Okay, just as a head's up, Rosa doesn't know about the Narutoverse.

As such, she knows nothing about the Elemental Nations, about Madara or Kaguya or the Ten-tails, absolutely nothing. As of right now, for all she knows, she's just been dropped into a remote part of a regular Earth. That's why she didn't recognize the forehead protector or the kunai, not because she's got low intelligence, but simply because she can't recognize something she hasn't seen before.

Chapter 5

"This is an exception but yes, though normally I wouldn't power up quite so much."

Rosa spoke firmly and confidently, as well as with honesty, since there was no word of a lie in what she said. It really was an exception, she did get her power from the ritual, and normally she wouldn't power up in quite as drastic a fashion. "May I know how you go about acquiring this 'special connection'? Is it a Kekkei Genkai?" Rosa frowned, not understanding what he just said.

"Don't know what that is, but maybe. In order to perform a sacrifice, you need a connection that I don't believe can just be unlocked at will. I would bring you with me to perform a ritual, but the space I have developed for performing rituals would trap you within. If I took you in, you could never come out again, ever, it's the perfect prison..." She trailed off, realizing just how powerful the Ritual Dimensional Pocket really was. If she met someone she couldn't handle and had no other options, she could trap them inside, level herself up using rituals in the regular world, then go in and beat their ass. That relied on them not being able to destroy it from the inside though. As far as she was aware, it was literally in another dimension, so breaking out meant more than taking a pickaxe and mining their way out.

Then again, from how powerful she felt after her upgrade, it was abundantly clear that even just upgrading to F+3 on her stats would put her in the top 0.1% of physical ability. When she upgraded her dexterity, her hands became incredibly stable, and so she already suspected that she was going to be empowered beyond what a human could reasonably achieve, her recent power-up just confirmed it for her. "What's next then?"

Smiling, she crafted a Weak Fireball Scroll and gave it to him, amused at the fact he was already used to weird stuff happening since he didn't even react to a scroll appearing in her hand. "Now, I want you to try and use this scroll. If it works correctly, a fireball should appear and fly towards whatever you're focusing on. To activate it, focus, then toss the scroll up in the air. You don't have to throw it into the ceiling, a gentle toss works. Oh, and don't focus on me please." She spoke with amusement, watching as he looked at the scroll, then at her, before turning to look towards the end of the cave.

He gave the scroll a gentle throw, and in a flash of blue fire, a fireball appeared, immediately flying towards the cave-wall, where it then exploded and vanished. "That used no chakra." He said quietly, looking at his hand, then at the cave, then at her. Raising an eyebrow, she made it clear she wanted an explanation. "Chakra is what gives us our techniques, and that used none." As he spoke, he did something weird with his hands, then faced the cave again. After a moment, he quite literally vomited out a stream of fire that scorched the cave wall, lasting for about a second before he cut it off and faced her again.

"...Okay, that's not what I expected." She said quietly, looking at the scorched wall carefully. That was literally a torrent of flames he just spat out, and he was a-okay. So...that whole thing about her stats being above human level obviously was to be on the same level as people who could just spit flames out of their mouths after flicking their hands about. "So, chakra is the fuel that powers those techniques, and the scroll used none...then it might need chakra to use tomes." At his questioning look she elaborated. "A scroll is a one-use spell that is already powered and just has to be activated, a tome on the other hand uses the power of the wielder to cast spells. You can cast infinitely, but you have to power the spell yourself. A staff is a middle-ground, you can cast without any power, but it has to be recharged, which is why it's the rarest of the three."

He nodded to show he understood, looking down at his hand again for a moment as if searching for some hidden payment the scroll had extracted from him. "Before you ask, I can't make any staves yet, they need special resources. Scrolls are the easiest to make and tomes are a fair bit harder, but I can make those two with basic resources given enough time." She then smiled at him. "But that can be put off until later, for now, I think lunch is in order...and I just realized I don't actually know your name, so allow me to introduce myself, my name is Rosa, pleasure to meet you."

