Chapter 42: Chunin Exams (2)

The teams that didn't get enough points were disqualified and the remaining teams were gathered, in total there were 18 teams left, mainly teams from Suna and Kumo.

The Jonin started speaking again "Now that the most incompetent teams have been eliminated we will have a survival test, you each have 5 days to reach a checkpoint in the desert, you will have to give all of your equipment to us and will have to survive in the wild, for this part of the exam only 1 of you need to actually pass."

They were given some coordinates and were told to hand in their equipment, it would be entirely up to them to prepare themselves and find the correct place in the desert, they were permitted to kill in this part of the exam which meant that they would constantly have to be on vigilance.

Since Naruto was practically cheating with his inventory they simply acted as if they were rushing to one of the shops Naruto had seen, since he didn't know whether they were being observed or not, they wanted to play it as safe as possible, not to mention the competition they had.

After they purchased a few things at the shop they immediately left for the entrance of Suna, they needed to be as quick and efficient as possible, it was best to avoid fighting other teams since it would just cause them unnecessary trouble they didn't want to deal with.

Although it seemed that trouble had found them, and since they were wearing large cloaks that blocked out the sand their faces were not able to be seen by others, this made a group of other teams think that they were small fries.

Two teams were from Kumo and one was from Iwa, and they seemed very aggressive as they attacked Naruto's team without even saying anything.

"Shino, take care of them," Naruto said in a cold voice.

Shino nodded and exploded outward, his speed far surpassing that of the other teams, his Rinkaichu were ruthless as he applied them to his fist, they ate through the cells of the three teams and immediately killed them, they didn't have the chakra resistance nor the strength to fight off the Rinkaichu so they died without any resistance.

Within a minute all three teams were dead, 9 people just like that, it almost made Shino laugh, compared to Kisame it seemed as if Genin were nothing but specks of dust.

A few teams that heard the commotion came running to them but as if they had seen a ghost immediately backed off, they realized that it wasn't very smart to fight Naruto's team.

Naruto, Sasuke, and Shino continued, they didn't have much to talk about and the journey would take them at least 1 day since it was already quite late they would have to camp outside for a night, with how dangerous the desert was at night it was definitely not a smart idea to do that unless you actually had the equipment for it.

They went as fast as they could but at this time of the year, the sun set earlier so night was approaching quite fast and the desert was starting to cool down, by a lot, the previous clothes they were wearing were not enough and they had to put on a few more layers as it had become -4 degrees celsius, they kept on going for another 2 hours before they decided to put up camp.

Shino and Sasuke knew that Naruto didn't require sleep so they slept soundly while under the protection of Naruto, luckily for them nothing much happened during the night.

They headed out once again, they only needed a few more hours to reach the checkpoint they were given except they didn't, the heat was at its highest point, and while Naruto didn't have any problems Sasuke and Shino were getting tired, this confused Naruto.

Usually, they wouldn't get tired even after traveling for hours, something was wrong.

Naruto started to sense the chakra in the surroundings and slowly started feeling that deep, very deep under the ground a group of people were slowly pumping chakra into the ground.

He felt where the chakra was going and realized that it was interconnected in a complicated set of points, in total Naruto could sense 6 groups of ninja pouring chakra into the sand, which made the sand hotter, and heavier, which subsequently made it much harder to walk in.

The groups of ninja were in a half-circle formation so Naruto was fairly certain that they were given the wrong coordinates on purpose and the actual goal of the exam was to see how the teams would react in an unknown situation with misinformation and to see if they could gather the clues to find the actual checkpoint.

A very big clue was the sand itself, the closer they got to the middle of the circle, of which Naruto sensed two more groups making the circle almost full.

The sand got hotter and harder to walk in the closer they got to the center, they even started to sink into the sand that was laced with chakra, the charka clung to them which made the sand an almost sticky substance, Shino was actually starting to struggle quite bad while Sasuke could still continue so Naruto decided to carry Shino on his back so they could make progress a bit faster, they used chakra on their feet but it didn't help that much as the chakra in the sand still clung to them.

After another half hour of walking, they reached a group of large tents, inside of which Naruto could sense several Jonin level signatures, even the Jinchuriki level signature.

And it looked like they had sensed them too, Shino was once again walking as he had rested long enough, so they actually looked like they were completely fine.

The Jonin at the start of the exam, Hirata, came out of the biggest tent, almost as if he was shocked.

"You guys are already here? It hasn't even been two days, your record is the highest one to this day, the next fastest record was 2 and a half days set by our current Kazekage." Hirata praised them "Konoha must truly be blessed with talent to have youngsters such as you." he finished while he motioned for them to follow him into the large tent, where Naruto felt the Jinchuriki's chakra signature.

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