Exploiting Bugs

Chapter 1 – An Ignominious Death

Perhaps I'm being harsh on myself, and perhaps by societies standards such a comment is untrue, but I personally consider my death to be rather shameful, considering my general position on things. It had been a rough few years for me, from horrendous pneumonias, to heart conditions, to my whole gastrointestinal system rebelling against me; there had been a number of occassions through the preceding few years that I'd been truly worried that I was only a short distance away from death. I think going in my sleep from heart failure or something similar might not be the worst way to go, but the concept of just no longer existing has always terrified me.

Still, a few years later, with some meds and a new diet, I was through all the bad times and ready to take the world by storm. I'd learned to live each day for myself, putting myself first, and making sure to enjoy every moment I could. Imagine my embarrassment to have gotten caught up in the moment and gotten myself killed in an attempt to save some random passerby. Not that I succeeded. Turns out that articulated lorries are more than capable of ploughing down an extra person, and I wasn't fast enough to get us out of the way, so I abandoned my new outlook and had nothing to show for it. Truly ignominious. The one somewhat redeeming thing now that I think about it was that my absolute final act was at least mildly in character. That is to say, swearing in front of the shocked child that was standing by the side of the road.

"Ah fuck."

EB-EB-EB-EB-EB

It's hard to say what exactly happened after that. When I next had the feeling of consciousness, my brain felt fuzzy for a while, and I have no idea how long that went on for. Nor do I know if there was some intervening period in which I was unconscious. Which does beg the question of what it really means to be unconscious if you no longer have a body. Also, does time even really exist in the void? Furthermore, any hypothesis would be untestable, what with having no reference points between my prior existence and where I ended up. Even if I did, who knows how all that interdimensional wibbly woblly timey wimey stuff even works.

Irregardless, some indeterminate amount of time later, I gathered my wits enough to realise I was staring at some kind of blue screen. Naturally, my first instinct was to try to look around and work out what the hell was going on, but nothing I did seemed to have any effect on what I was seeing; and so I quickly settled down and got to reading the screen. Or rather, I eventually settled down, but time is a flat circle yadda yadda and who really cares about any kind of embarrassing panic attack I may or may not have suffered. I can say for sure, at least, that I neither pissed myself, nor did I bravely run away. Something that I can definitely be proud of and can only be attributed to my mental fortitude. Technicalities are for nerds.

YOU HAVE DIED

No shit huh. As if reacting to me having read the words, my view began to change.

AS A REWARD FOR YOUR SELFLESS ACT, YOU WILL RECEIVE A CHANCE TO REINCARNATE

EVALUATING ACTIONS...

I stared at the screen for a while, who knows how long. Well, stranger things have happened. Probably. Many worlds theorem and all that. I don't remember ever being dead before, so I may as well just roll with it(I'd gotten most of my hysteria out of the way already by this point). Of course, this could be some fantastical dream and I'd survived only to be kept in a coma, but I could burn that bridge when I got to it.

EVALUATION COMPLETE:

YOU HAVE LIVED A SOMEWHAT SUCCESFUL LIFE, MAINLY FOR YOURSELF, AND COMMITTING KINDNESSES ONLY AT YOUR OWN CONVENIENCE. YOUR MODERATELY SUCCESSFUL CAREER IS A PRODUCT OF YOU rCOMPETENCE BEING TEMPERED BY INCREDIBLE APATHY. HONESTLY THE VAST MAJORITY OF YOUR LIFE IS UNINTERESTING, AND ONLY THE FINAL FEW SECONDS MADE YOU WORTHY OF SUCH A CHANCE.

Welp. That was slightly brutal. Not that I'd argue. I'd lived that way so that I could do what I wanted in the moment. I guess my atheism was coming back to bite me now, but really, it was only a logical way to live with the knowledge I had to hand. Still, who knows what that would mean for me.

DUE TO YOUR LACKLUSTRE EVALUATION, YOU WILL HAVE LIMITED CONTROL OVER THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF YOUR REINCARNATION

CHOOSING A WORLD AT RANDOM

WORLD SELECTED: ELEMENTAL NATIONS

CHOOSING A VILLAGE OF BIRTH – YOUR EVALUATION WAS TOO LOW FOR CHOICE TO BE ALLOWED, SELECTING DEFAULT

VILLAGE SELECTED: KONOHAGAKURE

INITIATING CHARACTER CREATION: ARE YOU A BOY, OR A GIRL?

