[Taijutsu Level 4!]
Ye Liang's Cash Eye saw everything.
His current Taijutsu level was 5, but due to the extreme heat, Ye Liang could barely fight at a Level 3 capacity. Worse still, in such a high-temperature environment, the more he moved, the faster his stamina drained away!
Ye Liang had already expended considerable energy intimidating those weaklings earlier. Making him fight a Puppet now was really too much to ask.
"Looks like I'll have to shake him off."
With that, Ye Liang turned and ran.
...
Sword Cemetery!
Level Six.
Mifune quietly touched the rocks on the ground. Though scorching hot, they still bore traces of flesh and blood.
"Why would someone come here?"
He felt puzzled.
The Sword Cemetery in the Land of Snow was completely sealed off.
Except during the Martial Valor Festival every three years, it never opened to the public. The presence of blood and flesh here meant unknown intruders had entered!
Damn it! Could they possibly be after that item!" Suddenly realizing something, Mifune frantically searched the area for something.
At that moment, the earth began to tremble violently.
A ten-meter-tall stone giant rose from the earth's core.
"Eliminate the intruder!"
Boom!
A massive fist smashed toward Mifune with tremendous power—so powerful, in fact, that one could almost hear the sound of rocks cutting through air.
"Damn!"
Cursing loudly,
Mifune quickly blocked using his sword.
Previously distracted, he'd momentarily forgotten about the guardian in this sixth layer. Now, after their first clash, he'd already fallen into a disadvantageous position. Worse yet, due to hastily blocking with his blade, his small katana shattered into pieces from the punch of the rock golem.
"Puh!"
Spitting out a mouthful of blood, Mifune flew backward and crashed into a rock behind him.
"Not good!"
Mifune panicked!
They were wearing special shoes, so they weren't affected.
But these rocks lay over lava—the temperature unimaginably high. If he continued flying toward them like this, he would surely be roasted alive into a dried corpse!
"Damn it! This can't be how I go out!" Mifune panicked even further.
He didn't want to die!
Just then,
a naked man suddenly sprinted toward them from far away.
"God damn it! Stop chasing me already!" He ran full speed ahead, so fast it looked like he was kicking up sparks from the ground!
"Old man, how are you flying?" The naked guy caught Mifune and stopped running.
"Kid—that's you!" Mifune was shocked.
It was actually Ye Liang—the very person who had been previously surrounded by enemies—who saved his life.
In his mind, Ye Liang might have escaped from the persistent samurai, but there was no way he should have arrived at Level Six.
Because without proper training, no one could possibly endure the extreme heat here.
Seventy degrees Celsius!
Such an incredibly high temperature was insurmountable for ordinary people. Only someone like Mifune, who had undergone rigorous Bushido training since childhood, could tolerate it.
"Why can't it be me?" Ye Liang shot back with a question.
At that moment,
from a distant location, a Mechanical Puppet pursued at high speed—it was the previous guardian unit.
"Old man, don't chat anymore. We need to figure out how to handle this thing—fast!" Ye Liang became extremely anxious.
Mifune had been fleeing all the way because of that Mechanical Puppet!
Though stronger than Mifune, Ye Liang realized his companion hadn't been too slow at all. It wasn't until he removed all his weights that he barely managed to shake off the pursuer.
"You've got to stab its core with a sword to take that thing down."
"Core?"
"That's right. There's a slot-like thing on the puppet's neck. If you insert an iron sword into that slot, the puppet will stop moving."
"Oh, I see!"
After hearing this, Ye Liang immediately picked up an iron sword and rushed forward.
"Hey! Don't rush in like that! That Mechanical Puppet's fast—you gotta play it smart, or else…"
"Or else what?"
Ye Liang asked doubtfully. Then, he walked back from the now-still Mechanical Puppet before speaking again.
"Uh… Never mind."
Mifune was speechless. He had originally wanted to warn Ye Liang that without the right method, it would be extremely dangerous. Yet who could have guessed that the latter had solved the problem so easily?
It was as if he already knew the trick beforehand.
"This Mechanical Puppet experiences a short delay every few seconds while moving. Just now, if it weren't for that brief pause, we really would've been in deep trouble."
"…"
Mifune was left at a loss again.
This guy actually figured out the trick himself!
Just then, the ground began trembling once more. The sixth-floor guardian, previously defeated, was coming back.
Its pace was slow, but each step radiated immense, boundless power.
"What the hell is this now!" Ye Liang exclaimed in shock.
They'd just beaten a Mechanical Puppet, and now a golden stone giant shows up? What next—a monster made of lightning?
"This is the Golden Mountain Person forged by the Heart of the Artisan. It's the highest achievement of the Land of Craftsmen and the final guardian of this trial."
"The Golden Mountain Person?" Ye Liang was completely confused by the name.
That said, he *had* heard of the Land of Craftsmen before.
The Land of Craftsmen once allied with the Zero-Tails, seeking world domination, but ultimately brought destruction upon themselves.
Never would he have thought that after encountering a Zero-Tails mask, he'd now find traces of the Land of Craftsmen again. How could things be so coincidental?
Suddenly, Ye Liang realized something was wrong.
White Zetsu manipulated ninja through the power of the Zero-Tails. Now they were in the Land of Snow, which contained ruins of the Land of Craftsmen!
All these events seemed mysteriously connected somehow.
"Hey kid, stop overthinking. It's absolutely impossible to defeat this Golden Mountain Person! Our Land of Iron has tried for countless years, yet none of our predecessors ever broke past its defenses."
"You guys have tried fighting it before?" Ye Liang suddenly felt puzzled.
According to Mifune's words, it seemed the Land of Iron's kindness toward the Land of Snow had some hidden motive behind it.
"That's right! After our Land of Iron rescued the Land of Snow years ago, we presented them with our nation's most treasured artifact—the ultimate great sword, the Demon Cleaver Onikiri!"
"Over the years, the samurai tradition has gradually been replaced by ninjas. Our ancestors tried countless times to reclaim this national treasure but were repeatedly stopped by this Golden Mountain Person!"
"Such a thing actually exists!"
Ye Liang was stunned.
So even the samurai in the Naruto world have such a secret history!
Onikiri — the Demon Blade?
Haha!
Ye Liang immediately became interested.
Though he wasn't exactly sure what it was, anything related to demon blades must be valuable.
Being a transmigrator himself, Ye Liang had no intention of letting this treasure slip through his fingers.
"So Mr. Mifune, since your ancestors went through so many trials, there must be some secret method, right?" Ye Liang's tone changed.
He added a respectful title.
Mifune just shook his head.
"If we truly had any secret methods, how could we have allowed our national treasure to remain lost until today?"
Dammit!
In the end, it still comes down to relying on oneself!
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