"Sign-in successful."
"Congratulations, host, you have obtained: Intermediate Spiritual Pressure, Intermediate Shunpo, and Beginner Kaido."
Looking at the rewards from the sign-in, Hiroshi felt a surge of ecstasy.
Opening the status panel, he saw that his level had clearly changed to Intermediate Spiritual Pressure (Chunin).
This confirmed his earlier speculation—that the upper, middle, and lower levels of spiritual pressure corresponded to Jonin, Chunin, and Genin respectively. With his spiritual pressure now elevated, it would greatly aid him in dealing with the ninjas from Kumogakure.
Moreover, the sign-in also granted him Intermediate Shunpo and Beginner Kaido. Advancing to Intermediate Shunpo would significantly enhance his mobility. With sufficient speed, it was likely that enemy ninjas wouldn't even be able to touch him.
Back in the day, the Fourth Hokage had become famous across the ninja world for his elusive Flying Thunder God Technique, earning him the title "Yellow Flash."
Compared to ninja techniques like the Body Flicker, Shunpo had the advantage of not requiring hand seals, making it even more agile than the ninja's Body Flicker.
Additionally, the newly acquired Beginner Kaido could serve as a substitute for medical ninjutsu. As long as the injuries weren't life-threatening or involved severed limbs, they could be healed.
This greatly enhanced Hiroshi combat capabilities.
The rewards from this sign-in were truly a timely blessing.
The noise on the roof had ceased, but soon after, there was the faint sound of a wooden door being moved.
Hiroshi heart tightened—the enemy was preparing to enter the house.
He decided to use an Incantation-less Kido to hinder them while he made his escape with Shunpo!
But just then, Hiroshi felt the world spinning around him. "Damn it... a Genjutsu! I've been caught!"
And just like that, the rookie ninja was knocked out cold. After a while, a shadowy figure entered the room. Dressed in black night attire, the figure stealthily approached Hiroshi bedside. Seeing the unconscious Hiroshi, the intruder pulled out a sack, stuffed him inside, and then fled to flee toward the outskirts of the Hyuga clan's compound.
.....
"Stop! Who goes there?!"
A loud shout echoed from the courtyard—it was Hyuga Hiashi. It seemed the Kumogakure ninja had been discovered.
Having just come back hom in the middle of the night, Hiashi noticed a shadowy figure carrying a sack emerging from his son room, instantly realizing his son had been kidnapped, he was consumed by rage.
'My precious son, blessed with unparalleled talent, is a gift from the heavens to bring glory to the Hyuga clan. How dare these scoundrels try to kidnap him?! This is intolerable!'
Furious, Hiashi chased after the shadowy figure, but as soon as he reached the street, another shadow lunged at him.
Meanwhile, other Hyuga clan members who had heard the commotion were also intercepted, Clearly, there was more than one enemy.
The figure intercepting Hiashi shouted, "You go ahead, we'll hold them off!"
And so, the Hyuga clan members were held back, forced to watch helplessly as Hyuga Hiroshi was taken away.
Burning with anger, Hiashi launched a full-force attack on his opponent. It was clear that this was the leader—capturing him would reveal their origins.
....
Hiroshi, stuffed inside the sack, was carried away as the Kumogakure ninja sprinted through the night. With the ninja's leaps and bounds, Hiroshi was jostled violently inside the sack.
"Ugh..."
The intense jolting woke Hiroshi up.
As he regained consciousness, he was about to cry out when he suddenly remembered—he had been kidnapped!
This made him quickly stop what he was doing. Fortunately, the rushing cloud ninja didn't notice.
But now fully awake, Hiroshi felt extremely uncomfortable from being jostled around, and he cursed inwardly, 'You damn bastard, making me suffer like this, just you wait, I won't let you die so easily later!'
After running for who knows how long, the cloud ninja finally put down the big sack holding Hiroshi. Hiroshi thought he's just tired, but then he heard voices outside the sack.
"How's it going? Did everything go smoothly?"
"Yeah, we finally managed to kidnap the heir of the Hyuga clan. But the captain and the others stayed behind to cover our retreat. I doubt they'll be in grave danger."
"Is that so? Well, capturing a member of the Hyuga clan is already a huge success. As for the captain and the others, let's hope they can escape. If they die in battle, it'll still be a great contribution to the village, and their families will be taken care of."
"By the way, is that kid in the sack?"
"Yeah, I knocked him out. He probably won't wake up for a while."
"That's good. As long as we bring back the Byakugan, it'll be a major achievement!"
"Speaking of which, why didn't we just extract the Byakugan on the spot? Why bother bringing a whole person?"
"What do you know? The Byakugan's use depends on the person. If we just dig it out and brought it back, what if no one in the village is compatible? Bringing a whole person back means that even if something goes wrong during the transplant, we can still analyze the failure or find a way to fix it using the Hyuga clan member. Alright, check the kid and make sure he's not dead. If everything's fine, let's hurry back before anything else happens!"
With that, the two Cloud ninjas approached the bag containing Hiroshi.
Hiroshi nerves were on edge. Although he had recently reached the level of a Chunin and had a variety of Kido abilities, he had never actually fought an enemy before, which made him somewhat uncertain.
As the two Cloud ninja began to untie the bag, Hiroshi steeled his mind, his fingers ready to unleash a Kido spell and catch the enemy off guard.
At this moment, time seemed to stretch endlessly as Hiroshi waited in tense silence.
The sack was opened, and the two Cloud ninjas looked at the "sleeping" Hiroshi, letting their guard down.
"Everything's fine. Let's go, back to the village!"
Just as they turned their heads, Hiroshi, lying in the sack, suddenly opened his eyes. His right hand shot up, aimed at the nearest Cloud ninja, and with a flash of lightning, a white bolt of energy shot out, striking the ninja squarely in the chest.
"Arghhh!"
The Cloud ninja was hit by the white lightning, and with a scream, the powerful impact sent him flying backward.
After hitting the ground, his body convulsed uncontrollably, his chest was a bloody mess, accompanied by the smell of burnt flesh.
The poor Cloud ninja never expected to be ambushed by a five-year-old child and didn't even think to dodge, resulting in his instant defeat.
"What?! How? You cunning little brat!"
Seeing the situation turn bad, the other Cloud ninja quickly retreated.
Hiroshi slowly stood up, brushing off the dust that had settled on his body, and fixed his gaze on the remaining Cloud ninja.
"You rats! Disturbing my sleep in the middle of the night—don't you know I'm just a kid? Not getting enough sleep could seriously mess with my growth."
"You damn brat! I knew we shouldn't have underestimated you. People from the Leaf Village are as cunning as ever."
"What's this about me being cunning? I just wanted to get some decent sleep. It's you guys who had bad intentions, by the way... have you thought about how you want to die?"
"Kid, don't think just because you managed to ambush and seriously injure one of us that you've already won. He was just a Chunin. I'm a battle-hardened Jonin. When I was out on missions, you weren't even born yet, you little brat!"
The remaining Cloud ninja glared at Hiroshi, tightly gripping his kunai, and spoke with venom in his voice.
"Oh, a Jonin? How terrifying. I'm just a five-year-old kid, after all. How about we make a deal? You go back to the Land of Lightning, and I'll go back to the Leaf Village to get some more sleep. What do you say?"
"You little brat, are you toying with me?! We've paid such a high price, all for you. Just die already!"
With that, he charged at Hiroshi!