Two weeks. Two painful, brain-melting weeks of trying to unlock Observation and Stealth… and the System keeps acting like a deadbeat dad who went out for cigarettes.
Everyone online swears you get Observation by staring at some object like a weirdo until the System pops a toast. So I did the thing: parked in front of a scroll for hours, eyeballs dry, soul drier. Nada. Not even a pity ding. My guess? I already knew the scroll too well. The trick has to be "stare at something you don't understand yet."
Cool. Where do I get "unknown objects" in a village that treats me like plague with legs? Right—unknown people. Plenty of those stumbling around. And if I can grind Observation while also working on Stealth/Concealment for my brilliant, totally-not-insane master plan? Chef's kiss.
Then I deep-dived the Auction and the Forum and found the real scam: even if you buy a skill, you still have to activate it with Skill Points. Trash-tier stuff costs 1–2 SP. Anything spicy costs a kidney. Example: Cero from Bleach—price tag 700,000 KD, plus50 SP to turn it on. Translation: unless you hoard points like a dragon, you're not activating that before level 100. Maybe you high-roll a quest reward. Maybe you don't. Yay, "choice."
While I was doomscrolling that nonsense, I also figured out why my Soul Crystal looked fancy.
I pulled one from inventory and nearly happy-cried at the label: Soul Crystal — Lv.11*. Thought I'd procced Observation. Nope. But hey, turns out there's a whole tier list:
Lv.1–10: Small soul crystals
Lv.11–20: Standard (this is the village currency band)
Lv.25 = five Standards.
Above that? The exchange rates get stupid fast. As they should. Smacking a random farmer and looting "the same" crystal you'd get from, say, Madara would be idiotic. Higher enemy ⇒ higher crystal ⇒ fatter payout. Obvious. Logical. Surprisingly not rigged.
Why Standards became the baseline for payments? No idea. Didn't find a clean answer. But it gave me the seed of a glorious plan. Put a pin in that.
Anyway, Observation still refused to spawn. I shadowed people from alleys, peered from eaves, stared like a creep until my eyes watered.
The System finally noticed me… just not the way I wanted.
System: Skill Created by Action!
Irritating Stare — MAXMake your victim mildly anxious, extremely annoyed, and violently eager to rearrange your face.
At first I called it a trash skill. Then I field-tested it. Result: broken nose and a shiner courtesy of a pack of local gremlins I'd been eye-lasering for science. But with proper use? Oh, it slaps.
Case study: shopkeepers who "don't serve demons" or triple the price on sight. Stand about a hundred meters away, lock on, and stare. Five minutes later—with nerves fried to charcoal—they leap the counter and sprint out to beat me. I, naturally, do not wait. A hundred-meter head start plus obstacles equals cardio day.
Side effects of this very ethical training method:
SPD +2
DEX +1
END +1
Sometimes they caught me. Didn't hit too hard. Bones intact. Bruises gone fast. Worth the grind. I ran this "program" every other day.
And then came the bathroom epiphany arc.
INT +1WIS +1INTUITION +1
Yep. All my smartest ideas lately have been born on the porcelain throne. Trend's troubling, but I'm not scrapping the plan—just delaying execution until after the academy, when I'll know more about counter-tracking and covering my trail. Also, bonus: the Uchiha will be gone by then. Fewer headaches.
Fine, enough plotting on the john before the System hands me a meme medal like—
System: Achievement Unlocked!
Toilet Sage
+15% chance to gain an epiphany while… seated.
While in the restroom: INT +5, WIS +5, INTUITION +5.
—…yeah. That.
I, uh, remained in the restroom another five hours. The debuff stacked; four extra hours got tacked on. Full moon? PMS? Don't care. Silver lining: more decent ideas, plus I mapped out the next steps.
Priority list:
Raise physical stats. The dust-up with the village brats made it painfully clear I'm not Superman. I'm Superman's neighbor at best.
Farm EXP. New levels never hurt. Best sources: quests and illusion barriers. But I need safe spawn zones. Drop a barrier in the wrong spot and hello, Level 200 mobs.
Survey the village. Mark barrier-friendly spots. Also, loot hunt: Orochimaru's secret lab? A sealed Uzumaki quarter under a barrier? Yes, please.
Chakra work. Control practice, dipping into the Shadow Plane, and raising element affinities.
Affinity is easy-ish—in theory. Based on Darkness, the more you bathe in an element, the higher your affinity goes. So: water, earth, wind, light? Fine—swim longer, roll in dirt, sunbathe, stand in the breeze and look poetic.Lightning and fire? Hard pass on zapping myself or roasting my hands.Death affinity ideas were extra-stupid, Life and Chaos didn't even make the "stupid" stage.
Quests from villagers? Forget it. They've only got one for me: "Go somewhere and die, demon." The System's also keeping its mouth shut. So it's all on barriers now.
Plan settled. Time to execute.
Elsewhere — Danzo
Danzo Shimura sat in his office, drowning in reports—especially the ones on the jinchūriki. Those were a migraine with legs. The kid's behavior oscillated between "odd" and "he needs an exorcist." He talked to himself. He'd sit stock-still for long stretches, eyes empty like a crashed program.
The psych team shrugged. For a reclusive loner his age? "Within parameters." The rest—muttering nonsense syllables, dropping names of people who don't exist, and a… passionate hatred of the moon—they blamed on a scuffle between mental failsafes that Hiruzen's subordinate had planted.
Danzo skimmed, then blinked. According to the transcripts, 90% of the kid's speech was vivid profanity, 7% was glossolalia, and a glorious 3% counted as normal human speech.
The moon rants were… art. Half an hour of inventive swearing at an astronomical object without repeating a single slur. In his "diary," the kid's stated dream was literally "destroy the moon." Danzo had no idea what the lunar bastard did to him, but respect the commitment.
One particularly pedantic subordinate suggested the rants might be a cipher.
Not a bad notion. Assign delivery of these "coded epics" as secret dispatches to a less-than-trustworthy operative, then leak the courier's identity to enemies. Two birds, one stone: purge a liability and confuse opposing intel with weaponized nonsense.
Decision made, Danzo summoned the man and gave the orders.
System: Reputation Update
Botsume Konotori (Kumogakure, Cipher Division) — dropping daily → Utter Hatred
Meanwhile — Me
For the next two weeks I tore my hair out trying to figure out what the hell I'd done to make a certain Botsume Konotori from Kumo hate my guts so much that my rep with him kept ticking down every single day. Didn't know the guy. Never met the guy. Must've offended his ancestors in a past life.
Meanwhile — Also Elsewhere
In the Cipher Office of Kumogakure, one Botsume Konotori cursed the author of the obscene "cipher" every damn day, each time with fresh, colorful vocabulary.
Like I said: the moon started it.