Nio was currently walking around in the forest, searching for signs of the Horned Rabbit.
For now, his effort had yet to prove useful.
No signs of the Horned Rabbit's clones or its whereabouts. He didn't even run into rabbits along the way, not even rabbit-shaped beasts.
Not only that, but the forest was also oddly silent. Nio's bloodline is only capable of sensing the change in the soil due to his footprints.
There was no wind and no beast walking around.
For a moment, Nio thought he was dreaming or having a nightmare. This atmosphere was really creepy, after all.
Fwoosh
He then suddenly heard the rustling of leaves, and his bloodline picked up a change on his left.
And what he saw was...
"This is anticlimactic."
... a Horned Rabbit.
He didn't attack right away, but he activated the Sharingan, just in case.
Then the rabbit, noticing it had caught his attention, turned around and jumped away.
'Is it running away or leading me somewhere?'
He chased after it, making sure to never lose sight of it.
Along the way, more and more rabbits joined the chase. Before Nio could take notice, he was already running among more than a hundred rabbits, and more were joining along the way.
Nio looked around as he ran and tried to figure out where exactly they were running of to.
There were some options for where they were going, but he was not exactly sure which one until something caught him off guard.
After once again trying to figure out where exactly he was going he found out that, according to the amount of time he had been running and the direction he had been doing so, he was now off the limits of the map he had been provided years ago.
Nio panicked slightly, he was now in uncharted territory. His knowledge of geography did not include what lay beyond the map of the forest, after all, he had no idea where the Stygian Clan's homes were on the Western Continent's map.
The thought of being in a place outside his knowledge made his heart beat faster, he was now really excited.
The rabbits suddenly sped up and scattered into the dark shadows of the trees, leaving behind a single Horned Rabbit that had two horns instead of one.
Nio was taken aback, especially considering that he could sense its cultivation.
'Beast Core Formation Stage?'
The Beast Core Formation Stage was the equivalent of the Dantian Forming Stage of a cultivator, meant for beasts. Meaning that the Horned Rabbit in front of him was on the same level of cultivation as Nio was and probably close to breakthrough as well.
The rabbit jumped away once again, leading him forward.
Nio still followed, leading him into a huge open space, illuminated by the moonlight that peered from behind the clouds. The area seemed to be constantly elevating like a ramp giving the standing figure slightly higher ground.
Yes, that figure. Wearing black clothes resembling a uniform, a hood, and a fearsome black mask that reminded Nio of an expressionless theater mask.
And as soon as he looked at it he felt it, the gap in power. That person standing at the center of the open space, was at a higher level in cultivation that he was.
If he had to take a guess.
"Martial Disciple?!"
The cultivation realm above Martial Beginner, the one he was trying to reach with his shadow training.
"You have arrived. Tell me, what is your identification?"
Trying to retain as much composure he could, Nio retorted.
"Why should I tell you? Whatever the case, who are you, and what do you want?"
"You are more composed then I expected. Well, I am 3-1-2, and I was tasked to kill the one who stole his treasure."
'His treasure?'
"What makes you think that I was the one who stole it?"
"Besides the fact that you are the only living person roaming around this forest, you also have abilities far surpassing your cultication realm. No one in the Body Tempering Realm can do what you did. Unless they awakened their bloodline that is."
'Awakening their bloodline. He means that weird glowing sphere that awakened my bloodline? Of course that belonged to someone why didn't I think of that?'
"So, I asked you for your identification, regardless of the outcome of this fight, there is no harm in sharing it."
"What about the people I care about?"
"I don't need your identification to know who might be an accomplice."
There was silence for a moment.
"... 9-1-1."
Nio relutantly said.
"9-1-1, huh? No wonder you are so skillful. Well, it's a shame, you could've ended up better off if you just stayed in your place."
Nio sneered.
"What? Doing whatever the family asks me to do? I'm not going to waste my life on people I don't respect, let alone people I would wish to be nonexistent."
"..."
3-1-2, stayed silent for a while, struggling to repress his surprise, luckly he was wearing a mask.
"How... interesting. You are from the Stygian clan, shouldn't you serve the Nell family with your life? Why so much resistance?"
"I am quite aware of how the Stygian clan works. Why should I work for those who raped my mother? That seems like a stupid question."
