Being instated as the new leader of a small island nation was surprisingly quick. The council were taking care of everyday stuff until I had a chance to hand out new marching orders, and my team was assigned to stay with me as guards. We'd all been field-promoted to chunin, then I'd been hand-waved into jounin position for escaping the ambush, bringing in live prisoners with valuable information, and so they didn't look quite as silly as they otherwise would instating a low-ranked child as their leader. According to Washu and the scenario we had a year to prepare for the oncoming attack that would otherwise wipe out the Land of Whirlpools, but I wanted things ready long before that.
I had people stockpiling food in storage scrolls and other areas, seal-masters and hundreds of scrolls on their way to see me, and courier birds sending encoded messages to Leaf's military leader, Uzumaki Mito, and Uzumaki Kushina. Paperwork was everywhere, but clones and [Multi-Focus] helped to get through it. Given that one of the first scrolls to arrive contained the shadow clone technique I had little doubt the previous clan head had done something similar. I devoted a few threads and their associated clone-golems to using that and my medical knowledge to come up with a way to run conjured flesh and blood clone-golems instead of the wood I was using now.
[Quest alert: Multiplicity!][1]
With the scroll copied and absorbed in private, shadow clones flooded the village and the world at large once said clones were able to find places from which to teleport. Several went to Leaf, to ensure the birds arrived and any questions were answered as much as to gather resources. I needed a year or more worth of food, drink, sealing equipment, etc. for twenty or more people. I also needed to make sure I didn't give away the game when I tried to sell my time-dilated instant dungeon as a forbidden technique that took a toll on the caster. With a sigh I brought up my perks menu and purchased occlumency, since it gave me the fiat-backed ability to lie with a straight face.
[Spent 100cp; 2050 banked cp remaining]
[Occlumency perk added, Mind Magic enhanced]
The remaining clones were gathering and duplicating documents, scanning everything they could for Builder blueprints, and doing a detailed survey of the islands. What I found matched my memories, but wasn't great. The city was protected by walls and barrier seals but not adequately. Since it spanned multiple islands there were plenty of ways for ninja to enter, and as a bustling trade community travel was hardly restricted at all. The only thing really keeping us safe was the Uzumaki reputation, and I already knew people had overcome their fear of that.
I started drawing up plans to build underground, underwater, in the skies, and even in extra-dimensional spaces. Logistics for how to cram as many people into as small a place as possible without losing necessities flew through my head alongside plans for traps, redundancies, long-term production methods, ways to hide landmasses, and more. The few times I was away from my desk I was absorbing large masses of waste product from landfills, abandoned and condemned structures, and scrap yards.
Another bunch of clones was sent through a portal back to my warehouse both to scan the portal and everything else in the warehouse and to sift through both the stored books for information on warding, the fidelius charm, magical agriculture, and other helpful bits and bobs that came up during my planning. A query to Washu resulted in more clones using a key in my inventory to enter the empty copy of my warehouse I'd earned during my stay in The Gamer and creating instant dungeons to work on adapting seals to recreate some of the objects I could enchant.
I was especially interested in getting power generators, temperature control, faux-skies, infinite water, space expansion, and vanishing abilities working with seals so my people could use them once I was no longer available to enchant things. There were a few dedicated to projects I thought less likely to succeed like duplicating my inventory system, conjuring food and other more complex objects, and using [Instant Dungeon/Genesis] to create a copy of the Whirlpool islands themselves in a stable sub-dimension, but if any of them worked they would be a big help.
[Quest update: Bastion!]
Another group of clones went out to gather plant cuttings, fish, livestock animals, etc. for breeding. A check-in with my clones and clone-golems brought me the news that anything with one of my [Multi-Thread]s in it seemed to eat into my banked time compression, but giving shadow clones [Mystical Energy (Generator)]s and sending them in into even time-stopped instant dungeons did not.
Between my perks allowing me to study endlessly with ever-increasing returns, the empowered shadow clones being able to create more of themselves, Gamer's Body keeping me from taking actual brain damage when years or even decades of accumulated memories from instant dungeons finally hit me, my ridiculous durability, and my ability to heal myself from the HP loss I got everything I wanted and more.
[Quest update: Bastion!]
[Quest update: Hippie Agenda!]
Before that I'd been only peripherally aware of exactly how over-powered my ability to leave things in super-accelerated time compared to the rest of the world was, but what my clones brought back to me was amazing. Also overkill, but amazing nonetheless. Before the end of the day I had power generators and batteries built with seals that could power an entire city on my home world for decades. Using just one of these as a final gambit would not only destroy the city and any attackers within it, the islands themselves might be destroyed too.
