-one week ter-
Pov: Kenzo
I get a bit of a break while everyone is focused on missions and the sub department is getting through the paperwork.
So I thought I would treat myself and do some challenges, some fun stuff compared to boring paperwork.
I was thinking about what to challenge, thought against doing yet another Chunin exam and keeping those for ter- I did find a few scrolls to keep me company however.
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Survive the forest of death!
Reward: Dependent on time spent!
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I was thinking about spending the time analysing all the creatures in the forest so I can improve my shapeshifting- and with the scroll slowing down time so I always appear out of it within a few minutes I should be good to stay as long as I like.
So this one would be... a long time for me and less fun with more work- that's fine as the next two are great.
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Konoha Tower Defence!
Reward: Dependent on waves beaten!
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This one just seemed fun to do and I am gd that I have been finding more and more of these challenges to do rather than just 'beat up this guy!' Challenges.
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Siege on Konoha!
Reward: Dependant on damage done!
------
I'm pretty sure I am attacking Konoha in this one so I can learn from the tower defence challenge to better prepare for it or vice versa.
And those are the current three I have chosen to challenge, I can learn from all of them and more importantly I can get rewards to increase my power, Ryū needs some urgent increases in power to be capable of wielding his special jonin title and I definitely need a few more spells to cast.
I could also just use upgrades all around as the more my skills get to the K level the more monstrous I get.
I double check that no one is looking at me before locking the shower door and opening the scroll of challenge.
*Fwip!*
I open my eyes to see the forest of death in front of me... I barely got to see it in my st chunin exam challenge scroll... and I have read up on many survival books while also asking Kurenai sensei many questions while camping.
Theoretically I can live here forever- that is if the wildlife doesn't cim me... but with all my skills this shouldn't be a challenge of physical might- its like the zombie apocalypse skill scroll... its a challenge of the mind.
I take steps into the forest and pass the huge chain fence with seals pstered all over... lets make sure not to hype myself up and instantly die.
I spend a few hours walking silently between the great trees, I watch as creatures triple my size overshadow me and hunt each other- I sometimes run when they run at me and I sometimes follow and watch them when they don't care about me.
They are all fascinating to watch and give great insights into my shifting prowess.
I eventually find myself at the central tower... and as expected when I try to enter it the doors sm in my face and the words of denial are scratched into the door.
'Survive... the forest'
It says- and so I walk backwards until I can find a suitable pce that is only thirty minutes away from the nearest water source.
I plop down on the ground and undo my blindfold as I remember that I am not restricted here... that's going to feel nice for a while.
---
Pov: Sai
...
He disappeared.
I sent my ink bug in after him and had set up everything to knock him out- how did he disappear? My ink seals would have restrained him perfectly...
Wait- oh no, this isn't his watchers trap again is it? I fell for the st one but not again, it must be his trap, Kenzo cannot use clones to lure and trick others.
Tch- Ryū has become a great variable in the mission that Danzo-sama has given me... I need to be extra careful in my executions in the future.
I retract my ink insects and flee his apartment.
---
-First month-
Pov: Kenzo
*Smack!*
I hit a big stick into pce and finish up my camp... we have a good tent- retively small but it works with some sticks propping up the giant leaves stacked on top.
It feels pretty good to be small resource wise in this forest, I built a campfire and have even begun preparing some fish from the river for long term snacks by hanging them on my nice hanging rack- not to be confused with my clothes hanging rack.
I made that because I didn't make the base in time yesterday and got drenched in the storm that flew by, good thing this isn't the chunin exam as I would have fshed about fifty contestants by now.
Great thing I am alone.
...
Enough joking about my future mental peril! I cp my hands together and start looking for some sharp stones- if I am going to live here for a while this temporary base that gets destroyed every other day needs to turn into a permanent one.
So I am thinking about cutting into one of these big trees- like a cube chunk being ripped out of one and them living in it, chairs and table would be easy to make as I can save time carving that bit of the cube out...
I pick up a heft stone and start to sharpen it with my bone cws... then I realise I have bone cws and drop the rock.
