Naruto Online: The Strongest Player

Chapter 94: What to do 

"You're telling me there's a Chunin Exam?" I asked, glancing sideways at Yoru, who was currently sprawled lazily across a sun-warmed rock, half-heartedly chewing on a piece of fish. The toads had originally insisted I eat what they ate—grubs, beetles, and other thoroughly unappetizing things that still wriggled after being served. I had done it for the first few days, forcing down each bite like a punishment, until I decided I had endured enough. After that, I began asking Yoru to bring me actual food.

"Yes," she replied casually, still focused on her fish. "Did I not tell you?"

Without hesitation, I reached down, picked the small black cat up by the scruff of her neck, and brought her up to eye level. "Hey! I'm still eating!" she complained, paws twitching in mid-air.

"Yoru," I said flatly. "You already told me you were eating fish while talking to Yuki. Which means you've had this information for a while."

She gave me a wide-eyed, faux-innocent stare, then tilted her head. "So what? What's wrong if a kitty cat like me eats food?"

I sighed. "What's wrong is that your mother explicitly said you were on a diet. You're eating too much fish."

"I told you that in confidence!" she yelped indignantly.

Shaking my head, I gently set her down and watched as she indignantly began grooming herself, clearly pretending not to be embarrassed. The topic, however, stuck with me.

A Chunin Exam.

It made no sense. Not in the grander scheme of things. The world had just experienced a full-blown war, and now they were organizing a Chunin Exam like it was business as usual? Even my wood clone, stationed in the Land of Iron, had failed to pick up on this. If not for Yoru's peculiar ability to tap into strange bits of knowledge, I wouldn't have heard about it either.

Eventually, I turned to Lord Fukasaku, who had been meditating quietly atop a rock a few meters away. "Is it possible," I asked, "to get in contact with Jiraiya-sensei and have him come to Mount Myoboku? There's something I need to ask him."

The old toad cracked one eye open, studied me for a moment, then gave a slow nod. "I'll pass along the request. He's overdue for his regular check-in anyway."

That brought another thought to mind. Jiraiya and I had agreed to meet regularly. He was supposed to check the progress on the seal we'd been refining. Two weeks had gone by without a word from him.

That left me alone in this pocket of training.

I walked back to my usual place beneath the stone outcropping and unfolded a scroll. If Jiraiya wasn't coming, then I might as well keep working. My progress on the seal had plateaued. Without a mentor to guide the last refinements, my iterations had started to feel repetitive. Small adjustments, microscopic improvements. No major breakthroughs.

It had been almost two full months since I arrived here.

The scenery no longer felt foreign. The towering toad statues, the ever-present mist, the croaking of giant amphibians practicing katas under waterfalls—it had all become part of a routine.

But the lack of forward momentum was beginning to wear on me.

I wasn't getting weaker. That much was clear. My clone sent out into the wider game world returned with incredible data. Just a few days ago, one had wiped out a team of over a hundred players using nothing more than a combination of B-rank Earth release techniques.

The gap was immense.

But even with my strength, this sense of stasis—it was frustrating.

I rolled the scroll closed, tapped it once to seal the ink back inside, and leaned against the stone.

There was too much happening outside of this place. And now, with Yoru's information about the Chunin Exams, and Jiraiya's absence.

I had to start moving again.

Soon... especially since there was a lot more for me to do.

I was able to find out what happened in the Shadow Kage Summit as well, and fortunately, not all of the major villages were in agreement with the Raikage. It appeared that while tensions were high, most of the other leaders were still wary of the Land of Fire's latent power. Rather than acting independently, they had opted to form more of a cooperative alliance—as a kind of counterbalance, should the Land of Fire grow too dominant.

The immediate impact was that all trade agreements with the Land of Fire had been temporarily suspended. Instead, trade routes and negotiations had shifted to favor the Shadow Cabinet and its affiliated territories. It did disrupt the Land of Fire's economic systems in minor ways, but not catastrophically so. The infrastructure and legacy put in place by the previous Hokage remained deeply embedded and resilient enough to weather the turbulence.

Still, this upcoming Chunin Selection Examination—it felt out of place. In the anime, the exams were usually a way to foster cooperation between nations. But in this world, cooperation wasn't a priority. Not after the recent war. Not with tensions still simmering beneath every diplomatic interaction. That's what made the existence of this examination so suspect. It didn't feel like a diplomatic event. It felt... orchestrated.

I didn't have evidence. Only a growing unease that crept into my mind whenever I tried to make sense of its timing. And for some reason, a quiet voice at the back of my head kept whispering one possibility:

The Akatsuki.

Somehow, they were involved in this. I didn't know how yet—but I was going to find out.

I needed to find out more, especially with the growing suspicion surrounding the Chunin Exams and the increasing tension across the Shinobi nations. More pressingly, I had to start tracking down another member of the Akatsuki—the one who had fought Sora-sensei using a strange and distinct spear-style. The same one the old blacksmith, hidden away beneath the Shogun's estate, had specifically asked me to find.

Finding members of the Akatsuki was no small task. They were, after all, an elite organization composed entirely of S-rank missing-nin, each one capable of reshaping the battlefield on their own. Headed by one of the most dangerous tacticians the ninja world had ever seen, their resources and reach went far beyond what any normal group could muster. Not to mention the fact they had the backing of ancient powers—White Zetsu, Obito, and even Madara Uchiha. Trying to locate or capture a single one of them bordered on delusion.

But I had one advantage: I knew what they were after.

The Akatsuki's true targets had always been the tailed beasts. No matter how elaborate their plans became, it always circled back to that. And now, with the Chunin Selection Examination taking place, I suspected that just like in the anime, Jinchuriki would pop up there...

This presented a dilemma.

There was no way I could enter the Land of Fire in broad daylight. Not when tensions were high. Not when I was, effectively, a rogue shinobi with ties to both Konoha and independent factions. My presence would draw attention, and the risks outweighed the benefits.

Yet the opportunity was too perfect to ignore. If the Akatsuki were going to make a move, it would likely be during the examination itself—amid the confusion and the heightened security that might lull people into thinking nothing could go wrong.

But I didn't have to do it myself... My guild had finally started establishing itself.. That was an edge I still had. While everyone was watching the front lines, we were making moves in the dark.

And while they chased tailed beasts in the east, I could turn my attention west.

Specifically, back to the Land of Iron.

There was still the matter of the old man blacksmith's family. Despite the information he'd provided and his subtle role in supporting independent craftsmen, I hadn't found a single record of his relatives. My wood clone had scouted for days using basic chakra suppression and infiltration tactics—but at Chunin-level capabilities, the results had been limited. It was like trying to track elite shinobi using half-complete maps and a blindfold.

To return now meant stepping into danger once more. The Land of Iron was no longer a neutral zone. After the summit and the skirmishes that followed, it had become one of the most heavily fortified zones in the world. Kage-level shinobi roamed its borders. The Shogun's compound, especially, was a fortress.

Getting in wouldn't just be risky.

It would be suicide.

Still, I had to weigh that risk against everything else. If this blacksmith really had connections deep enough to threaten the Akatsuki's plans or slow their progress, I had to know more. His request hadn't been casual. It was the kind of message passed with gravity, from one who knew the stakes. If there was a deeper web here, tied to his family and to that spear-wielding Akatsuki member, then I had to pull at the thread now before it disappeared entirely.

…

Authors note:

You can read some chapters ahead if you want to on my p#treon.com/Fat_Cultivator