The days waiting for the system to return dragged on slowly. I didn't have the mood to do anything special—spending so much time in my inner world really takes a toll. Thankfully, I only need a couple of hours of deep meditation every two days to keep everything there intact.
During this time, I restocked my moonshine and did an inventory check. I found a small stash of those berries I use for the liqueur Danzo loves so much. I decided to make a batch—there was only enough for one bottle anyway. I'll need to replenish my stock and maybe experiment with other berries too.
On the third day after I burst out of the barrier, Sumire dropped by. I was happy to see him, but in broad daylight? How hasn't anyone harvested him for ingredients yet? I asked him about it, and the cheeky tentacle monster revealed that he disguises himself when moving through the streets. Naturally, I asked to see this "disguise"—I was curious. And when he showed me, my eye started twitching. His entire disguise consisted of tying a Konoha headband around himself and wearing something resembling a vest. Where did he even get those?
— So, you're pretending to be a shinobi?
— Bulb bulb bulb bulb bulb! — He shot back, looking at me like I'm an idiot.
That's when I started banging my head against the wall. Of course—he's disguising himself as a summoning animal, and the headband signals he belongs to a local shinobi, so no one touches him. Here I was, suspecting Sumire of having invisibility or teleportation abilities, and it turns out to be so simple and mundane.
When I offered to try a new batch of moonshine, Sumire flat-out refused. Then he started begging for healing potions. When I asked why he needed them, he said they were for Owl—she's being sent on another mission, and he's worried about her.
I gave him three vials of Minor Healing Potions and three of Minor Regeneration Potions. Before he left, I advised him not to give them all to her at once. Sumire bubbled that he already knew that, put on his disguise, and headed out.
But a few days after Owl left for her mission, Sumire came back. He stayed for a bit, then did the same the next day. This went on for five days. After some intense questioning, I found out this jerk was only visiting me to spy on a kunoichi living across from my dorm. I took a look at her—Sumire's got excellent taste. Seriously, this guy already has a harem, and it's still not enough for him. I decided to mess with him a bit.
— Sumire, why are you just sitting here sighing? That won't change anything. You've got to be bolder—go introduce yourself.
— Bulb bulb.
— What do you mean you don't know how?
— Bulb.
— Well, you're in luck—I know a foolproof method. 100% success rate.
— Bulb!!!
— Of course I'll tell you. I'll even help and give you everything you need.
I handed Sumire a bouquet of flowers I hadn't yet used for potions or concoctions, added a box of chocolates I'd found during my inventory check, and topped it all off with a bottle of moonshine. After giving him brief instructions, I sent him off on his "quest." The whole prank was based on the fact that everyone sees Sumire as a summoning animal, and summons are often used to deliver messages. So, this kunoichi would likely just take the package and close the door on him.
Naturally, I set myself up to watch the show. Sumire quickly reached her apartment and knocked. As soon as she opened the door, he handed her the bouquet. And that's when my plan went straight to the Fox's tails. She sniffed the bouquet, and her face lit up like she'd been handed a mink coat. "For me?" she asked, and Sumire gave an affirmative bulb and nodded for extra effect. The effect was immediate—her expression changed, as if someone had added a diamond ring to the coat. With that same look, they went inside her apartment. Half an hour later, sounds were coming from behind the door that left no room for misinterpretation.
My mood, which had just lifted, plummeted below rock bottom. How does he do it? Does he have some special skill for this? If he does, I know exactly what I'll use one of my skill copy orbs on. Another possibility—maybe there was something in the bouquet I gave Sumire. I need to thoroughly check all those flowers.
Reality turned out to be harsh. After a week of research and observation, I figured it out: most guys here are idiots, obsessed with training—not to the extent of Gai (watching his workouts gave me nightmares for three days about being his favorite student), but still. There's nothing to criticize here—if you don't train enough, you don't live long.
This creates a situation where guys who pay more attention to girls than training don't survive long, and the rest find it easier to visit a brothel than to court someone. The local girls aren't stupid either—they know that after a first date, there might not be a second if a mission goes wrong. But they still crave romance. The stack of romance novels in that kunoichi's place—Sumire's latest crush—confirmed it. She had every romance novel sold in the village.
I even ran an experiment: I put together another bouquet from my stash and gave it to Yasuka. For the next three days, she walked around with a goofy smile, and the food she brought me got even tastier, which I didn't think was possible.
