Chapter 18 : Mastery of Ninjutsu

In silence, several black shadows flashed by, those were pure black shurikens. Under the dim twilight, without any glimmer or sound of breaking through the air, they viciously shot towards Youta's back.

Having already sensed the followers behind him with his Observation Haki, Youta casually extended his hand, and with a gentle clinking sound, he caught all the shurikens in his hand. Sparks emanated from the point of contact between the shurikens and his hands.

"Meaningless probing... Just as well, I was looking for a few test subjects, congratulations on winning." Youta sneered and turned around.

"Not good, ran into a brick wall." Seeing Youta's performance, the bounty hunters were not fools. On the contrary, those in their line of work had the keenest eyesight. With this move, they could tell that Youta was formidable. Without hesitation, they didn't continue probing. They threw the shurikens in their hands and fled.

With a cold laugh, Youta paid no attention to those shurikens. He had already consumed a large amount of metal with his Gutsu Gutsu no Mi, and at this moment, Youta could be said to have a body of true steel.

With a slight exertion of force under his feet, although his agility decreased slightly due to the steel, his linear speed remained undiminished. He directly arrived behind one of the bounty hunters.

"Let's do it!" The bounty hunter roared and swung his blade back. Youta didn't dodge or evade. The ninja blade left some sparks on his body, but it didn't hinder his movements. Youta, charging at high speed, directly smashed the bounty hunter into a pile of yellow mud.

"Trying to deceive me with a clone, dream on." With a casual punch, he had already used his Observation Haki to locate the bounty hunter, easily pulling out the one hiding underground, attempting to deceive him with a clone.

"Ahh!" In the midst of the screams, the ninja who was forcibly dragged out of the ground struggled desperately. Bones made a cracking sound, but he still couldn't break free from Youta's grasp. His entire arm was pulled out of its socket.

However, Youta quickly ended his suffering. With a punch that resembled a steel club, a buzzing sound, he smashed the ninja's head open like a watermelon, red and white, instantly flooding the ground.

Raising his head, the other few middle-ranking ninjas had already fled far enough. Youta extended one hand, activating the transformation ability of his Gutsu Gutsu no Mi. The metallic luster on his body gradually faded, but the hand transformed into something akin to a six-wheeled machine gun.

"Dadadada..." After a barrage, the machine gun in Youta's hand reverted to its original iron arm, but smoke still emanated from it.

"Another one escaped? Being a ninja is indeed completely different from being a pirate." Youta muttered to himself. He had taken out three of the four bounty hunters, and although one was injured, he ultimately escaped the range of Observation Haki.

This is also the difference between ninjas and pirates. Faced with opponents they can't beat, unless there's a real reason to fight, they rarely stubbornly persist, unlike pirates who are headstrong.

Hmm... except for Naruto Uzumaki.

"But... three people are enough." Youta looked at the three corpses on the ground, his face slightly pale. Suddenly opening his mouth wide, he swallowed one of the corpses in one gulp.

"Ugh! This feels really bad." He retched for a moment, then closed his eyes. In fact, there was no unpleasant feeling when consuming anything with the Gutsu Gutsu no Mi. However, swallowing a human corpse still had a significant psychological impact on Youta.

After swallowing the corpse, Youta immediately felt the difference from the world of pirates. This corpse not only contained physical flesh but also chakra.

After completely extracting and decomposing the chakra, Youta opened his mouth again and spat out the corpse. At this moment, the entire corpse looked wrinkled and dry, resembling a mummy.

However, Youta was not concerned about the issue of the corpse at this moment. Instead, he was sensing the chakra within his body. After a moment, he opened his eyes.

"The chakra has indeed increased significantly... but... this should only be about one-twentieth of the chakra on this corpse."

"With my current chakra, I'd have to swallow hundreds of corpses of this level to double my chakra..."

"If I want to become a chakra tonner using this method... I might as well find some Hashirama cells. By then, I can directly use the Gutsu Gutsu no Mi to modify myself and become a Sage."

Despite thinking about all this, Youta still diligently extracted the chakra from the other two corpses. However, the sensation of consuming them, akin to cannibalism, made his stomach churn a bit.

"If swallowing live people doesn't feel like anything, then why fear swallowing dead ones?" Youta comforted himself. When the nausea subsided a bit, he first scavenged the three corpses completely. Finally, he used Earth Release ninjutsu to bury the bodies.

In reality, when Youta had swallowed live people before, it was merely to store them. Now, by swallowing corpses, he decomposed the chakra from the bodies, which caused this nauseating psychological sensation.

As a result, although he discovered that he could indeed obtain chakra from human bodies, he had no intention of actively devouring chakra. He simply thought that if someone really provoked him in the future, he could make use of their corpses.

After taking out those three ninjas, no one came to disturb Youta again.

In the following three days, Youta went to buy some unique items from the ninja world, especially ninja tools, explosive tags, sealing scrolls, and even lucked out and bought a piece of chakra metal.

For Youta, most weapons were already meaningless. They only served as temporary enhancements to his combat power. Therefore, he didn't need to forge these chakra metals into weapons. Just by consuming them, he could directly mold the chakra metal or even turn it into blades extending from his body.

Three days later, Youta returned to the black market.

However, this time, those who had originally been sneaking glances at Youta with greedy eyes suddenly showed expressions of fear when they saw him enter.

In the business of bounty hunters, it's all about one's own strength. When Youta went out, he was followed by four bounty hunters, but in the end, only one came back, heavily injured.

Being able to easily take out three ninjas under the siege of four bounty hunters, this level of strength was definitely first-class among the mixed crowd of bounty hunters. It was not something these small-time fish like them could provoke.

"Are the things ready?" Youta looked at the black market boss and asked.

The black market boss grinned and took out several scrolls. "Of course they're ready. Are these the ninjutsu you wanted?"

Youta opened a medical ninjutsu scroll, glanced at it, and nodded. With his current knowledge of medical ninjutsu, he could still tell if it was genuine or not.

Then, Youta took out the prepared gold and handed it directly to the boss, completing the transaction.