Chapter 144: Meeting at Iwagakure

On the Konoha side, everyone had won another battle, and some were celebrating their promotion to Jonin. Naruto was comforting Haruno Sakura, who was not used to this kind of scene for the first time. The Konoha ninjas present were more convinced of Naruto as the hero of Konoha. Some of them had already regarded Naruto as their idol. Kakashi smiled at Naruto, and was proud to have a subordinate like him.

As for the Tsuchikage, this Anbu was very good at speed. He carried the Tsuchikage on his back and ran away for who knows how far. They did not stop until they were far away from the border of the Land of Fire and confirmed that there were no pursuers. The Tsuchikage touched his old waist which was extremely painful and said, "If I were younger, I would definitely have another battle with him." The Anbu said, "Master Tsuchikage, please forgive me for being blunt. Even when you were younger, you were definitely not his opponent. The strength of this boy is close to that of Hashirama Senju, the founder of Konoha Village."

After hearing what he said, the Tsuchikage said unconvincedly: "Nani! Do you mean that my strength is weak? Ah! Oh no, my old waist!" The Anbu looked at Ohnoki. His expression could not be seen due to the mask, but one could imagine how speechless he was.

Ohnoki and his companions found a safe place to rest for a night. By the next morning, Ohnoki's old waist had finally recovered. In this way, Ohnoki could fly directly back to the Land of Earth. As soon as he returned to the Iwagakure Village, Ohnoki held a meeting and received good news that the two Jinchūriki had been found.

At the meeting, Ohnoki was furious, while the leader in charge of commanding the Anbu and the people on the Daimyo side were dejected and dared not speak. Ohnoki said: "I have said before that you should not take actions against Konoha lightly. You think you can defeat Konoha by using the means of the Anbu, do you know how many geniuses Konoha has? This time I was lucky to escape back."

The leader of the Anbu said weakly, "May I ask, Lord Tsuchikage, how are the Anbu that went with you?"

Ohnoki shook his head, closed his eyes and said: "As the Tsuchikage, I feel sorry for them. If no one comes back in three days, I'm afraid..." Ohnoki paused, gritted his teeth and said: "It is possible that the whole army has been wiped out!"

Everyone present was shocked, and the whole place fell silent. So many people were wiped out, what strength was the enemy? At this meeting, Iwagakure announced a rule: "From now on, no one can take large-scale actions against Konoha!"

However, Konoha didn't know about these things. The chaos in the ninja world made the ninja stationed in the stronghold very hard. In order to protect the Land of Fire and Konoha, all ninjas must do their best. Not only Iwagakure, but also Kumogakure has become very cautious. Konoha's strength is too strong, and no one would be so bored as to cause trouble for themselves. Naruto has a lot of free time and began to think about the matter of Chunlai Villa.

During this period of war, there were many orphans. As long as Naruto was willing, there would be no problem in forming a ninja village. But Naruto understood that quality was more important than quantity, so he only selected those with better qualifications and adopted them. However, the thing that bothered Naruto the most was that these people basically had insufficient chakra. Even if they had a good talent for understanding ninjutsu, it was difficult for them to perform powerful ninjutsu. Among the thousands of orphans Naruto had adopted, there were less than ten with strong chakra.

If the Nine-Tails was fully assisting Naruto now, that would be another story. The problem is that the Nine-Tails and Naruto's relationship is not that good. Still training in a place not far from the base, Naruto suddenly sat on the ground and began to think about these problems. Sakura came over at some point, and seeing that Naruto didn't notice her at all, Sakura walked up to Naruto and said, "Naruto, what are you thinking about? Are you thinking about Sasuke again?"

Naruto finally responded after hearing Sakura's voice, and nodded absentmindedly. Sakura also talked to herself: "Sasuke has been with Orochimaru for so long, and he still has Orochimaru's curse seal on him. Who knows what Orochimaru will do next..." Naruto suddenly had an idea and accidentally called out: "Curse seal!" Sakura asked in confusion: "Naruto, are you also worried about the curse seal?" Naruto just nodded mechanically, but he was actually thinking about other things.

If I remember correctly, Orochimaru's curse seal is also an application of Senjutsu Chakra, but it is not perfect yet and the risk is too great to use. If a perfect curse seal can be developed, then Naruto's own people can use Senjutsu Chakra to solve the problem of insufficient chakra to some extent. Soon, Naruto reached a dead end again. He had no research on curse seals. Even Orochimaru, after investing a lot of research, still couldn't achieve perfection, which shows how difficult it is to achieve perfection.

Naruto's brain jumped quickly, and it would definitely not work to use the curse seal method completely. If he could use ninja tools similar to Samehada, perhaps he could meet this requirement. However, ninja tools like Samehada are extremely rare in the entire ninja world. It is not an exaggeration to say that they are unique. It is impossible to equip a large number of ninjas with them. From the perspective of ninja tools, Naruto has not done much research, and he must find someone who knows how to make ninja tools. In addition to the craftsmen who specialize in making ninja tools for Konoha, the only people who can make excellent ninja tools should be the legendary craftsman village.

After chatting with Sakura, Naruto took Sakura back to the base. He gave the task of guarding the base to Hinata Mikoto, and Naruto planned to go alone to find the people in the Artisan Village. Although Sakura was a little dissatisfied with Naruto not taking her, she still had to obey Naruto's command in principle. Finally getting rid of Sakura, Naruto went to the Artisan Village alone.

Naruto directly entered the Sage Mode and used Flying Thunder God to rush to the Artisan Village at the fastest speed. However, what lay before Naruto was a ruin, and some places were still smoking. Obviously, the Artisan Village had been destroyed not long ago. In such a chaotic situation in the ninja world, ninja tools are also very important. The Artisan Village suffered a catastrophe mostly because of ninja tools. But not every ninja village is like Konoha, with craftsmen who specialize in making ninja tools for themselves.

Even though the situation was like this, Naruto still didn't plan to give up. According to common sense, even if the village was destroyed, not all the people in the village would be killed. There would always be a few survivors. Naruto entered the Sage Mode and began to sense carefully. There was basically no one around, and what Naruto needed to do now was to search carefully.

(End of this chapter)