Chapter Forty-Two: The Battle Begins

As they chatted about trivial matters, Feng Xue and her companions followed Orochimaru’s summoning beast to a towering tree. Sakura was sitting in front of the cave at its roots, her face tense with vigilance, yet unable to hide the fatigue etched across her spirit.

“Should we make a move now?” Mu Qianrou clenched her fists and asked.

“No.” Feng Xue glanced around, his eyes flashing as he darted forward to catch a squirrel.

“Can you sense which direction Lee is in?” he asked.

Xia Mi immediately understood Feng Xue’s intention. During the first exam, Xia Mi had already marked the Twelve Young Elites, Gaara, and Orochimaru with tracking seals; now was the perfect time for them to come into play.

She produced a roulette and replaced Orochimaru’s mark with Lee’s. The pointer swung sharply.

“Sorry, little one, but at most you’ll suffer a minor wound,” Feng Xue murmured, affixing a shoddy explosive tag onto the squirrel’s back. (On a side note, I have to complain: in the original story, explosive tags always detonate instantly when needed, but this one burned for ages, failing even to severely injure a squirrel, let alone explode. Definitely a poor-quality item.) He then cast a genjutsu upon the squirrel.

Of course, who could guarantee the squirrel would run along the intended path? Controlling it with genjutsu was much more reliable.

Under Feng Xue’s manipulation, the squirrel scampered nimbly toward Sakura, drawn by the illusion of a heap of nuts. Although he had no chakra, as one capable of manipulating intangible forces, creating hallucinations by disturbing neural signals was child’s play. Still, these were the most basic genjutsu; achieving the level of a binding spell would require much more study.

Sakura was clearly startled by the sudden commotion. The girl, exhausted after enduring a sleepless night, was stretched tight as a bowstring, on the verge of snapping.

This exposed Sakura’s immaturity. A true ninja, a real assassin, knows how to maintain vigilance while slipping into light sleep. Yet, perhaps due to the village’s distance from war, only the Root division still practiced such ancient and harsh methods. (Consider Killua in Hunter x Hunter, training to sleep while gripping a stone—he claimed to have undergone similar exercises from a young age.)

At last, guided by Feng Xue’s unseen control, the squirrel charged straight toward the trap. One had to admit, the effect was clearly an inexperienced rookie; the trap’s setup was far from satisfactory. A patch of perfectly uniform turf suddenly appeared on the forest floor—any fool would realize something was off. After all, this was the Forest of Death; no one would regularly trim the grass. Even in overgrown areas, the weeds would be uneven, never so neat.

Moreover, the soil there was slightly different in color from its surroundings. Unless someone had relieved themselves there, it must have been recently disturbed.

All proceeded as in the original story—a kunai suddenly plunged before the squirrel, which, under Feng Xue’s deliberate guidance, fled toward Lee’s location...

...

“He took the bait!” Feng Xue announced as he sensed the destruction of the explosive tag imprinted with his mental seal.

“Let’s go!” Mu Qianrou readied herself, preparing to leap down from the tree.

“Wait,” Xia Mi pulled Mu Qianrou back. “Lee is still on his way. We can’t drag out a fight with Sakura like those three Sound Ninja did; it’ll only lower our standing in Orochimaru’s eyes. We should wait until Lee is closer.”

Though the three conversed, they spoke in English. (Many Japanese words resemble Chinese in pronunciation, so using Chinese wasn’t safe. In an independent Japanese anime setting, never record secrets in Chinese; English is best. If not, use pinyin.) Thus, even if Orochimaru had some eavesdropping device nearby, he’d only suspect they were using coded speech, not understand their conversation.

Soon, the roulette marked with Lee’s seal in Xia Mi’s hand began to tremble—the sign their target was approaching.

Mu Qianrou, already impatient, immediately jumped down and declared, “Where is Sasuke Uchiha? Bring him out so I can challenge him!”

Unexpectedly, Sakura, spotting Mu Qianrou’s Sound Ninja forehead protector, flared up. “What’s with the injury on Sasuke’s neck? You hurt him so badly and yet say you want to fight him?”

“To be precise, we don’t know what happened. As far as our orders go, our only task is to defeat Sasuke Uchiha,” Feng Xue and Xia Mi emerged from the brush, each picking up the conversation.

“Are you a freshly graduated rookie? Such a simple trap would only work on preschoolers barely familiar with the basic ninja techniques.” Feng Xue grasped a blade of wild grass and, with a sweep, lifted the entire turf like a carpet.

“To actually use prefab turf for a trap—what did your instructor teach you? Didn’t anyone tell you a trap must blend with its environment to be effective?”

As Feng Xue skirted the trap, closing in, Sakura unhesitatingly severed a hidden steel wire at her side.

“A giant log trap? This one’s actually well made…” Feng Xue admired the massive log hurtling toward him, then stepped forward, his left hand poised.

“But ultimately, it’s meaningless!”

The giant log struck as if against a mountain, coming to an abrupt halt in Feng Xue’s hand, causing no disturbance whatsoever.

In that instant, Feng Xue’s AT field vibrated at high speed, dispersing the log’s kinetic energy among the soul particles, forming a temporary phase-shifting armor. Even if the log’s impact force reached ten tons, upon entering Feng Xue’s AT field—a sphere about one meter in radius, roughly four cubic meters—the force would be spread throughout that volume, with each cubic centimeter bearing only two and a half grams of pressure. The force finally transmitted to Feng Xue would be no greater than the pressure of a snug bodysuit. To counter the AT field, one would need to unleash physical attacks of several hundred tons (such as an electromagnetic cannon firing a twenty-centimeter shell), or resort to energy attacks like heat or electricity, which vibration cannot easily disperse.

“How is this possible!” Sakura’s eyes widened in shock. If Feng Xue had shattered the log with a punch, she wouldn’t have been so stunned. Yet, taking the log head-on without so much as a tremor made her question herself—“Am I in a fake Chunin exam?”

Just then, as the three continued to close the distance, a figure clad in green suddenly burst forth, accompanied by a loud shout—

“Leaf Whirlwind!”