Unlike ninjutsu or taijutsu, genjutsu was a type of technique that interfered with an opponent's five senses by disrupting their chakra flow, plunging them into an illusion. By disrupting one's own internal chakra flow, a genjutsu could be broken.
Kaito didn't know how to control the small amount of innate chakra he possessed, but because the energy released by Arceus was constantly flowing through him, it had the same disruptive effect. It was just like having a Tailed Beast, making him a Jinchuriki of a sort.
In other words, genjutsu was unlikely to work on him.
Kaito had long considered this possibility, so he wasn't too surprised. He had originally planned to use this to trick his opponent, but he hadn't expected the man to be so cautious.
"Hmph. How do you think I've survived this long?" the burly man sneered. "If that's the case, I'll just have to put in a little more effort."
Before his voice had even faded, his figure vanished once again.
Kaito's expression tightened. He swung his cleaver behind him in a backhanded arc, but it met only empty air.
A shadow fell over him. The burly man descended from the sky, his hands clasped together like a warhammer as he brought them crashing down.
So fast! Kaito only had time to twist his body to the side, pulling his cleaver back.
With an explosive boom, snow flew everywhere. A foot connected with Kaito's abdomen, and he was sent flying as if hit by a truck. He tumbled across the snow like a pinwheel before crashing heavily to the ground.
The burly man stepped out from the cloud of snow, a tear in the chest of his clothes revealing his muscular torso. He pressed a hand to the opening, wincing as the cold wind bit at his skin.
That kid reacts fast. If his blade had been any longer, I would have been in danger, he thought, a trace of fear rising in his heart. No more playing around. I need to end this quickly!
He pushed off with his feet and charged toward Kaito, kicking up a wave of white snow behind him.
That really hurt. Not even my dad ever hit me that hard, Kaito thought as he staggered to his feet, blood trickling from his nose and mouth. His cleaver was nowhere to be found. Despite having used Harden, his entire body ached.
Seeing his opponent charge, Kaito took a deep breath and stomped his right foot forward.
A serpent of fire snaked out from his foot, drawing several rings of blazing flame that encircled him completely.
Fire Spin!
The sudden high temperature melted the snow and distorted the air, making Kaito's figure blurry and indistinct.
Fire Style?! The burly man was startled and stopped in his tracks. His hands flew through a series of hand seals, and he unleashed his first ninjutsu. "Earth Style: Rising Earth Wall!"
A square slab of earth erupted from the ground in front of him, completely shielding his body. After a few seconds, the sound of the flames died down. Sensing something was wrong, he leaped out from behind the wall. The fire in front of him had been reduced to a few small embers, and Kaito was gone.
The burly man ran to where Kaito had been standing and saw a deep hole in the ground.
"What kind of jutsu is that?" he muttered, frowning. Then, a ferocious grin spread across his face. "Trying to escape underground? It's not that easy!"
He formed another set of hand seals and slammed his hands onto the ground.
"Earth Style: Earth-Rending Palm!"
With a loud roar, the ground around him shattered into pieces, the force of the impact traveling deep underground.
"If you can survive that, consider yourself lucky," the burly man said, dusting off his hands as he stood up. He looked out at the endless snowfield and muttered, "Now, to get out of this damn place. Good thing those two idiots are dead. The remaining food should be enough for me to..."
His expression suddenly froze. He reached behind him, and his face changed dramatically.
"My pack is gone?! Damn it, my clothes were too thick, I didn't notice it was missing! When did it happen?" A flash of inspiration hit him as he remembered his brief contact with Kaito.
"Could it be?!"
The burly man's face turned ugly. He returned to the spot where he'd last seen Kaito and, to his despair, saw a second, similar hole in the ground.
"NO!!!"
A bloodcurdling scream echoed across the heavens.
Just as the man had guessed, Kaito had been aiming for his pack from the very beginning. If he had killed the fat and scrawny duo and just left, he would have had a hard time surviving in the snowfield with no supplies. After all the chaos, his fake getting-lost had turned into a real one.
Earlier, when the burly man had struck him, Kaito had secretly cut the strap of his backpack. As soon as he used Fire Spin to block the man's line of sight, he had immediately used Dig to get over to the pack, grab it, and make a clean getaway. The man's Earth Style jutsu hadn't harmed him in the slightest.
After changing tunnels several times, he finally felt safe for the time being. He found a high mound of earth, hollowed out the side, and made himself a small cave. He then piled the excavated dirt at the entrance, leaving only a small gap for ventilation.
"Phew, I'm so tired."
After all that, he collapsed in exhaustion, letting out a heavy breath. He had been too busy fighting to think much, but now that he recalled the events, a wave of fear washed over him. Facing three ninja alone was the most dangerous situation he had been in since his transmigration. He could have died at any moment. If they hadn't underestimated him, he never would have been able to kill two of them and escape.
As for killing for the first time, he felt only a slight discomfort, even less than the first time he had hunted an animal.
"Maybe, in my subconscious, I didn't even consider them human."
After a short rest, Kaito sat up and pulled the pack in front of him.
"Time to see what we've got!"
He rubbed his hands together, opened the pack, and took out the contents one by one.
"Clothes, food, two bottles of pills, three small booklets, a pile of coins and silver notes..."
Weapons were usually kept in a ninja tool pouch at the waist, so there were none here, only daily necessities. His eyes skimmed past the clothes, food, and money, landing first on the two bottles of pills. The bottles were both marked with the character for "Soldier," and inside were about twenty small, black pills.
"Could these be Military Rations Pills?" Kaito picked one up and sniffed it. "A strange smell." He didn't dare to eat one directly, deciding to test it on a small animal first.
He put the pills away and picked up the three booklets.
"Hmm, a folded, simple map. It should be of the Land of Waterfalls area. A scroll of Earth Style jutsu—nice, not bad at all."
When he saw the last booklet, Kaito's eyes widened, and a smile spread across his face.
"This is... a Chakra Refining Technique!"
Because a good refining method could give a ninja a head start, Chakra Refining Techniques were usually a closely guarded secret of the major hidden villages, often passed down orally rather than written. But every village had its share of rogue ninja, so the possibility of a leak was not low. This booklet was likely written from memory by some rogue ninja, then acquired by the burly man, and now it had fallen into Kaito's hands.
And obtaining a Chakra Refining Technique was equivalent to obtaining the qualification to become a ninja.
Kaito carefully opened the booklet. The first thing he saw was a diagram of a small figure with a few lines of text next to it.
Thank you, Captain Okihira!
Thanks to the captain's lessons, Kaito could now read most of the text and was no longer illiterate.
In less than ten minutes, he had finished reading the thin booklet. It described the nature and characteristics of chakra, which was just as Kaito had understood it from his previous life: chakra was a special energy created by combining physical and spiritual energy.
The refining method described later was a way to extract energy from the body's cells through meditation. During this process, spiritual energy would combine with the extracted physical energy, converting it into chakra. The main difference between various Chakra Refining Techniques was the method of meditation. A good meditation technique could even enhance a ninja's spiritual energy. Compared to physical strength, which was relatively easy to train, spiritual energy was much more difficult to increase, which was why a good Chakra Refining Technique was so valuable.
However, Kaito didn't start right away. He was in terrible shape and needed to recover first. He filled his stomach and then drifted off to sleep.