Next day
Morning hours
Kushina sat up from the bed, holding her swollen head.
"Woo~! My head hurts so much."
She muttered, turned around, got out of bed, and walked to the bathroom in her slippers.
Boom!
"Kushina, are you up?"
Mikoto's voice came from outside the door.
"Mm, I'm up."
After washing her face with cold water, Kushina turned around and responded.
A few minutes later, when she stepped out of the bathroom, she was much more awake.
Kacha~!
The door opened.
Kushina stepped out of the room and saw Mikoto, still in her pajamas, smiling at her.
"Mikoto!"
Kushina giggled and hugged her.
"Ugh, go away! You haven't changed your clothes yet, and you reek of alcohol."
Mikoto patted her playfully but didn't really push her away.
"Hee hee~! You wouldn't dislike me, right?" Kushina teased, then looked around.
"What are you looking for?" Mikoto asked curiously.
Kushina asked, "Where's Ryosuke?"
"He brought you home last night and left." Mikoto replied.
"Ah~! You didn't let him stay?" Kushina asked in surprise.
Mikoto crossed her arms in mock annoyance and said, "You drank so much last night. You have no idea how embarrassing it was. Ryosuke and I only just met, and you, being the unreliable one, got completely drunk and left the two of us to drag you home."
"Hee hee~! Mikoto, you're my best friend!"
Kushina said with a grin, "So, tell me—how was it? That young, handsome guy?"
"Ugh, stop it! How old is Ryosuke? I'm older than him!" Mikoto said, feigning irritation.
"So what? I think Ryosuke likes older women like you—gentle, considerate." Kushina teased with a mischievous smile.
"You~! You're always saying outrageous things!"
Mikoto shook her head helplessly and said, "And don't think I didn't notice! You're the one interested in Ryosuke, aren't you? What, are you testing me? Afraid I'll steal your man?"
"Yeah, I do like Ryosuke,"
Kushina admitted with a sly smile, "But if you like him too, I don't mind sharing! We're best friends, after all!"
"Say that again, and I'll smack you!" Mikoto raised a hand in mock anger.
Kushina grinned and darted away.
After a while, Kushina peeked her head out from around the corner.
"I'm serious! Think about it!"
She winked at Mikoto before running off, giggling.
"That brat!"
Mikoto stomped her foot in frustration.
But—
Kushina's words lingered in her mind. She couldn't help but picture Ryosuke's face.
For a brief moment, her cheeks flushed, and she shook her head.
"What are you thinking, Mikoto? Ryosuke is so much younger than you… Wouldn't that be too shameless?" She muttered to herself.
Not to mention—
Kushina had already admitted she liked him.
Could she really share a man with her best friend?
That was just ridiculous.
Mikoto shook her head, forcing herself to drop the thought, then turned toward the guest room.
....
Ryosuke's world
Konoha
Ryosuke's House
After staying up past midnight the previous night, Ryosuke still woke up early.
Lately, his sleep duration had been getting shorter and shorter.
Even if he wanted to sleep, he just couldn't. Especially now that his basic strength had reached god level.
The divine chakra in his body was constantly making him feel like he was undergoing new changes every moment.
The most noticeable thing was his digestion that had become so efficient that there were no food remnants left in his system.
In other words, he no longer needes to go the toilet.
His mental state has also been improving. It felt like he had limitless energy.
Even after exhausting himself for five or six hours the night before—
Konan and Yugito were completely wiped out.
But Ryosuke, the one who had put in the most effort, wasn't even remotely tired.
In fact, he felt like he could go another 30,000 rounds.
"The difference between god level and non-god level is really massive."
Walking into the kitchen, he poured himself a glass of water, then stepped onto the balcony, admiring the garden.
At the same time, he accessed his bio-pheromone warehouse.
He retrieved a sample of a god-level powerhouse's pheromones from the system.
"System, process it." Ryosuke commanded silently.
Ding~!
"Conversion successful!"
"Congratulations, Host, you have obtained the talent entry..."
Ryosuke checked the result. The three talent entries generated were identical to the last transformation.
Exactly what he had expected. Even the "Third in the World" talent entry was the same.
"That means the remaining share should be enough to create a gold 'Second in the World' talent entry." Ryosuke mused with a smirk.
No disappointment there.
And now, he had two duplicate [Power of God] talent entries.
"If I synthesize two identical god-level talent entries, will I get a super-god-level version of [Power of God]?"
Ryosuke wondered.
He accessed the system's synthesis interface and placed both [Power of God] talent entries into it.
The synthesis cost was still only 50 experience points.
There was no price increase, even for god-level talent entries.
That was what he loved most about the synthesis function.
The cost never inflated. And after system updates, prices actually drop.
Absolutely perfect!
At just 50 XP per attempt, it wasn't expensive.
Without hesitation, Ryosuke queued up 30 synthesis attempts.
Ding~!
"Synthesis failed!"
Ding~!
"Synthesis failed!"
Ding~!
"Synthesis failed!"
A total of 30 consecutive failure prompts, without exception.
"It's really hard!"
Ryosuke took a sip of water, the expression on his face didn't change, and he continued to synthesize.