As 3-1-2 pondered Nio's answer, he forced himself to block a sudden attack.
Nio was now in front of him, body in a proper stance executing a punch perfectly.
'That strength just now, it was already quite good for a Martial Beginner. And yet he is only in the Dantian Forming stage? Ridiculous.'
Without an ounce of hesitation, he kicked Nio away, making him stumble in the grass.
With a sigh, he sent a mental order to his familiar to kill the boy.
The horned rabbit along with its clones, charged forward, meaning to kill the fallen boy.
Before the huge horde of white fur could reach far enough, several chakra strings shot up from the ground wrapping themselves around the rabbits before pulling them into the ground and cutting them into pieces at the same time.
[Congratulations!]
[The quest "Large Steps Require Smaller Ones" has been completed!]
[You have received your rewards!]
[You have received 1000 credits!]
[You have received [Water Breathing Style : 1st form - Water Surface Slash] (Scroll Form)]
For a moment, Nio was taken aback, after all, he was not expecting to kill the original one in that attack. He was mostly aiming to simply reduce the numbers enough to properly target it, but all is well when it ends well, he was not going to complain about such a turn of events.
Still, these points now came in handy. In the situation he is in, more skills would be very useful, especially because he was slightly underpowered to confront a Martial Disciple.
[Credits: 1131]
That's right, he had spent around 1600 credits days before the fight. And what he bought was now his trump card. Of course, with a thousand more points, perhaps he could buy something more, now that the fight was not at a great stage.
What he bought was fairly simple.
[
Name: Chakra Paper
Anime: Naruto
Description: A stack of pieces of paper made from a special type of tree. Normally used to react to the slightest hint of chakra in any number of ways, depending on the nature latent in the chakra
Price: 100 credits
]
After buying the chakra paper, he had his chakra nature tested. The paper split in half, meaning wind nature, and then the first half turned damp and the other wrinkled, meaning water and lightning nature, respectively.
And so, he bought nature transformation skills with the rest of the credits.
[
Name: Excellent Wind Nature Transformation
Anime: Naruto
Description: A skill that allows the user to easily perform Nature Transformation on their chakra, with Wind Nature, of course. This skill also gives its user an innate talent to create, learn, and perform wind-based attacks.
Price: 500 credits
]
[
Name: Excellent Water Nature Transformation
Anime: Naruto
Description: A skill that allows the user to easily perform Nature Transformation on their chakra, with Water Nature, of course. This skill also gives its user an innate talent to create, learn, and perform water-based attacks.
Price: 500 credits
]
[
Name: Excellent Lightning Nature Transformation
Anime: Naruto
Description: A skill that allows the user to easily perform Nature Transformation on their chakra, with Lightning Nature, of course. This skill also gives its user an innate talent to create, learn, and perform lightning-based attacks.
Price: 500 credits
]
Knowing that he had these skills, with this new credit balance, he decided to strengthen this trump card instead of creating a new one.
[
Name: Excellent Ninjutsu Knowledge
Anime: Naruto
Description: A skill that gives the user the ability to easily mold their chakra, as well as giving them the knowledge about hand signs. This skill allows one to not only create and perform various ninjutsu much easier, but it also helps to increase chakra efficiency. This skill's effect is permanent and will not be discarded for as long as the user does not surpass its knowledge completely.
Price: 950 Credits
]
Nio looked at 3-1-2 and breathed deeply, calming his nerves and preparing for a dificult fight.
3-1-2 looked at Nio and also breathed deeply, preparing himself mentally, detaching himself from any emotion that would prove distracting. He was much stronger than Nio, that was a fact, but he was not an opponent to be taken lightly.
He did not feel any Qi in the threads that had decimated his familiar's clones and main body, nor was he willing to believe that the face of the boy in front of him was not one that showed his determination.
No one here was taking this battle lightly.
"Then come, 9-1-1. Let this Senior give you a lesson."
Both fighters rushed towards each other.
**********************************************
The final battle of this volume is about to commence and it will last about two chapters. Things are kind of different then I had previously planned, like for example, 3-1-2 was supposed to be just a unnamed assassin, not even a Stygian.
Check out my Novel : Unsealed Demonic Dragon goes to the Academy