Journey to the West: Life Simulation of Sun Wukong

The next day, Kakashi arrived on time in front of the Hokage Building and met Haruno Sakura and Naruto Uzumaki, but Uchiha Sasuke was nowhere to be seen.

"Where's Sasuke?"

"He's over there," Naruto glanced at the top of the Hokage Building, where Sasuke was sitting, feeling the morning breeze, his bangs fluttering in the wind.

"Hmph!"

Seeing Kakashi's arrival, Uchiha Sasuke also jumped down, but he did not look happy to see Sakura and Naruto; he still remembered the shock and suppressed laughter of others when he went out to eat with them the day before and on his way home.

It wasn't until he looked in the mirror that he discovered the pigtails on his head!

The pride of the Uchiha clan was completely ruined by his own hands!

Darn!

The joke was on him!

Haruno Sakura walked over and patted Sasuke's head, "Come on, don't be angry. You look even handsomer with pigtails."

"That's right, Sakura is correct," Naruto barely held back his laughter, giving Sasuke a thumbs up.

"You think I'd believe you? Jerks! Who treats their own teammates like this?!" Sasuke laughed angrily, not seeing it as a mere prank.

This was a total blow to his dignity!

Kakashi smiled, "Alright, stop quarreling. It was just a prank. Let's head to the Hokage office to pick up our tasks."

Entering the Hokage's office, within the spacious area near the windows, there was a row of desks, occupied by the Third Hokage as well as a few other ninjas.

Many ninjas had come to receive tasks, mostly Jounin leading a trio of Genin, among them, Haruno Sakura spotted a familiar team led by Sarutobi Asuma, Team 10.

"Shikamaru, you're here to pick up tasks too," Naruto greeted.

"Well, we've officially become ninjas, so we obviously want to experience what it's like to do real tasks," Shikamaru smiled, while Yamanaka Ino walked over to stand next to Sakura, saying, "So your team's Jounin is that masked guy, huh? Our teacher, Asuma, knows him too. He's indeed a powerful ninja, knows over a thousand ninjutsu, very strong."

"Well, talking about strength, he's just so-so. He promised to take us on a mission yesterday, but we had to delay it to today because he got injured during the survival exercise," Sakura spoke seriously about Kakashi's condition.

"It's normal for you to defeat Kakashi," Ino chuckled, "Yesterday, the three of us outsmarted Asuma-sensei as well."

At that moment, Sarutobi Asuma received a C-rank mission from the Third Hokage, telling Shikamaru and the others, "I've got a C-rank mission to clear up bandits and rogue ninjas in a nearby village."

Kakashi also received a task at the same time.

"Kakashi, what task did you pick up for your students?" Sarutobi Asuma asked curiously.

"D-rank, cleaning up the river," Kakashi said indifferently.

"...I think you need some motivation, Kakashi," Sarutobi Asuma knew the capabilities of his own students, who only lacked experience. A bit more exposure to real combat would soon make them capable ninjas.

But Kakashi had his students handling D-rank tasks?

He knew the capabilities of Haruno Sakura and the others, their chakra was so strong, yet they were only assigned low-level tasks?

Why?

Was it because he was beaten so badly by his students yesterday that he wanted to push them down a bit?

Feeling he understood Kakashi's mindset, Sarutobi Asuma earnestly clapped Kakashi on the shoulder and said, "Kakashi, be magnanimous."

Kakashi: "???"

After Sarutobi Asuma left with Ino and the others, Kakashi took Haruno Sakura and the rest to tackle the D-rank task, heading to the nearby Nanhe River.

On the river, there were some fallen leaves and twigs floating, and in places where rocks jutted out, there were rotting animal entrails, bones, cans, plastic bags, and packaging materials.

"Why is it so dirty?" Naruto complained.

"Some villagers, to save trouble, directly toss their kitchen waste into the river; some are from the upstream slaughterhouses that dispose of unusable entrails and wastewater into the river; while others are from passersby casually discarding their packaging paper," Kakashi explained.

"Everyone in the village is usually so polite," Sasuke, seeing such a dirty river for the first time, was incredulous.

Behind the shiny exterior, there was such filth.

Yet, it was Sakura who felt the deepest, reflecting on the old saying: It's the small courtesies that count, but this was far from it.

"All right, let's get to work," Kakashi then jumped onto a nearby branch and pulled out an adult-rated magazine from his pocket, flipping through it with interest.

"Kakashi-sensei, why are you sitting there reading a book?" Naruto asked.

"This kind of task, I've already experienced it when I was young, now it's your turn," Kakashi said cheerily.

"So, from your childhood to now as a middle-aged man, this situation has never changed?" Sakura looked somewhat serious.

"That's not the case," Kakashi shook his head, "Because the population of Konoha has been increasing, new things keep coming up in Konoha, so there's even more garbage now. A task like this cleaning of the river happens almost every other day; it's a long-term mission, but it actually supports quite a few Genin."

The skills of Genin are generally not strong, only through doing a lot of D-rank tasks can they earn money.