My clones from that group looked back at me with serious looks after I recovered from assimilating the knowledge of the one that had dispelled to convey the information. I telepathically directed them to write up detailed plans on creating and maintaining the devices both with seals and with my own magic, then work on a way to limit the damage (potential nuclear fallout and EMP included) and concentrate it in a single area. I'd keep copies of both in the warehouse, but the seal-masters of Whirlpool would get the sealing instructions.
[Quest update: Hippie Agenda!]
The completed power batteries were to go toward the effort of re-creating a pristine copy of the islands complete with sustainable ecosystem, since that had to be actively directed and couldn't run under time compression all the time with me constantly feeding the clone crews additional information and orders. The basics of a new city plan were coming together quickly, but figuring out how to evacuate the citizens into the extra-dimensional space and do maximum damage to the coming enemy was a bit slower.
Every time I got a level up notification for [Multi-Focus] I immediately set it to another task, and every new level of [Instant Dungeon/Genesis], [Conjuration], and [Crafting] gave me more hope. Unfortunately the time I was able to work myself in-between healing and telepathically coordinating was getting slim, so I had to dedicate shadow clones to watching over me and keeping me both healed and conscious when the larger bursts of information came in. I seemed to be getting used to it over time, taking less damage for equal amounts of information, but even so I'd need to start using [Mana Protection] soon.
[Quest update: Multiplicity!]
-
The various seal-masters of Whirlpool met me the evening after we'd arrived in the Naruto universe. They alternately gaped and stared at me in concern after seeing the number of clones running around the islands and my new office, and they'd barely seen a hundredth of the number I had actually running around. I'd started to consciously shapeshift into an older form of my current body over time, so while I'd started the Jump looking thirteen I now looked like I was in my late teens. I refused to allow the medic they called to examine me, telling them I was using a technique that was technically forbidden because of the cost to the user, and that the medic couldn't tell me anything I didn't already know.
They'd most likely need a new Uzumaki head within the decade, and Ember had refused the position. They argued that I had to stop and lead my people instead of giving into obsession, so I revealed the information that'd been extracted from our prisoners: Mist and Cloud had allied against us and were building for a huge invasion that would come within a year. My team were supposed to be tortured and turned traitor by any means necessary before being either released back to the village to sabotage our defenses from within or used as living keys to bypass the walls of seals if we couldn't be turned. Several Uzumaki and other ninja from our village had already been captured, but most had died before they could be turned and the others my prisoners couldn't account for.
Premature aging, I argued, was a small price to pay to protect my people. The Uzumaki clan would survive and continue to serve the village without me. What I needed them for was to plan and create new defenses for the village. I would use the same forbidden technique that was causing my condition to give them and several of my clones two years of extra time to plan and develop techniques and strategies under the assumption that the village itself would be overwhelmed but we'd have a secure place to retreat to. Their priorities were to ensure the safety of the evacuating people and the death of our enemies above all else.
I spent three hours arguing with them before I was able to reveal the new island project and the weaponized power generators/batteries I'd come up with the ensure nothing was left behind. That prompted even more arguing, which only died down when they had to leave or fall asleep in my office. The next two weeks were hellish. The seal-masters and other workers I'd invited saw the sub-dimensional islands and the army of clones I had working on them and started asking questions again, but were less intrusive this time.
Our future home was nearly big enough to be self-sustaining at that point, and had an artificial sky and weather already added to it. The edges looked like thick glass bordering a blue-black void where they weren't covered by the sky or some other feature. Plants were everywhere thanks to [Mokuton/Plant Control], and animals were being spawned by temporary minion factories.
[Quest update: Bastion!]
By the time they agreed to what I'd asked I looked like I was in my early twenties, and I'd slowed the artificial aging a bit. Sending them all into extreme time dilation with a [Multi-Focus] clone then setting my age to somewhere in my mid fifties in the few minutes it took them to exit was easy. Keeping up several other [Multi-Focus] threads to parse the information coming from the one in time-dilation was not, but I'd spaced it out a bit so it was still possible.
Their expressions when they left the instant dungeon were sad but determined. They'd gone through most of the food I'd had gathered for them and completed every project I assigned them and more. I was now a qualified seal master thanks to their training, and they'd learned the ideas behind using seals to permanently conjure things, gather and generate energy, open portals to and from our future home, and expand spaces.
[Quest update: Hippie agenda!]
[Quest update: Multiplicity!]
With their report complete and their orders issued to start refitting the city defenses I called for the council and advised them of the coming changes, but didn't give them any details other than what was needed to keep the city running. When I finally heard back from Uzumaki Mito, the seal at the bottom of the missive included exactly what I'd been hoping for. If my first plan for the tailed beasts failed, knowing how to seal them without calling on Death and sacrificing my soul would be vital. Knowing how to keep people from talking about certain secrets was even better, but convincing people of the necessity would be difficult. What if there was another way, though?
