The pre-war meeting ended quickly. Those who died in the meeting were immediately forgotten, utterly and completely.
As mentioned before, these ANBU were all figures with real power. When a dozen or so suddenly died, the vacant power instantly became the target of everyone's scramble for. Therefore, to prevent the scramble from escalating, the elders upheld the principle of fairness and impartiality, without any bias, handing these positions over to those who offered the highest price...
As a result, Wu Jie had accumulated tens of millions more in his purse.
At the same time, news of the Grass Hidden Village's Great Secret Treasure achieving research results quickly spread within the village. Everyone was inquiring about it, hoping to also obtain such terrifying power.
Therefore, to respond to everyone's expectations, soon, some people wearing black cloaks and holding elder tokens appeared in Grass Hidden Village, declaring that they could allow the elders to prioritize bestowing the power of the Great Secret Treasure upon them...
Mysterious middlemen!
The asking price for each person was only 100,000... No! Only 1,000,000! And their name could appear on the elders' list!
Moreover, the higher the bid, the higher the ranking. And those ranked higher would receive stronger bestowed power, even possibly power equivalent to a Kage!
Then...
The upper-ranking ninja began to bid wildly. No one wanted to fall behind others. The conquest of power was like rowing a boat upstream; being one step slower meant falling behind forever.
As a result, Wu Jie's pouch gained another 150 million or so.
Wu Jie and Xiang Ran watched the ANBU leave the village lightly. The burden on their backs also became heavier.
Counting the time they dealt with the elders, the two had already gotten nearly 300 million ryo from Grass Hidden Village.
The reconstruction of the Land of Whirlpools had already begun with seed money. After gathering these funds from Grass Hidden Village's ANBU, this money would be invested into the fleet, initiating the era of grand navigation for the Land of Whirlpools!
Nothing makes more money than smuggling activities during wartime!
Grass Hidden Village and Sand Hidden Village would launch a full-scale invasion of Konoha Village five days later. This matter, under the deliberate dissemination of Grass Hidden Village, quickly spread throughout the world.
A surprise attack might bring a great victory, but it was meaningless. Only by creating a meat grinder on a direct battlefield could the vitality of the ninjas be maximally weakened.
Upon receiving the news, the Great Daimyos were all overjoyed. They once again increased their support for the ninja villages, only wanting to send more ninjas to the battlefield to die.
The entire map of the ninja world was like the five elements of Mahjong. Konoha Village in the Land of Fire was located in the most central position. Hidden Stone Village was in the upper left corner, Sand Hidden Village was in the lower left corner. Cloud Hidden Village was in the upper right corner, and Mist Hidden Village was in the lower right corner.
Among them, Hidden Stone Village, Sand Hidden Village, and Konoha Village were located on the same landmass. Cloud Hidden Village was surrounded by the sea on three sides, and this landmass was connected by a solitary long passage. As for Mist Hidden Village, it was completely an isolated island nation.
All the major ninja villages had completed their preparations, so after receiving intelligence from Grass Hidden Village and Sand Hidden Village, they all began to take action one after another.
Onoki of Hidden Stone Village left the village, leading a large army towards Konoha.
The ninjas of Cloud Hidden Village had already broken through Konoha's defenses before this. They had detailed intelligence on Konoha's military strength. At this time, they had also entered the Land of Hot Water's territory and were gradually approaching Konoha's border, but everyone did not pay attention. Their position seemed not too far from Hidden Cloud Village.
Mist Hidden Village gathered a large number of warships on the sea, sealing off the Land of Water's coastline, blocking Konoha's power on land.
At the same time, their fleet was also scouting the direction of Cloud Hidden Village and Sand Hidden Village on the high seas, waiting for any possible opportunity to appear.
And for Sand Hidden Village, as Grass Hidden Village's 'ally', they naturally received the invasion date the earliest...
Bang! Maki fiercely slammed the table, then shouted loudly, "Those two damned bastards! They actually leaked the invasion date! How many people does Konoha still not know will have to sacrifice this time?!"
Granny Chiyo looked at the intelligence sent by Grass Hidden Village, then silently let out a sigh. "It seems our previous plan has failed."
Elder Ebizo sighed and then said, "This shows that outsiders cannot be relied upon. We revealed the intelligence, thinking it was a war for peace between us, and it would bloodily kill those two bastards. But the result, according to the information I just got from the streets, is that Konoha only sent four elite ninjas. If it weren't for those other guys also being there, this operation might not even force out the trump card in that bastard's hand."
When Elder Ebizo spoke here, Maki's face changed and became solemn. "My... Gaara is still inside, and they can't even achieve full Tailed Beast transformation with Gaara. How did they succeed in such a short time?"
At this moment, Gaara's eyebrows furrowed inside the guardian's gourd. He now finally knew who stole half of him.
However, that dark attribute half of his body, naturally, the guardian could not understand how the other party could cooperate to achieve a full Tailed Beast transformation.
Did something happen that he didn't know? Things seem to have become interesting!
Granny Chiyo at this moment looked up at Gaara, asking him, "Shukaku is indeed still inside your body, right?"
Gaara nodded, "Indeed, and I can't sleep every day because of it."