"No last name?" He asked curiously, and when she shook her head he nodded. Whether he thought she was just lying to hide it or not didn't matter to her much, so she didn't think about it further. "Kentaro is my name. As for my clan name, I would prefer to keep that hidden." Rosa accepted that since he probably had some kind of sensitive identity outside that led to him getting stabbed. Or maybe he just wouldn't tell her until she told him her own last name. However, none of that mattered in the face of the dreaded question, the one she feared to ever ask a male, already knowing the inevitable response.

"So, what do you want for lunch?"

After lunch, Rosa checked her quest log to see what she had to do next.

This time it was only a single quest, but the task itself required her to have three acolytes. That was a pretty damn big ask since her current 'acolyte' was just sticking around for another six days before leaving. However, she could make use of him to potentially find more acolytes. The problem was that she had to make the idea of becoming her acolyte attractive. Living in a cave was not exactly grade-A material for recruitment.

As such, she started to put some serious thought into how exactly to get and retain acolytes. She would need a place to live, that was for certain. Since she was literally practicing ritualistic sacrifices, living in a town was out of the picture, especially if she started to form a...well, a cult was probably the only definition for it. If she lived in a town, forming a cult would likely get her lynched by the people.

But on the other hand, going to civilization was necessary in order to actually find people to recruit. She could use her skills to make money and purchase things which she could then sacrifice, maybe even opening a shop so the things she could buy with ritual points could be sold, effectively perpetually making money. Say she sold a bronze pot with a lid for 50 schmeckles, and she could buy something for 50 schmeckles which could be sacrificed for 100 ritual points thanks to her ritual circle buffing the ritual value up, that would make her a net profit of 50 ritual points effectively for free.

Alternatively, she could use her crafting menu to create things and then sell them, not involving rituals at all and thus not risking getting smacked down for abusing her rituals. That would still let her earn money, and as such, she would be able to purchase things to either sacrifice or craft into things to be sacrificed. She already knew from sacrificing menu-made bandages that she could sacrifice things that she had crafted using the crafting menu, so as long as she leveled her Crafting skill up, she didn't doubt that she could then craft better things to sacrifice, which would increase in value, thus becoming a self-perpetuating loop of value until she was performing SSS+3 rituals.

From the fact she didn't feel a warning sensation of any description, she supposed it wasn't quite enough of an abuse of the system to necessitate being warned. Or maybe, and more scarily, she wasn't warned because she would only be allowed one single warning before being blasted into astral dust if she went ahead with anything that could even remotely be regarded as abusing the system.

That could be put aside in favor of the biggest decision though. She had two options, remain in seclusion in the forest, or go out to the wider world, gather intelligence, spread her influence and establish herself...yeah the choice was obvious. Whilst seclusion would keep her hidden and safe, it would mean no acolytes would know about her. Whereas if she used Kentaro to get to a town or a city and used her remaining time with him to establish herself in some capacity, she could knock a whole ton of obstacles off her path. So long as she wasn't too evil or forthright about sacrificing things, she would probably be fine, her powers could be dismissed easily enough if what Kentaro had showed her, literally spitting out fireballs, was as commonplace as he made it seem.

Grappling with her hair, she glanced over at Kentaro, who was sat patiently on his bed, his head down and his eyes closed, apparently resting. "Hey?" She asked quietly, catching his attention. When he focused on her, she continued. "Do you know the way to the nearest town? Safe town, that is. I don't want to get to town just for us both to get stabbed."

Kentaro frowned, saying nothing for a few seconds. She let him mull it over as she continued to tie her hair into a braid. "The Sunlight Inn Town is only a few hours walk from here, it's about as safe as anywhere else you could get, at least around here. If that isn't safe enough for you, we could go to Keishi, which is the capital. There's still crime there, no town can claim to have absolutely no crime, but even those chasing me wouldn't easily make a move so close to the Daimyo, especially not with the rumors of an assassination attempt brewing and the presence of ANBU increasing."

