After setting down the sealing notes, Kaede Kitahara began writing his report.
At this point, drafting mission reports felt more exhausting than making another trip to the Land of Wind.
"Guess I really can't escape the life of a workhorse," he muttered with a sigh before getting to work.
With the mission upgraded to A-rank, the three of them would receive significantly higher compensation. And with the financial pipeline he controlled through Gato constantly sending money his way, Kaede did not have to worry about funds anytime soon.
Time passed quickly.
After completing the mission, he took more than half a month to rest. Konoha did not have enough assignments to keep everyone constantly busy.
And thanks to Kaede's outstanding performance in several missions, Hyuga Keiko and Amakusa Ryuji had already been evaluated at Chunin Level within the internal assessment system. All they lacked now was passing the Chunin Exams.
The beginner "benefits" like trash collection or lost cat retrieval were no longer assigned to their team.
Those were survival tasks for rookie or weaker Genin squads. The base salary from Konoha barely covered food and shelter.
But ninja did not merely need to survive.
Training resources, medical treatment after injuries, learning new jutsu, all of it required vast amounts of money.
Every ninja was a gold-devouring beast.
And the higher you climbed, the more you consumed.
Genin were manageable.
At Chunin Level, the required resources already exceeded what ordinary families could afford.
A single Jonin could drain the foundation of a small clan.
For a small family, raising one Jonin was often a crippling burden. Without clan backing, most civilian ninja could only grind slowly upward.
Even among Jonin, civilian Jonin usually lost to clan-trained ones.
For Kaede, this rare downtime became an opportunity to study sealing techniques at home.
Aside from a few assigned missions, most assignments had to be accepted voluntarily.
Kaede and his teammates were not short on money. And Kaede had always been generous with them.
That was why the three of them could advance and retreat together without hesitation.
Inside his room, a special scroll lay unfurled across his desk.
Carefully, stroke by stroke, Kaede inscribed the formula of the Eight Trigrams Sealing Style according to his understanding.
"Done."
He let out a long breath.
This was a pre-written Eight Trigrams Sealing Style.
Both the scroll material and the ink were specially prepared. Expensive.
If he made even the slightest mistake, the entire scroll would be ruined.
Several discarded scrolls already lay in the room.
Since his talent in sealing techniques was average, he could not perform them instantly in battle. Pre-writing them onto scrolls was the best alternative.
Even just counting materials, each completed sealing scroll cost at least two hundred thousand ryo.
If you factored in his labor, the true cost approached five hundred thousand.
Sealing techniques were high-end knowledge in the ninja world.
Ordinary people did not even have access to them.
Even with access, reaching Kaede's current level required at least ten years of constant practice.
And practice required enormous funding.
If not for controlling Gato's financial network, there was no way Kaede could have advanced this far.
"Even if I can't cast seals instantly in battle, this is enough," he said with a grin.
Carry enough prepared scrolls, and it would be fine.
After all, most ninja could not instant-cast sealing jutsu either.
Even Jiraiya carried half-finished scrolls and completed the formula on-site depending on the situation.
Kaede had prepared plenty of those as well. Blank templates, ready to be customized in the field.
"It's time to collect the Dragon Vein chakra."
He decided not to wait any longer.
His break was nearly over. Even if he did not accept missions, one would eventually be assigned.
Unless he reached Jonin Level, stepping into the village's upper ranks and gaining more freedom, he could not afford long periods of inactivity.
He packed away the scrolls, changed into combat attire, checked his ninja pouch, added several sealing scrolls, then closed his eyes and sensed the marks of the Flying Thunder God.
Roran was far from Konoha. One jump would not suffice.
Fortunately, he had left Flying Thunder God kunai along the route and carved additional formulas on the return trip.
He could leapfrog his way there.
With a soft sound, his figure vanished from the room.
Moments later, in the ruins of the ancient city of Roran in the Land of Wind, Kaede reappeared.
"Using Flying Thunder God the entire way actually drained three-quarters of my chakra," he muttered, stunned.
This was his first time traveling such a distance purely through teleportation.
The cost was steep.
Every jump consumed chakra. The farther the distance, the greater the expense.
He pulled a high-quality Food Pill from his pouch and swallowed it.
Within moments, his chakra began recovering rapidly.
With his reserves, ordinary market-grade Food Pills were practically useless.
They restored barely more than natural rest.
He required high-quality or custom-made pills.
Another reminder that powerful ninja were walking money furnaces.
Once he felt mostly recovered, Kaede approached the barrier left behind by the Fourth Hokage and created a shadow clone.
The clone glanced at him, then began forming a Wind Release: Rasenshuriken.
Kaede still could not throw it safely. Using it himself risked severe injury, even permanent damage.
But a shadow clone could.
Adaptability counted for something.
The massive spinning Rasenshuriken whirled through the air and slammed into a weakened point in the barrier.
The Fourth Hokage's barrier was not invincible.
After more than a decade without reinforcement, it had deteriorated.
Mukade had once consumed parts of it to break free.
Later, the battle between Kakuzu and Kaede had further damaged it.
Now Kaede was exploiting that same weakness.
The Rasenshuriken struck.
The barrier held briefly, then shattered in a violent explosion.
The Flying Thunder God kunai left behind by the Fourth Hokage disintegrated into ash.
Immediately, an immense surge of chakra erupted from beneath the earth.
It blasted skyward, wild and uncontrollable.
Faintly, the sound of a dragon's roar echoed.
The Dragon Vein chakra.
Soon, the endless chakra condensed, taking the shape of a massive dragon-like entity.
"Damn… this is basically Tailed Beast level," Kaede whispered.
He had never faced a Tailed Beast directly. Only as a child had he experienced the night of the Nine-Tails' rampage, when Kurama's chakra filled the air over Konoha.
This felt no weaker.
Who knew how many years of earth energy had nurtured this monster.
It had already begun forming structure.
At this rate, developing full sentience and becoming a true Tailed Beast was only a matter of time.
Wind howled violently.
Kaede pulled out a palm-sized scroll inscribed with the specialized Dragon Vein sealing formula taught to him by Queen Sara.
Injecting chakra into it, the black script unfurled and surged toward the deep purple dragon-shaped chakra mass.
The markings spread across its body.
The violent storm of chakra began to subside.
The Dragon Vein chakra opened two lantern-sized eyes and looked at him.
The hostility faded.
Its gaze softened.
Kaede exhaled in relief.
Sara's specialized sealing formula worked.
For generations, the Queen of Loulan had refined techniques specifically for the Dragon Vein.
The enraged chakra calmed almost instantly.
He reached out and touched its massive head.
Faint draconic features had already formed.
From deep within, he felt something.
Confusion.
Joy.
"Has it developed awareness?"
Kaede froze.
The emotional feedback was unmistakable.
After so many years of growth, the Dragon Vein chakra had awakened a rudimentary consciousness.
Primitive. Like an infant.
But given time, it could become an existence similar to the Tailed Beasts. A collective chakra will given life.
The safest course would be to erase that nascent consciousness.
Yet feeling its instinctive closeness toward him, Kaede hesitated.
In the end, he chose to preserve it.
He retrieved the prepared Eight Trigrams Sealing Style scroll from his pack.
One decisive step.
He would seal the Dragon Vein chakra into his body.
And become the first Dragon Vein Jinchuriki.