Shikamaru frowned slightly, "It's not worth much. Why are you picking up all this junk?"
"You wouldn't understand!" Ino waved her hand, "This is my way of dispelling the gloom in my heart. It only works for me! You guys rest, don't worry about me!"
Shikamaru tilted his head and pouted, muttering something about how "women are so troublesome."
Ino wandered through the ruined mountain stronghold.
Gold coins? Take them.
Pearls? Oh, they look quite shiny, take them.
Paper money issued by the Land of Fire? All stolen goods, take them! After a thorough search, Ino even found a whole box of gold bricks, perfectly shaped and clearly not smelted by the bandits themselves.
Is this normal? She had never been a bandit, so she didn't know if this was typical. No matter, take it all! She needed money, a lot of money!
To make a big pot, she had even planned to hire Kakuzu to cause some trouble. Now, she lacked nothing but money! There was no reason to refuse the gold that came her way.
She handed out the miscellaneous items to Shikamaru, Naruto, and the others as souvenirs, while she kept all the gold, gems, silver, and paper money for herself.
The group escorted the Village Chief's granddaughter down the mountain, received the completion receipt for the mission, and then handed over the captured bandits to the local authorities. They would likely be sentenced to hard labor. Ino didn't bother with the bandit leader anymore.
They rested in the village for a day before returning to the Hidden Leaf Village to report the mission.
A week passed, and the peaceful small mountain village welcomed another group of outsiders.
They wore black robes and hoods, appearing quite mysterious. After some inquiries, the leader of the group was furious, "What? Baki's gang was wiped out by the ninjas of the Hidden Leaf Village? Damn Hidden Leaf! How dare they mess with the Kurotsuchi family! We must go back and tell the boss. The family's gold business cannot be disrupted!"
After joining Team 10, Ino's student life was officially over.
Being a ninja wasn't just about knowing ninja techniques; it also required learning a wide range of skills.
Kakashi appeared steady, but due to his experiences in childhood and youth, many of his missions were primarily assassinations.
Asuma was completely different from Kakashi. Having served as a guardian ninja for the daimyo of the Land of Fire, and with the Third Hokage's various overt and covert support, his missions often involved protecting important figures.
As his subordinates, Ino and the others had to learn how to protect their mission targets.
During the bandit extermination mission, they had forgotten about the Village Chief's granddaughter in the heat of battle, which was a lesson. If the granddaughter had died, their mission would have been a failure, no matter how many bandits they killed.
This time, they were just lucky.
The mission target had no combat ability. How should they protect him? Start with Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet? The enemy might be killed, but the mission target could also be swept away.
Asuma's teaching was simple: run! First, escape with the mission target. That was the most important thing. Get to a safe place, and then consider dealing with the enemy.
"We are ninjas, not samurai. During a mission, the safety of the mission target is the top priority," Asuma raised a finger, "Now, suppose the mission target is the daimyo's wife. How would you escape with her?"
Choji, the chubby one, was busy eating snacks on the side. He didn't need to worry about such brainy tasks.
Ino and Shikamaru furrowed their brows in thought.
It was definitely not feasible to traverse the woods carrying Lady Daimyo like a ninja; ordinary people lacked Chakra and couldn't withstand such exertion. "A cart?" Ino suggested.
Shikamaru corrected her, "No, it should be a donkey cart."
Ino stared in disbelief, "A donkey cart?!"
This world had horses, but not just in the Land of Fire; horses everywhere were inadequate—short, weak, lacking explosive power, and most importantly, they had terrible tempers, often kicking up their heels or even turning around to bite. The horses here were no good, so when Shikamaru mentioned using a donkey cart, Ino and the others began practicing "donkey cart drifting" at the training ground the next day.
"Turn, turn! Quickly turn, oh no, ah—! Help!" It was Ino's first time driving a donkey cart in this life and the last.
The donkey ran fast under her whip, but the cart and donkey met their end just as quickly. In the final moment, Ino used a Substitution Technique, narrowly avoiding disaster.
Among them, Choji was the best at donkey cart drifting; the donkey really liked him. Shikamaru, with his experience in raising animals, came in second, while Ino's skills were the worst. It wasn't that she was bad, but those donkeys seemed a bit scared of her—perhaps they thought her aura was too strong?
Learning donkey cart drifting was essential, as was recognizing poisons, disguising, and infiltrating. While they didn't need to be masters of these skills, they at least had to know how to use them. Essentially, it was all part of training agents, and Ino and the others needed to learn it all.
After the mission to eliminate bandits, Asuma began special training for Team Ten. According to his intention, this team was highly competitive, practicing Water Release, Secret Techniques, and Body Techniques. Goodness! If one didn't know better, they might think they were about to head to the battlefield for the Great Ninja War. Just graduated, did they really need to push themselves so hard?
He hadn't trained like this when he was young.
The same kind of pressure was happening in Team Eight, where Hinata, Kiba, and Shino were all working hard, each focused on their training, with not a single one slacking off! With this atmosphere, Yuhi Kurenai and Asuma felt they couldn't afford to be lazy either. With the younger generation working so hard, could the two adults just stroll around shopping every day? Was that appropriate?
This new batch of Genin didn't even need special training.
However, the Third Hokage strongly insisted, vaguely mentioning the Chunin Exams in six months, so he had no choice but to comply.
Asuma, who excelled in Fire Release, became Ino's sparring partner.
Though he couldn't reach the level of a Hokage, he was definitely an elite Jonin, with balanced abilities across the board and no weaknesses. During the Konoha Crush Plan, Asuma could take down enemy ninjas with a single punch, truly formidable.
At the training ground.
Asuma asked, "Are you ready?"
Ino stood by the riverbank, "Asuma-sensei, I'm ready."
The two stood ten meters apart and formed hand seals simultaneously.
Asuma completed his hand seals first, taking a deep breath as Chakra gathered in his throat: "Fire Release: Great Flame Technique!"
This was a family secret technique of the Sarutobi Clan, and without the Sharingan, the Sarutobi and Uchiha clans were comparable in Fire Release.
"Water Release: Water Formation Wall!"
Ino's hand seals were slightly slower. She had already mastered the B-rank ninja technique, Water Wall, but just like with Water Dragon Bullet, the Second Hokage could simplify the hand seals for Water Wall to just two. She didn't have that ability yet. Her fingers blurred into afterimages as she channeled chakra within her body, quickly forming four hand seals.
The Second Hokage's Water Wall was different from that of other ninja. While other ninja drew water from the ground to create a barrier of water rising from below, the Second Hokage's Water Wall was far more flexible. Ino exhaled a curtain of water infused with chakra, which merged with the natural water in the environment. A silver ribbon of water then rapidly spun around Ino, the surging current forming a barrier with no blind spots, attempting to withstand the impact of the Fire Release: Great Flame Technique.