Well...

That's certainly interesting. I was a little confused by the "Elemental Nations" world selection at first, but as soon as I saw the village name everything became clear. Naruto huh. Not the worst I'll admit. If I'd ended up back in my old world it would've been kind of boring. Similarly, I'd rather not live through something like Logan's Run. Even if a world of Ninjas would be dangerous, it could be fun. Although a real life version might be a little scarier than an anime. Still, it seemed like I was going through some kind of video game character creation. If this was going to stay the theme even after my reincarnation, that would play pretty well into having a ninja career.

I considered the question on the screen in front of me. Honestly the idea of being a girl was somewhat interesting, but if I was going to be joining the cutthroat world of ninjas, maybe it would be safer not to be a girl. Seduction missions and the like probably wouldn't be my strengths, and if I was going into a new world, I'd probably need all the familiarity I could get. As soon as I had internally made my decision, the screen in front of me began to change once more.

CHOOSE YOUR STARTING TRAITS

TRAIT POINTS AVAILABLE: 0

A character creation screen popped up in front of me, a figure of a child dressed in training gear on the left, with a list of traits and some attributes to the right. The child seem fairly nondescript, very forgetable, and I couldn't seem to change his looks directly, although perhaps I would be able to influence that with my traits. Still, zero trait points available. As I willed it, the list of traits began to scroll downwards, although I was somewhat dissapointed that I would have no points to spend. That was, until I noticed that some traits seemed to have negative costs. Looking through them and seeing names such as lazy and glutonnous, I felt a little better. I had played enough Crusader Kings to know the score here. I began to add all the negative traits as I scrolled down, my available points counter at the top right of the screen steadily rising, until I noticed the effect that it was having on the child to the left. He was hideous. A cleft palatte, dull eyes, a pot belly, skin lesions. Honestly it was horrible. Perhaps such an approach to character creation was not so ideal if you actually had to physically live as the character.

I mentally willed the traits to be removed, and the child returned to normal; although I also lost all of the available trait points. Maybe we'll try that one again. First I tried adding lazy as a trait, gaining myself one trait point. The screen read:

LAZY: YOU GAIN SKILL EXPERIENCE MORE SLOWLY

Not ideal but potentially workable. Then I added the trait fat.

FAT: -25% TOTAL STAMINA POINTS, +10% TOTAL HEALTH POINTS

That seemed a little easier to deal with, although it did have an effect on my avatar. I guessed I wouldn't be able to train away that weight either. Although I did notice something rather peculiar. When I added Fat, my available trait points jumped from 1 to 3. Curious, since both Fat and Lazy had a cost of -1. There was a loud DING, as a popup appeared in the centre of the screen.

CONGRATULATIONS, YOU HAVE FOUND A HIDDEN FEATURE. SOME TRAITS WILL HAVE A MORE PROFOUND EFFECT ON YOUR EXPERIENCE WHEN TAKEN IN COMBINATION. THIS CAN AFFECT THE TOTAL COST OF THE TRAITS

Interesting. Very intersting. If I played my cards right, I could still abuse the hell out of this. Although I was hesitant to choose the combination of fat and lazy. Firstly, in my last life I had always been quite particular about my body image. Furthermore, I had a sneaking suspiscion that choosing the lazy trait might actually also have some effect on my psyche. I once again reset the selected traits and began to search through the list. The list seemed pretty inexhaustable, with all manner of options, such as a hefty three point gain for taking hemophobia, but given what world I was about to enter that seemed like a bad choice. Everything seemed pretty well balanced, so it seemed like my dreams of exploiting the character creation were in vain, until one particular trait caught my eye.

ENTOMOPHOBIA: THE FEAR OF BUGS. YOU ARE TERRIFIED OF BUGS AND WILL FIND IT INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT TO CONTROL YOUR FEAR AROUND THEM

This didn't seem to have any direct stat effects, which led me to believe that the fear would be quite crippling, though given that this trait only gave me one extra point, it shouldn't be anywhere near as bad as hemophobia. Now, this, at first, may seem like an odd choice, until you consider what this trait may be combined with. I scrolled back up to another trait I had seen that said it would cost me two trait points, but when I willed it to be added, it was successful. Not only that, but my available trait points changed to 5.

