Could the human body's potential really reach this level?
Hatake Kakashi didn't know. But then he thought about it again. Although Kaede Kitahara constantly mocked him for being low on chakra, barely maintaining the level of an ordinary elite jonin while also being perpetually drained by the Sharingan, his body had undeniably undergone significant changes alongside the Sharingan.
If the factor of the Sharingan's constant drain were removed, his current chakra reserves would be at least seventy percent higher than those of a typical elite jonin.
After all, the Hatake Clan was never known for abundant chakra. They were essentially a lineage of warriors. Their true strength lay in Hatake Kenjutsu. In terms of bloodline, there was nothing particularly outstanding about them.
The problem was that this change had been gradual and subtle. On top of that, the daily cost of maintaining the Sharingan kept eating away at it, making the improvement seem far less obvious.
And he had been plagued by the issue of low chakra for so many years.
Thinking about it like that, he felt even more compelled to find a way to awaken the Mangekyo Sharingan. If he could do that, the chakra shortage problem might be solved once and for all.
But what did "the late-game power-up being taken away" even mean?
He didn't understand.
What kind of slang was that supposed to be?
This was exactly what he hated most about Kaede Kitahara. The guy would casually throw out phrases no normal person could understand, then act smug about it.
Absolutely infuriating.
"This is a world ruled by eyes…"
Uchiha Itachi pondered that line.
Kaede Kitahara had complained about the same thing before.
"So when he says 'eyes,' does he mean ocular kekkei genkai? In Kaede Kitahara's view, are ocular bloodlines really that much stronger than other kekkei genkai?"
Itachi carefully considered the implications.
In the ninja world, if you divided things by hierarchy, the top tier was naturally occupied by clans with kekkei genkai. Typical examples were the Uchiha Clan, the Hyuga Clan, the Yuki Clan, the Kaguya Clan, and others like them.
Below them were clans with secret techniques, though not to the level of kekkei genkai. The most representative examples were Ino-Shika-Cho and the Inuzuka Clan.
Below that were clans without secret techniques, but with their own distinct traditions, such as the Hatake Clan that Hatake Kakashi belonged to.
Below even that were small families like Kaede Kitahara's. Families whose ancestors had once been ninja, though not of high rank, and who might leave behind a few jutsu for their descendants. They could hardly even be called proper clans.
At the very bottom were families like Haruno Sakura's. No ninja ancestors at all, first-generation civilian ninja households.
As a member of a top-tier kekkei genkai clan, Uchiha Itachi had his own pride. Whether in combat experience or reputation within the ninja world, the Uchiha Clan truly stood at the pinnacle.
But they weren't alone at the top.
The Senju Clan, the Uzumaki Clan, the Kaguya Clan… in front of these clans, the Uchiha didn't hold an overwhelming advantage.
Yet in Kaede Kitahara's eyes, were ocular kekkei genkai the true pinnacle among all bloodlines?
Itachi didn't know what Kaede Kitahara's criteria were, but since Kaede Kitahara had said it, he chose to believe it.
"Are kekkei genkai really that powerful?" Jiraiya took a sip of wine to warm himself, leaning back against a large tree in the forest as the campfire crackled in front of him.
He was different from Orochimaru.
His path relied on self-improvement and the system of senjutsu.
No matter how strong his opponent was, he would dare to test himself against them. He never had Orochimaru's obsession with the Sharingan.
Otherwise, back when he learned that Nagato possessed the Rinnegan, he would have acted immediately. He disdained that kind of behavior, and he never believed that having the Rinnegan alone made someone invincible.
The Rinnegan was simply one of the three great ocular kekkei genkai, alongside the Sharingan and the Byakugan. It wasn't like he had never fought against users of the Sharingan or the Byakugan before.
Whether within the Uchiha Clan or the Hyuga Clan, he couldn't find anyone who could truly match him.
Because of that, he instinctively never placed too much importance on kekkei genkai.
Of course, that conclusion no longer fully held up.
The Uchiha Clan did have individuals who could fight him. Uchiha Itachi, for example. And the future Uchiha Sasuke.
Still, he didn't believe kekkei genkai decided everything, or that without ocular bloodlines, a ninja was nothing.
The perfect ninja, in his mind, was someone like the Fourth Hokage, Namikaze Minato. Even if you had a kekkei genkai, in front of that man, it amounted to nothing.
At Tazuna's house, inside Kaede Kitahara's small room, he was about to continue writing in his diary when there were a few knocks on the window.
He opened it and saw… another himself.
It was the shadow clone he had sent earlier to deal with Tazuna's situation.
"Mission completed?" Kaede Kitahara asked.
