I, Uchiha Yu, am solely focused on cultivating immortality

Chapter 59 The Mission in Kumori Village

Uchiha Yu did not rush into the village. Instead, he hid on a hill near the village and waited until dawn to make sure that no Sand Village ninjas were around before finding the village chief who had issued the mission.

After showing the mission notice and headband to prove his identity and purpose, dispelling the village chief's fear of the unfamiliar ninja, the old man finally explained the mission to him.

Jiusen Village is a small village that makes a living from logging. The villagers' daily life consists of going up the mountain to cut down trees and then weaving the logs into rafts. When the water in the valley is at its calmest, the villagers push the rafts into the river, and the strongest people are responsible for letting the rafts float downstream to the river mouth to sell them.

The money from selling the timber was used to buy grain, salt, cloth, iron tools, and other necessities, which were then loaded into small boats and towed back to Jiusen Village to meet the villagers' needs. Because the area around Jiusen Village consisted of slopes with inclines exceeding thirty degrees, the village was situated halfway up a mountain and had no land suitable for growing crops. Therefore, the purchased grain was essential for the village's survival.

However, the river is in trouble this year; the water level is too low, and there are at least a dozen checkpoints along the way that the rafts cannot cross.

The villagers traveled upstream for over a hundred miles, inspecting the riverbed, but found no problem. However, proceeding further upstream was beyond their capabilities, so they had no choice but to seek help from the ninjas.

Although Kyusen Village is remote, the villagers are wealthy and knowledgeable. They sent people to the southern estuary to find the Konoha Village organization and issue a mission.

But this task actually has problems.

Since there is no need to fight against ninjas, the mission level is only C.

Although the reward for the mission reaches the top 50,000 taels for a C-level mission, the mission objective is not only to find the problem but also to solve it. The difficulty of the final objective is uncertain, and even finding the problem requires investigating a very large area, making the time required completely unpredictable. If travel time is added, completing the mission might take more than ten days, making the average mission reward too low.

Not to mention high-ranking ninjas, even newly graduated genin wouldn't be interested. Traveling for more than ten days and thousands of miles only to earn 50,000 taels is not worth it at all.

It's not even as good as doing the simplest tasks in the village, where you can earn several times more money in ten days.

This mission remained unclaimed for several days until it was finally taken by Uchiha Yu, who was determined to escape the Land of Fire.

Actually, he didn't take this mission very seriously, otherwise he wouldn't have gone to the Cat Castle first and then waited nine days to arrive at the mission location.

However, in front of the village chief of Kusen Village, Uchiha Yu still behaved very professionally. He wore his Konoha headband properly on his forehead, his mission notes were neatly arranged, and he asked for information in great detail, including when the water level started to drop, what the villagers' explorations had found, whether there were any dead fish or other animals, and whether any special plants had fallen.

As it turned out, a problem was indeed discovered. Six days before the water level dropped, there was a minor earthquake, followed by a minor flash flood. The floodwater was small but exceptionally muddy and contained a large number of branches with green leaves.

Although no on-site investigation has begun, Uchiha Yu has already guessed that the reason for the reduced water volume is most likely a landslide, and that a tributary of the river was blocked by the landslide, resulting in a reduction in water volume.

Whether this will solve the problem is hard to say; it depends on the specific circumstances of the terrain changes. If a landslide has formed a barrier lake, the problem can be solved by carefully removing the barrier.

But if the terrain changes and the mountains move, then he won't be able to solve the problem.

After all, moving mountains is one of the most powerful and transcendent abilities, second only to chasing stars and seizing the moon. It is a powerful ability that even Uchiha Yu wouldn't dare to dream of.

If he truly possessed such supernatural powers, would he still manage the Three Caves, scheme against Uchiha Shisui, and plot against the Third Hokage?

He shouldn't be Him. The Third Hokage will find out in the next second that he is not actually Uchiha Yu, but his real name is—Kuzoku Yu.

……

Uchiha Yu's free-flowing thoughts made him realize that his restless mind was causing trouble again, which forced him to build a shelter after leaving Kyuusei Village and heading north along the river.

After he carefully processed his wish, defeated the baboon that had transformed into a golden-furred, blue-faced creature, and transformed it into spiritual nourishment for his soul, it was already the early hours of the next day.

Miwa Masayo was very worried and reminded him, "Yu, the time you spend dealing with the Mind Monkey is getting longer and longer, but the intervals are getting shorter and shorter. Isn't there a problem?"

A refreshed Uchiha Yu comforted the tabby cat: "Don't worry, I chose the path of using pure natural energy as my method and chakra as my technique. This is the hardship I have to endure."

"Besides, the restlessness of the mind monkey is also the source of my progress. The more frequently and powerfully this dead monkey rebels, the better the foundation building will be. Once I get past this hurdle, everything will be fine."

"Hmm, hurry up, meow, you're too scary like this, meow."

Thank you for your blessings.

"Let's go, we've wasted too much time, we need to speed things up."

"The mission wasn't in a rush, meow, so why the sudden tension?"

"According to intelligence, the target of this mission may be a newly formed landslide dammed lake, which is very likely to be an unpredictable natural disaster."

Landslide-dammed lakes are a unique disaster in mountainous areas. Due to landslides or mudslides, the original river channel is blocked and begins to accumulate water, turning the original river channel into a new lake.

If the dam blocking the river is made of solid rock, the lake can remain for a long time, forming a beautiful waterfall on the other side.

But this is rare.

Generally speaking, landslide dams are made of debris such as rocks, gravel, silt, and trees, and their sturdiness is not guaranteed at all. When the lake water level rises to a certain level, the dam will inevitably break.

Accumulated river water mixed with debris from a breached dam can create an impact more devastating than any flash flood, causing previously safe areas to be swept away by the flood and often resulting in extremely serious casualties.

Uchiha Yu was a little worried that his employer would be wiped out by the flood before he could complete his mission.

He didn't care about a 100% mission completion rate, but causing the deaths of dozens or even hundreds of innocent people because of his delays was a completely different matter from killing the enemies who threatened him.

Moreover, Uchiha Yu is currently facing his inner demons. Who knows if he will create a third heart shape prematurely due to guilt, or if his mind will degenerate into a demon ape.

Intuition told Uchiha Yu that it was extremely dangerous.

Uchiha Yu dared not waste any more time, so he jumped into the deep valley and ran upstream along the river.

"Ugh—I came here to escape the war, how come things are even more troublesome than in Konoha Village?"

"Meow?" Miwa Masayo tilted his head and suddenly said, "I remember you said: When the heart has desires, greed arises; when greed is unrestrained, it causes endless toil."

"..."

Is it this "meow"?

"You're right. I was too greedy. It was because I wanted to do more and achieve everything at once that I ended up in this predicament."

"Once the task is completed, we need to slow down no matter what."

"Mitsuyo Miwa, after we finish the mission, let's take a trip around and then slowly head back to the village."

"Okay, meow!"

Just three hours later, Uchiha Yu had traveled nearly 260 kilometers upstream, following the dried-up riverbed, and found the root cause of the problem that caused the water flow to be halved.

(End of this chapter)