"A pile of bones in a grave."
"The future of the Sand Village will belong to the Uchiha."
Watching Mosa, the Third Kazekage, leave, Haru muttered to himself.
Ninja in this era really were simple. Every gift fate offered had already been secretly marked with a price.
What the Leaf paid was only a trivial amount of money, yet what it gained was the entire future of the Sand Village. This deal was an enormous profit.
Haru hummed a little tune as he returned to his lodging, then enjoyed another hot spring bath. He had drunk at noon, smelled of alcohol, and sweated all over from the heat, so he had to take a bath to freshen up.
After his bath, Haru brewed himself a cup of hot tea. He drank it while idly browsing through his roulette system.
Before he knew it, the number of lottery draws he had accumulated had reached ten again.
On such a happy day, surely he could get something good, right? On such an auspicious day, he was bound to strike gold!
Haru suddenly felt an inexplicable confidence. His finger could not help moving toward the lottery button.
Let's go!
Go big, then wrap it up early!
Ten-pull!
The system's giant roulette appeared in front of Haru once again. The pointer began spinning at high speed, and a flash of white light swept past.
"Three shuriken!"
"Sticky rice dumpling."
"One kunai."
"Electric tricycle."
"One roll of toilet paper."
"Bloodline: Ice Release."
"Three boxes of amoxicillin."
"One piece of underwear."
"Four kunai!"
"Stool!"
Yes! Good! I won!
Haru was as happy as an eight-year-old child. How long had it been? He had finally pulled something decent.
A bloodline limit, Ice Release. Although its performance in the Naruto world was not very strong, and its only user was that pretty boy Haku, if properly developed, it could become a powerful bloodline. Even if it was only used to show off, it was still an excellent bloodline.
Not a loss. This pull was not a loss at all!
Warm cola was horse piss, but chilled cola was premium liquor!
From now on, whenever he wanted cola, he could drink ice-cold cola anytime.
Haru felt the new power that had appeared inside his body. With just a slight release of power, cold air rose around him, and the hot tea in his hand directly turned into ice.
After being happy for quite a while, Haru carefully reviewed the rewards he had pulled from beginning to end. The overall quality of this batch of rewards was already very high. Three stories high, even!
Aside from the Ice Release bloodline, the most useful things were naturally the electric tricycle and the amoxicillin. The rest were just extras, not worth mentioning.
The electric tricycle, commonly known as a three-wheeler, was extremely widely used in his original country and carried out the daily transportation work of ordinary people. It held great significance for the current Leaf.
After all, transportation was a major problem. At present, the large quantity of goods produced by the Leaf was almost entirely transported by animal power. The efficiency was low, and it wasted time.
Haru had long found this unpleasant to look at. However, Tobirama already had so many different research tasks that they could not even be written down on several sheets of paper. The fields involved were also extremely wide. Even as a top-tier research master, Tobirama was not a god. He needed to slowly explore and learn.
The railway trains that could transport large quantities of goods were still under development. Even after they were completed, a huge amount of funding would be needed to lay tracks and build trains.
Now things were good!
There was an electric tricycle as a substitute, and he could even directly provide Tobirama with a physical sample. The research process would be greatly shortened. Maybe Tobirama could even learn by analogy and speed up the research progress on trains.
As for the other good item, amoxicillin, there was naturally no need to say much. Its main component was penicillin, an indispensable drug in modern medicine. It could be called a life-saving miracle medicine. In an era before large-scale production, one gram of it was worth more than gold.
Although the ninja world had medical ninjutsu, medical ninja were desperately scarce. Even now, only the major clans of the Leaf could train them. At the very least, the Leaf would still need more than ten years to cultivate a large batch of qualified medical ninja.
But medical ninja ultimately served ninja. The ordinary masses did not have the qualifications to enjoy such luxurious treatment. So, for ordinary people in the ninja world, penicillin was likewise a miracle medicine. Common flu, infections, and inflammation could also take away the lives of large numbers of ordinary people in this world.
Most importantly, penicillin was insanely profitable. Its potential market across the entire ninja world was unimaginably vast. Haru had a premonition that in the future, this business would become an important source of fiscal revenue for the Leaf.
With the physical sample of penicillin in hand, Tobirama's research progress could speed up again!
Good things came in pairs. They truly came in pairs. Haru had originally stopped placing any hope in ordinary lottery draws, since they were full of trash from the daily life category. Now it seemed that even ordinary draws that pulled daily life items could produce things especially useful to the Leaf.
With his interest rising, Haru opened the system's mission interface, intending to see which recent missions he could complete to obtain a large number of lottery draws.
