[A/N : Hey guys. This chapter is Sponsored by Mattison Brown. You can thank him for the double release.]
Kaen also realized why Fujin was called by the Hokage. He smiled and said, "Looks like you won the race for promotion to Anbu Captain."
He sighed and continued, "Makes sense though considering how many people you have killed. Your Spectral Swordsman title is very well-known and feared."
Tsuyoshi shook his head and said, "The Anbu Captain title isn't handed so easily. You will be given a promotion mission. The mission is usually very difficult. Only if you perform it satisfactorily will you be promoted. Anyways, no point in speculating about it. Take some rest today and ensure that you are at your complete readiness tomorrow."
Fujin nodded and said, "Alright Captain. Thank You for all your guidance."
The squad dispersed.
Unlike the time with his Genin squad, the Anbu squad never hung together other than when they were training or doing missions. Tsuyoshi had instructed them to not appear together in public while they were a part of the Anbu. Due to this the trio of Fujin, Teru and Kean never went out together to eat or party despite being in the same team for over a year and a half!
Fujin grabbed a random mask, put it on and walked out of the room while thinking, 'A secret mission huh? I wonder what it will be…'
He thought for a bit and speculated, 'It will most probably be another political scheme by Shikaku. That guy makes way too many schemes. No wonder Konoha's position is so solid despite being vulnerable militarily for so long.
Anyways, it is still early morning. What should I do for the day? Just resting the entire day will be a waste.'
As he was thinking, he walked towards the training facilities of the Anbu. A grin formed on his face behind the mask. With his next step, his physical features transformed. His height increased to 6 feet 6 inches and his body became very slim. On his next step, his chakra signature transformed. It became heavy in Yin chakra. If a sensor were to sense him, it would be very difficult to link him to Fujin.
He kept walking nonchalantly to the Training facilities. After arriving at the facility, he saw a few other Anbu. Without exchanging words with anyone or attracting any attention, he walked towards the Wind Training rooms and entered one.
His eyes immediately roamed through the room. All the seals in the room that were inscribed and hidden in the room became visible to him. Many of these seals were for inspection and spying.
He acted as if he didn't notice any of them and sat in the center of the room and began meditating. Just like in the Tower in the Forest of Death, these rooms also had Elemental crystals. Fujin began absorbing the energy from the crystal.
The room didn't initially have any methods of investigation and spying. But, shortly after Fujin entered the Anbu, he began using these rooms. And his rate of absorbing the energy from Wind Crystals skyrocketed! He initially needed to meditate for 4 hours for 12 days to completely absorb all the energy in one Wind crystal. But in a few months, he got used to absorbing energy from the Wind crystal. He began exhausting an entire crystal in one meditation session of 4 hours!
This development alarmed Hiruzen. Wind crystals used to be the ones that used to be the slowest to be exhausted. But suddenly, its rate of absorption became second to only Fire crystals. He immediately tried to investigate but didn't find anything.
So he resorted to inscribing seals in the Wind Training rooms. Unfortunately, Fujin was a SealMaster as well. He easily identified the seals and played around with them. Hiruzen couldn't figure out how the crystal was getting absorbed so quickly.
Numerous times, he also sent some Anbu to spy on the meditation rooms. But in that case, Fujin would absorb very little energy from the Wind Crystal. Due to this, no one could blame him. Instead, the Anbu ninjas that were keeping an eye became his perfect alibi.
Of course, Hiruzen did suspect him. After all, the number of Wind users was very low in Konoha. After failing to find any suspect, he thought very hard, 'The absorption rate of Wind crystals increased suddenly after the new Anbu were inducted. Of those 234, only 5 specialize in Wind release. But, I can't disregard others or the older Anbu as it is possible that they are developing Wind as their second or third element.'
Finally, Hiruzen gave up, 'Leave it. Even if I find the culprit, I can't punish them or tell them to stop. Otherwise, everyone else will begin questioning the speech I gave to motivate them. Besides, even though the usage is high, we do have a good stock of Wind Crystals. It is still within an acceptable range.'
Since he joined the Anbu, Fujin alone used up around 250 Wind Crystals. He had successfully used up all the money Hiruzen earned by gambling on him and was still collecting interest. The overall consumption of Wind Crystals during this period was over 400. It barely exceeded Earth and Water crystals which were in the range of 350 to 400.
Of course, Fire Crystals were still the ones being used the most. The Anbu training facility used over one thousand five hundred Fire crystals every year. Due to the sudden increase in Anbu numbers, Hiruzen ran out of Fire crystals a few times. If not for the fact that the Uchiha clan no longer existed and he could divert the Fire Crystals that used to be allotted to them, he would have been forced to apply restrictions on the Fire Training rooms.
Other than the Wind crystals, Fujin also absorbed energy from Lightning, Fire and Earth crystals. However, his rate of absorption with them was very low. His rate of absorbing Wind energy kept increasing rapidly until he hit a limit. But his other elements didn't experience such an increase in the rate of absorption and he reached their limits much sooner.
Fujin had expected such a result from Fire and Earth crystals but he was disappointed when he couldn't increase the speed of absorption from Lightning crystals. Of course, despite the slower rate of absorption, it was still very helpful in improving his affinity with those elements.
In around three and a half hours, Fujin emptied the Wind crystal. He got up and went into a Lightning training room. These rooms didn't have the same level of investigative seals. The seals in the Wind Training room didn't detect that the crystal was empty until another Anbu visited to train his wind element and realized that it was empty.
Fujin spent most of his day in the training facility and only returned home late at night. He had dinner and went to sleep. The next day, he once again began his morning with an intense morning workout. Unless he was out on a mission, Fujin never missed his morning workout for even a single day.
Instead, his morning workout had gotten even more intense. He had managed to use his previous training seal at its 100% capacity. He created a new seal for himself that had a maximum limit four times higher than the seal Hiruzen had created for him.
Fujin returned home after the workout and freshened up for the meeting with Hiruzen. While getting prepared, he took a look at his bracers and thought, 'I have been using these bracers since I became a Genin. Time to change it.'
He took off his bracers. A grin formed on his face as he thought, 'The Spectral Swordsman identity has become too well known. All the Anbu ninjas from the 4 major villages identify me on sight. Even though they don't know about most of my capabilities, it is annoying when they get on full alert and don't provide any openings. It's time to play that card.'
He discarded his old bracers and put on new ones. Unlike his previous ones, these were very thin and of the same color as his skin. So from a distance, it was very difficult to spot them. In addition, he had inscribed dozens of small storage seals on each bracer and stored a variety of weapons in it. His chakra metal swords were also stored in the bracers.
Of course, despite being very thin, they were much harder than his previous bracers as they used better metals and Fujin himself worked with the blacksmith to inscribe seals into them to make them as tough as he could.
With all preparations made, he placed the seal on his door and flickered towards the Hokage building.
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