The Book: Chapter 3: First Harvest (Patreon)

Ruling by the Book

Disclaimer: I own nothing

Chapter 3: First Harvest

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- Kazuya -

I walked with Grandpa toward the fields, our guards following us.

Behind them were several nobles who were following us at a distance, most of them sweating from just a bit of walking and slowing us down.

“Remind me why we are doing this again?” I asked Grandpa.

“You need to show your achievements to the court so that they trust you and your decisions more. It will help establish your voice in the entire land and shut down those who might plan to raise voices against your rule.” He said as he looked around.

I nodded.

“Reputation and trust are a great thing, Kazu-kun. As long as you have a good reputation and trust in the hearts of people, people would even die for you with a single word. It’s the biggest power of a Daimyo. We don’t rely on strength otherwise what would be the difference between us and the Kages of the Ninja Villages? What a good daimyo must rule over is not the lands of the people but their hearts.”

“Yes, Grandpa.”

As we talked, we reached the lands and I saw him stop and stare at the fields. Taking a look at him, a smile crept on my face at his stunned looking face.

“I had heard of the reports but this….just how in the world did you do it?” He asked in a surprised voice.

“A combination of knowledge and hard work.” I smiled and walked forward towards the group of people who had gathered by Kensho and Kuina. “My people. In these last four months, you have worked hard. Every day and night, you have used your blood and sweat to grow these crops. Today….we reap the fruits of our hard work. Are you ready?”

“Yes!” They shouted at once.

“Good. Then let’s get to work. After work, I have a grand feast organised for all of you so that you all can relax after months of hard work.”

The crowd cheered at this and I smiled.

“Oh and one last thing, the competition from before….is still on.”

Those were the last words needed for the group to get to work at their fastest.

While they worked, I was not sitting idly either.

The nobles had all surrounded me, asking me about the methods and what we could do to improve the productivity of the crops of their lands.

Grandpa left the discussions to me. His words were that I needed to learn to take care of things myself.

I was able to negotiate the rights for those methods for some trade benefits and support from the nobles, nothing excessive but enough for me and my plans.

The harvesting process was completed by evening and even the weighing of the produce was completed.

The total harvest was two and a half times greater than before, a result which was completely unheard of around here.

I rewarded the winners twenty percent extra pay on top of their promised wages and they were quite happy.

And even after all that, the entire harvest went to my personal funds as Grandpa had promised. This should be enough to support my plans to support the kids for a year at least. Once things calm down, I will have to send Saitō to sell some of the gold and jewels I had summoned for cash to buy other necessary stuff for them.

With the immense success of the new methods, Grandpa officially appointed me as the one in charge of all of the Daimyo’s lands to do as I please and none of the nobles protested either. Hell, some of them even offered their own lands for experiments.

Profits from this were enough to turn anyone’s heads.

That night I went back to my warehouse.

Today was the day I was planning to work on medicines.

The medicinal herbs brought by Grandpa were necessary for the whole process. These medicines could assist in the growth of the body, increase vitality, boost physical fitness and chakra growth to some extent and even improve bloodline abilities.

In the Shinobi World, there was a reason why the Clans were always ahead of normal shinobi. In this world, you either have some special bloodlines or the heritage of hundreds of years or there is almost no chance for you to rise to the top.

I mean, even in anime, all the endgame people were all descendants of the Otsutsuki.

Sure Might Guy could temporarily reach that level but even just that much led him to almost dying if not for Naruto magically saving him in the end.

But not everyone is Might Guy. Not everyone could push themselves to that extent otherwise there would be plenty of Eight Gates users in Root.

Would someone like Danzo care for their pain and exhaustion?

No, he would be happy if one person among hundreds could get that result.

These medicines will help strengthen the bodies of my people and then I will plan on teaching them how to open the first gate at the very least.

Even with just that, they could reach Chunin levels of strength if matched with the Samurai Training of Iron Nation.

One hundred chunin levels would be enough to start a small village and a good starting level for protecting my land.

Moreover, these medicines can also be used by Grandpa and could increase his vitality.

As for me?

Rituals gave me much better results at a faster pace.

To be honest, if I wanted to, I could have become stronger if I used some of the crazier rituals but even the thoughts about those churned my stomach and made me start to lose my faith in humanity and this is something I was saying after using three genins for my rituals.

