"This is your bonus."
Early the next morning, Dodai came to see Tamura Haruki. As soon as they met, he launched into a long explanation—conveying the village's gratitude and praise on behalf of Kumogakure, rewarding Haruki for uncovering spies and helping recover one billion ryō of village funds. That money had been earmarked for purchasing supplies; if it had been lost, the damage to the village would have been severe.
Along with the words of thanks, Dodai handed over one million ryō as a cash reward and an S-rank mission record.
He also mentioned that a powerful jōnin would be assigned to personally train Haruki.
Haruki was momentarily stunned, but quickly understood. This was clearly the Third Raikage's arrangement—formalizing yesterday's events and making the village's future plans for him appear reasonable and official.
"Thank you for the Raikage's and Lord Dodai's praise and rewards," Haruki said solemnly. "This is simply what I should do as a shinobi of Kumogakure. If I discover spies like this again in the future, I won't let them get away."
His tone was firm and righteous. As a thoroughly loyal shinobi of the Hidden Cloud, Tamura Haruki and spies were irreconcilable enemies.
"Your loyalty is commendable," Dodai replied with satisfaction, "but you must be careful with such dangerous matters. Spies are extremely dangerous. If you find anything similar in the future, do not act rashly—report it immediately."
"I understand. I won't act recklessly again," Haruki answered obediently.
After a few more words of encouragement, Dodai left. Haruki subtly scanned his surroundings before closing the door.
He knew Dodai's visit had partly been for show.
As someone who had once been a spy planted by Shimura Danzō, it was very possible that Danzō's people had already been watching him.
Because his strength and status were too low, Haruki had never been qualified to deal with Danzō directly—only with an intermediary.
That intermediary had been the old man. After the old man's death, contact had been cut off. But Danzō would definitely send someone to approach him again—especially now that Haruki had begun to show real value.
"A powerful jōnin…" Haruki murmured as he sat down on the sofa, recalling Dodai's words.
His plan had worked well. He had secured a jōnin instructor, though Dodai hadn't revealed who it would be.
"It probably won't be A," Haruki reasoned. "A's strength is already impressive, but he isn't particularly skilled in swordsmanship. He's not the right fit. Still, there are too many people in Kumogakure who use blades—almost everyone carries a ninja sword—so it's hard to guess."
After thinking for a while with no clear answer, Haruki could only be sure of two things.
First, the person must be someone the Third Raikage deeply trusted. Haruki's identity was far too sensitive—without a trusted confidant supervising him, even the Raikage wouldn't feel at ease.
Second, the person had to be proficient in swordsmanship.
Haruki valued swordsmanship highly—and had great confidence in it.
Because his ultimate enemies in the future would inevitably be the Ōtsutsuki clan.
Against beings like that, ninjutsu was little more than a way to recharge them. Genjutsu was practically useless. Only taijutsu and kenjutsu could truly harm them.
That was why training his body and blade was essential—these were the combat paths that could be relied upon to the very end.
"Training."
Deciding not to overthink it, Haruki moved to his desk. Two chakra threads extended from his fingers, wrapping around two steel pens as he rapidly wrote manuscripts on paper.
This was his method of writing—and also his way of training chakra control. It was simultaneously practice for multitasking.
Ever since mastering chakra threads, he had used this method constantly, both for training and for writing.
Whenever his body was exhausted from physical training, he would write like this instead. Chakra thread control didn't require bodily movement, making it ideal.
Graduation was only half a month away. After that, he would follow his assigned jōnin instructor for intensive training. He needed to finish several months' worth of manuscripts in advance so he could focus fully on training afterward.
More importantly, he needed to train—to quickly gain full control over his purified chakra and maximize the advantage it gave him.
Improved chakra control brought enormous benefits.
Even without using ninjutsu, many techniques could be applied—such as Chakra Enhanced Strength.
Strictly speaking, Chakra Enhanced Strength wasn't a ninjutsu at all, but a chakra control technique, much like tree-walking or water-walking.
At its core, Chakra Enhanced Strength had two forms.
The first used precise chakra control to reinforce the body, greatly increasing explosive power. This was one of the main reasons ninja could leap and maneuver so freely—it was part of taijutsu.
The second involved releasing chakra explosively to cause large-scale destruction—like Tsunade's Heaven Kick of Pain or Sakura's Cherry Blossom Impact. These techniques also stimulated the body's explosive strength.
Otherwise, pure physical force alone would at most leave a crater, not shatter the ground over a wide area.
Haruki focused primarily on enhancing bodily explosive power.
His chakra reserves were limited; wasting chakra on large-scale releases would be far too extravagant.
That was precisely why he specialized in swordsmanship—using the blade's edge to amplify damage and extend attack range.
If he could further upgrade this explosive technique into true Chakra Enhanced Strength, the increase in combat power would be substantial.
While his right hand manipulated chakra threads to write, his left hand held a long miaodao horizontally, blade aligned with his arm. At the tip of that blade rested another miaodao of the same style but shorter, training his wrist and arm strength.
These weapons had cost him a fortune.
They were custom-forged in the style of a miaodao, made from chakra-conductive metal fused with other rare metals.
Total cost: four hundred million ryō.
Of that, three hundred fifty million went into the chakra metal alone. The remaining metals and forging costs amounted to only fifty million.
Chakra-conductive metal was absurdly expensive—obscenely so.
In the future, Asuma Sarutobi's small blades would cost more than Asuma himself. Haruki's massive katana—no, perhaps miaodao were on a completely different level.
(Note: the sword is longer than katana so miaodao it seems. Since it was basically the big version.)
If not for the vast sums he'd earned over the past few years, he could never have afforded such extravagance.
Thankfully, chakra metal made up only a small portion of the total mass. If the entire blade had been forged from it, the price would have easily reached astronomical levels.
The longer sword had a 1.2-meter blade and a 40-centimeter hilt, for a total length of 1.6 meters—ten centimeters taller than Haruki himself at present.
But he was still growing. With chakra stimulation, he would almost certainly reach at least 1.8 meters in height. At that point, wielding such a long blade would be perfectly suited to him.
The shorter version was only by comparison—90 centimeters of blade, 30 centimeters of hilt, 1.2 meters total length, weighing five kilograms.
The larger blade weighed ten kilograms.
These were the weapons Haruki had prepared for himself.
He named them Big Meow and Little Meow.
Though heavy, his current physical conditioning allowed him to wield them without issue.
Ninja were often mocked in his previous life as "glass cannons," but in reality, their physical strength and explosiveness were extraordinary.
That reputation came only in comparison to the sheer destructive power of ninjutsu.
Take Rock Lee's training weights—those were anything but light.
Or Momochi Zabuza, who could wield the Executioner's Blade while performing the Body Flicker Technique for silent kills. That sword was unquestionably massive.
Same for Samehada, Kubikiribōchō, and even the enormous blades used by Root ninja who once clashed with a young Uchiha Shisui.
Ninja strength was no joke—especially when enhanced by chakra.
Compared to those weapons, Haruki's two longswords were actually on the modest side.
He chose such long blades primarily to keep distance in combat.
That way, even if an opponent used concealed ninjutsu or secret techniques, he would have more space and time to react.
Given his limited chakra reserves, he could never become a long-range caster.
He had no choice but to walk the path of a frontline warrior—and that meant always guarding against a ninja's many tricks.