There were a few words she didn't understand, but she could easily enough piece together what he said. The Capital, so the Daimyo would therefore be the ruler, and the presence of ANBU related to an assassination attempt logically meant they were elite guards of some sort. "Alright, Keishi sounds like a good place to go. I need to establish myself anyway, so as long as no waves are kicked up, we can just stay low-key. Well, depending on how far it is at least, by the time we get there your time with me might be up, right?"

"It'll take us a few days on foot to get there, less if we go to Sunlight Inn Town. Then again, you aren't quite as weak or slow as a civilian, so we could probably cut our travel-time down to a day or two, depending on how fast you are." Humming, Rosa didn't give an answer. The fact was she had no idea how fast she actually was, she hadn't yet tested her F-1 Agility. Then again, Kentaro was a pretty good sounding board for how fast she could move.

But she also had to decide if she wanted to speed herself up or not. She had three available trait increases, so she could use those...but that'd be an insanely large waste. What'd be better would be if she could get her Agility from F-1 to F+3, then use those trait increases to ignore the E-3, E-2 and E-1 costs, raising her Agility to a much higher extent...the issue then was that her Dexterity wouldn't keep up, and she didn't doubt that with high speed but low dexterity, she'd be tripping over her own feet. "Give me a sec."

Entering her dimensional pocket, Rosa opened her interface and began to calculate the costs of upgrading her Dexterity and Agility to F+3. Her Dex was at F+1 so she needed F+2 and F+3, so 360 and 420, 780 points total. As for Agility, that cost 240, 300, 360 and 420 points, so 1,320 points. Added together, 2,100 points total. She only had 460 points available, so if she wanted to get both traits to F+3, she still needed 1,640 points. That...wasn't actually as far as she had feared. Two D-3 rituals were already enough, or four E+3 rituals, and so, she exited the ritual space and grinned.

"Go kill three animals and bring them back. Rabbits, squirrels, snakes, birds, boars, horses, whatever you can find, I just need three of them, please." She watched as he raised an eyebrow, but still got up and ventured out of the cave, grinning. Even if the sacrifice of the ritual wasn't that valuable, the environment, the items, and any other effects all added up to buff the value of the ritual. So long as she came up with a good incantation, that would offset the low value of what was sacrificed and would...she lost her train of thought, looking at the entrance of the cave. Kentaro was already back, and on his back was a boar. "Here's number one." He said gruffly, hefting the boar and dropping it on the floor, then heading back out.

Watching his shrinking back, Rosa smacked herself out of her surprise at how quickly he hunted an animal, and instead, she poked the boar and sent it to the ritual space, following it immediately and shoving it into place in the middle of the circle before taking out her diminishing stick of chalk to re-draw the smudged lines. From there, she purchased the necessary candles and incense sticks and laid them out, rolled her eyes as she exited the pocket to craft a fireball scroll, then realized there was no liquid left over from lunch. With a sigh, she purchased a bottle of water and used that along with the plentiful ash to make a weak fireball scroll, then back to the ritual pocket, using that to light a candle and then the other candles and the incense sticks.

With that all done, she crossed her legs and sat down on the edge of the circle, placing her hands out flat on her knees and bowing her head with her eyes shut. "Venerable Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt, this ignorant one does offer this beast, hunted with efficiency and strength by my acolyte, in the pursuit of speed and the body control to maintain it, and in the desire to become a hunter and follow in your agile footsteps." She eked out a sentence she felt was honestly really quite intricate and pious, her eyes remaining shut until the familiar presence, this time feeling akin to being watched by a predatory animal instead of simply by a power that was incomprehensible, and the flash of white had come and passed.

Opening her eyes, she checked her ritual log, her lips curling into a wide grin as she inwardly praised Artemis with true earnestness.

