Chapter 511: Chapter Two: Cellmate

【Main Quest: Choice】

Difficulty Level: Lv. 12

Quest Summary: Join any faction—Konoha, Cloud Village, Stone Village, Sand Village, Mist Village, Land of Iron, etc.

Quest Information: Your faction choice will affect subsequent quests.

Quest Deadline: 5 calendar days.

Quest Reward: 3000 Paradise Coins.

Quest Penalty: Forced execution.

……

Open-world main quests are usually continuous.

The first main quest isn't hard; the Naruto world has too many factions—dozens of ninja villages alone, not counting other groups.

【Hunt Quest: Eliminate Violator #10001.】

Quest Summary: Eliminate Violator #10001 by any means; Violator #10001 is Rank 2, extremely dangerous.

Quest Deadline: Before leaving this derivative world.

Quest Reward: Silver Honor Medal.

……

A Hunt Quest has appeared; previous assessment worlds and survival trials had no Hunt Quests. After Su Xiao ascended to Rank 2, the Hunt Quest reappeared.

Right now, don't worry about the Hunt Quest—figure out the current timeline.

Su Xiao is in Mist Village; from the world's description as the Mist and Snow Village, he deduced the current time point.

"This is bad…"

If he wasn't wrong, the current time is the most chaotic period in Mist Village.

A group of rogue ninja called "Akatsuki" controls Mist Village; the Fourth Mizukage is under genjutsu.

The term "Blood Mist Village" doesn't refer to a place—it represents an era, a brutal period.

Ninja children attend ninja school to learn basics; other villages use exams to determine graduation, but Mist Village is different: graduating students are gathered and forced to kill each other, with survival rates rarely exceeding half, sometimes leaving only one alive.

The name "Blood Mist" isn't empty rumor; in governance and foreign policy, Mist Village is brutally ruthless.

Now Su Xiao is imprisoned in Mist Village's "dungeon"; his crime is unknown, but the treatment suggests it's serious—he's locked in the deepest cell.

"Hey."

The voice came again from the next cell.

"What."

Su Xiao spoke.

"I thought you were dead too. Is Kawa Mu dead?"

The inmate in the next cell reached a hand through the iron bars—a scarred arm, faint tooth marks visible, likely from biting out of hunger.

"Dead."

"Great, give me a piece."

A sound of swallowing saliva came through.

Su Xiao sat in his cell, lit a cigarette, ignored the inmate next door.

"Cold bastard, how'd you end up here?"

"…"

Su Xiao remained silent.

"I tried assassinating a woman. She was a beauty, but too strong—almost burned me to ash."

"A woman?"

Su Xiao grew interested—he might extract some intel from this talkative inmate.

"Yeah, a woman. Even now I can't forget her, especially her figure—tch, tch~"

"A ninja?"

"Of course. If she weren't a ninja, I wouldn't have tried to kill her."

"…"

Su Xiao didn't press—he knew the talkative inmate would speak up on his own in this dark cell.

"Aren't you curious who that woman was?"

"Not curious."

Su Xiao's reply annoyed the inmate next door.

"That woman is Kirigiri Mei. A useless peacemaker. I nearly killed her—if not for Chōjūrō showing up, I'd have won one-on-one."

A cold laugh came from the next cell; Su Xiao raised an eyebrow. Kirigiri Mei? The Fifth Mizukage?

"Hey, what crime did you commit? You're locked deeper than me."

"I don't know."

"Huh?"

Su Xiao genuinely didn't know—someone would come for him; otherwise this bizarre start was too cruel.

"What's your name?"

After the inmate asked, Su Xiao paused for a few seconds before answering.

"Bai Ye."

"Bai Ye? You're that madman—the one who tried assassinating the Fourth Mizukage?"

"Hm?"

Su Xiao exhaled a plume of smoke; his eyes glinted faintly in the dark.

The Lunhuileyuan assigned him the identity of a failed assassin who tried killing the Fourth Mizukage; how they knew he failed? Obviously, his current situation.

The Lunhuileyuan doesn't assign identities randomly. If so, Su Xiao truly had the capability to assassinate the Fourth Mizukage.

In terms of raw power, Su Xiao was far weaker than the Fourth Mizukage.

His mind raced—he considered one possibility: Qinggangyingsuo severely counters chakra.

He'd thought of this before: without chakra, ninja are just humans with slightly enhanced physical stats.

Qinggangyingsuo has one trait: while burning energy, it causes the victim's internal energy to go berserk—though the berserk lasts only a fraction of a second to about one second before fading.

For ninja, chakra is essential to use jutsu. Without it, not only jutsu, but even taijutsu suffers.

In that sense, ninja are like mages—just different combat styles.

Su Xiao felt that if a ninja got close enough to be wounded by him, the outcome wouldn't be good.

Of course, some ninja are different—like those with kekkei genkai.

Ordinary ninja jutsu fall into five elemental categories: wind, fire, lightning, water, earth; deeper elements include yin and yang.

Kekkei genkai combines two elements—for example, wind and water combine to form ice shields—that's kekkei genkai.

That's just the most basic kekkei genkai; Byakugan and Sharingan are also kekkei genkai.

Su Xiao should handle ordinary ninja easily—chunin aren't his match, jōnin might be tough if they fight to the death, but kage-level? If he keeps distance, he's dead.

But if Su Xiao closes in and strikes by surprise, even a kage might die in his hands—his Blade Master Lv. 21 combined with the Dark Purple +10 Zhanlong Flash isn't something to scoff at, let alone Qinggangyingsuo's energy-burning ability.

Su Xiao and the inmate next door share a strange bond—one failed to assassinate the Fourth Mizukage, the other failed to assassinate the Fifth.

"What's your name? If you tried assassinating the Fifth Mizukage, you're no nobody."

This time, Su Xiao spoke first.

"Chhh~ Fifth Mizukage?"

The inmate next door scoffed, as if hearing something absurd.

"That woman? Fifth Mizukage? What a joke!"

The inmate roared, losing control, punching the iron bars—metal rang loudly.

After a long silence, the inmate calmed down.

"She's not the Fifth Mizukage yet?"

"No, she isn't now, and she never will be."

The cell fell into dead silence.

"What's your name?"

Su Xiao spoke.

"Kiri no Zangetsu."

Hearing the name, Su Xiao understood why the man had the power to assassinate Kirigiri Mei—he was from the Kirigiri clan.

The Kirigiri clan's ability is water transformation—yet he was locked in a cell?

"Kirigiri clan? This place can't hold you."