I pull up my non-existent sleeves and cw my way about... halfway to the top of this tree, somewhere in the middle would be best for me, not near the ground menaces and not near the tree top menaces.
Now lets get to chopping!
*Ssh!* *Cw!*
...
*Sm!* *Pow!*
Yeah... my hands are gonna hurt after a while, I will get the rock in a few moments...
*Crash!* *Ssh!*
Just a bit more...
-Second month-
Phew... I stab the giant boar through the gut and watch it struggle in my net, the boar is delicious and definitely more so than my all fish diet, I am gd I found these guys.
This forest is poputed with the weirdest and most wild of all beast- I saw a giant tiger I am going to try and track a few days ago to the south.
I retract my cws into a hand and stand from afar as the beast struggles and eventually dies.
...
I'm going to eat good tonight!
Hehehe~ haaa... I am already lonely, I think the loneliness never left from the zombie city... just was on hold...
...
..
.
Damn.
-Fourth month-
I make very, very, very careful steps as I slowly track and stealth behind a tiger from afar... its very tricky to keep my ears on it while keeping my eyes off of it.
I had a struggle hunting some of these for dissections as my eyes make me the king of any jungle, no beast dares enter my territory as I always manage to stare down the trespassers by accident.
A gnce makes me above any other animal.
I missed that feeling... that blindfold really makes me feel so custrophobic, it brings down my power heavily and makes people think me weak- I am not weak, I keep thinking back to Danzo smirking at me as he believes to be above my stare!
I will fucking kill him!
Damn him!
He has a grip on my psyche and I know he has one but I cant stop thinking about how to kill him!! And I know he wants that because he is Danzo... and Danzo does only what is necessary! No in-betweens!
Haaa! Never mind!
...
I calm myself down and focus on the tiger again... I wish to evolve my body and improve upon my cws- they make deeper cuts in the wood and I want to know every detail.
Every muscle fibre, every little spec of blood that eventually turns into my profit.
Just have to follow.
-Fifth month-
Bance.
Power.
Weight.
The three things I was missing in my body- my body used to be slim and strong, something quite fitting for a ninja to have.
Now my lean muscles have weight to them as I use excess yang energy to keep adding more and more muscle, I broaden my shoulders- thicken my arms and have my cws grow twice in size.
If I had a mirror I would see the difference in physique- when I shift my cws my entire body goes from a strong child to a JoJo's character.
And I understand just how much power I now wield, of course that expends my Yang energy and I defte after a bit.
But still amazing right?
My cuts with my cws match the ninja wire infused with natural lightning chakra! That's a hefty power!
Of course mana is more slice and dice while my cws are sm, crunch and ssh- but its the same destructive power in a sense.
The ink menace will not be ready for my next attack! Cws strong enough to make his ink creations feel like... well, ink I guess.
At least in the shifted cws form my strength +2 is being fully utilised and put to its full potential.
-First Year-
*Scrape* *Scratch!*
I am cwing out my wooden cube hideout to be more spacious and have a bed in the wall type deal, the bed of furs I have now is fine but I want to feel even more cosy.
Plus I am sick of learning how to carve wood with my cws, so deep excavation into the tree it is!
I could even make separate rooms these trees are so big, though they would be stacked upon each other, I will add stairs ter.
"Hey Rabbit- pass me the sanity" I turn to my horridly carved wooden wolf.
...
Yeah these lonely madness jokes are getting boring, sometimes they hit off and I get a ugh... but other times he doesn't ugh at all and just stares at me.
...
Okay Ill stop- ill stop.
I did create this new shade thing for my cube, its like a wooden curtain that I can pull down and... be completely in darkness.
...
Yeah I am running out of things to do, lets add some bored games to the carving list.
-Second Year-
Okay- so I did retain some chess skills from my previous life and you would think that could transte to shogi skills- wrong! Why would it at all! So that's been my new interest for a while, might even help me learn strategy for that tower defence scroll in the future... the far, far, future.
