On the night of the Nine-Tails, I shattered the Tailed Beast Ball with a single punch.

His meaning was simple: stop talking nonsense and give me a quote.

Nara Shikaku smiled and said, "Konoha also hopes to restore a peaceful and mutually supportive friendly relationship with Kusagakure. All that's needed is for Kusagakure to pay 10 billion ryo to slightly compensate for Konoha's losses."

The smile on the Grass Ninja leader's face froze. Although he knew that Konoha wasn't really going to stick with 10 billion ryo, but was leaving room for the Grass Ninja to negotiate, he still wanted to curse.

For such a trivial matter, they actually asked for 10 billion taels. You should know that issuing the lowest-value S-level mission only costs 1 million taels. And what kind of missions are S-level missions?

All of these were state secrets, including even inviting other countries to join the war.

One hundred billion ryo is enough to issue ten thousand S-rank missions, worth hundreds of Asuma. Even if the Grass Ninja were to empty their pockets, they probably still wouldn't be able to come up with that amount. The Land of Grass isn't exactly wealthy.

"The Grass Ninja is poor and probably can't afford to pay Konoha that much money. They can only come up with 100 million ryo," the Grass Ninja leader complained.

The gist of it is that 10 billion is too much, would 100 million be acceptable?

Nara Shikaku's smile vanished. Good heavens, you managed to cut the price by 99%! Even the market vendors couldn't bargain as well as you.

“Konoha doesn’t want to ask for too much either, but Konoha has suffered heavy losses this time. One hundred million is just a drop in the bucket and cannot make up for the losses at all,” Nara Shikaku said.

Want to give only 100 million taels? Dream on! You'll have to pay more.

The leader of the Grass Ninja Group looked troubled and said, "Then how about two hundred million taels? It's not that the Grass Ninja doesn't want to compensate, but the Grass Ninja is just too poor."

They're poor, could you give them 200 million to make do?

Chapter Thirty-Eight: "Nagazawa Jonin" sounds better than "Nagazawa Squad Leader"

"I thought the Grass Ninja were here to seriously solve the problem, but it seems they aren't," Nara Shikaku said with a gloomy face.

The leader of the Grass Ninja Group sighed. "Weak countries have no diplomacy. There's no way to fool them. They've started threatening us."

“Eight hundred million ryo, that’s the limit our Grass Ninja Village can come up with,” the Grass Ninja leader said painfully.

Nara Shikaku was satisfied and was about to nod.

In fact, the third generation did not instruct him on how much compensation to demand; this was all his own initiative.

Since the third generation had no intention of paying compensation, it didn't really matter to them.

He chose Nara Shikaku as the head of the negotiation team because he had high hopes for Nara Shikaku and wanted him to become the leader of the Jonin class, so he sent him to the negotiation team to gain experience.

At this time, Nara Shikaku was also a rising Jonin. Although he had made a name for himself in the war, he was actually a junior Jonin, just like Minato.

At this moment, Yongze spoke up, saying, "This time, our Konoha's genius Jonin, Hatake Kakashi, almost died in the mission. How can 800 million make up for the Grass Ninja's mistake? You must know, Kakashi is our Konoha's genius, a rising star."

The Grass Ninja Team Leader's face twitched. Putting aside whether that Grass Ninja Team could beat Kakashi, 800 million was not even comparable to a Jonin.

Let alone 800 million taels, there are plenty of people willing to risk their lives to assassinate an elite Jonin for as little as 80 million taels.

Of course, the issue between Kusagakure and Konoha is no longer just a matter of one or two ninjas, but a matter between ninja villages and nations.

"Ten billion taels. When we get back this time, I'm afraid even our leader will have to personally go on missions to make up for the deficit." The Grass Ninja leader put on a mask of pain.

Nara Shikaku looked at Nagasawa with some curiosity. He thought that 800 million was ruthless enough, but he didn't expect Nagasawa to be even more ruthless than him!

But he soon encountered something even more ruthless. Nagasawa still did not agree to the amount of compensation paid by the leader of the Kusanagi group, and pressed his advantage, finally setting the amount of compensation at an astonishing 1.2 billion ryo.

When the contract was finally signed, the leader of the Grass Ninja Group stared at Nagasawa with eyes that looked like he was going to eat him alive.

What was originally intended to be resolved for 800 million taels of silver was unexpectedly increased by 1.2 billion taels by Yongze, a total of 400 million taels! How many tasks would that require?

Unfortunately, he had no choice but to accept it, because this was pretty much the bottom line for the price of the Grass Ninja.

No matter how the Grass Ninja leader thought about it, he couldn't have imagined that the Konoha ninja in front of him had recently discussed with the Grass Ninja leader how much compensation to give to Konoha.

Not only do they not know the bottom line of the Grass Ninja Village, but this bottom line was actually set by Nagasawa and the Grass Ninja leader together.

This gives Konoha enough face, and the Grass Ninja can barely bear it.

Afterwards, Nara Shikaku, still curious, asked his colleague Nagasawa, "Vice-Team Leader Nagasawa, how did you know where the Grass Ninja's bottom line is?"

Nagasawa smiled faintly: "I once went to the Kusagakure ANBU to steal Kusagakure's confidential information, so I have some knowledge of Kusagakure."

“No wonder.” Nara Shikaku nodded.

Yongze felt that telling the truth would be too frightening and sound fake, so he decided to make up a reason instead.

After all, sometimes reality sounds more absurd than fiction.

……

……

The next day, Nagasawa was summoned to the Hokage's office by an Anbu ninja.

Minato looked at Nagasawa with a smile and said, "I've heard about the peace talks. Nagasawa, as expected of you, even Shikaku praised you highly. He rarely praises people."