I shook my head clearing my thoughts.

While some of the rituals I had chosen were cruel, I made it a point to never cross a line. Obviously I was no saint. I knew I had to take many questionable decisions in my post as the Daimyo of my Land and get my hands dirty too but I had sworn not to cross some lines.

Thankfully, the Grimoire understood my problem and gave me several options. I had chosen some comparatively tamer rituals.

For example, to gain the bloodlines of other people, there were rituals like the one done in anime by Hiruko turning me into a zombie look-alike like the guy himself. Or there was another better ritual in which I had to become a part of their clan, their family through….a tantric ritual.

Basically, I had to marry the member of the clan whose powers I wanted and consummate the marriage.

And wasn’t this quiet convenient.

Daimyo were known to take wives from shinobi clans too and the clans agreed as well to create relationships and bonds with Daimyo to expand businesses.

I could just find a wife from the Uzumaki, Uchiha and Senju clans and get the genetic lottery if I wanted to.

Of course, there was also the option of getting the members of these clans and sacrificing them but I had nowhere near the power to pull something like that.

But obviously these actions will attract too much attention towards me.

Not only of the villages but also from the hidden darkness of this world….Zetsu.

The stronger the ritual, the more costly the ingredients. That’s why all this needed to be done with the utmost secrecy.

I was still an insignificant ant in this world. I can’t attract any attention to myself.

________________________________x_____________________________________

“Those damned Stairs bastards.” I cursed as I read the Grimoire.

“What?” Kuina asked, looking from her own book.

I didn’t answer and looked at the Grimoire once more.

Two months had passed since the day of the harvest and in this time, I had collected the information about the Stairs Daimyo and his family including the girl who was proposed to be married to me and I did find some crazy things which made it clear to me why they were going so far as to merge their land with ours and even absolve the position of the Stairs Daimyo. Turns out that they had their eyes set up on our lands from the very beginning.

And it wasn’t just them but also the Medicine guys who were secretly backing them up, having a stake in the whole plan.

The Stairs Daimyo had a son who had an official wife and five concubines. The daughter from his main wife was married to the grandson of the Medicine Daimyo while the one proposed to marry me was the ostracised daughter he had with a woman of common birth. Her mother wasn’t even recognised as a wife and was disposed off while the girl was treated as a pariah. 

I don’t have a problem with marrying the girl herself. It’s what they plan to do after that that I have a problem with.

They plan to let us have a child and then poison both her and me to death while becoming the guardians of the child and take control over the Land of Flowers. With the assistance of the Land of Medicines who have their own Ninjas and specialise in poison, it wouldn’t be that hard either. With even their daughter dying, they wouldn’t be under any doubts even if it was found out that we were being poisoned. But it didn’t just end there.

Those bastards even had plans to kill and exchange our child with the child of the Medicine Daimyo’s grandson.

In this way, within five years, they could take over the Land of Flowers and no one would be aware of anything.

Or even if they were, they wouldn’t do anything as long as they didn't change any trade agreements, even bypassing the protection of Kumo.

I hadn’t searched for the Medicine Daimyo and his people yet but I was pretty sure that those bastards would probably have the Stairs guys encounter some accidents after that kid took control of the Land in future.

Just how in the nine hells did Grandpa agree to something like this?

It’s not like him to fall for such an obvious trick.

Was he under some kind of Genjutsu?

And now that the matters had gotten this far, breaking off this agreement would give those two Daimyos a reason to target us and that could escalate very quickly in these times. Other bigger forces could smell blood and then this matter would be far beyond my control.

Those two bastards must be eying our lands from the very start. I mean while the Land of Medicine had more land than us, they were still poorer and with them losing land in this war, they were not looking for a way to protect themselves but rather recover their losses by annexing our lands.

If I wasn’t so pissed off at them, I would even clap at their plans.

Fucking hell. Those five Great Daimyos must learn something from these two. They could take over the whole land without raising a weapon and still come out smelling like….flowers, pun not intended.

Now, what to do?

I closed my eyes and thought of what I could do to come out of this problem with the least amount of damage to my land.

“Kazuya?” Kuina called out again.

“Hmm.”

“What happened? You were reading and you suddenly cursed. Is everything alright?” She asked, hesitantly.

