Once again, this chapter's kinda rough, and not super high-quality.


It's been a few more months, and I've been doing well for myself. Every night, I've been diverting a significant portion of my time to meditation and to manipulating my limited chakra supply. It's been… enlightening.

For one thing, my chakra recovers so slowly that it's actually fucking painful. Holy shit, it pisses me off. Due to just how slow it recovers, my progress has been set back a ridiculous amount. Not that it matters, since…

A skill has leveled up!

You have hit a temporary level limit on [Chakra Manipulation]!

Chakra Manipulation (Passive) Level 5, 0% XP

Passive: -0.5% Chakra Cost for all jutsu.

Becomes more difficult to level as the user's Maximum CP grows. Levels up as any chakra-based technique is used properly.

SKILL AT TEMPORARY LEVEL LIMIT

Due to the riskiness involved with overusing your chakra coils at a young age, a limit has been placed before you accidentally damage them.

Yes, I'm very angry, and shut up. Focus on how high I've gotten [Meditation].

Meditation (Active) Level 19, 76% XP

+145% CP Regen when active.

Skill will be canceled if the user's concentration is broken.

This skill is a godsend. It might not have sped it up much in the beginning, but this strikes me as incredibly exponential and I love it.

In other news, my first words were yesterday. A happy moment for a happy family, I guess.

I was with my father and mother at the time, as I usually am, and they were doing typical baby talk, when I squealed to my mother, "Lo' you, Kaa-chan!" and waved my arms adorably. Did I mention I'm an adorable baby? Because I am.

Of course, I'm sure my parents were very confused as to how a five-month-old baby managed to speak a simple sentence as his first words, but they set that question aside in exchange for attempting to get me to say more.

These efforts pushed my [Japanese Fluency] level up by quite the amount. It's now at level eight! It was enough to make slightly longer and more coherent sentences. I was still accidentally dropping letters here and there, but I was miles ahead of my age group.

After mustering all that up, I set out to walk. I need everything in my power to speed the process up, so I tried coursing chakra through my body to reinforce it. Obviously, this created a skill.

Spreading chakra throughout your body has created a new skill!
Chakra Reinforcement (Passive/Active) Level 1, 0% XP

Active: +1 STR, VIT, +10% Movement Speed

Chakra Cost: 1 CP per second (0.995 CP per second)

Passive: +0.5% STR, VIT

The user sends chakra to various locations in their body to reinforce it, allowing them to hit harder, tank harder, and move quicker.

Yep. That's a damn good skill, which I will now use to assist in my learning to walk.

And so I begin the struggle to stand up. I shakily drag myself to my feet, using my crib's rails as a support. Easy enough, in this case. I then activate [Chakra Reinforcement] and let go of the rail and attempt to take a step.

Unsurprisingly, I fall flat on my face. I drag myself back to my feet using the railing. This is going to be a long process.


Around a week into my attempts at walking, my father walked into my room and spotted me trying to walk.

"Roi-chan! Are you trying to walk?" I get the gist of what he's saying, here. He rushes over, looking into the crib at me. He reaches in and holds me up. "Ambitious little rascal, ain'tcha?" This time, I can't keep track of the speech. He sets me down on my feet, chuckling. "It'll be easier if you try on the floor, Roi-chan." I understand this sentence alright.

I stand, legs wobbling. I lift my foot, shifting side to side for a moment.

Maintaining your balance has created a new skill!

Balance (Passive) Level 1, 0% XP

+0.5% DEX

The user's measure of clumsiness. Low is bad.

I yelp- very adorable to my father, I'd imagine- and fall on my ass. Fucking hell.

Ryusei laughs and puts me back on my feet. "You can do it, Roi-chan." He smiles encouragingly at me.

I'll admit it; my father makes for a pretty solid dad.

I once again attempt to walk.

Rinse and repeat.

Until… one step, two step… three step… outta chakra, fall on my ass.

By taking three or more steps, a skill has been created!