"Yeah. Finding Gato wasn't hard, but controlling him took some effort. He had a group of wandering ninja around him. Luckily, there were no jonin among them. After dealing with them, I used the Sharingan to control Gato and confiscated his liquid assets," the shadow clone said. "He still has a large amount of real estate and businesses. I suggest we leave those untouched for now and let him keep managing them. That way, they'll generate a steady cash flow for us."
"Well done," Kaede Kitahara nodded, clearly satisfied with how the shadow clone handled things. Of course, the clone thought the same way he did.
As he spoke, the shadow clone took out a black suitcase and handed it over.
"Thirty million ryo. This is all the cash he can currently mobilize. I also left a Flying Thunder God mark on him. If you want to contact him conveniently later, you'll need to bring another kunai engraved with the Flying Thunder God formula over there."
"With my current chakra, as long as I don't fight, I can probably maintain myself for about two months. That means every two months, you'll need to send another shadow clone to replace me."
Kaede Kitahara took the black suitcase and couldn't help but smile.
He had struck it rich.
This was far more than what he got from raiding that bandit hideout last time. Calling it a sudden windfall wouldn't be an exaggeration.
To put it into perspective, under Konoha's current mission system, D-rank missions paid roughly five hundred to ten thousand ryo. C-rank missions ranged from ten thousand to fifty thousand. B-rank missions paid eighty thousand to two hundred thousand. A-rank missions ranged from one hundred fifty thousand to one million. S-rank missions exceeded one million ryo.
And that was the total payout.
After Konoha took its thirty percent cut and the remainder was split among team members, there wasn't much left.
Take this escort mission, for example. It was classified as B-rank. Because the client was Konoha itself, there was no cut taken, but the payout was much lower than a typical B-rank mission. Only one hundred thousand ryo total.
As the acting team leader, Kaede Kitahara received half, fifty thousand ryo. Hyuga Keiko and Amakusa Ryuji each received twenty-five thousand.
Thirty million ryo.
That was equivalent to completing six hundred B-rank missions.
And each of those missions could easily take a month if something went wrong. On top of that, just living in Konoha cost several thousand to over ten thousand ryo per month in basic expenses.
It looked like there might be some savings left, but in reality, if Kaede Kitahara hadn't been leading the team, Hyuga Keiko and Amakusa Ryuji would have only been able to take on D-rank or C-rank missions. They wouldn't have earned much at all.
Everyone was struggling just to survive.
That was why even elite jonin, standing at the top of the food chain, still went out to take missions. This world was brutally competitive. If you didn't do it, plenty of other ninja would.
Even an organization as powerful as the Akatsuki still took on jobs to make money.
That said it all.
So Uzumaki Naruto being so eager to take on high-rank missions made perfect sense. It wasn't just a kid wanting to show off.
It was poverty.
Living off expired food every day would break anyone.
As for jonin instructors, they often lacked motivation when leading teams. During that period, their income dropped sharply since they were stuck doing low-rank missions. It was practically unpaid labor.
Konoha did provide subsidies, so it wasn't unbearable, but still.
According to Kaede Kitahara's memories, the Land of Waves mission would later be upgraded to A-rank because it involved elite jonin. As the escort team, a rank increase was only reasonable.
That would mean everyone could at least double their earnings.
Of course, unlike other ninja who were deeply ingrained with the idea that you never touched the client, Kaede Kitahara had no such qualms. When it came to an illegal businessman like Gato, he felt zero guilt.
After taking the money, Kaede Kitahara did some quick calculations.
Two months.
Under normal circumstances, a shadow clone wouldn't last that long. Even doing nothing, maintaining a clone still consumed chakra.
But he was different.
He had six times the chakra of an elite jonin. Splitting off a single shadow clone meant that clone still had roughly three times an elite jonin's chakra reserves. Naturally, it could last a long time.
Still, to be safe, he needed Flying Thunder God kunai stationed there.
Unfortunately, he had only drawn the beginner-level Flying Thunder God so far. As his chakra increased, the range of his sensing also expanded, but no matter what, he couldn't sense from Konoha all the way to the Land of Waves.
To solve that problem, he would need a higher-level Flying Thunder God, or a talent for space-time ninjutsu so he could research it himself.
He had already tried.
He didn't have that talent.
There had never been many people in the entire ninja world with that aptitude. Otherwise, after all these years since the Flying Thunder God was created, there wouldn't be only one true successor.
Namikaze Minato had passed the Flying Thunder God to his guard squad, but they only grasped fragments of it. They couldn't use it in real combat.
That alone showed how rare such talent truly was.