Chapter 72: Expansion of Printing Production

"They'll deliver it tonight! Are they actually being efficient this time?"

"Yeah."

Tsunade casually waved the paper around, clearly proud.

"Don't swing it like that. Here, I'll give you this one too."

Akaba sighed and pulled out a drawing from his pocket.

"What the—!"

Tsunade covered her mouth in shock but quickly regained her composure. It was a portrait—of Tsunade herself, as she looked now.

"It's nothing really, just a character sketch."

Akaba shrugged. After a pause, he added sincerely, "Thanks for helping me deliver that page."

"Small favor. I needed to train my taijutsu anyway."

Tsunade happily tucked away the portrait.

"You're grinding so hard—I guess I'd better start grinding too."

Akaba took out his tools.

There was still half of Volume Five left, but Izumi Yamano had already delivered today, so Akaba had to finish the remaining portion today.

"Great, you finally taking initiative—oh never mind what I said."

Another Shadow Clone!

Tsunade gave an unimpressed look. She really shouldn't have expected anything else.

But the next second, she saw Akaba himself pulling out another set of tools.

"You think I'd slack off? Come on, do you really think I'd make it that easy to figure me out?"

Akaba chuckled with a grin, thought for a moment, then began sketching.

"Alright, time for me to start training too."

Tsunade suddenly felt supercharged with motivation.

If even a lazy type like him could start grinding, how could she justify being one herself?

Still, she deliberately ran far away—it would take more practice before she could perfectly control the force behind each punch.

Boom!

The sound reached him, and Akaba paused.

Tsunade's control really had improved—faster than he could've imagined.

"But then again, how else could she possibly have created Medical Ninjutsu without such control?"

After a brief moment of reflection, Akaba dove back into his drawing.

By late afternoon, the air had settled into a calm rhythm.

"Master, Mr. Yamano's carriage has arrived. The manga has already been printed."

"I know. Go call people from the clan and arrange for the manga to be stocked. I'll handle the promotion side."

Akaba wasn't surprised; he had already heard the news from Tsunade earlier.

Sakuma Yunlang nodded and turned to leave, but couldn't help glancing back at Akaba with suspicion. Something didn't feel quite right.

As he walked, he kept pondering.

What exactly was off?

No matter how much he thought about it, something still felt odd.

"Oh right! Lord Akaba himself is actually working hard? That's definitely not normal!"

Sakuma finally realized. Previously, Master always had Shadow Clones do the work while he simply lounged around, relaxed. But today, he was personally drawing the manga.

This was literally the very first time he had seen it happen—aside from when making posters.

"Tsunade, Mr. Yamano has arrived—I need to go greet him, so I'll leave you here."

After dismissing the clone and packing away his drafts, Akaba shouted toward the distant hill where Tsunade was still going at it hard.

"Okay, I'm done too."

Tsunade stopped immediately, then started cleaning up the messy area.

"I also need to put together Volume Five, so I'll head out first."

"Sure!"

"..."

Akaba hurried home, took out the drawings he had previously finished, and compiled them together with the new ones.

When he arrived at the manga shop, the layout and page numbers were already fully marked out.

Outside the gate, a group of people bustled about in a frenzy.

Even the factory manager, Izumi Yamano, was busy helping unload cargo himself.

"Mr. Izumi Yamano, thank you and your workers for getting this batch of manga done so quickly."

Akaba stepped forward and bowed gratefully.

It only took a little over a day from beginning to end — they've already finished the fourth volume! This clearly showed how efficient these people were.

"This is all thanks to Daimyo."

Izumi Yamano smiled, then explained to Akaba, "Daimyo heard about your matter from somewhere and mobilized many workers to help expand our production."

"The Daimyo knows about my manga?"

Akaba's eyes lit up.

"Yes, the Daimyo said that your manga represents an emerging cultural industry that deserves encouragement."

Izumi Yamano smiled brightly, his tone carrying a hint of gratitude. "Thanks to your cooperation, our factory has upgraded the equipment in our printing and production department."

"That's great. Let's go inside and talk more."

Hearing this news, Akaba felt elated.

He took Izumi Yamano by the hand and led him into the house.

To outsiders, it might've looked a bit strange — they were quite different in age — but to Izumi Yamano, it felt perfectly normal as he followed him indoors for a more detailed discussion.

"Mr. Izumi Yamano, did you approach the caravans already?"

Akaba straightened up, visibly tense as he asked.

"Two caravans agreed to cooperate, while one wants to observe by selling on consignment for one or two times."

"Three caravans?"

Izumi Yamano hesitated for a moment, then apologetically replied, "There hasn't been much time, and altogether only four caravans passed through, so—"

"No, I'm just amazed that you managed to find three caravans so quickly."

Akaba sincerely expressed admiration. "May I ask which regions the three caravans are responsible for distributing to?"

"One caravan travels to Snow Country, another to River Country, and the one that wants to see how things go usually takes shipments to Iron Country."

Izumi Yamano answered.

"Except for River Country, they're all quite stable nations."

Akaba mused thoughtfully.

"Cough, actually River Country is peaceful too."

"For now."

River Country lay between Fire and Wind Nations, acting as a buffer zone between the two countries.

Currently, there was no war between Wind and Fire, allowing River Country to remain peaceful, though when warfare resumed...

Still, the timing now was pretty good.

"Well then, thank you again, Mr. Izumi Yamano. I'll trouble you with the fifth volume as well. Also, after some time, I may ask you to publish another brand new manga."

Akaba bowed in thanks, then pulled out the prepared sketchbook.

"Another manga? Will you be able to handle it?"

Izumi Yamano said in surprise.

"There shouldn't be any problem. This other one is experimental. After stabilizing its release, we can test the market in other countries."

The ninja culture associated with the Fire Nation would be hard to introduce elsewhere.

Of course,

he wasn't even sure if One Piece would catch on overseas.

"If that's settled, just send someone to the factory whenever you need something. Also, next time, you can have someone from Mito's clan carry the Token — our factory staff will recognize them too."

Suddenly remembering something, Izumi Yamano added somewhat embarrassedly.

"In that case, I'm very grateful indeed."

Akaba stood up, picked up a large poster from behind him, and carefully covered it with a cloth.

"Yunlang, tomorrow you put this at the entrance, and then go hang a banner on the street," Akaba instructed.

"Yes, master! But… what exactly is a banner?" Sakuma Yunlang asked while secretly glancing at the poster through the cloth.

It appeared to be a poster.

"I didn't have time to make one yet. You can have someone make one tomorrow. Just keep the text simple—say that our manga has been updated and invite any interested customers to come buy it."

As he spoke, Akaba casually picked up the fifth volume of a manga book and slipped a thin drawing inside.

Not long after, all ten drawings were placed into different manga books.

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