Walking (Passive) Level 1, 0% XP

A measure of the user's ability to walk.

Yeesh, even walking has a skill? I can see balance being a skill, but isn't this a bit too much? It doesn't even give any benefits! But…

I discard my pessimistic thoughts and look up at my father, grinning. "Tou-chan! Tou-chan! I did it!"

My father scoops me off the ground, laughing heartily. "That's my Roi-chan!" He sets me back in my crib. "Now, you get lots of rest, eh, kiddo?"

He wasn't wrong. I was pretty exhausted; I'd been trying for a couple hours before he'd arrived and it'd take another hour just for me to finally take some proper steps. Also, babies have shit for stamina.

I decided, just this once, to let myself sleep.


You know, I feel like that sleep did some good for me. For one thing, I finally noticed something; I didn't have the Gamer's Mind or Body skills.

Which was concerning.

Also notable, and this was one I definitely should've noticed sooner, was that I wasn't getting messages about my HP and CP restoring when I woke up in the mornings. Unless that was an effect of Gamer's Body, but I'm unsure.

Whatever. Back to my pseudo training. Walking and talking, like any good baby.

New Perk Gained!

[Prodigy]

+1.5 INT per level (Bonus factored in retroactively)

+25% Skill XP gain to all categories

+5% INT

+2 INT

The village will stop at nothing to get you in their shinobi corps.

...Well then.

That was unexpected.

Though… I want to see my stats now. "Status," I hear my childish voice say.

I ignore the irrelevant stuff.

Maximum HP: 10

Maximum CP: 33.25 (Reduced by 80%)

CP Regen per second: 0.217 (Reduced by 80%)

STR: 1.005

DEX: 1.005

VIT: 1.005

INT: 13.125 (12.5 + (12.5 x 0.05))

WIS: 7

LUK: 5

Well, that's a pretty decent increase in INT- from nine to thirteen. My STR, DEX, and VIT are strangely exact, at that. Discarding that, the bit about the village wanting me to be a shinobi concerns me a little. Sure, I'm gonna be one anyway, but how early do I want to be out doing missions? Fighting for a place I've only seen or read about? Fighting for a future I likely won't ever see?

And besides, unless I surround myself with plot-armored friends, how do I know my friends won't drop at any second? How do I know all my efforts, training since before I could walk, won't get wasted? How do I fucking know?!

And god-fucking-dammit I was trying to avoid getting all fucking pessimistic. I was doing so well!

Never doing it again, I swear it to myself.

Good thing I got this perk while my parents were asleep, considering I just realized I'd been quietly weeping. Fucking overly responsive infant body.

I decide to distract myself by getting to work on my walking. I will learn to walk properly. I will.

A skill has leveled up!

A skill has leveled up!

A skill has leveled up!

I forget to sleep.

Throughout the night, I level [Walking] to level six, [Chakra Reinforcement] to two, and [Balance] to nine. I also level [Meditation] once, since I occasionally had to stop to use it when I was running low on chakra.

You have gained a condition!

[Exhausted]

-50% to all stats excluding LUK.

-25% Movement Speed.

Does not affect Max HP, Max CP, or CP regen.

Afflicted person feels extremely irritable. Lasts until the afflicted person gets some proper rest.

Fuck it, I'm going to sleep.


As I wake up, I take note of something I missed last night; just how punishing [Exhausted] was. It's quite astounding.

Condition [Exhausted] has been removed!

As expected.

In other news, I'm not totally certain as to where in Narutolandia I am. I'd initially assumed Konoha, but I realized that wasn't the case when my parents took me home; there were no signs of any Hokage Monuments, no Hokage Towers, no landmarks of Konoha that I could remember. Hell, this place was much more rural than it was urban. I have the slightest hunch that I'm out in some miscellaneous, non-hidden village, which is kinda rough for me. No easy access to shinobi training, which means I'll either have to wing it and hope for the best or hope to hell that shinobi recruit from outside their village. Or both. Both works.

But… until then, I'll let myself fall into an easy monotony.