Nagasawa smiled and said, "Minato, sometimes you seem more confident in me than I am. You don't think I'm some kind of all-powerful ninja, do you?"

"Really?" Minato was somewhat dismissive. Wasn't Nagasawa an all-around ninja?

"Let's not talk about that anymore. Take a look at this." Minato stood up, smiling as he handed Nagasawa a document.

Nagasawa took it curiously, a guess forming in his mind.

Upon further inspection, the contents confirmed his suspicions: it was his appointment letter for promotion to Jonin.

It is said that he made xx contributions to Konoha, and in recognition of his great merits, he was specially promoted to Jonin.

From then on, Nagasawa could no longer call himself an ordinary Chunin; at most, he could only call himself a regular Jonin.

But probably no one would believe that, because there's no such thing as a regular Jonin.

Jonin are elite high-ranking combatants, even in powerful nations like the Five Great Nations.

The number of Jonin (high-ranking ninja) in a country is the true measure of its military strength.

Moreover, strictly speaking, in Konoha, Jonin is also a social status.

Whenever a major event occurs in Konoha, a Jonin Conference is held to discuss and vote on the matter; only Jonin are allowed to attend.

The high-ranking officials in each department were mostly Jonin, which was one of the reasons why Minato Namikaze went to great lengths to promote him to Jonin.

As a Chunin, it's indeed difficult to get promoted, and it's easy to attract gossip.

"Nagazawa, a Jonin? Sounds alright." After reading it, Nagasawa returned the information to Minato.

“I think it’s quite good,” Minato said with a gentle smile.

"Moreover, it won't be long before you're promoted to squad leader of Yongze."

"Tsk, even worse than Jonin Nagasawa's," Nagasawa retorted.

"If those people who have been in the Anbu for over a decade before becoming Anbu squad leaders heard you say that, they'd probably be furious." Minato shook his head and laughed as he looked at Nagasawa, who was acting innocent despite getting the benefit.

"You, who became Hokage at the age of twenty-three, have no right to speak."

"In the end, it's because you, Nagasawa, are just too outstanding."

"Minato, it was your strength that won over the Third Hokage."

The two gradually veered into mutual flattery, eventually exchanging a smile.

"By the way, Minato, unless it's a mission that only I can go on, don't send out village missions to our class recently. Assign some patrol missions instead," Nagasawa reminded him.

"I am currently giving them special training to improve their skills, and they will leave the village for actual combat in a while."

Minato nodded, indicating that there was no problem, and said, "It just so happens that the ninja world has been quite peaceful lately, so I've had to deal with far fewer documents."

"After all, the three great nations of fire, wind, and earth have signed an alliance, so those rats in the shadows probably won't dare to mess with us for the time being."

Minato couldn't help but sigh, "I really hope the ninja world can stay peaceful forever."

“That makes things difficult. Wars can happen unexpectedly, and not everyone longs for peace,” Nagasawa bluntly retorted.

"So all I hope is that I can do my best to keep Konoha from being ravaged by war." Minato quietly looked at Konoha through the huge floor-to-ceiling window.

The Hokage's office is on the top floor of the Hokage Building. Through the huge floor-to-ceiling window, one can have an unobstructed view of Konoha.

Looking at the peaceful Konoha, Minato felt an endless surge of energy.

Bearing the title of Kage, he will certainly not disappoint the residents of Konoha.

Chapter Thirty-Nine: A Feeling of Déjà Vu

Ever since Nagasawa specifically greeted Minato, he has basically been doing missions within Konoha Village to facilitate receiving Nagasawa's training.

The training went fairly smoothly. At first, he couldn't even dodge a single blow and was beaten black and blue by Yongze every time.

Two months later, they were able to dodge more than half of Yongze's attacks, their sensory abilities greatly improved.

However, after Nagasawa increased the speed of his attacks, it became more difficult for Kakashi and the others to dodge, but they didn't fail to dodge even once like they did at the beginning.

During these two months, in addition to training in Haki, Yongze also taught them the Six Styles.

Considering time constraints, Nagasawa did not teach all six styles, only the shaving, paper drawing, and moon walk techniques. It's better to master the essentials than to learn a lot.

In fact, the attack power of ninjutsu is already strong enough, and techniques like finger guns and storm kicks are not necessarily as useful as ninjutsu.

Of course, it's not entirely useless. As a physical technique, the biggest advantage is that it doesn't require hand seals.

Furthermore, Nagasawa has some other ideas about those offensive six-style techniques.

For example, adding wind-style chakra transformation to the storm kick creates a chakra wind blade, while adding lightning-style chakra transformation to the finger gun transforms it into a ninja taijutsu similar to the One-Piece Piercing Hand.

This made their development more difficult, but Nagasawa felt it was necessary, firstly to increase their power, and secondly to make them more suitable for ninjas to use.

There are differences between ninjas and pirates, so simply copying them might not work; we need to add the ninja's unique use of chakra.

The November sky remained blue and beautiful, and the lingering chill from last night's winter rain did not affect the normal lives of Konoha residents, with a constant stream of people coming and going.

Kakashi, meanwhile, patrolled the area around Konoha with Salt Water and Inuzuka Midori.

Konoha is very large. Although it is called a village, it is the size of a town, and not just any ordinary town.

Furthermore, due to its military nature, Konoha has set up many sentry posts not far from the village to monitor the surrounding area and ensure Konoha's safety.

Kakashi and the others' task was to ensure that these sentry posts did not cause any problems and, incidentally, to supervise their work.

This is a routine task for the Anbu, similar to patrolling Konoha.

However, it depends on the person and the time. For example, the Second Hokage's daily tasks in the Anbu were definitely to monitor the Uchiha clan...

Suddenly, as they approached a sentry post, the perceptive Inuzuka Midori exclaimed, "There sounds of fighting ahead."