“No. No, nothing is alright. We have a big problem on hand and we need to prepare for the coming storm.” I massaged my head as I explained the problem to her.

“Then what should we do?” She asked.

My eyes hardened at the question. “Well, if they think they can just walk in and take control over my land, then they have got a completely different thing coming for them. If they want to kill me….I will just kill them first. Come, we need to prepare.”

She nodded and followed me.

In the two months, the training of my forces had begun in the earnest.

With enough resources and special medicines, the kids were growing at a very fast pace but even then it would take them at least three years to become ready.

Taking the characters from anime as a benchmark would be nothing but foolishness as they were the cream of the crop, the future heads of the clans or super geniuses.

Common people took six years of academy and then three to four years of field duty to become a Chunin and as for Jōnin, well, one in a hundred Chunin becoming a Jōnin would be great news for a village.

Samurai were a different case but even they needed a lot of equipment. Chakra Blades and Enhanced Armour cost a lot. The only reason the Iron Nation was able to keep a standing army was because of the insane number of mines they had.

We had no such things so getting equipment for so many people will be harder. Maybe I could try summoning these items.

Then again, summoning has not been giving me much results. Last month’s summoning was a failure. The other side rejected the offer.

I was hoping that this month’s summoning helps me out.

With this in mind, I directly went to my lab and started working on the summoning process. In the last two months, I had not once stopped training and my chakra was rising but the increase was not as fast as I wanted it to be.

Having no bloodlines really puts a damper on things.

I knew my expectations were a bit unrealistic as even geniuses like Minato and Jiraya who reached that level only did so in their twenties and they had been training since they were six or seven.

Compared to them, I merely had months of training while my strength was mainly due to rituals.

Still, apart from this one thing, other things had been going my way. I had summoned several medicinal herbs and put them together with the herbs Grandpa had collected from the Land of Medicine. I had started a Medicine Garden of my own.

Because of this reason, I expanded my workshop by almost four times. At the rate it was going, I think I might end up making a hidden village of sorts on my own.

The preparations were finished and I started the process. Putting a hand on my Grimoire, I concentrated on what I wanted.

I needed someone who could teach my people to fight as well as protect me and the Land of Flowers.

Please don’t fuck up this time and accept.

The light of the ritual circle got brighter and brighter, forming into a figure.

When the light vanished, an astonished yelp sounded in the room.

Kuina had yelped in surprise as the figure who appeared in front of us was covered in blood and fell down as soon as the summoning completed.

She was a young woman of a slender build, slightly tall in height and had notably red lips in contrast to her pale complexion. She had long, straight, black hair that reached just below her hips, worn down with two shorter clumps over her shoulders, and arched, ear-length bangs on either side of her face. Her eyes, only half open, were a pale violet and slanted towards the sides of her face, bright and bug-like, with many notable white sparkles reflecting light off of them but right now the sclera of her eyes were completely red. It seemed like she had burst some blood vessels or something. Her breathing was shallow and she looked to be in critical condition.

“Kuina, hurry up and get the medical kit.” I ordered as I quickly rushed to the girl and took a look at her.

She had a massive gash wound on her chest and a stab wound in her stomach in which an icicle was lodged.

Damn,that looks horrible. Just what kind of enemy was she fighting?

I took a deep breath and held the icicle and pulled it out in one swift movement. Blood gushed out immediately. Not delaying one extra moment, I took out a Red Potion, something I had summoned a while ago when doing random summons for something to heal me and used it on her. The potion was from the Overlord world. From what the Grimoire said, it was as good as a second tier healing magic. Sure enough, the wound started closing at a rapid pace until there was nothing left.

That said, the girl had already bled too much and her breathing hadn’t improved much.

Kuina rushed in with medicines.

“Umm, could you please, well, clean her up and apply the medicines to any leftover wounds. I have done the preliminary healing and closed the major wound but she has lost a lot of blood so I would need to make something for her.”

She nodded and took her to one of the guest rooms while I went to prepare something for her.

While working on the medicines, I realised something crucial. Till now, I was summoning people who would have died.

Kuina and Saitō were unique as they were not injured and could have died directly.

There was a high chance that I could get someone who would be gravely injured and could die as soon as they were summoned.

I didn’t have anything good for healing either. Even the Red Potion I had summoned was a lucky draw.