He skipped the shameless missions directly. After a while, Haru locked onto one mission.
[Godfather of Bloodlines: Invite three or more non-Leaf bloodline clans to join the Leaf.
Mission Reward: Sixty lottery draws.]
The reward was a full sixty draws, enough for Haru to put serious thought into completing this mission.
Haru recalled the bloodline clans of the ninja world. There were only so many bloodline clans in the ninja world. Trying to gather four bloodline clans to join the Leaf really was not easy.
The Hozuki clan, the Kaguya clan, and the Yuki clan from the Mist Village.
The Uzumaki clan, the Leaf's little brother.
There also seemed to be a Chinoike clan, which likewise possessed an eye-based bloodline limit. However, that clan was rather tragic. A girl from the clan had married the daimyo of the Land of Lightning as a concubine, but not long after that daimyo married her, he died.
The daimyo's legal wife blamed everything on that girl and exiled the entire clan to Hell Valley. The clan she hired to carry it out was the Uchiha...
Ah. What a sin.
Hell Valley seemed to be in the Land of Hot Water!
What a coincidence.
Haru muttered to himself. As for whether a clan that had been persecuted by the Uchiha would be willing to join the Leaf, Haru truly had no confidence in that.
As for the remaining wild bloodline clans in the ninja world, Haru did not remember much. He would have to return to the Leaf and send ninja to gather intelligence. If there were any, that would naturally be best.
Haru sat where he was and carefully thought it through. The Chinoike clan could be considered. As for the Uzumaki clan, there was no need to say much. Haru had always been eyeing the fat piece of meat that was the Uzumaki clan.
There were still two spots left.
Based on the known bloodline clans, he could only start with the Mist Village.
In any case, Mizuto, the Third Mizukage of the Mist Village, had probably already treated the bloodline clans in the village as thorns in his side and wished he could slaughter them all.
Haru could take this opportunity to scoop up all the Mist Village's bloodline clans and pull them into the Leaf's camp.
Haru recalled the latest intelligence on the Mist Village. He had heard that the rumors in the Mist Village had been intensifying recently. The Mist Village was located overseas and was sealed off on all sides. Its internal policies were also oppressive and closed.
When people lived in a closed environment, they often became ignorant and foolish. Rumors had always been spreading that bloodline ninja were cursed and would bring death and war.
This was the ninja world, where supernatural power existed. It was not strange for some bizarre curses to exist, so there was fertile ground for rumors to spread.
The one spreading the rumors this time was also Mizuto, the Third Mizukage. Those villagers who had already been ravaged by war until they barely looked human now happened to have an outlet for their resentment. Once villagers were incited and conspiracy theories filled their heads, they would not care whether those rotten, clumsy rumors were true or not. They would only blindly vent the resentment in their hearts.
It was just like Naruto in later generations. A brain-dead rumor like the reincarnation of the demon fox could actually spread throughout the entire Leaf, and the entire village could believe it as true. That was enough to show just how ignorant the villagers of a ninja village could sometimes be.
They did not even care whether the rumors were true or false. What they wanted was only a target to vent on. Weak and helpless Naruto was the perfect fit.
That was all Danzo's fault, haha. Just the author's conspiracy theory. Treat it as a joke and do not take it seriously.
Mizuto was hiding behind the scenes and fanning the flames. Now, the villagers of the Mist Village were already showing signs of collectively ostracizing the bloodline clans.
The specific signs included rolling their eyes in secret, spitting, and raising prices when children from bloodline clans came to buy things.
The attitude of ordinary Mist ninja toward the bloodline clans had changed as well, and they had also begun excluding the bloodline clans.
Bloodline ninja and ordinary ninja had a natural opposition between them. Whether in talent, physical strength, or chakra reserves, bloodline ninja were generally stronger than ordinary ninja.
In a ninja village, bloodline ninja would naturally obtain more training resources. There was nothing wrong with that. The strong should receive more resources.
But now, things were different. Mizuto came from an ordinary background and had no innate bloodline limit.
He had also stepped over a group of bloodline clan ninja to rise to the position of Mizukage. Because of that, the bloodline clans of the Mist Village had always disliked Mizuto and had always opposed him.
If Mizuto wanted to sit firmly in the Mizukage's position, he could only rely on ordinary ninja. He had to distribute resources that originally belonged to the bloodline clans to ordinary ninja and win over as many ordinary ninja as possible.
Mizuto and ordinary ninja shared the same background and the same interests. Add in the rumors that had spread throughout the entire Mist Village, and even ordinary ninja could figure out who to support. Whether the rumors were true or not was no longer important.