-
The inside of the new sub-dimension I'd created had been dubbed Bastion by the seal-masters and other laborers who worked on it. Having a name and not being widely-known already made it theoretically easy to hide with the fidelius charm, but my inexperience with the charm and desire to both modify it and integrate it into the wards meant it took a massive amount of mana and several days to get it right. The fidelius portion of the ward would drop during the evacuation and reactivate after, giving our attackers the idea that everyone had been killed or escaped some other way. Those inside the wards wouldn't be affected unless they were in the prison areas, since it would make it very difficult to live properly never knowing where you were.
Using the same technique I'd used on the warehouse to add lay-lines to the land allowed me to supercharge any defenses I'd eventually add and maintain an energy-rich environment for those who lived inside. Using techniques from sealing and [Mystical Energy (Concealment, Advanced)] I added massively powerful but subtle wards to the entire place: theft and violence toward sentient beings of any kind were both prohibited outside of designated areas unless you were keyed into the wards and given permission. Permission could only be granted by me, Ember, Ukyo, Konatsu, or a three-quarter majority of the Whirlpool council. Since I'd created the dimension itself claiming it as a Builder wasn't necessary and I could do what I wanted, but changing the inherent claim to include my companions and the council was complicated.
There were more rules written into the wards and oaths required to take public office, but they were complicated enough that describing them in total would be unproductive. Training areas would still allow violence to a certain level, people could still defend themselves and others from attack, and the law enforcement and soldiers of the village still had a bit more leeway.
Initial construction of prototypes and defenses was handled by Ember, Konatsu, and Ukyo since they could build quickly and make changes or tear down failed projects very quickly. Extra room for growing food and other necessary products was produced by establishing underground gardens like the ones I'd added to my warehouse, but these were both larger and better equipped for automation.
Resource storage was mostly going to be handled using a series of extremely complex storage-scroll derivatives and illusion techniques that ended up acting a lot like my own inventory system. I'd assigned the project to both my clones and the seal masters, and they'd come through. By allowing the storage capacity to grow over time and adding both sorting and search mechanisms they made the new system more efficient than what I was doing in my warehouse, so I made sure to grab plans for it.
My empty copy-warehouse had been converted into a fully-operational themed lab space staffed with research and development minions. They were tasked with developing new minion type templates and figuring out how to upgrade themselves such that future research was done faster. My team had all advanced to roughly journeyman Builder status, but I was an odd mish-mash of journeyman and master. Between the extra power and experience with conjuration and transmutation I had before the Jump, accelerated learning, and the extra stuff I'd bought from the Builder Jump Document it was just easier for me.
With my mind on the tailed beasts and how it might be difficult to work around the immense amount of energy they generated I came up with a few changes to my wristwatch, deepening the well of power it could store and rigging it such that excess power added would be used to produce even more storage capacity. It'd gotten some odd looks since I arrived in the Elemental Nations, so I added a someone else's problem field to it too. Further work and some research into the necromancy texts I'd picked up in The Gamer universe allowed me to develop a specialized exorcism spell that should in theory banish the souls of the tailed beasts to the afterlife rather than allowing them to stay around and regenerate.
After that I came to the end of what I'd planned. I could account for the invading armies, protect the citizens of Whirlpool, had a theoretical counter and a backup plan for the tailed beasts, and had a plan for what to do after I'd completed the initial Enduring Whirlpool scenario before I left. There hadn't been a lot of family bonding lately, so I decided to spend some time with the team. We ended up spending several weeks in Bastion building, theming, and goofing around. The entire place had a very natural feeling, since every available surface that wasn't being used for anything else had plantlife and other environmental features added to it.
Someone had started introducing the local non-pest wildlife to the environment in addition to the underwater biomes we'd established earlier, and I had to say the entire place was shaping up to be a literal paradise. I hoped we'd be remembered here, and asked Washu for help combining and converting my warehouses to mirror the environment here with my own personal touches. Her response was to ask for a tour. By the end of it she actually had tears in her eyes, and eagerly agreed to help us create another such world for ourselves that would accompany us on our travels just like the warehouses.
She actually stopped time and pulled us out of the Jump temporarily to fulfil this promise, and while it took decades my warehouse was eventually replaced entirely with an ever-growing spherical dimension like the one we'd built for the islands: Elysium. The gardens turned into an infinite series of natural-looking environments that could be entered from certain doors or via portal, each staffed with its own self-regulating minion factory to tend to the flora and fauna within. As the sphere grew some of them would come to exist both within the sphere and in their own space. The apartments were tucked away into their own dimension too, and could be accessed similarly. The few structures left actually in the main portion of Elysium were devoted to enhancing the experience and accessibility of the natural wonders available, with configurable portals scattered around to access additional areas like the homes, gardens, libraries, and training area. We weren't happy to return to the mission after creating such a masterpiece, but it was necessary.