I would need a healer next time. In fact, it turns out that I seriously lacked a healer. If I were to get attacked or even poisoned, there would be no one who could heal me.

Alright, target set. Next time, I am going to summon healers.

_________________________________x____________________________________

Two days had passed since the summoning and while we had done all we could do, the girl hadn’t regained her consciousness.

Fortunately, her condition had improved.

She had a fever which had gone down and even her blood had been replenished now all that was needed was for her to wake up.

Right now, I was in a meeting with Saitō and Kuina to discuss how to deal with the matter with the engagement.

“The easiest way would be to kill the girl.” Saitō started but knowing him, he would never do so. “But that’s out of the question.”

I didn’t have any enmity with the girl. If anything, she has had a very hard life and was barely treated well right now to put on a show for us and that too, to only use her as a sacrifice later on.

I didn’t feel hate for her, just pity.

“So the only way we have is to face the masterminds. I would suggest that you marry her and let the merger take place and then we organise some accidents for them, finishing them off. They wouldn’t make any moves until she is pregnant with your child so you can have at least two or even three years depending on how long you can delay. In that time, we can prepare enough forces to resist them even if they have a Shinobi village of their own.”

“It would be like living with a snake but where there are risks, there are also benefits. I have researched the Land of Stairs and the Land of Medicine and found out some interesting things about the places.” Saitō continued.

He did go on to investigate the land, undercover on my orders.

“What interesting thing?”

“Apparently, there is a mountain where fire burns from the crack of the mountain. It has been burning there for the last four thousand years, uninterrupted. No matter how bad the rain or the storm, the fire keeps on burning.” He continued. “The fools of the place believe it to be a curse or a demon possessing the place but in reality, those mountains contain immense reserves of Natural Gas which they are wasting due to their ignorance.”

“What!” I did a take back at the information. “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. Those kinds of reserves could make you a superpower in this continent even in terms of economy. That’s why I suggest that you do not let go of this engagement and go through with it. We need to get the Land of Stairs under us.”

….that….completely changes things.

Oil and Natural Gas were the two things which controlled the economy in the modern world. Whoever controls them will have a great advantage over others.

“What of the Land of Medicines?” I asked.

“You told me to research the existence of strong beasts and creatures, right?”

I nodded. I needed them for sacrifices and for rituals to summon stronger people.

“Apparently, there is a legend in the Howling Wolf Village of a monster called Rōen. It used to attack the village in the past before it disappeared. I think it must have been sealed away somewhere in the village or the nearby area.”

“I see. Thank you Saitō. That’s great news. If we could indeed use this, we might be able to solve all the problems in one go.” I quickly opened the Grimoire and searched for the information on Rōen.

Five months….

Damn.

But that’s not a bad thing. If anything, it’s a good thing. The longer the time the stronger the beast and the better the sacrifice.

And I would need to come up with a method to control and capture the beast. Five months would be needed at the very least for this.

I would need to get Grandpa in on this plan.

But I hadn’t known of the Rōen beast from my memories and while my memories of my previous life and this world were not detailed, I couldn’t claim to know everything about this land either.

Not to mention, there was some chance that this could be some alternate universe version of the Naruto world.

Which would mean there would be things I didn’t know about this world or maybe even the things from the movie were included in this world.

Suddenly, the entire scope of my search became far wider.

__________________________________x___________________________________

“Do you understand the weight of your words, Kazuya?” Grandpa asked me in a very serious tone.

“I would never joke about this.” I answered unwaveringly.

“Do you have any proof of your words?” He asked.

“I….no. I have nothing in hand. The information I have about Princess Kasumi can be verified if you had an insider but I doubt they would leave such an obvious hole in their story.” I really couldn’t explain how I knew about everything.

“Do you not want to marry her, Kazu-kun?” He sighed and asked.

“I don’t have any problems with her, Grandpa. In fact, I am not telling you to cancel this marriage. The merger of the two lands would be a boon for our land like no other. What I want is for you to believe me that they don’t have our best intentions in mind when they do this.” I explained.

He massaged his head.

“Please trust me on this Grandpa. You know me. I would never lie about such a serious thing.” I urged him again.

“I am not saying that I don’t trust you Kazu-kun. It’s just that the whole thing is a bit too much of a stretch.” He said, looking helpless.