Now I get Sumire's success. On top of everything else, he shows care—bringing tea in the morning, gifting useful potions. I thought only Root was stealing my potions, but now Sumire's added flowers and chocolates to the list. And the set of potions I got recipes for after the first system glitch—Minor Healing, Regeneration, Speed Boost, Strength Boost, Stamina Recovery—would make any kunoichi happier than jewelry. Those potions can save a life or make a mission easier. The locals have stimulants too, but they're expensive and hard to come by, while these are such practical gifts.
Sumire's been begging for more potions lately—no big deal. Once I start my own harem, I'll definitely use the orbs to copy a couple of his skills.
The system finally came back on the eleventh day. After the standard "Param pam pam," a torrent of profanity followed, so elaborate I couldn't even gauge its complexity. Compared to this, the Fox sounded downright polite and ethical. After ten minutes, the system seemed to calm down, but I asked it to repeat some parts—I didn't manage to write them down. My conversations with the Fox are pretty one-sided, but with these notes, I'll have plenty to say back.
The system obliged, repeating and even adding more. Then it flooded me with a spam of notifications. My time in the barrier, and what happened after, had left its mark. With each message I read, I was more and more stunned. Starting with active skills: Meditation, Deep Shadow Plane Dive, and Henge all reached max level; Iron Stomach and Shadow Concealment gained a few levels each. A new skill appeared too—"Titanium Liver," level 25. Like Iron Stomach, it moved to passive skills and now works constantly, making it even harder to get drunk.
I was thrilled to see an increase in affinity with all elements, even unlocking their order. Some elements got a bigger boost than others, but they all improved. My HP, chakra, mana, and reiryoku regeneration also went up. The best part? My Control stat jumped by 170 points. Other stats increased too, though not as much and not all of them. Will went up by 30, Spirit rose by 43, crossing 100, but I didn't get any bonuses for that. Intuition grew by 12, while Wisdom and Intelligence only got 10 each—not much, but considering how much I've been fumbling, I'm lucky I didn't go into the negatives.
Intelligence +1.
Now that's more like it. But when I opened my status to check, I noticed that where my Luck stat should've been, it now read "Unknown." When I asked the system what that was about, it first showed me the odds of my survival when I broke the barrier.
Looks like I messed up my calculations back then. I thought the chance of being atomized was a bit over 70%, but it was actually 99.9%. You'd think my Luck would skyrocket after surviving that, but the odds of getting trapped in the barrier were even slimmer. The system itself can't figure out what glitched to lock me in an already-cleared barrier.
Another annoyance: the glitch reset all my settings, as the Intelligence increase notification clearly showed. I had to dive back into the settings and fix everything. While doing that, I noticed an entry in my inactive skills called "Aura of the Unnameable." I couldn't open its description, so I called on the system.
— System, what's this skill, and why can't I see its description?
Which skill?
— This one, "Aura of the Unnameable."
Oh, that one. Nothing useful.
— Come on, can't you just open the description?
Maybe you shouldn't?
— I need to, System, I need to.
"Aura of the Unnameable," Level 25:
Creates an aura 1/10th as strong as Hepsi's.
Warning: Can only be activated with the corresponding Henge.
Duration: 25 minutes.
Cooldown: 120 hours.
Cost: 1000 CP, 500 MP, 250 RP, 100 Soul Crystals, 1 Soul Gem.
What the heck? Why such a high cost? Oh well, I'll level up eventually, and it'll be fine. Let's move it to active skills.
— Hey, what do you mean I don't have enough skill points?
Transferring this skill requires 25 skill points.
— How many? Are you kidding me? I don't have that many—I won't get that many until level 50!
— System, how about a little quest to earn some skill points?
There are NO quests available right now. Even if you ask, or beg really hard, still NO.
Fine, let's not push the system—it might glitch again. I'll focus on restocking my food supplies instead, just in case.
I also checked out the shop section, which I'd never bothered with before. In the "books" category, there seemed to be every piece of literature ever—not just from Earth. I found a manual on hyperdrive repair, of all things. What a goldmine for transmigrators aiming to be progressionists! But I was interested in books on geology and other scientific works—they'd really help improve my inner world. The prices were steep, but I had to buy them.