For now I am pying against rabbit, he is pretty good and very hard to predict with his perfect poker face.
"..." Rabbit says smugly.
"Shut up Rabbit" I pretend to feel insulted by the imaginary words.
I do have to say, the secret to staying interested is leaning into the madness because when I lived in that city penthouse sughtering zombies on repeat I stayed silent and let the bad feelings get to me while I wept and pnted flowers.
*Cck*
...
I swap me and Rabbits positions so we seat opposite each other- would you look at that! I won so suddenly!
...
..
.
Lets not talk about me losing to myself alright?
"Thanks Rabbit, good game" I decre proudly.
"..." He shames me with some serious slurs that should never be said to another living creature, with so much disgust in his voice he shames me with vile tones that shake me to my core.
...
Okay I am done with that, I need a knew project to work on, the tigers haven't given me anything interesting or new recently, over the months here they have allowed me to understand and better manipute my shaping- I have gotten the four legged thing down, just need to find out how to use body stuff from other animals like fur and feathers.
More importantly though is venoms and poisons as they would go amazing with my cws- one scratch from a man who could make himself disappear with a well done genjutsu and you suddenly get paralyzed! Can you imagine it!
-Third Year-
Monkeys.
People from earth loved them- not sure about the elemental nations but I am sure our Hokage who is named after them likes them too.
And I decided on a whim earlier this year to try and blend into their pack- that's right! I found a pack of monkeys swinging in the trees to the north! Slowly but surely I take their shape and I become one of them.
Rabbit is definitely lonely but he would be happy to learn that I am growing a tail- that's right! Putting the humans tail bone to use- just needed a few adjustments and... some dissections from 'lost' monkeys who strayed too far from the pack.
...
Ignoring the murder I am doing in the monkey family I have started to shape a tail, decided that a pale skinned tail didn't look cosmetically great and decided to spend Yang energy to change the colour to a deep orange, something fantasy and cool... adding a spear end to it as well.
That's the one I default to but I am learning a variety of tails that are hairy and puffy or less pointy more mace end- basically this tail is an amazing way to improve my Kenzo skill set.
Which I have been training very well in this forest, having a surprise tail mace is never fun for the beasts here.
Apart from the tail the monkeys have taught me how to be more flexible and bend the human body in ways that only a monkey can- improved my tree hopping skills and definitely bumped up my parkour skills which where cking before.
The monkeys unfortunately still see me as an outsider... but that's life when you are a strange pale shifting nightmare creature that gnces at you and makes you shiver and want to die.
...
Maybe I need a break from the monkeys, I am not learning much from them anymore anyway...
-Fifth Year-
*Slice* *Whistle~*
My tail forms as a bone give and sshes down the boar before stabbing its neck and adding a serrated edge to get a good grip- I then form bone hooves and a greater body to drag the boar from my trap location to my camp.
It's about forty minutes from here so I need all the help I can get to keep this guy going- I have a few sleds but none near here and the terrain hasn't been terraformed for pathing by me in the north yet.
So dragging through the mud it is.
...
*Slip* *Ssss~*
I yawn as ten minutes pass and I look around as I hear a strange noise... like a sp or slip from a wet leaf... something big just dropped from the tree tops.
*Crash!*
I am spshed with mud as I look up and see a giant snake which dropped from above stares me down- I instinctively stare back but that causes it to be threatened and I try to dodge- *Catch!* my tail catches me as I dodge and the snake lunges.
*STAB!* *SINK!*
Its fangs stab inti my arm and my face goes pale as I feel liquid enter my body from the forearm- no, no, no- this isnt how my survival in this forest ends.
I remove my tail from the boar and I ssh down with as much power as I can muster, my arm bleeds heavily as the snake starts to wrap around my wrist.
My shoulder wasn't severed enough and I need to swing again- *Ssh!* blood spurts and I jump away as my arm is torn off.
The snake bites down and starts swallowing my arm.
This fucking- I give it a death stare, not a fake one... a genuine one.
I am pissed.
...
It freezes still and doesn't dare to move, I raise my tail and form its end into a pointy bone shape.
