Chapter 293: The Attack of Hidden Cloud

"Today, a large number of Hidden Cloud ninjas have stormed our border from the Land of Hot Water," Hiruzen said with a serious expression.

Some of the younger Jonin's expressions grew tense. Although Hidden Cloud had been at war with Konoha for a long time, there had been no major battles between them.

Most Jonin, however, remained calm because they knew that if the situation were truly urgent, the meeting would be over, and Ninja forces would be directly dispatched for support. Since there was still time to hold a meeting and discuss, it meant the situation wasn't too critical.

"Fortunately, our frontline Ninja forces are very resilient and have effectively blocked the enemy's offensive, keeping the Hidden Cloud Ninja forces outside the Land of Fire," Hiruzen paused and said.

On one hand, reconnaissance ninjas detected unusual movements, and with Minato encountering the A and B team, Hiruzen dispatched additional ninjas to guard the border, preventing major issues.

"However, the situation remains grim, and we need to send more ninjas to the border to thwart Hidden Cloud's schemes," Hiruzen continued.

One of the agenda items for this meeting was to select a commander to lead the ninja forces in supporting the frontline.

In fact, before this, Hiruzen had already held a small meeting with Danzo and the other two. Hiruzen originally wanted to continue having Jiraiya as the commander, but Danzo thought Orochimaru would be better. It was decided to defer the decision to the Jonin meeting.

Hiruzen looked at Jiraiya, hoping he would volunteer to lead the team to support the border.

The best way to become Hokage is to achieve feats surpassing everyone else. Jiraiya had recently defeated Hidden Rock ninja forces, and if he could also defeat Hidden Cloud, Jiraiya's reputation in Konoha would reach a new height.

"Minato, how does it feel to teach students? It must be quite rewarding to see them grow day by day under your guidance," Jiraiya said, turning to Minato and avoiding eye contact with Hiruzen.

"Mm." Minato nodded with a gentle smile.

"Ah, this guy." Hiruzen sighed inwardly as he observed Jiraiya's perfectly timed turn.

The meeting was silent for twenty seconds, then Orochimaru spoke up: "Third-sama, I am willing to go to the border to provide support."

Due to the meeting setting, Orochimaru did not address Hiruzen as "sensei."

Seeing Orochimaru step forward, Danzo immediately offered support and praised Orochimaru's will of fire.

Observing Jiraiya, who seemed disinterested in competing, Hiruzen ultimately decided to appoint Orochimaru as the commander to lead a thousand ninjas to support the border. After all, he had just turned down a request from Danzo, and Jiraiya himself did not seem eager to go.

After finalizing the choice for frontline support, the meeting did not end. It was natural for a Jonin meeting to cover more than just this topic.

"The ninja world is in chaos, and wars are ongoing between various countries. In this situation, what actions do you think Konoha should take?" Hiruzen asked the Jonin.

Compared to deciding who should lead the troops to support the frontline, this was the main focus of the meeting, as there were only a few candidates for the former, and the choice was already somewhat clear before the meeting began.

"Of course, we should actively participate in the war and let the Daimyo and clients recognize our strength. In that way, Konoha's prestige can reach a new peak," Danzo quickly expressed his opinion.

Client requests from ninja villages are not given without reason, especially foreign requests, which are often aimed at the strength of the ninja village. The better a ninja village performs in a world war, the more requests they will receive after the war ends; otherwise, requests may decrease.

"Launch counterattacks into the Land of Lightning and Land of Earth to let those guys know the power of Konoha ninjas!" As the leader of Konoha's hawks, Danzo's words were echoed by other hawkish Jonin.

"We can send spies to investigate the Land of Wind. With the loss of the Third Kazekage and ongoing battles with Hidden Cloud, the Sand is now weaker than ever."

"Instead of focusing on that, since the war is becoming increasingly intense, shouldn't we train more medical ninjas? If every team had a medical ninja, casualties would be greatly reduced," Tsunade, who had been silent until now, spoke up.

She had originally not wanted to speak, just hoping to finish the meeting and go back to rest while waiting for Mutsuki to prepare the meal, but she couldn't stand the hawkish remarks.

Tsunade thought there was nothing wrong with pushing back against invaders, but targeting the Land of Wind, a country currently without conflict, seemed utterly unreasonable.

"It is indeed necessary to train more medical ninjas, but equipping a medical ninja for every squad is still very difficult to achieve," Hiruzen said, shaking his head slightly.

His response was to give Tsunade face, but he would never agree to this proposal because it would waste manpower and resources without any benefit. Konoha's standard squads consist of four people: one Squad Captain and three team members. If one of the four had to be a medical ninja, then out of four thousand ninjas, one thousand would need to be medical ninjas.

Konoha can only support a limited number of ninjas; it cannot expand indefinitely. Increasing medical ninjas would mean reducing the number of regular ninjas, which would lead to a decrease in Konoha's overall strength.

Moreover, training medical ninjas is more costly and difficult than training regular ninjas. Hiruzen would never spend money to weaken Konoha's strength.

"If we want to train medical ninjutsu talents, I have an idea. Generally speaking, people with good chakra control have more talent in medical ninjutsu. If we start training in this area during the Academy stage, we can both select talented individuals and shorten the training time," Mutsuki said after thinking for a moment.

"Set up a special class for medical ninjutsu to train students who aspire to become medical ninjas."

System rewards can be random or fixed, and the improvement brought by teaching students is fixed: teaching Taijutsu boosts Taijutsu, teaching Ninjutsu boosts Ninjutsu. He wanted to narrow the focus further and see if teaching only Medical Ninjutsu would result in rewards specifically for Medical Ninjutsu.

If successful, Mutsuki's Academy reform plan would be very promising. In the future, he could focus on teaching a specific field and receive targeted rewards.

Moreover, Mutsuki thought that suggesting this idea might also slightly increase Tsunade's favor.

"Medical specialty class..." Hiruzen showed a thoughtful expression, finding Mutsuki's idea quite good and much more reliable than Tsunade's suggestion.

Tsunade's mouth slightly opened, and she looked at Mutsuki with a bit of surprise. After thinking it over, she also found the proposal quite good and very friendly towards medical ninjas.

Mutsuki did not elaborate further. It wasn't a major issue and did not warrant extensive discussion in an urgently convened Jonin meeting. It wasn't about establishing a new Academy solely for medical ninjas; the Education Department and Academy could handle that with their own meeting.

The meeting soon returned to discussing Konoha's actions in the war.

After the meeting, Mutsuki briefly discussed Taijutsu with Chen-sensei, then went to Tsunade's home to prepare dinner and study medical knowledge.

Since the basic Breathing Technique tests were nearly complete, Mutsuki began teaching Rin the basic Breathing Technique.

However, due to his busy schedule, only on weekends did Mutsuki personally teach, while Shadow Clones handled the instruction on other days. This was unavoidable, as Shisui did the same.

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