“I am not asking for much. Just a few things. Help me set the engagement in four months and then give us some time to get to know each other. That much should be doable, right? Just give them the excuse that you are taking care of nobles before the merger and ask them to do the same. Overall, you could delay it for eight months or so. That will be enough time for me to get everything ready to protect us.”

“Alright. I will see what I can do. I am putting the future of the Land of Flowers on your shoulders, Kazu-kun. Please don’t let our people down.”

“I swear, Grandpa.”

It was times like these that I realised how lucky I was to have a man like this as my Grandpa. He was willing to trust me even when I was hiding so many things from him.

“By the way, how are the medicines working?” I asked.

I had given him the medicines I had made for the training of the kids. They wouldn’t do much but they could still increase his vitality a lot.

“Oh those things are amazing. The joint pains I had all vanished in one day and I feel like I am ten years younger all of a sudden. If you sell those, we could open our stake in the Medicine Business.”

“No. Those will not be for sale. Those medicines can be used to train Shinobi forces of our own and increase their potential to some extent. There is no way I can release these to the outside world.” I denied it completely.

“Well, whatever you think is good. I am not bothering with that side of things either way.” He shrugged. “In a few years, you will be the Daimyo and I will be retired, hopefully playing with my great grandchildren.

….

“You still haven’t given up on that?” I asked.

“Obviously not. I still think Kuina is a good girl and I heard you saved some other girl in an injured state too who is also a beauty.” He smirked, making me facepalm. “I don’t mind if you take both of them as concubines as long as I have great grandchildren to play with.”

And just like that the seriousness of the whole incident went down to hell.

We talked about a few things and when our conversation ended, I left the room to let him rest.

Outside, Mira was waiting for me. “Your Highness, Miss Kuina has sent a message that your guest has regained consciousness a while ago.”

“Did she now? Have someone prepare something to eat for her.”

“Yes, Your Highness.” She bowed.

“Thank you, Mira. We shall go and visit her.”

I left the palace and went straight for the warehouse where the girl was resting.

As expected, Kuina was waiting and talking with her while Saitō was outside the door.

He nodded at me when I reached there and we entered the room together.

Both the girls looked at me and the new girl tried to get up and bow but staggered.

“No need to get up. You were injured very badly and it was only through sheer coincidence that we were able to save you. You are still weak though so rest up.”

“Thank you, Your Highness.” She bowed from her place. “I will never forget your kindness.”

“You don’t need to thank me. I was the one who called for you in my time of need and you accepted my request. For this, I would always be grateful. Thank you. By the way, has Kuina explained the details of everything to you?”

“Oh yes. Kuina-san has been incredibly helpful. To think there would be such a great story behind everything. It feels like it's straight from one of the fairy tales that mother used to read to us.” She smiled kindly. “You are a good man who is trying to do well for his people. Not only that but you also saved my life. I will help you as well as I can.” She answered my unasked question.

“I….thank you. By the way, I didn’t get your name. So, could you please tell me something about yourself?” I asked.

“My name is Kanao Kocho. In my world, I was part of an organisation which specialises in hunting Demons.” She started her story and suddenly the information hit me.

“Kanae Kocho, the Flower Hashira of the Demon Slayer Corps, the elder sister of Shinobu Kocho.”

“Oh my, Kuina was right. You do know many things.”

“I assume you were fighting the Demon who used Ice?”

She nodded. “Yes. That pitiful fellow.” She said sadly.

“....I don’t think you should have pity for him. That guy….if things go as they are going then in a few years, that same demon would kill your sister.” I spoke making her go pale in shock. “Don’t worry. As long as you work for me, I can make sure that your sister survives. I don’t let my subordinates suffer.” I promised.

The words seemed to calm her down but I could still see the worry in her eyes. Kuina was glaring at me for springing such a thing on her at this time but I think it’s better to get these things off the way at first.

“I promise to serve you with all my heart so please, help my sister.” She bowed.

“I give you my word.”

We talked about several things and I found out that she was the one who created the Flower Breathing Style herself and was the first user of the Style, becoming a Hashira. In fact she was just seventeen right now.

That kind of talent is insane.

Flower Breathing is derived from Water Breathing so she knew that too.

I asked Kuina to explain everything to her till she recovered and then she will begin teaching the students the Breathing Styles.

