Chapter 4: The Path Ahead for Hanma

"Alright, drop me off here," he said as he stuffed a stack of banknotes into her hand and blinked.

The singer showed a surprised look, her face slightly flushed. She shyly said, "Actually... I really like you."

He patted her hair without saying more and returned to his room alone, leaving her feeling bewildered in the wind.

It wasn't that he was entirely undisturbed by her presence, but if Hanma were to get intimate with her, it would be akin to killing her.

This was a real dilemma for Hanma.

Ever since he accumulated six entries in one go, his physique had changed dramatically, making him incapable of engaging in daily stress-relieving activities.

After all, the singer was just an ordinary person. If he didn't want to cause any accidents, he had to refrain.

In the ninja world, a Chūnin (middle-ranking ninja) could easily blend in and thrive in places like taverns or red-light districts, enjoying nightly pleasures.

Although to a Daimyō (feudal lord), ninjas might be seen as emotionless tools, to commoners, ninjas were like gods, the arbiters of life and death.

In this twisted world, becoming a Jōnin was akin to achieving something monumental back in his home country.

Lying on his bed with his legs crossed, Hanma pondered his future path.

Hanma's development in taijutsu had already approached the limits of a conventional ninja.

If he wanted to continue advancing and maintain a dominant position in the later stages of the ninja world, especially against the Ōtsutsuki clan, he had to seek extraordinary evolution.

Judging from Boruto's storyline, taijutsu definitely had great potential.

At the level of Six Paths, chakra had become something akin to white rice.

Various ninjutsu formed from chakra could be directly absorbed at will, leaving the only way to hurt the enemy being to overburden their capacity.

To reach the later stages of the ninja world, mastering space-time ninjutsu, sealing jutsu, and sage techniques was essential.

Or he could follow the path of brute force like himself and Guy.

No matter what flashy skills you had, his attacks were simply governed by the kinetic energy equation.

Hanma's taijutsu was somewhat different from Guy's. The future Guy pursued high attack and low defense, burning himself to achieve the strongest attack power.

Hanma followed a path that balanced hardness with softness, combining soul with the physical body, emphasizing both attack and defense, with a stronger focus on defense.

This was influenced by his pre-transmigration experiences. There were two things in the Naruto world that puzzled him the most.

One was his ancestor, Madara Uchiha, being pierced through the chest by a kunai.

This shocked him for a hundred years—an apocalyptic-level ninja taken down by a fifty-ryō kunai?

Was his stat allocation that unbalanced? Couldn't he have boosted his defense?

Looking at this, the title of the "Flower of the Battlefield" really lived up to its name.

Touch me, you die; you touch me, I die—it was all about the thrill.

The other was his younger clan member, Shisui Uchiha, who possessed the strongest genjutsu, Kotoamatsukami.

The mechanism of this eye technique was so mysterious it had to be guarded against.

To avoid becoming another "Uchiha disgrace," Hanma set two principles from the beginning of his training.

First, although he was a taijutsu ninja, he had to rigorously train his resistance to genjutsu, to avoid becoming anyone's puppet.

Second, as a taijutsu ninja, high attack wasn't the feature; high defense was the real key!

These two requirements were actually quite luxurious, with only a handful in the ninja world having such capabilities.

However, with Hanma having a system, training became much easier, accumulating experience to exchange for corresponding entries.

After graduating from the ninja academy at nine, joining the ANBU, and fighting his way through, he eventually managed to exchange for "Wild Growth" and began a frenzy of improvement.

Wild Growth granted him exceptional regenerative power and immunity to subsequent injuries.

Hanma actively attempted to use various body parts—his face, arms, thighs—to endure various Five Elements Release techniques.

At first, his ANBU colleagues mocked him, telling him no taijutsu ninja trained like this and that he would end up disabled.

But gradually, everyone noticed something was off.

Hanma went from suffering minor burns from tanking C-rank techniques like Great Fireball, to facing higher-rank techniques like Great Fireball Multiple Enhanced Bullet and Earth Dragon Bullet without a change in expression, though still lamenting the wear and tear on his clothes.

The attitudes of his ANBU colleagues changed; was he an Uchiha, or from the Yotsuki clan?

Similarly, to face genjutsu, the clan's genjutsu users were tortured to no end by Hanma.

He initially asked his clansmen to test him with genjutsu, only to end up dazed on the ground in the genjutsu dream.

Listening to the arrogant, complacent lecture of his clansmen, "What's the use of taijutsu? It's no match for the Sharingan gaze!" transformed into him actively greeting genjutsu, then immediately closing in on the caster, face close to theirs, asking perplexedly:

"What's wrong? Has your eye power not grown after all these years? What's going on?"

Successfully breaking the spirits of many Uchiha genjutsu users.

Recalling his training history, a faint smile appeared on Hanma's face. Those were happy training times.

To gauge Hanma's combat power today, comparing him to the Third Raikage would be apt.

He had more genjutsu resistance than the Third Raikage, and his speed and defense were comparable.

However, in terms of offensive power, Hanma's strongest technique might not match the Third Raikage's One-Finger Nukite.

After all, the Third Raikage's use of chakra was more refined.

This aligned with Hanma's philosophy: he believed relying on chakra for defense always had flaws, and the only real armor was one's own body!

So far, Hanma was comparable to a tank, with high tolerance and decent single-target damage.

But like most taijutsu ninjas, he faced significant challenges in group combat.

The original work's Two Great Taijutsu Ninjas, the Third Raikage and Guy, highlighted this issue.

Guy's area attack, Morning Peacock, frankly, was one of the silliest moves.

Using speed to ignite the air and then firing the flames with airflow—wasn't the energy loss too high during this process?

Such moves only highlighted the deficiency and powerlessness of taijutsu ninjas in long-range combat.

When speed wasn't an advantage, taijutsu ninjas found it hard to engage in direct combat, often putting themselves in very tricky situations.

Likewise, when faced with human wave tactics, taijutsu ninjas lacked large-scale enemy dealing methods.

How to deal with low-level adversaries en masse, how to maintain close combat, how to master space-time techniques or sage powers—these were Hanma's crucial issues to solve next.

Hanma squinted, contemplating the most suitable ninjutsu in the ninja world for him. After a while, he still thought space-time techniques were the best.

If he had Obito's Kamui, he could instantly teleport behind anyone.

With his close-combat capabilities, Hanma could pose a significant threat to ninjas like the Third Kazekage or Tsuchikage if he got close.

The Flying Thunder God Technique would also work, though less effectively.

Contemplating this, Hanma helplessly covered his face, donning a pained expression.

Currently, Minato was just a kid always asking him for money for barbeque and flirting.

As for Obito, he was probably still drinking milk in the clan land.

There was no helping it; space-time techniques were just that rare in the ninja world.

Hanma silently chanted in his heart, "Space-time ninjutsu, sage techniques, large-scale enemy dealing methods."

Even with his cheat-like system, mastering space-time powers wasn't an easy feat...

"Swish—"

He suddenly took off his shirt and waved his right hand, extinguishing the oil lamp by the bed.

"Enough thinking. The cart will find its way when it gets to the mountain! I'll just take it easy and sleep!"

"Perhaps when my body evolves again someday, these powers will naturally come to me..."

"Resting well so I can deal with those old Jōnin guys tomorrow is what I should be concerned about now."

"Good night."

Comfortably pulling the quilt tight, Hanma said to himself.

The chapter ends here.