Chapter 38.1- Gamer of the Desert

Flight was a hell of an advantage to have over everyone else. Especially when the flight was something I needed little in the way of conscious thought to maintain at all times. Why was I saying this? It meant I could study the sals that had been placed on my person while I travelled to Suna in safety and with some measure of luxury. After all, a quick application of may will had made the sand platform reform itself to have some shade from the blazing afternoon sun. My shadow clone was delightfully still as I picked over every line of script that surrounded my body. Examining my own naked body wasn’t one of the things I ever expected to have to do, and doing it from the outside looking in was also unexpected but the akwardness of the situation was far overcome by the sheer curiosity spurred on by the seal that Danzo had placed on me. 

I was a cursed seal, of course. I’d not expected anything less, but the kind of cursed seal it was what something that I could just gape out. My body had taken it in too quickly so it couldn’t be anything that had some serious negative consequences. For him to apply something like that, he’d have had to overcome my chakra in its entirety, not an easy task, I’d imagine. Instead, it had felt like he’d worked both with it in some aspect and around it in others. Now that I could see it it was clear. Danzo used a different script language than I was familiar with, but enough of it was based off the Uzumaki style, like all the best and strongest seals tended to be. So there were a few things I could understand. 

First of all, If I was interpreting things correctly, then this cursed seal was, at least in part, based off on a medical stasis seal. It was designed to keep the subject in their base state and deny any attempts to change that. It was something else, ingenious and inspired, and just the reality check that I needed. I wasn’t the only one I this world with a working brain and the ability to adapt to my opponents. I’d shown off my sand transformation willy nilly and people were already beginning to come up with workarounds and counters for facing me. It was a wonder how people like Minato Kamikaze and the Raikage were able to dominate the game for so long with their techniques out there and well known. It was a guarantee that people would have analysed the living hell out of their techniques to prepare for facing them. But to them it didn’t matter. I guess that was where things like experience came into play. I’d only been in the game for about half a dozen years. These guys had been doing it for decades before they gained the degree of notoriety that they had later in life. I guess that was the difference between me and them. I needed to gain th necessary experience to make it so something as simple as having myself lose access to one of my principal techniques would no longer be able to essentially cripple me. I needed variety and adaptability. 

When it came to Danzo’s seal, though, it turned out there was little I could do to deactivate it that would be more efficient that simply waiting for the seal to wear off. Like I initially estimated, it wasn’t a perm anent seal. My chakra would have fought that off much too harshly for such a quick application. No, it was a timed seal, and if I was reading things correctly, I had only an hour or so more to wait before it would run its course completely. I just drew the seal on a scroll for my inventory for later study and dispelled my shadow clone to focus on the other thing that the fight with Danzo and his fellows had left me with. This time a positive thing, at the very least. 

**Notice: Hidden Quest Complete**

**Objective: Escape Konoha alive**

**Bonus Objectives: **

**1. Kill Danzo **

**2. Free Jiraiya from Danzo’s genjutsu**

**3. Seal Mu **

**4. Kill Orochimaru**

**5. Prevent the “Daimyo” and his caravan from being attacked. **

**Rewards:**

**1. Legendary Loot Roll**

**2. Hidden**

**3. Hidden **

**4. Hidden**

**5. Hidden**

**6. Hidden**

Turns out that the game had turned the entire thing with Danzo into a retroactive quest of some sort. The fact that I failed literally all of the bonus objectives was a tad annoying but the sight of the Legendary loot roll among the rewards was enough to draw all my attention and made me forget all about the bonus objectives and their lost rewards for the time being. A legendary loot roll. The last one had given me _Dark Sister_, the sword that I used as one of my primary weapons. It had literally been the weapon that did the deed for Ohnoki the fence sitter, the third Tsuchikage. Needless to say it was baller. Getting anything of that kind of class was just what the doctor ordered to improve my mood at this time when Danzo was making me nearly shit myself at the changes that I’d wrought by butterflying all over the elemental nations without a care in the world. 