Now I'll need to go on a spree through all the barriers to farm soul crystals—I need to buy ingredients. It wouldn't hurt to finally hit level 20 either.
Looks like I'll have to visit the zombie barriers, but they don't scare me anymore, thanks to a recent discovery. During another experiment, I created a series of potions that completely disable one sense: hearing, sight, smell, touch, even speech. The speech one could fetch a good price from Tsukiko's future husband. But for me, the potion that disables smell is key—it solves the main problem with zombies.
To keep myself from going crazy, I decided to pick up a hobby: catching and getting Root agents drunk. I got the idea after watching Gopher. After that night, he started acting more like a normal person. Now, on his days off, he drops by to hang out—not as wild as that first time, but still fun. He and Sumire have really hit it off. For some reason, though, both of them refuse to drink the liqueur. I get it with Gopher—maybe he's allergic to berries—but why's Sumire so stubborn? So, I'll catch the Root agents and turn them into normal people too.
Since that day, I've been trying to catch them, but those sneaky jerks were already good at hiding, and now they're pulling off miracles of stealth. Since I can't find them, I decided to lure them out. I used a bottle of liqueur as bait—the kind I had to search hard for the berries to make. While searching, I stumbled across some interesting auction lots: a barrel of dwarven moonshine starting at 3 soul gems, a crate of elven wine at 5 soul gems, and the most intriguing and expensive lot—a bottle of drow mushroom tincture at 7 soul gems. I placed bids on all of them, raising the starting price by 1 soul gem each, and didn't check back. In the end, I won the crate of elven wine, though I'd have preferred the mushroom tincture—I was curious to try replicating it, especially since there are tons of mushrooms for sale.
The results of my hunt were mixed. On one hand, my apartment is now very well-protected—Gopher confirmed it, since he fell into most of the traps. How do these Root agents get past them? Gopher, a skilled and experienced shinobi, can only bypass or disarm about 80% of the surprises I've set up. I owe all these traps to a book I randomly found on the auction. Of course, I modified and upgraded some of them with my concoctions, which boosted their effectiveness—again, proven by Gopher.
I eventually found the answer to how they were getting past the traps: Yasuka was leaking the info. Sumire caught her in the act. It's my own fault—when she came over to clean, I had to disable all the traps. She must've memorized how to disarm them and passed the info along.
Once I figured that out, I decided to use it to my advantage—six bottles had already been stolen with no consequences. So, after Yasuka's next visit, I reworked most of the traps. The results came quickly. The sneaky pair got caught after bypassing only 20% of the traps.
By the time Sumire and Gopher showed up, I'd already poured the Root agents a couple of bowls of liqueur each. They've been stealing the stuff—might as well let them try it. I also prepared another bottle for Danzo—they can deliver it later.
Gopher was a bit surprised to see his colleagues but quickly shrugged it off and started setting the table, warily eyeing the liqueur.
What can I say about the Root agents? Their depiction in canon and fanfics is total nonsense—silent and emotionless, my foot. Ha, sure! They spilled everything about Yasuka without me even asking, and they blabbed a ton of supposedly classified info too. But the story that impressed everyone the most was about their boss locking himself away for two days with eight honeytrap kunoichi. By the end, the kunoichi had to be carried out—they couldn't walk on their own. Gopher let out a whistle at that.
— Now that's a MAN!!! — I said, and the Root agents and Sumire nodded in agreement. Judging by the glint in all three of Sumire's eyes, he's planning to at least match, if not surpass, Danzo's feat soon.
At the end, I handed them the bottle of liqueur for Danzo and made a deal: if they stop getting trap info from Yasuka, I'll leave them not just a bottle but also something extra—like an antidote for my "Sudden Diarrhea" concoction. At that, Gopher also piped up, saying he'd like some of that antidote too. It's a win-win—they get to look good in front of their boss, and I get experience. With that, our little gathering was declared over, and everyone went home.
— Listen, Eighth, what are we going to write in the report? If we tell the truth, they'll eliminate us on the spot.
— Relax, Fourteenth. We'll say in the report that during the retrieval operation, we were affected by a previously unknown concoction, but despite that, we completed the mission.
— Won't they notice we reek of alcohol from a mile away?
— We'll say that's the effect of the concoction.
— They won't believe it.
— Ugh, you've only been here a week, but I've been at this for almost six months. Trust me, they'll believe it—crazier things have happened here.