*Sink*
One move and the snake is dead.
I use yang energy to wrap my shoulder in flesh... I wont have enough energy to keep that up for long, I need bandages... fuck I need more than bandages my entire arm was sshed off in my panic- I didn't even check if the snake could kill me.
I know it could but man I acted on instinct there- no thoughts head empty, just pure brutality.
Better I learn that lesson in hear than out there, I need to think before I act.
Haaa-
I grab the boar and start pulling forward again.
-Seventh Year-
...
Rabbit died today.
The monkeys I got close to thought themselves safe from me as this territory was amazing to live in... no creature dangerous entered due to my stares and I was friendly to them for years.
...
And how do they repay me? By spreading my campfire and burning EVERYTHING! EVERY LAST THING I BUILT IN THIS FOREST IS GONE!
...
I sniffle and wipe the blood from my face, I need to find a new location away from these corpses... I need to get away from this feast I have made for the other beasts and make a new camp.
I grab my cloak and wrap it around my empty shoulder before marching into the forest, I will try the eastern nd.
-Eighth Year-
My new base is built, a shitty camp made with my two hands, tried to make a cabin from scratch and kept getting angry when it didnt work so now I have... this.
A house of sticks and stones, some mud and leaf's, the campfire out front and all the necessity's I had acquired over the years.
The zombie city at least reset and gave me daily tasks... I feel like I am surviving for the sake of just surviving out here.
My shapeshifting is developing well with all the new combinations and shapes I am learning... but I don't really do much except train and py shogi.
So, should start studying another creature? Yes... lets find something good.
-Ninth Year-
*Spsh* *Zzt* *Spsh!*
"Stop moving you fucking- ah! Stop that!" I grip the electric eel and shove it in my handwoven basket- I wipe the mud off my hands so I can dry my face of the mud too.
I need a few others- these creatures have been a strange boon for my shapeshifting, they have fascinating biology.
Everything in them is a gem, I learned that there muscles are like batteries and have been learning how they do that- having positive sides and negative ones, its kind of like yering or stacking the muscles on top of each other which helps with the whole... electric thing.
Doesn't help me much though- well on their own that is.
Next up is the main organ which produces the whole zapping power, that and another organ which helps that I am sure... I need to keep studying them.
Cutting them open lets me see how they are built up flesh wise and although I don't have a microscope to see the big details I do have the power of instinctual learning that my shapeshifting does.
Ignoring the other two cooler organs which produce weaker stuff- I don't know why they have that and it wont help me.
I have started an experiment to keep me busy, and decided to leave this forest on the day I complete my research.
You see, I can copy that organ using human flesh and a few yang miracles- not to produce shocks mind you but to rather mix that organ with some specialized battery muscles.
I am creating a Lightning Mana organ.
Hehehehehahahahaha! More storage for me! More lightning moves and more Lightning power! Its a shame I haven't improved and only kept my lightning training up in this forest as I could have made great improvements alongside this thing.
Haaa- that's a regret for another time, I made the choices for fun over mental and physical torture via training.
Now I just need to get this idea into a real thing.
-Tenth Year-
One whole year... it took one whole year to go from an idea, to a marvel of bio engineering! Ohhh! Yes! Okay- okay, so my organ does work.
Its not copying the stuff the Eel had but also adding onto it with my own ideas, the organ is kept near the lower intestines or nearer to the appendix.
Its made up of the best storage organ I could make which is about fifty percent Eel made wonder and the rest being yang miracles of flesh work that still leave me a bit clueless- but I do know how to make one now.
It constantly sends the nature chakra I am storing into my body and that was bad as it fucked with my nervous system at one point.
Then I diluted that by adding a few small yers of battery muscle to keep it from spreading too far into the body but it was still bad and needed a fix.
That's when I decided to do something drastic- I added another tiny small blood vein that carries blood to my battery muscle... and injects into it- the blood flows through the muscle veins and deposits lightning mana- before leaving with another tube to the blood waste management of the body...