ABURAME CLAN MEMBER: YOU ARE A MEMBER OF THE ABURAME CLAN, AND WILL BE SUPPORTED BY THEM, AS WELL AS HAVING ACCESS TO THEIR CLAN TECHNIQUES

Now, some may call me a masochist. I'd like to think that others might call me a genius, however. Considering that being part of the clan would've cost me two points, just a little fear of bugs had gained me seven points to use. I considered for a good long while however. A debilitating fear of bugs would make life very difficult for me in the Aburame clan. That being said, maybe I could learn to deal with it. Worst case scenario, I'd run away from home a live on the streets. Hell, maybe I'd get some kind of broken "Gamers Mind" skill like in all those fanfictions I had read and it wouldn't be an issue at all. Thinking it through, what really made me stick to the decision was the following reasoning. The Aburame clan mainly used their clan techniques because their kikkaichu were a constant drain on their chakra reserves, meaning they had little left over to use for other techniques. From what I knew from watching the anime, using your chakra heavily would help your reserves grow. That is to say, by having an insect colony, the Aburame were constantly training their chakra, and as they got stronger, could host more insects and use more techniques. But what if they trained their chakra by hosting kikkaichu, and then abandoned them? They might turn into absolute chakra monsters!

I thought it would be worth a shot. From what I understood of the symbiotic relationship, the aburame did not actually need the kikkaichu to survive. Well, they did insofar as they needed their strength to win battles, but if I could learn other techniques sufficiently, that wouldn't be an issue. Plus it would give me plenty of trait points to spend. Honestly, this may not be better than going with a bland and vanilla character with no traits, but I was still feeling somewhat provoked by the evaluation of my mediocre previous life and was unwilling to be just average this time around. Thus, I scrolled through the list of available traits to find ones that would facilitate my plan.

IRON CONSTITUTION: YOUR PHYSIQUE IS INCREDIBLE, GIVING YOU THE STRENGTH TO SHRUG OFF ADVERSITY THAT WOULD BRING OTHERS TO THEIR KNEES. YOU RECOVER MUCH FASTER FROM INJURIES AND EXHASTION

SPIRITUAL MIND: YOU ARE IN TOUCH WITH YOUR SENSE OF SELF, AND YOUR SENSE OF THE UNIVERSE. YOU ARE ABLE TO SENSE AND RECOVER CHAKRA MUCH MORE EASILY

SWIFT HANDS: YOUR HANDS MOVE LIKE LIGHTNING, YOU ARE MORE EASILY ABLE TO LEARN SKILLS RELATED TO HAND SIGNS

Iron constitution and spiritual mind had cost two trait points each. I thought they would play well into my idea of training my chakra reserves using kikkaichu. If not, they would still be very useful for training, and also for more drawn out missions and battles. Swift hands cost only one point, and seemed correspondingly less effective because of that. Still it should be quite useful. If I ended up having monster chakra reserves like I planned then I was pretty much guaranteed to become a ninjutsu specialist, in which case being able to form hand signs rapidly was a must.

I looked across at the avatar now. He seemed pretty nondescript really, I hadn't chosen any traits that would affect his appearance much aside from being in the Aburame clan. He looked something like Shino, same hair colour with a similar style and texture, although the iron constitution trait seemed to have left him looking quite toned and lithe. Well, that looked good enough for me. I scrolled through the traits a little longer (a LOT longer) to see if anything else caught my eye, but in the end I was pretty happy with my choices, even if I was taking a risk with it. As finally decided that I'd finished, another popup appeared.

CHARACTER CREATION COMPLETELY

ENTERING WORLD

EB-EB-EB-EB-EB

AN: Props time. Another one of those fics that inspired this one is "Accidental Gamer Hero" by Knowing Autumn. It somewhat inspired this first chapter. Worth a read if you catch the gamer naruto bug like I did. Also, malaphors are fun. I should use them more

Had fun with this, was a lot less effort and time to write than some of the other stuff I have written. Should be able to bang this out quite casually at a decent rate :)

Got heavily inspired by Crusader Kings and by Tale of Immortal for this character creation. Y'all probs know CK, but if you've not heard of Tale of Immortal you should give it a go. Although its being review bombed by its chinese community atm apparently, still I think it might be one of the best games I've ever played.

Also, about stats, I spent a little while trying to tune a function with a horizontal asymptote to convert a chakra control stat into a percentage with diminishing returns, but honestly I couldn't get a ratio I liked and it seems like a lot of effort to tune in what will eventually equate to a hard limit anyway once the returns get too small. It would only be so that literal perfect control can't be achieved. But thats way too much effort for what's supposed to be my chill story.