Ritual Completed - D+1

Environment - D-1

Items - D+2

Sacrifice - D

Incantation - D+2

Other Effects - D+1

A D+1 ritual, which meant 1,360 ritual points, which itself meant only 280 points were needed.

An E-3 or above ritual would get her the points she needed, and anything above E-3 would also leave her with a little extra, so she could still conjure up food for dinner. And she most definitely intended to make a most sumptuous feast in thanks, both to Artemis as well as to Kentaro. One point she hadn't actually noticed during her previous ritual was that the candles and the incense sticks had completely exhausted themselves. Last time she had forgotten to even look at them, and so upon entering and seeing them gone, she supposed she had left them all lit and felt a bit silly, but it seemed that performing a ritual used up whatever consumable ritualistic items were used.

Shaking her head, she exited the ritual space, blinking in surprise at the fox carcass laying on the floor. Kentaro definitely didn't lack for speed, and it made her wonder whether or not his wound actually needed quite so much care and attention. He seemed to treat it like it was nothing, and after his display of literally breathing fire, she was inclined to trust his judgment. With a poke, she sent the fox into the ritual pocket and followed along behind it, laying out the candles and the incense, then repeating her previous incantation.

"Venerable Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt, this ignorant one does offer this beast, hunted with efficiency and strength by my acolyte, in the pursuit of speed and the body control to maintain it, and in the desire to become a hunter and follow in your agile footsteps." She spoke quietly and calmly, and once again, a presence akin to prey watched by predator washed over her for a moment before receding with a white flash accompanying it, signifying the completion of yet another ritual.

Opening her ritual log up, she wasn't surprised to see the value had dipped somewhat.

Ritual Completed - D-1

Environment - D-1

Items - D+2

Sacrifice - D-3

Incantation - D-2

Other Effects - D

However, whilst the value had indeed dropped, the ritual was still D-1.

That meant 1,200 points, and so she purchased her desired upgrades, increasing her Dexterity and Agility both to F+3. That left her with 900 points, and when she realized she still had so many left, she spent a hefty chunk of it, a whole 840 points, to raise her Dexterity once again to E-3. She then used all three trait increases to raise her Agility and Dexterity both to E-2, leaving her with a final balance of 60 points, still enough to buy some food for dinner. Since Kentaro was fetching a third animal as well, even if it was only a small critter, it would still be worth enough ritual points to feed them for a few days.

Once she was done, she got up, moving from left to right and feeling...creeped-out was the only word to describe it. It felt almost like she had stepped into someone else's body, the speed she was used to simply didn't match with what she could now use at a whim. If previously she moved left with all her strength and power, now a simple brief jaunt to the left achieved a vastly superior movement. It wasn't a video-game-esque situation where she now couldn't even walk around without slamming into walls or going past her target, she had perfect control over her speed, which she attributed to the matching Dexterity trait, but it was still hyper-unnerving being able to move so quickly with such casual movements.

However, one thing she had forgotten to consider was that with such a high increase in speed, she would get tired incredibly quickly, as she started to feel her legs burn from the strain. Her Endurance was necessary to balance out her speed, or else a brief sprint would still utterly exhaust her. And, with only 60 points, even if she wanted to, she was unable to level her Endurance up. Depending on how many points she got for the third sacrifice, she would level her Endurance up and hopefully help with getting tuckered out from moving too much.

It was already at F-1 thanks to the Huntress perk she had gotten, which meant that buying one level would cost 240 points. With the value of her ritual circle and whatnot, she was hopeful that the minimum value of the ritual would be E-3, which was 280 points, enough to level up once. Depending on what exact Kentaro brought back, she would put more effort into the ritual and try to push it into a D-class ritual, which would get her at least 1,040 points, enough to level her Perception from F-1 to F+2 at a minimum. The F+3 upgrade would cost 420 points all by itself, and if she performed a D+1 ritual, she would be able to both afford that upgrade, alongside also having space points left to buy stuff from the shop.

