After Ino's team left,
Naruto's group and Hinata's group also started heading for the central tower.
But they didn't move very fast. After two hours, they still had about one-third of the way to go.
"Let's take a break here."
It was almost noon, and they had just reached a small stream.
Considering Sakura's stamina, Naruto decided it was a good place to rest.
Along the way, they didn't run into any other ninja teams—just a few wild animals now and then.
The number of people eliminated in the first exam really had an effect on this second stage.
After Naruto's team wiped out a few others, the whole area had gotten noticeably quieter.
"Sakura, Hinata, go gather some firewood."
"Kiba, Sasuke, check the river—see if you can catch some fish."
"Shino... any way you can get something to boil water in?"
"I'll try," Shino said after a moment of silence.
They hadn't had any water since yesterday afternoon. Now that they finally found a river, of course they wanted to boil some water to drink.
"Alright, I'll walk around a bit and see if I can catch a rabbit or something."
After saying that, Naruto headed into the nearby forest.
He was the best at scouting, the fastest at moving back and forth, so naturally hunting was the job that suited him most.
Plus, last night he came up with a new scouting skill—Heat Vision!
The idea behind Heat Vision was that Naruto could use his eyes to pick up infrared light given off by other objects. By processing that infrared light, he could tell the differences in temperature and create a thermal image of his surroundings in his mind.
Basically, thermal imaging.
This idea came to Naruto after fighting Orochimaru yesterday and observing the snakes.
Snakes can hear, smell, see, and also detect heat.
Unlike machines that pick up infrared radiation using sensors, snakes have special organs—called heat pits—that let them detect infrared and figure out the temperature of nearby things to track prey.
Naruto had figured all this out through a quick search using the system when inspiration struck.
To develop this skill, he also looked up lots of info on infrared light... and eventually realized that infrared is a type of electromagnetic wave—and electromagnetic waves are light.
In other words, light is just a specific kind of electromagnetic wave with a certain frequency and wavelength.
Once Naruto understood that, he spent all night working on it and finally developed "Heat Vision."
Even though Naruto was in a fully awakened state after eating the Glint-Glint Fruit, the moves he could come up with still depended on his own understanding of light.
At first, he could only copy a few techniques from Kizaru, based on what he remembered.
Later, he started making up his own—like Light Shuriken, Light Kunai, Light Pistol, Mirror Jump, Time Freeze Mode, Virtual Projection, and now Heat Vision.
From the skills Naruto has created, it's clear that Devil Fruits have endless potential...
As soon as he activated Heat Vision, the film over Naruto's eyes turned red, and everything he looked at turned from a normal 3D view into a 2D image made of different colors.
Using this way of seeing, he quickly noticed some warm objects nearby.
Based on the heat outlines, he could more or less tell what the objects were.
For example, long black shapes were grass.
Small red-and-yellow blobs were rabbits.
Naruto casually threw a Light Kunai and nailed a rabbit. Once it died, its body temperature dropped quickly, and it turned into a cold corpse.
"If I had this skill last time, maybe Orochimaru wouldn't have gotten away."
Naruto carried the rabbit deeper into the forest while thinking, when suddenly he spotted some heat signatures shaped like people.
Three figures were hiding behind trees, watching him!
Naruto's eyes went back to normal, and he vanished in a flash of light
"Where'd he go?"
The three people quickly stepped out from behind the trees in confusion.
Then—bam!—Naruto appeared right in front of them, scaring the life out of them.
"Crap!"
"Kill him!"
The three were Kusagakure ninja. Two of them rushed Naruto with kunai in hand.
Naruto kicked both of them flying, then turned to look at the one who hadn't moved.
"Karin?"
"You know me?"
Karin, who thought she was going to die, was surprised to hear Naruto say her name.
"Nope."
Naruto replied calmly, "But I know who you are. You're from the Uzumaki clan, right?"
Karin's face turned a little gloomy as she said, "Yeah… how do you know that?"
"My name's Uzumaki Naruto," he said.
Karin knew who Uzumaki Naruto was. Back when everyone was fighting over scrolls, Naruto had made a big impression. Of course she had noticed him. "But why isn't your hair red?"
Naruto was quiet for a second, then said, "Beats me."
Even he found it strange.
When Uzumaki clan members marry people from other clans, the kids almost always have red hair.
But somehow, when they marry someone with blond hair, the kid always ends up blond!
That's right, this blond-haired kid isn't the only descendant of the Uzumaki clan… there's also Tsunade!
But unlike Naruto's golden-yellow hair, Tsunade's is a much lighter yellow.
"So who are your parents?" Karin asked again.
Naruto fell silent for a second. He didn't answer—he just turned around and walked away.
He wasn't planning to kill Karin. She hadn't attacked him earlier, and he also felt sorry for what she'd been through.
She and her mom had been treated like tools since she was little—used as healers. Her mom got bitten to death, and then it was her turn.
And they just kept biting her… even now.
"I already killed those two Grass ninja. If you go back to the Kusagakure, you'll probably be blamed for it. Don't go back."
Naruto's back slowly faded from Karin's sight, but his kind words and handsome face stayed in her mind.
A few minutes later,
Naruto came back to the stream with some prey in hand.
The fire had already been lit by little Sakura and Hinata. Sasuke and Kiba were roasting fish, and Shino had made his own little fire pit—he put a wooden cup on a flat rock over the fire to boil water.
No one knew how long that would take to actually boil… but hot water was still better than drinking it cold. Waiting a bit longer was fine.
They weren't in a hurry anyway.
"Naruto, you're back!"
"Whoa, is that a rabbit?"
"I'll skin it! Let me do it!"
Everyone quickly took the rabbit from Naruto and eagerly started skinning and roasting it.
Not long after, both the fish and rabbit turned out burnt on the outside—and burnt on the inside too!
Naruto glanced at the food, gave it a sniff, and silently took out a ration pill from his ninja pouch and ate it.
This was just safer...
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