The man only ate one bowl of noodles, but so what?
Real benefits were what mattered!
Haru carefully sorted through the thoughts in his mind. Undermining the Mist Village had great potential. It was just that the fire was not burning hot enough yet. He had to add some firewood.
The Hyuga clan.
Haru thought of the Hyuga clan, which had always had a good relationship with the Kaguya clan of the Mist Village.
Although the two clans were in different ninja villages, they had always maintained a decent relationship. During the New Year period, the two clans had even sent gifts to each other to celebrate.
Having the Hyuga clan step forward to stir up trouble would be perfect.
Haru immediately summoned one of the accompanying Hyuga branch family members, Yama.
He was Takuya's younger brother.
"Hokage, what are your orders?"
Yama knelt in front of Haru, his back perfectly straight. At a glance, it was obvious that he had received strict family training. His tone was extremely respectful.
Haru, on the other hand, was leisurely reclining on the tatami. This was not a public setting, so there was no need to be so serious.
"Yama, relax a little. This is private. There's no need to be so restrained."
"Hokage, this is proper etiquette that I must uphold."
Yama spoke very seriously. In the Hyuga clan, hierarchy was clearly defined. The branch family had to maintain respect toward the main family at all times. The most direct way to show that was naturally through etiquette.
One had to stand properly and sit properly. Not the slightest carelessness was allowed. Otherwise, one would be scolded. Those who refused to correct themselves after repeated instruction would naturally be dealt with using the Caged Bird seal. To dare profane the dignity of the main family was truly unforgivable. They had to be properly taught a lesson.
Haru curled his lips. Every Hyuga branch family member he had met seemed to be like this, disciplined until they were like wooden puppets.
Although Haru disliked the clan operating mechanism of the Caged Bird seal, so far, the Hyuga clan's mechanism had been extremely successful. It successfully guaranteed the Hyuga clan's continuation for a thousand years. Even by Naruto's era, it could still be considered successful.
Of the Leaf's three great bloodline clans, only the Hyuga clan remained. They had become the genuine number one bloodline noble clan of the Leaf.
No matter how exploitative the Caged Bird system was toward clan members, just answer this: was it effective or not?
As for whether the Caged Bird mechanism would still work in the far future, that would depend on the wisdom of later generations.
Haru looked at Yama, who was meticulous and kneeling with perfect posture, and sighed slightly in his heart.
Heaven helps those who help themselves. He would trust in the wisdom of future generations.
Haru did not want to interfere in the Hyuga clan's mess, and he was too lazy to do so. This was their clan's internal affair. Even as Hokage, he had no right to point fingers.
Right now, Haru's relationship with the Hyuga clan could be said to be extremely close. Takuya dreamed of sending Asuka into his bed. Why would he create unpleasantness with the Hyuga clan?
"Yama, your clan has a close relationship with the Kaguya clan. I have a task to give you."
"The new Mizukage of the Mist Village and the bloodline clans inside the village have had a tiny little disagreement. Now, the situation is showing signs of intensifying."
"If the Mist Village does not welcome its bloodline clans, the Leaf can open its doors to them."
Haru explained it very clearly, and Yama understood what Haru meant. He wanted to undermine the Mist Village from within.
"Hokage, do you want me to go to the Mist Village's lodging area and secretly invite the Kaguya clan to join the Leaf?"
Yama's emotions fluctuated slightly, and his tone became a little lighter as he answered.
If the Kaguya clan joined the Leaf, then the Hyuga clan's influence in the Leaf would greatly increase.
If the Kaguya clan defected to the Leaf, they would definitely be unfamiliar with the place and the people. They would have to seek an ally in the Leaf. The Hyuga clan, which already had a good relationship with the Kaguya clan, would absolutely be the best choice. Two powerful bloodline clans forming an alliance in the Leaf would produce an effect far greater than one plus one equaling two.
"No. I want the Third Mizukage to know that the Kaguya clan wants to join the Leaf."
Haru revealed a smile. Taking the initiative to eagerly pull in the Kaguya clan was not Haru's style.
He had to make the Kaguya clan take the initiative to contact him.
"Yama, you must infiltrate secretly, but you must also let Mizuto discover you."
"When you communicate with the Kaguya clan, pay attention to your wording. You must show the Leaf's tolerance toward bloodline clans, the prosperity that bloodline clans enjoy while developing in the Leaf, and the Leaf's thirst for talented people. Most importantly, the Mizukage must clearly and unmistakably learn about your conversation."
(End of Chapter)
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