A hundred times!
Two hundred times!
Three hundred times!
As the number of synthesis attempts continued to increase, time passed minute by minute.
Two hours later
Ryosuke had arrived at the Hokage's office.
While looking at a document Konan handed over, he glanced at it and signed his name at the bottom.
At the same time, in the system synthesis interface in his mind, two god-level talent entries were still being synthesized over and over again.
For the first time, Ryosuke realized that spending money could be time-consuming and exhausting.
For more than two hours, he synthesized every 1.5 seconds on average.
Until now, he had already synthesized almost 5,000 times. It had cost about 250,000 experience points!
And the results, without exception—
All failed!!
The 5,000 failed synthesis attempts were not beyond Ryosuke's expectations.
It was just that it took time and resources, making it feel quite strange.
In particular, this was the first time Ryosuke had gone all-out in such an aggressive synthesis spree.
When he had synthesized gold talent entries before, he wasn't nearly as reckless.
Back then, 100 experience points were needed per synthesis, and Ryosuke would save up tens of thousands of points before attempting it.
At most, he had done dozens or hundreds of syntheses in a session.
Unlike now—
He had synthesized 5,000 times in a row, without even blinking an eye.
The feeling of being rich is truly different.
Unfortunately, Ryosuke still wasn't rich enough.
And now—
500,000 experience points.
More than half of it was gone!
As usual, Ryosuke stayed in his world that morning to handle village affairs.
Then he had lunch with Hinata and Ino at noon.
In the afternoon, he went to the Parallel World on Sakumo's side.
This time, Ryosuke mainly wanted to see if he could find other civilizations hidden in the universe.
Although he had asked Isshiki about it before and was told there were none, Ryosuke still wanted to try.
What if?
Then—
Ryosuke spent the entire afternoon using Yomotsu Hirasaka to randomly teleport tens of thousands of times.
During this period, he discovered 156 planets with life.
However, 155 of them were populated by strange-looking life forms with extremely weak individual strength.
Only on the last planet did he find traces of humans.
But they were still in the early ancient era, and their individual strength was still weak.
"It looks like there really aren't any."
After searching all afternoon and finding nothing, Ryosuke finally gave up.
Anyway, he had more than just this back garden. There was no need to fixate on it.
So, Ryosuke decisively gave up with no hesitation whatsoever.
After abandoning his search for powerful civilizations, Ryosuke invited Kushina and Mikoto out for dinner and shopping that evening.
For some reason, after not seeing him for a day, Mikoto seemed a little off.
Ryosuke noticed her stealing glances at him multiple times, her face blushing.
This puzzled Ryosuke.
What had happened while they were apart?
That night, Ryosuke returned to his world as usual to rest.
In the following days, he didn't visit Sakumo's parallel world.
Instead, he explored the parallel worlds of several other Hokages in the group.
This time, he didn't engage too much in those worlds. He didn't even chat with most of the group members offline.
He went straight to the planet of the Ōtsutsuki Clan.
And then, a full-scale massacre happened.
He completely wiped out the Ōtsutsuki Clan in five different worlds.
Not only did he earn nearly 80 billion group points,
He also obtained 15 pairs of Godly Rinnegans!
By sheer coincidence, each world's Ōtsutsuki Clan had three god-level powerhouses stationed there.
In two of the worlds, Ryosuke even encountered an invincible god-level powerhouse.
In the other three worlds, just like Sakumo's parallel world, the strongest ones were only at the peak of god-level.
But against Ryosuke's invincible strength—
Whether they were peak god-level or invincible god-level, none could survive even a single move.
They were mere ants—instantly obliterated.
No difference at all.
The converted talent entries later were similar.
However, this granted Ryosuke another 25 god-level talent entries.
24 of them were duplicates and couldn't be equipped.
Only one talent entry was new—
[Second In The World], which Ryosuke hadn't obtained before and could now equip.
[Second In The World (Gold): You are one of the only three god-level powerhouses in the universe, ranking second. Congratulations! You are now in the top two!]
[Physical fitness +1500%!
Taijutsu power +1500%!
Chakra +1500%!]
The attributes of [Second In The Worls] were very similar to [Third In The World].
The difference was—
[Second In The World] had higher stats.
Each attribute had an extra 500%!
However, to Ryosuke, such a takent entry was nice but not essential.
It wasn't useless but it wasn't game-changing either.
That day, Ryosuke sat in the Hokage's office, bored, watching the Hokage chat group.
Tobirama was once again complaining about how his disciples were constantly causing trouble. He often ranted about them.
But the irony was that he never actually expelled them. He still kept them around.
Ryosuke figured he was just angry at himself from other worlds, trying to fix mistakes that his alternate versions had made.
For example—
He wanted to mold Danzo and Hiruzen into true leaders worthy of the village's future.
Unfortunately, he had joined the chat group too late.
If he had joined a few years earlier, when Danzo and Hiruzen were still young, he might have had a chance to change them.
But now?
Both Danzo and Hiruzen were already in their twenties. Their personalities were fully formed.
Could they really still change?
Ryosuke highly doubted it.
But Tobirama was too stubborn to accept reality and ended up frustrating himself every single day.