So, with nothing better to do, Rosa went into her ritual pocket and began to use the papyrus scroll to make edits and improvements to the ritual circle, using her enhanced Dexterity and Mysticism traits to create a rather eldritch-seeming...amalgam of ritualistic shapes and lines. It wasn't really a circle any more, nor was it a square or a triangle, it was a bit of a mess, but she, for lack of a better word, 'felt' that it was more powerful in some capacity, and by a significant extent.

Of course, making it meant she wore her already-short chalk stick down to a basically-unusable nub, and so she opted to destroy what remained so as not to begin filling the space with clutter. She couldn't take it out anyway, and she would just purchase another, probably one of a higher quality and more mystical material, maybe a bone of some creature, treated to be usable to draw with, that would definitely improve the ritual circle value.

Dusting her hands off, she exited the ritual pocket, settling down to wait for Kentaro to come back.

After maybe half an hour, she heard footsteps approaching, and after a few more moments, Kentaro entered the cave.

"You know...when I said 'whatever you can find', I didn't mean 'go and hunt down the biggest animal you could find'." She said with fondness, her eyes fixed upon the beast on his back. Because, of course, he had to out-do the boar he had brought in, and so he had gone out and hunted down a...well, she wasn't sure if it was a bison, but it was massive and covered in fur and the fact he was able to carry it with seemingly little strain intimidated her just a little.

He rolled his body and dropped the huge carcass onto the ground with a thud, a smirk on his lips as he looked at her. "Well, I found some tracks and decided I'd follow them instead of bringing back a pocket-sized animal, and I found this beast grazing deeper in the forest." Watching him sit down, she looked away from him to look at the beast he'd brought, her mind already trying to guess at just what kind of ritual value a fucking bison, or a beast of similar size, would be worth. A D-class ritual for sure, but maybe even a C-class thanks to the ritual circle edits she'd made.

"I'll be right back!" She said with a grin, giving the bison a nudge and pulling it into the ritual pocket, immediately following after it. The beast had landed a little off-centre of the ritual circle, but there was no way in hell she was going to be able to move it, so she just accepted that position. The new circle was a hell of a lot bigger anyway, so it wasn't too bad. After looking the beast over a few more times and getting psyched up, she went around the ritual circle, spending all 60 ritual points she had left on a few more incense and candle holders as well as the incense and candles themselves.

Once that was done, she settled herself down beside the circle, worked herself up a little more, then began to speak. "Venerable Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt, I offer to you this bountiful harvest, hunted in the pursuit of speed, strength and endurance, and hope you not find it wanting." Waiting a few moments, Rosa opened her eyes upon an empty ritual circle and opened up her ritual log to see her reward.

And what a reward it was.

Ritual Completed - D+3

Environment - C-2

Items - D+3

Sacrifice - D+3

Incantation - D+1

Other Effects - D+2

Sure, it wasn't quite what she hoped for, but a D+3 ritual was still 1,520 points.

With 1,520 points, she could upgrade her F-1 Endurance right up to F+3 and still have 200 points left-over, and so that was exactly what she did. The instant she did so, her entire body felt...rigid. Her arms felt...heavier and harder to move, and honestly, she began to feel really claustrophobic, as though her body itself was closing her in. Fortunately, after a few moments, the feeling passed, and her arms and body felt normal again, but being frank with herself, she honestly didn't want to upgrade her Endurance like that again.

It was probably because she had leveled it up so quickly, but it was still honestly terrifying, as though her own skin and flesh were trapping her in place, an experience she didn't wish to experience a single time more. Still, her Endurance was now at F+3, and after jogging around the ritual pocket space a few times at an increasingly fast speed, she could already feel that her Agility and Dexterity were not immediately sapping her stamina and making her feel weak and exhausted. Exiting the ritual pocket, she gave Kentaro a smile as she sat down.

"Well, I think we can safely say my speed has been upgraded, so, onwards to Keishi!"