjas appear here?
Thinking differently, rogue ninjas appearing here were either clueless trash or powerful outsider confident in their own strength.
Ishiro leaned more towards the latter because, in recent years, the Land of Earth had been cracking down hard on rogue ninjas, and many rogue ninjas had been forced to leave the Land of Earth.
Although due to the outbreak of war, the Land of Earth had become somewhat more chaotic than before the war, and many rogue ninjas had returned.
But later, the Land of Earth was the first country to break away from the flames of war. By now, Iwagakure had already conducted a round of purging rogue ninjas who had infiltrated the Land of Earth taking advantage of the war.
As a high-ranking member of the village, Ishiro was very clear about these matters.
Although Ishiro wouldn't be foolish enough to think there were no more rogue ninjas in the Land of Earth, their numbers were certainly not large and were the fewest among all countries in the ninja world.
Even Konoha wouldn't spend too much effort and financial resources to clean up rogue ninjas within the Land of Fire, because it wasn't worth it.
Only Iwagakure had special funds allocated by the Daimyō for maintaining the trade routes.
These few rogue ninjas who hadn't been cleared out by Iwagakure were all either exceptionally strong or extremely cautious.
However, these old foxes generally wouldn't dare to appear in such a dangerous place, unless there was some huge benefit worth them risking it.
Ishiro squatted down and activated his sensory ninjutsu.
Under Ishiro's detection, he indeed found seven ninjas at the location Matsutani Shinya had indicated.
"They really are tough nuts to crack." In Ishiro's sensory ninjutsu, the strength of these seven ninjas was at least Chūnin level, and three among them had even reached Jōnin level.
This made Ishiro very curious. This configuration surpassed that of two Anbu squads. Ishiro highly suspected whether these were really rogue ninjas. Perhaps this group was fundamentally spies from another country.
Three Jōnin – they probably weren't targeting Ishiro. No matter what, Ishiro was also an Elite Jōnin, and a top-tier existence among Elite Jōnin.
Even if others weren't clear about Ishiro's true situation, they should at least show the attitude of dealing with a top-tier Elite Jōnin.
Three Jōnin leading five Chūnin, if they cooperated well and added a sneak attack, it wasn't impossible to deal with an Elite Jōnin. But to play like this deep within enemy territory was a joke.
Ishiro didn't need to counter-kill; he just needed to send out a signal, and nearby Iwagakure ninjas would come to support.
Therefore, Ishiro guessed that the target strength of these ninjas should be far less than their combined group.
Because only by achieving a swift victory could they possibly escape safely.
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