The problem of extra Lightning mana shocking my insides was solved when I wrapped a yer of my veins around the inner organ and below the battery muscle.
My body is weird- and so it has many different benefits that a normal man wouldn't have at all, my veins seem to have a way to contain my lightning mana and I don't question it.
And now... it works.
An extra five lightning mana points added to my total stored, it takes a bit to store the extra energy but I rarely use it anyway- it also takes constant Yang energy for upkeep so unfortunately I am back to normal regeneration levels for now.
I focus on my statistics.
_______
Statistics:
Strength +2
Hearing +1
Lightning Mana +5 (+5 = 10)
Natural Regeneration +1 (-1 = 0)
_______
Doubling my lightning mana and removing my bonus regeneration.
Its a good trade if I am being honest, a whole five extra points to spend can allow me to fire off an intense dragons breath now.
...
I am glorious.
This is glorious.
I need a shower.
Lets shower.
I walk to the edge of the forest, it takes half a day but I reach that chain link fence and I open up the nearest gate to walk out.
...
---
Congratutions!
You survived Ten years!
Rewards: S-Rank title, Summoning scroll.
---
A new scroll and a title... lets figure them out after the shower.
I blink and return to my bathroom... *Sniff* I don't smell so bad... right, forgot about that- and- whoa- hold on.
...
..
My brain definitely just got refreshed, I can remember the ten years so clearly, but today feels like today and yesterday was just a few hours ago again.
Nice.
------Titles:
Knowledge Taker: E-rank.
Root Initiate: D-rank.
Genin: C-rank
Mana Specialist: B-rank
Special Jonin: A-rank
Beast King: S-rank
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Skills:
Unyielding Stare: E×D×C×B×A×S×K×
Burst Breathing: E×D×C×B×A?S?K?
Word- Truth: E×D×C×B?A?S?K?
Eternal Walk: E×D×C×B×A?S?K?
Lockpicking: E×D?C?B?A?S?K?
Juggling: E×D?C?B?A?S?K?
Ancient Hearing: E×D×C×B?A?S?K?
Dragons breath: E×D×C×B×A×S?K?
Lightning Wire: E×D×C×B?A?S?K?
_______
Blessings:
Shapeshifting: C?B?A?S?K?
Genjutsu Resonance: E×D?C?
_______
Statistics:
Strength +2
Hearing +1
Lightning Mana +5 (10)
Natural Regeneration +1 (0)
------
Challenges:
Three Standard Genin.
Ten bandits.
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Summoning scrolls:
E-rank: Messenger Bird.
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(E) Knowledge Taker: Able to process any mental dilemmas within the orange box, infinite time to solve a simple mental quirk.
(D) Occupied: No one is capable of taking over Kenzo's body or mind.
(D) Root Initiate: Danzo has tested you and you have passed. People are less likely to notice you or your characteristics.
(C) Genin: completing fifty D-rank missions gives you a statistic scroll.
(B) Mana Specialist: Learning Mana skills feel more intuitive and natural, breakthroughs come naturally.
(A) Special Jonin: Successful Investigations grant you a bonus statistic scroll on completion.
(S) Beast King: Animals instinctively fear your presence and intelligent ones consider you subtly threatening.
------
Beast king? That sounds great... maybe bad to equip it against Konoha summons and have them bel me as a bad guy... but I will keep it anyway, didn't spend ten years alone for nothing! Right!?!?
*Cough*
Messenger bird...? I focus on that and stay focused on the summon.
*Poof!*
A small bird appears from the smoke and onto my palm- its one of the Konoha ones, small, cute and can only fit small messages on its feet is mostly used to call a high level ninja to the mission centre.
So it cant really do much for me as I live in Konoha and can send my mail via walking- pretty sure sending this guy out would alert many ninja to go to work on accident...
Bad luck little birdy, I can keep you as a pet though.
I scratch its neck and py with it a bit before deciding to send it back to the scroll.
I can only assume time stops for it or it has a nice home to return to, I am not thinking about those implications.
Thanks for reading :)
