[Name: Hyuga Arin]
[Class: Hunter]
[Sub-class: Doctor]
[Level: Lv.40 (0/33,500)]
[Chakra / Nen: 9,110 / 7,110 + 1,000 + 500 + 500]
[Essence: 3,808]
[Experience Pool: 175,950]
"Special jōnin at the limit… half a step into jōnin."
Hyuga Arin looked at his level. In terms of raw combat strength, he should be at the upper limit of special jōnin—half a step into elite jōnin.
The problem still lay with chakra.
Too little chakra meant too few ninjutsu uses. Just over nine thousand chakra—who was that supposed to be enough for?
He took out the drops from the twelve ninjas and tossed all the useless items into the furnace.
[Essence: +7,401]
His total essence now reached 11,209.
There were only three useful items.
[Skill: Fire Dragon's Flaming Elbow]
[Skill: Fire Dragon's Shattering Fang]
[Skill: Arc of Time]
He had also obtained other Dragon Slayer Magic skills, but Hyuga Arin had no intention of walking the Dragon King route. One Dragon Slayer Magic was enough.
He planned to follow the Naruto Six Paths route, focusing on Fire Release for now.
He already had four Dragon Slayer Magic skills. With six more, he could fuse them into Fire Dragon Slayer Magic.
That skill would be a massive boost to his combat power.
As for Arc of Time—
The reason he kept it was simple: this skill was slightly broken.
It could reverse time.
It was one of the very few skills in the game that involved time.
If he had enough experience, he planned to max it out.
When facing an unavoidable danger, this skill could overturn the entire situation.
[Arc of Time (Lv.1) — EXP (0/5,000) — Trait (None)]
"As expected, anything involving time is an experience sink."
Hyuga Arin sighed helplessly.
Five thousand experience just to get started—this was the hallmark of a top-tier skill. Maxing it out would take a long time.
A kunai appeared in his hand. He casually tossed it into the distance.
Arc of Time activated.
The kunai reappeared in his hand.
Hyuga Arin then looked at his remaining 170,000+ experience.
"Right now, what I need most is to fuse Fire Release first."
He poured all his experience into Great Fire Dragon Technique.
The Extreme Seven Releases were all terrifyingly powerful skills. As long as he successfully fused even one, Hyuga Arin would have a place in the entire ninja world.
Even if, due to early limitations, he couldn't reach Senju Hashirama's level and stand at the absolute peak of the ninja world—
He would at least reach Kage-level.
And within his Awakening Skill, with abundant chakra, he could even step into Super-Kage territory.
Reproducing Senju Hashirama's combat power.
[Fire Release · Great Fire Dragon Technique (Lv.3) — EXP (0/2,000) — Trait (None)]
[Fire Release · Great Fire Dragon Technique (Lv.4) — EXP (0/4,000) — Trait (None)]
[Fire Release · Great Fire Dragon Technique (Lv.6) — EXP (0/16,000) — Trait (None)]
[Fire Release · Great Fire Dragon Technique (Lv.9) — EXP (0/128,000) — Trait (None)]
A full 126,000 experience vanished in an instant.
[Experience Pool: 49,950]
"To max Great Fire Dragon Technique, I still need over a hundred and twenty thousand experience…"
Hyuga Arin deeply felt the pain of being short on experience.
With a little over forty thousand experience left, he invested it all into Great Fireball Technique.
He spent 25,500 experience.
[Great Fireball Technique (Lv.9) — EXP (0/25,600) — Trait (None)]
[Experience Pool: 24,450]
That wasn't enough to push Great Fireball any further, so the remaining experience had to go into Great Blaze Technique.
[Fire Release · Great Blaze Technique (Lv.6) — EXP (0/16,000) — Trait (None)]
[Experience Pool: 8,450]
For now, the other skills would have to suffer.
He planned to focus entirely on fusing Fire Release first, and only then upgrade the rest.
Hyuga Arin carefully felt the changes in his skills.
His Fire Release strength had increased significantly again.
It was just that seeing only eight thousand experience left felt a little pitiful.
Still, there would be plenty of opportunities to grind experience later. No need to rush.
"Though… a Hyuga who specializes in Fire Release…"
Hyuga Arin rubbed his chin.
That really was rare.
…
"It is very rare."
Sarutobi Hiruzen was looking through Hyuga Arin's information.
Many ninjas had escaped from the northeastern front, and all intelligence related to Hyuga Arin had been delivered to him.
There was also supplementary information from Root operative Crow.
So was he ANBU or Root, exactly?
Hyuga Arin had opinions about this.
When was Root ever going to stand up properly?!
"Proficient in Fire Release. Long-range strikes."
Sarutobi Hiruzen studied Hyuga Arin's combat style, combined with that anytime-anywhere movement that rivaled Flying Thunder God.
He still refused to believe it was merely a Substitution Technique.
His temples throbbed as he rubbed his brow.
He had never heard of the Hyuga clan fighting like this. Weren't they all close-combat specialists?
That was precisely why the Hyuga were sent to the Kumogakure battlefield—those brutes loved close combat, and against the Hyuga, they were subtly countered.
But no one had expected Hyuga Arin to develop an entirely new way to use the Hyuga clan.
From the moment he stepped onto the battlefield, he possessed absolute battlefield dominance.
And this method was reproducible.
Hyuga Arin likely possessed some kind of power-enhancing ninjutsu, combining Fire Release with kunai to form long-range attacks.
If all Hyuga clan members followed this path—
Sarutobi Hiruzen could already imagine how terrifying the Hyuga clan would become.
They could decide the direction of an entire battlefield.
Hyuga Arin's approach wasn't impossible to replicate.
The real problem lay with the Hyuga clan themselves.
These people stubbornly clung to Gentle Fist, refusing to learn other ninjutsu. And since branch-family members' battle merits all went to the main family, they had no way to exchange merits for ninjutsu from Konoha.
This trapped the Hyuga clan in a vicious cycle.
No one could learn new ninjutsu.
Meanwhile, the Hyuga clan exchanged those merits with the village for various benefits.
In the end, Sarutobi Hiruzen realized the root of the problem—
It all lay with the Hyuga main family.
He scratched his head in frustration.
The Hyuga clan hadn't been like this in the past. Back then, when the village told them to do something, they did it.
The main issue was that in the first two years after he became Hokage, he had ceded a great deal of authority.
Now the Hyuga clan possessed significant autonomy.
For example, only a single main-family line was required to serve Konoha as ninjas. The remaining main-family members were treated as ordinary civilians.
They also retained control over the branch family.
At the time, these were all concessions made to secure his position as Hokage. And the Hyuga clan, unlike the Uchiha, didn't stir up trouble.
He hadn't expected this to become such a problem now.
At present, no one could question his position as Hokage.
But reclaiming the authority he had granted to the Hyuga clan was not an easy move.
One wrong step could provoke resistance from other ninja clans as well.
He regretted it deeply.
If he had known the Hyuga clan possessed such terrifying battlefield dominance beyond reconnaissance—
He would never have compromised with them.
At the very least, Konoha's battlefield situation wouldn't be this miserable right now.
"No. This level of battlefield dominance cannot be abandoned."
Sarutobi Hiruzen clenched his teeth.
One person could suppress an entire battle line.
What about ten Hyuga clan members?
Winning the war was far more important than offending the Hyuga clan.
"We'll have to start with Hyuga Arin."
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