Maki said at this moment, "Can we ask what exactly happened? How was his power lost? Shukaku is the most important asset of our village. We must clarify what happened."
"Asset? Ah, hahahaha!!" Shukaku's mouth split open to his ears, desperately wanting to break free from the seal, otherwise, he would definitely kill Sand Hidden Village into a river of blood!
Gaara closed his eyes. Moments later, he opened them and shook his head at Maki. "Shukaku still cannot communicate."
Speaking of this, he frowned. Shukaku was clearly chattering away inside his body.
Elder Ebizo touched his chin and pondered for a moment, then shook his head, "This is useless now. The war is five days away. This is something we cannot avoid."
Maki said at this moment, "Why don't we just put on a show, launch a few symbolic attacks, and after Naruto brings the Fourth Kazekage's remains back, we can retreat, or simply go all out and gather all our forces to defend the village. The desert will devour all enemies who attack us!"
Everyone pondered for a moment, then Elder Ebizo still shook his head, "The other party is not a fool either. And once the Great Ninja War begins, as one of the Five Great Ninja Villages, we absolutely cannot stand idly by. Just as Naruto said, after we lost in the Chunin Exams, and we have no retreat, if we don't find a way to take a bite out of Konoha, then what awaits us is chronic death."
Granny Chiyo looked at Elder Ebizo, asking him, "So what's your idea?"
Elder Ebizo looked at the young Gaara and the temporarily unified Maki. His face became serious and he said, "We will go all out at the beginning of the war! Konoha might not expect this! Our goal is to solve the problem of leaking intelligence. If we can solve the problem of opposing Naruto, that's naturally best. But if we fail, Konoha will definitely think we also don't want to fight them."
"Therefore, we will use their psychology. At the beginning of the war, we will put all the village's power into it! Kikyō Castle was basically intact after the previous war. Our goal is there! Then we will capture Kikyō Castle, and build a complete defensive stronghold on Kikyō Castle's foundation, nail our forces into their territory! And then slowly devour their land! We cannot lose this war!"
Kikyō Castle, located on the border of the Land of Fire, was one of Konoha's most important military strongholds. Sand Hidden Village and Cloud Hidden Village had once invaded Konoha's territory, but they were all blocked at Kikyō Castle. The three great wars reduced this place to ruins. From this, one could also see how strong the defensive capabilities of this stronghold were.
After the war ended and the three villages signed a ceasefire agreement, Kikyō Castle lost its meaning as a defensive stronghold. Konoha abandoned it and did not spend financial resources to repair it.
However, in the near future, they might regret this point.
...
After Wu Jie and Xiang Ran handled the affairs of Grass Hidden Village, a diligent ANBU ninja sent another piece of intelligence.
Wu Jie quickly skimmed through the intelligence report, then a smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.
Grass Hidden Village's ANBU had already found the whereabouts of Shin'ō.
There were still five days until the official start of the war. Wu Jie pondered for a moment and decided to go with Xiang Ran to meet this expert in living creature technology who had once taught Orochimaru!
Shin'ō came from the now-extinct Sora Ninja Village. To find the Scroll of Zero Revival, he had been disguised as a medical ninja, traveling all over the ninja world. Shin'ō's medical technology was quite outstanding. His disguise as a medical ninja also earned him a high reputation among the populace due to his superb medical skills, so finding him was not very difficult.
When the ANBU found him, he was in a town not far from Konoha.
Before leaving, Wu Jie gave the cursed seal scroll he got from Orochimaru to the clones he left in Grass Hidden Village to study. When the clones were dispelled, this knowledge would return to the main body.
This learning efficiency was very high, but it came with certain risks.
When a large amount of memories poured into the mind, various problems would occur if one wasn't careful. The brain overheating was not uncommon. If the clones were dispelled too much, the accumulated mental fatigue could even lead to brain death in severe cases.
Therefore, multiple Heavy Shadow Clone Jutsu was a forbidden technique, because it was truly very dangerous.
Of course, for Ashura, this was not considered dangerous.
Returning to Wu Jie's body, the method he chose was to give the cursed seal to three clones separately to study. Each time a clone was dispelled and he obtained its memories, he would digest that part of the knowledge, and then dispel the next one, ensuring that the impact on the main body would not exceed the limit.
Wu Jie carefully examined the cursed seal from Orochimaru and indeed, there was no Heaven and Earth Cursed Seal. There was only the Beast Cursed Seal, but for Wu Jie, this was enough.
Because the Beast Cursed Seal inherently had the highest success rate and was the easiest to spread. Because the technique was mature.
And once he mastered the method of engraving the cursed seal, he could bestow the ninjas of Grass Hidden Village with the 'Great Secret Treasure of Grass Hidden Village'...
Mysterious power!
Of course, during the process of applying the cursed seal, Heavy Orochimaru's body fluid was needed. Although Orochimaru also provided some, it was clearly not enough. So, the clone left behind by Xiang Ran was researching Orochimaru's biotechnology.
As long as he could clone Heavy Orochimaru's body fluid, all the consumables of Grass Hidden Village could evolve into Cursed Seal ninjas!
🚨 Note : Consider to Support this Story on Patreon.com/Flokixy to access +200 advance Chapters and To Support The Daily Update