When Jiraiya admitted this, Kushina immediately cheered up while Minato Namikaze also smiled.
This meant the three had passed the test, earned Jiraiya's recognition, and would now receive his guidance and training.
"Master Jiraiya," Minato asked, "are we going to train first or take missions?"
Jiraiya rubbed his chin thoughtfully. Looking at the trio in front of him, he suddenly got an idea and said, "Your abilities are already no worse than standard genin. You've already mastered basic training like [Tree-Walking] and [Water-Walking], so there's no need for that anymore. Just go ahead and pick up some missions."
"Taking missions earns you money and gives you experience—it's a two birds with one stone situation."
The trio voiced no objections to Jiraiya's words and headed toward the mission hall.
Being a ninja primarily involved accepting missions, completing them, and earning rewards.
The chance to take on real missions was thrilling and entirely new to them.
Inside the mission hall, people bustled back and forth—merchants and ninjas gathered here. There were merchants offering tasks, as well as ninjas accepting or turning in missions.
With the Second Great Shinobi War over, Konoha, as one of the victorious Hidden Villages, secured most of the mission contracts available.
Because of this, there was currently no shortage of mission requests in Konoha.
Numerous shinobi darted between missions, scrambling to claim assignments and earn more than ever before.
On this basis, Konoha accumulated even greater wealth and visibly recovered its former prosperity and affluence.
However, for these three freshly graduated genin, picking up missions wasn't quite so easy.
Looking at the list displayed in the mission hall, they found that nearly ninety percent of the listed missions were far above their level.
As newcomers, only D-ranked missions were available to them—mundane chores.
Most of the lower-level regular genin in Konoha also focused on these same assignments.
After all, genin made up the largest group among shinobi, surviving mostly by doing D-rank missions.
Any task that paid decently with little effort was instantly snatched away by nearby ninjas.
The remaining tasks lingering on the board were usually time-consuming and extremely troublesome.
Kushina stared at several listed missions on the panel, frowned, and couldn't help herself but complain.
"All these missions are about finding cats or dogs, or farming and gardening. They're terrible! When will we finally be able to take on better missions?"
These petty tasks were annoying, tedious, and poorly paid.
With her fiery temper and straightforward personality, Kushina really didn't want to do such things.
Actually, most students fresh out of the Ninja Academy had similar thoughts.
It was just like in a previous life—years of study only to find yourself on a factory floor tightening bolts.
This kind of gap created discomfort for many people.
Minato looked at the mission list and sighed, "Everyone goes through this, Kushina. Just hang in there for now."
"If we take multiple missions and use the Clone Jutsu to finish them, we'll definitely gain experience quickly enough to qualify for higher-level missions."
Kushina sighed again, glanced at Jiraiya, and saw him chatting up a kunoichi beside him. She clenched her fists.
"That instructor really seems unreliable."
Kushina turned her gaze toward Satori Hyūga, asking hopefully, "Satori Hyūga, do you have any ideas?"
Satori stroked his chin in deep thought, eyes fixed on the mission board.
Hearing Kushina's words, he replied, "Of course. Have either of you heard about doing repeat missions?"
His words immediately caught the attention of Minato Namikaze and Kushina. If they could skip these mundane D-Rank Missions entirely, they were definitely willing.
Even Minato felt the same way. He believed there was a sound rationale for starting with D-rank first, gradually increasing the difficulty to effectively reduce ninja casualties during missions.
Still, agreement aside, he wasn't particularly eager to deal with all these mundane chores—it was simply human nature.
If there was a way to skip them, Minato naturally wanted to as well.
"I'll find someone to post specific missions," Satori explained, "then we can accept them, complete them, claim the rewards, and repeat the process…"
"Would that even work?" Minato asked in surprise.
It was the first time he'd ever heard of such an idea—after all, normal people just didn't do things like this.
Satori chuckled. "As long as we don't overdo it, I don't think the higher-ups would say anything. We're still following the official procedures."
Just moments ago, he had thoroughly read through all the rules at the Mission Hall. After confirming no loopholes existed, he devised this method.
Back then, nobody had tried exploiting the system by secretly farming missions for faster completion.
Such an absurd tactic would be seen as outright idiotic by others.
After all, posting a mission required paying part of a service fee to the village—a real financial investment.
And when a ninja completed a mission, part of their earnings also went back to the village as mandatory mission taxes.
In a single mission, nearly forty percent went straight to the village treasury.
An ordinary person would go broke doing this repeatedly.
Most ninja recruits barely had money to begin with.
The costs of being a ninja were high—buying and maintaining ninja tools, food, clothing, shelter—it left almost nothing in their pockets.
But Satori wasn't worried. Just a few D-rank missions? His finances could handle it easily.
Thanks to his connections, finding people willing to post missions wasn't difficult either.
Whether it was using Branch House members under the authority of the Main House, or recruiting others to post missions which he would then accept himself, it made no difference to him.
Under his orchestration, small groups of people began entering the Mission Hall one after another, posting various new missions.
However, these missions seemed rather strange.
Some required three-man squads that must include a blond-haired kid.
Others required a team with a red-haired ninja.
Some missions specifically called for a team with one blond, one red, and one black-haired ninja.
...
These unnervingly specific missions looked simple on the surface, but their conditions were extremely narrow, leaving very few ninja eligible to take them.
The clerks at the Mission Hall couldn't help but look visibly frustrated by what they were seeing.
Technically speaking, he hadn't violated any rules.
Yet… something about the whole situation just didn't feel right.
Naturally, the only team that met these special requirements was Satori Hyūga's three-member squad.
Kushina with her red hair, Minato with his golden locks, and Satori with his black hair and Byakugan.
Through some clever maneuvering, they managed to pick up several surprisingly simple missions—much to everyone else's shock.
One was a patrol, one was a chat, another a visit...
Combined, these missions were basically just going out for a stroll, exchanging a few words with someone, and coming back to mark them as done.
"Hahaha, this is too good to be true!"
As soon as Kushina received the mission list, she couldn't help but burst into loud laughter.
A few guys who had been frantically fighting over missions at the board earlier were now glaring at their own assignments, their eyes practically glowing red with jealousy.
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