"Is that so?"

Haruno Sakura understood that it wasn't that the ninjas didn't want to solve the problem, but if they eradicated the source of the garbage, the task of cleaning the river would become obsolete, and the lower ninjas would lose a source of income.

Otherwise, given the ninjas' superhuman strength, wasn't it extremely easy to decree that people shouldn't dump garbage in the river and then make an example out of a few, to deter the others?

Of course, another possibility was that the ninjas, including the Hokage, simply hadn't realized the severity of the problem, or they didn't think it was a big issue that the villagers were throwing their domestic waste into the river.

Punishing people for littering seemed like an overreaction.

The higher-ups in Konoha probably thought the same way.

Kakashi had no idea what Haruno Sakura was thinking. He just felt that she asked casually, and after answering, he continued to flip through his little yellow book.

Uchiha Sasuke picked up the lout Luang from the ground, grabbed an iron fork and a pair of fire tongs, stepped onto the river surface, and said to Naruto and the others, "How about that, am I impressive?"

Although their strength was superior to his, walking on water was a skill you couldn't learn without being taught directly—his brother had taught him!

"It's just walking on water, I've known how to do that for a while now," Naruto gathered Luang, performed the Shadow Clone Skill, and created hundreds of clones, each jumping onto the river surface and standing firmly on it.

This made Sasuke feel somewhat insignificant.

This guy, how does he know everything? Can't he let us feel a bit superior?

"We each take care of a section of the river," Haruno Sakura said with a faint smile, waving her hand and causing green granules to spread from her palm like smoke, dispersing into the river water.

"Ninjutsu: Garbage Corrosion Skill!"

With a clap of her hands, chakra surged, and the green smoke instantly spread throughout the river, adhering to various kinds of garbage, then sprouting countless green roots, like water plants, gathering the trash in the middle, enveloping it and corroding it until dissolved, instantly revitalizing the entire river surface.

"Amazing, Sakura!" Naruto's eyes shone.

"What kind of Ninjutsu is that?" Uchiha Sasuke asked. "It can corrode garbage?"

Kakashi also lowered his gaze, completely speechless. Chapter provided via M|V|L@EMPYR.

This wasn't Ninjutsu at all!

Those green clouds were spores from a certain type of mushroom; under the influence of chakra, they could grow rapidly, using the garbage as nutrients.

Yet, had Sakura actually cultivated such fungi?

That was truly remarkable.

Before long, Naruto had finished clearing his section of the river first, leaving only Sasuke still picking up debris in his section miserably.

"Sasuke, need some help?" Haruno Sakura asked.

"No need!"

It was just picking up trash; if he needed help with that, then the pride of the Uchiha clan would truly be lost. He had to finish it himself!

Finally, an hour later, Sasuke managed to clean up the trash in his river section, walked to the shore, wiped the sweat from his forehead, quickly formed hand seals, and brought them to his mouth, blowing out a massive fireball suddenly.

"Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu!"

The blazing flames burst from his mouth, incinerating the Luang and its contents into ashes, filling the air with a pungent odor.

"What are you doing Sasuke, it smells terrible!" Naruto yelled.

"Hmph!"

Sakura appeared thoughtful, "We shouldn't burn trash in the future, it pollutes the air."

At that moment, Kakashi put away his adult's only book, jumped down from a tree, and said, "Since the task is completed, let's go and ask for our remuneration from the Hokage."

The group went to the Hokage's building, and after reporting to the Third Hokage, they were about to receive their remuneration when the Hokage took ten percent, Kakashi drew thirty percent, and the remaining sixty percent was split among Haruno Sakura and the others.

The task of cleaning the river, due to the extensive amount of trash and the time it consumed, was worth ten thousand taels, hence Haruno Sakura, Naruto Uzumaki, and Uchiha Sasuke could each receive two thousand taels.

"Kakashi-sensei, how come you took thirty percent, more than Grandpa Hokage?" Naruto complained.

"I am your supervising Jonin, of course I should get a little more," Kakashi said seriously, then whispered, "The Hokage has the easy job. All he does is sit here, record the missions for others, and for each one, he takes a ten percent mission fee, nearing a million taels a day."

Of course, this money wouldn't all go into the Sarutobi clan. A large portion of the Anbu's salaries needed to be distributed by the Hokage, given that Konoha Village, though located in the Land of Fire, was militarily independent. Unless in wartime, the daimyo wouldn't provide war costs, hence the Hokage had to figure out ways to pay his subordinates.

It couldn't be helped, even if the ninjas wanted to work, wanted to contribute to Konoha, if you only expected their loyalty and adherence to the will of fire without any remuneration, who would be willing to work for you?

Unpaid contributions were commendable, but obviously, humanity had not yet evolved to a stage where they could do so without needing any remuneration.

Just look, what were the five great nations, the five great ninja villages waging wars for?

Resources.

If one day humans evolved to the stage where "one could survive just by lying down," then unpaid contributions would truly flourish.

For what?

To satisfy their own hearts.