According to her, the Water Breathing Style was the easiest for people to learn.

In fact, I was even eager to learn at least the Total Concentration Breathing.

With this technique, the kids can finally become an able force.

_________________________________x____________________________________

Grandpa worked quite fast.

My engagement would be in four months. I had asked Grandpa to give us some time to get to know each other before we got married.

The Stairs guy had no problem with it and even seemed to be happy. If I didn’t know better I would have been fooled by his actions. It was decided that we would get married after eight months and they would offer us a part of their land as gifts to us. It would allow the people there to get used to the idea of living here. Four months later, they would announce the merger.

I agreed.

With the time bomb set, I began working on the project to get Rōen for myself.

From the rumours, it was strong enough to devastate a small Ninja Village like the Howling Wolf Village so facing it directly was out of the question.

That meant we needed to rely on something else. The first option was seals but searching for a method to seal something like Rōen would take months and if I started it now, it would delay the information search about Rōen.

The next three months went by in a flash.

All my attempts to summon healers failed. I was hesitating to summon someone who was not in a critical condition before I had any abilities to save them or it would just be a waste again. This meant the people I was trying to summon had to be healthy and probably in a well off position to accept my summoning which ultimately led to my summoning resulting in a failure.

So after two months of failure, I changed my way of doing things. This time I decided to summon items which could heal just like the Red Potion or methods to make them myself.

And I was glad that I did so or I wouldn’t have discovered some new things about my power.

It turns out that my summoning powers could be used at their best once a month. It’s not just the case with Summoned people. They were inherently hard to summon, that’s why they only worked once a month when I was at my best. 

Summoning items were similar too as I could summon magical items of a far better quality if I used that summoning slot for the process. Apart from this, if I were to use something connected to the world I was targeting for the summon, I was able to reduce the cost of energy used in summoning.

Using this new knowledge and the previous bottle of Red Potion for the summoning ritual’s catalyst, I was able to summon a full crate of Red Potions, eight of them instead of only one.

My guess was that with the energy not being expended to search through different worlds, I could use more of it for summoning itself. The object connected to the previous world acted as an anchor of sorts to facilitate the summoning process.

Just learning this has opened up so many pathways for me.

Every day, I learn more and more about the Grimoire and I realise how much of a fool I am doing what I did yesterday.

Still, with these healing potions, I can go back to summoning near dead people and healing them back.

Too bad to make more the potions required to learn one to learn Alchemy and pay one of the YGGDRASIL Gold Coins for each potion.

The last few months I have been concentrating on learning Fuinjutsu.

In fact, we selected several kids from the people who were training to learn Fuinjutsu. All of them were tested to see who had a knack for the art.

Among the one hundred and twenty kids we had under us, only eight of them had any knack for the skill. Apart from them, Kanae seemed to have some knack for the skill too but she was not that good. Kuina had no talent for Fuinjutsu and neither did Saitō.

So ultimately the bulk of the work fell on my head.

I was both practising the skills and teaching them to the kids.

And I was glad that I had something like the Grimoire which directly imprinted the basic method instantly or I can’t imagine how difficult it would have been to learn everything from scratch. It also told me why people were so shit scared of the Uzumaki Clan.

Fuinjutsu was an utter cheat.

To learn Fuinjutsu, one needed to learn calligraphy first, something which was already taught to me since childhood so I could skip that step quite easily. Kanae had the same advantage, being raised in a well to do household, she was trained in calligraphy too.

I had started by making basic seals as the materials needed for them were relatively cheaper. The Flash Tag, Sensory Seals and Explosive Tags were the basics.

After that came the Sealing Scrolls and Weight Seals.

This month, I was able to make some Weight Seals. It basically increases the weight of a substance. If used on metals, it can make them heavier. These are the kinds of seals used in making Training Weights.

My introduction of Training Weights had various reactions among my people. Some of them were frightened, some unsure while some were extremely excited. Kuina being the last type. She was extremely happy when she found out about these. She even had me make some tags so that she could increase the weight of her sword for practice.

These Training Weights had a great role in the development of my forces as I was planning to train all my people to have the capacity to at least open the eight inner gates. Rock Lee had learned how to open five gates in around a year and a half. It wouldn’t be too much to ask for my people to open at least one in a year with all the help and medicines I am providing them to train.

