Chapter 146: Summoning Beast and the Water Release Clone Plan

Chapter 146: Chapter 146: Summoning Beast and the Water Release Clone Plan

Clang, clang...

Several shuriken tore through the air with the rushing wind, flying straight toward the wild boar. Yet when they struck its body, they were sent bouncing away amid a series of metallic clangs, as though they had struck not a wild boar, but a solid lump of iron!

"Roar..."

Hot air blasted from the boar’s nostrils as an angry growl rumbled from its throat.

There was no doubt that although the shuriken hadn’t injured it, they had thoroughly pissed it off.

Seeing that things weren’t looking good, Tenma exclaimed, "Hey, hey, hey! Isn’t this thing’s hide way too tough?!"

Their squad leader, Jonin Minazuki, hurriedly shouted, "Watch out! It’s charging!"

The moment Minazuki finished speaking, the wild boar barreled straight toward the four-man squad.

Its momentum was terrifying. Dust billowed behind it as it charged forward like a speeding train!

"Fire Style: Great Fireball Technique!"

At that moment, Itachi unleashed the Fire Release ninjutsu passed down through the Uchiha clan.

Whoosh...

The enormous fireball engulfed the wild boar in an instant!

But before anyone could breathe a sigh of relief, a massive black shadow burst straight out of the flames and charged toward them.

Jonin Minazuki, the squad leader, scooped up Shinko and flashed onto a large tree, while Itachi grabbed the stunned Tenma and pulled him out of the way.

Bang...

Having failed to ram into its targets, the wild boar crashed headfirst into a large tree. With a heavy thud, the tree toppled to the ground!

Looking at the enormous tree—so thick that even two or three people joining hands wouldn’t have been able to wrap their arms around it—knocked down by the wild boar in a single hit, not only Tenma and Shinko, but even Jonin Minazuki wore expressions of shock.

Shinko’s teeth chattered as she stammered, "S-Sensei... maybe we should go back first!"

Tenma hurriedly agreed, "How is that thing a wild boar?! It’s practically a monster!"

The wild boar, having just knocked down an enormous tree, shook its head. Another stream of hot air blasted from its long snout before it locked onto Itachi and Tenma, who were standing on the ground, and charged again.

Itachi activated his Sharingan and shouted,

"Genjutsu!"

As Itachi cast the genjutsu, the charging wild boar staggered several steps before crashing headfirst onto the ground.

Shinko jumped down from the tree and cheered, "Wow! As expected of Itachi!"

Minazuki also landed beside Itachi and patted him on the shoulder. "Well done!"

Just as everyone was celebrating the successful completion of their mission, the wild boar—which had only been unconscious for a short while—unexpectedly staggered back onto its feet and charged toward the completely unprepared group once again.

"Damn it! Everyone, watch out!"

By the time Itachi noticed the wild boar charging toward them, it was already right in front of them.

Jonin Minazuki, their squad leader, turned around and was immediately startled. There was no longer enough time for him to do anything else, so he could only spread his arms and shield his students behind him.

Tenma’s face was filled with terror, while Shinko squeezed her eyes shut in fear.

Fweeet...

Suddenly, a clear whistle rang through the forest.

The wild boar, which had already charged right up to them, abruptly stopped when it heard the whistle. It turned its head toward the direction the sound had come from.

At that moment, a figure slowly emerged from the forest.

Itachi looked toward the sound and exclaimed in delight,

"Kagami-senpai!"

The figure walking out of the forest was none other than Hyuga Kagami.

With both hands tucked into his pockets, he leisurely walked toward them, though his eyes were constantly sweeping over the wild boar.

Upon seeing Kagami, the wild boar immediately trotted over to him affectionately.

Looking at the wild boar, which had already grown to over two meters tall, Hyuga Kagami clicked his tongue in amazement.

"No way... I haven’t seen you for only half a year. How the hell did you get this big?"

The last time Kagami had seen the wild boar, it had only reached his waist. Now, it stood more than a full head taller than him.

Itachi walked over and asked, "Kagami-senpai, is this ninja boar your ninja beast?"

"Uh..." Kagami froze for a moment before smiling. "You could say that."

A look of realization appeared on Itachi’s face. "No wonder it’s so strong! So it was your ninja beast all along, Senpai!"

Itachi’s squad leader, Minazuki, also walked over and said with a smile, "My name is Minazuki. I’m Itachi’s Jonin-sensei. We really owe you one for what happened just now."

Kagami asked Minazuki why they had ended up fighting the wild boar. When he learned that the beast had practically become the overlord of the Forest of Death and was seriously disrupting its ecological balance, he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Kagami had never imagined that a casual experiment of his back then would actually nurture such an outrageously domineering ninja boar.

After thinking it over for a moment, Kagami said to Minazuki, "Don’t worry. I’ll drive it out of the Forest of Death right away."

The wild boar obviously couldn’t remain in the Forest of Death any longer.

Otherwise, if Konoha ninja kept coming to drive it away every few days, there would be no way for Kagami to continue his experiments.

After seeing Minazuki’s squad off, Kagami circled around the wild boar and examined it carefully.

Truthfully, the wild boar’s potential had somewhat exceeded his expectations.

He was now extremely curious about just how far this thing could grow in the future.

And so, Kagami decided to form a contract with the wild boar and officially take it as his summoning beast.

Perhaps because some Tenseigan chakra still remained within its body, the wild boar showed absolutely no resistance toward Hyuga Kagami, and the contract went through without a hitch, officially making it his summoning beast.

After taking the wild boar as his summoning beast, Kagami sent it out of the Forest of Death.

At the moment, he simply didn’t have the time or energy to slowly raise and train it himself. So he sent the wild boar into the seemingly endless forests of the Land of Fire and allowed it to grow freely.

As for just how far it would eventually develop...

That would be up to fate.

After dealing with the wild boar, Kagami immediately returned to his laboratory.

The failure of his first cloning attempt had made him realize that, when it came to the field of cloning, he was still nothing more than a novice.

Because of that, he didn’t rush into another attempt. Instead, while studying the cloning techniques he had obtained from Orochimaru, he carefully reviewed the various mistakes he had made during his first experiment.

Perhaps because of his development of the forbidden technique, Living Corpse Reincarnation, Orochimaru possessed an extraordinarily deep foundation in fields such as anatomy, human physiology, organ transplantation, and many others.

Kagami had only briefly gone through the scrolls he had obtained from Orochimaru, yet he had already benefited enormously.

Soon, as his studies deepened, he began to realize just how many elementary mistakes he had made during his first attempt.

Among them were quite a few fatal errors that, on their own, would have been enough to cause the cloning process to fail.

And so, while summarizing the mistakes he had made previously, Kagami began planning the next stage of his experiments.

With the equipment currently available in his laboratory, he was already barely capable of attempting to clone his Water Release clone.

The reason Kagami chose to prioritize cloning the Water Release clone was because, among all the clones, the Water Release clone possessed the most stable properties.

At the same time, among the six different clones, it theoretically had the highest chance of success.

As for the other four—the Fire Release clone, Lightning Release clone, Earth Release clone, and Wind Release clone—they either required additional equipment or possessed unstable properties, resulting in a relatively low success rate.

As for the Yang Release clone, which would represent the Sage Body...

At present, Hyuga Kagami didn’t even have the slightest clue where to begin.

A journey had to be taken one step at a time.

Therefore, he decided to start with the simplest of them all—the Water Release clone.

And this was precisely why he had asked Orochimaru to hand over Haku, who possessed the Ice Release Kekkei Genkai...