Even I myself was wearing the same to push my body forward.

Kanae teaching everyone the breathing methods was also helpful as Total Concentration Breathing helped slowly increase the physical power of the individual.

Things were finally looking good for my land but not everything was as good as it seemed.

Whereas my people growing stronger was a good thing, the war was getting intense. It has been almost a year since the war started and things are starting to get worse now. The main forces had used up the stock they had prepared by now and were going to start buying food and stocks from the smaller nation.

And while they called it buying, it’s more of extortion with the prices they offered.

The people of my land had started adopting the new methods of agriculture and their production had increased so it should offset the low prices for a while.

I am just worried about someone trying to steal from us.

“Do you wanna go for another round?” Kuina asked me, breaking me from my thoughts.

“One more? Well, why not but this would be the last round for me.” I replied breathing heavily.

Contrary to me, she wasn’t even breathing heavily. Seriously, the One Piece world and its people were crazy.

“Let’s make it five more rounds, Kuina-chan.” Kanae said, enthusiastically.

….

The two girls had gotten quite close in the last three months.

Both of them were genius swordswomen and Kuina being the prodigy she was, was speeding through the Breathing Method training. According to Kanae, she had never seen someone progressing so fast.

We were still not at the lead of the group.

At the forefront was Saitō who had been learning chakra techniques and breathing methods like a fish to the water. His experience with manipulating his Chi was coming in handy and his strength was increasing at a visible pace.

Right now, both him and Kuina are at Chunin level while I am at High Genin level due to lacking the skills but my physique and chakra were all as good as a top Chunin. Not to say I was helpless. I still had some tricks up my sleeves.

Kanae was still learning more about chakra so her strength was still in progress but even then she would easily be a Chunin level.

We didn’t know any good attack jutsu yet and mainly worked on the basics like breaking Genjutsu, Chakra Enhancement, Tree and Water Walking.

We were progressing slowly as we didn’t have any good teacher to teach us. Only Kensho and I had any ideas about these things and even then I was just a beginner.

As we ran further, a Samurai came running towards us.

“Your Highness!” He was relatively young and looked like he was terrified of something.

“What happened?” I asked.

“There….there are shinobi fighting a little distance outside the town.” He replied as soon as he regained his breath.

A chill ran down my spine at the words but I still asked.

“How many and how far? What village are they from? Were any of our people injured?”

“Two kilometres outside the city. A group of shinobi from Iwagakure were chasing three shinobi from Uzugakure. The Iwa group had more people and the Uzu group looked like they were in trouble.”

“Uzu and Iwa?” What are Uzu and Iwa people doing here?

“What should we do, Your Highness?” The samurai trainee asked.

I looked at Saitō. “We watch from a distance and see the situation for ourselves before deciding.”

He nodded and our main group went towards the direction of combat.

On reaching the scene, I brought out a few pairs of binoculars for my group and we looked at the fighting scene.

The three Uzumaki people were clearly identifiable from their distinct red hair. They were surrounded by twice the number of Iwa shinobi….the key word being were

They had already killed three of them while two others were seriously wounded but it was not without costing them injuries as well.

“How strong do they look to you, Kensho?” I asked, my eyes narrowing at the scene, several things going on in my head.

“They are all Chunin except two of the injured Uzumakis who might be stronger considering that they are fighting at that level even with such injuries. The dead Iwa might have been Jonins or I can’t see them being pushed to this extent.” Kensho said as he inspected the battle.

“The stronger ones are trying to protect the weakest redhead or they could probably have escaped.” Saitō remarked. “She must be someone important….at least to them.”

“The red haired ones are poisoned.” Kanae said, her usual tone replaced by a calm and serious voice. “Their movements are getting slower. The other party knows this and thus they are delaying the fight.”

“From the look in their eyes, it looks like they would sooner or later go suicidal to take down their enemies.” Saitō said.

We looked closer and observed another one of the Iwa people getting impatient and tried to sneak an attack on the weakest Uzumaki only for him to get struck by the sword and kicked away by the older ones.

The other Iwa shinobi didn’t let go of this and a kunai was lodged into the guys of the older Uzumaki in exchange.

The injured Iwa was picked up by one of his comrade while another one came forward to protect the two.

It was at that moment that we saw the older Uzumaki making a hand sign and the guy who had just been kicked away blew up.

I heard Kuina take a breath at the scene. “That’s….”

“The reason why the Uzumaki Clan are so feared in the Shinobi World. They are a Clan of Fuinjutsu Masters. True Masters could implant an Explosive Seal on your body with just a touch.”

The blast took down both the injured guy as well as the one healing him while the one protecting the two was injured badly.

Suddenly, the playing field was evened….or so it looked.

One of the injured Uzumaki suddenly vomited blood and almost kneeled.

At this rate they will all die….

Suddenly a thought came to my mind and I turned towards Saitō. “Do you think we can take the Iwa shinobi out?”

Kensho was surprised. “Your Highness?”

Saitō was not deterred and nodded.

“Good then save the Uzumaki. Take down Iwa. Attack!”

Kensho was a true samurai as even when the guy was doubtful about the orders, he still took action as soon as an order was given. There was no hesitation at all.

I observed them from a distance.

It was the first time I had seen my people fight for real.

Kanae was like a completely different person in a fight. She just tore through the Iwa’s surprised defence in a moment.

While her style was the epitome of gracefulness, Saitō’s style was like watching a surgeon. Fighting with pinpoint accuracy. When he attacked, he always got what he wanted.

Kensho and Kuina were standard Samurai through and through.

With their help, the Iwa shinobi were taken care of easily and captured.

The Uzumaki however still didn’t leave their defensive position and were guarding against us.

I decided to take the lead at this time.

“Your Highness!” Kensho noticed me coming towards them and came forward to guard me. The other group also looked at me warily.

I waved at Kensho and looked at the Uzumaki group.

“Greetings, shinobi. We are the Prince of the Land of Flowers, Kazuya Katsuyoshi. You do not need to be wary of us. The reason we ordered our people to take action was because some of these Iwa shinobi had been causing trouble in our territory as well. They stole, burned and pillaged our land and killed our people so it is only obvious that as the ruler of the Land, we should take action.” I explained. It wasn’t even a lie.

Iwa was hated by the people of the Land of Flowers due to the previous war which took the life of the previous Daimyo, my father as well as took away several parts of our lands 

They looked slightly satisfied but didn’t let down their guard completely.

This time, I observed the group closely. The two older ones were both girls, twins in fact while the youngest one was a guy.

“We know it is not easy for you to trust us here so you could follow us to our capital city and see for yourself. As it looks, you three don’t look like you can keep standing for much longer.”

The oldest looking one who looked like in her twenties came forward and bowed slightly. “We thank you for saving our lives, Your Highness. Our Uzumaki village will never forget this favour.” She then hesitated before looking back at the other two and then at us. “I know it’s asking too much but we and the entire Uzushiogakure will be eternally grateful if you could provide us a place to stay until we recover.” She bowed deeply this time.

I smiled at her words. “Obviously. If we wanted you to die, we could have waited longer before interfering. You are welcome to rest with us till you recover. Just be reminded that you need to follow the rules of the land.”

“We swear.” She quickly replied.

“Capture the surviving Iwa Shinobi and take the bodies of the dead.” I ordered as I led the three back.

Three of them were still alive although barely.

We already had two chunins captured in our cells. If I can get two more, I could do another ritual.

To be honest, I wasn’t sure I could capture Chunins so easily until my people were a bit stronger so I had left this ritual on the backburner. Soul Rituals always took an insane amount of materials.

Sure I could kill the Uzumaki too but I had no intention of doing so. I wanted to establish friendly relationships with them. They could be of much greater help if my plan works.

With this thought in mind, I began talking with them, introducing them to the city as we walked back home.

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Author’s Note:

Another chapter of ‘Ruling by the Book’ is here.

As you can see the plot is slowly moving.

In this case, the MC needed some time to truly establish himself.

Ninjas need years of training to become even Chunin level. The likes of Minato and Kakashi are the exceptions, not the rule.

I mean there is a reason why most only reach to the level of Chunin and cannot go beyond that.

Now that a year or so has passed, he can begin taking more actions.

I have some more summons planned and in the coming chapters, I plan for him to open a gate to another world after which the story will start in earnest.

As I said, this is a slow burn.

Enjoy the new chapter.

Good Day, Peace Out.