I commanded the game to make the roll and it did just that. The ethereal dice flew through the air and quickly changed into a wheel that spun at speeds so high that even I struggled to read its contents. It was in that position for minutes until it slowly began to slow down. Even then the contents of the wheel were still hidden from me. I could catch the occasional glimpse of the idea of something, but then that would only last for a second or so before it was gone and replaced with something else. I mean I was fairly certain I saw something like the ‘Dragon Smaug’ there but I had to be taking the piss. No way was the game going to gift me with a whole ass mythical creature. That would be awesome though. Very awesome. I could just imagine summoning a whole ass giant dragon to the battlefield to run interference. Orochimaru and his snakes, and Jiraiya and his toads would be mincemeat in seconds. 

When it finally stopped, the wheel disappeared and was replaced by a floating piece of text. 

**Loot Roll Complete: Item- Skill Book: Wet Tinkering** 

I gaped. I fucking gaped at it because the game seemed intent on messing with every expectation that I had about it. Skill books? Literally nothing had given me the idea that the game would be able to create skill books for talents that did not even exist in this universe. Sure, scrolls that conferred elemental affinities were one thing, but whole skill books able to give me parahuman abilities from an entirely different universe were a tab bit beyond the game. It made me revisit a question I’d once had, ‘Did the game have any limits?’ None that I could see right now. But how was this going to work? Was the game going to give me a shard of my own? Make me the host for an inter dimensional entity with dubious intentions? I doubted it was going to do that. 

Gamer’s mind at the very minimum guaranteed that there was n o chance of anything external being able to influence my mind or mental state. That was at least one worry that was gone. Another one that came up was wondering how the game was going to implement this particular skill set. Was I going to get a shard? Or was the game just going to port a ton of knowledge into my brain. 

Well, there was only one way to know. The game had never let me down before (well apart from a few minutes ago when Gamer’s body did nothing about the seal Danzo had placed on my person). I took the risk and lifted my hand to click the ‘yes’ button next to the prompt asking me whether I wanted to integrate the skill book or not. The second I pressed the button, the ethereal book did a nice little animation of dissolving into flower petals before shooting right at my head. 

It took the better part of ten minutes for the process to complete itself but when it did, I suddenly knew. My mind was awash with ideas. A quick glance at my stat sheet told me that a ‘Wet Tinkering’ skill had been created at level 50. Level 50 seemed to come with a lot of things I could already do. I had so many ideas of how I could improve my body as it presently was. Make myself stronger, faster, improve my reactions. I could already see half a million things I’d try with Kakashi’s Sharingan before integrating it with myself to ensure maximum compatibility. I could probably even halt the blindness effect of the Mangekyou. 

What I could do to myself was impressive, but what truly awed me were the depths of improvements I could make to those who weren’t me. My mind turned to Shira and I was already having thousands of ideas of how I’d essentially jerryrig his chakra system to begin to function. Fuck. The skikotsumyaku. I could see just how I’d integrate it into his body. What did it matter that Shira was an adult. All bodies were nothing more than clay for me to play around with. That was thew power of tinkering at the end of the day. It wasn’t science. Not truly. Tinkers sometimes operated within the bounds of science or the laws of physics but when dealing with powers granted by inter-dimensional beings, those laws we held so dear became nothing more than mere guidelines. What did wet tinkering care for things like organ rejection and compatibility. I knew that if I made changes, they’d work. They’d stick. Simply because that was how the power worked. 

Another advantage of wet tinkering as a new skill was the ten points it had immediately added to my Medical Ninjutsu skill almost instantly. Just lovely. Completely lovely. Had to be the best roll I’d gotten from the game since ever. I banked to the left as I noticed that my sand had carried me closer to my targets in the moments of inattention brought on by the new ability. I’d go full mad scientist when I returned to Suna, but for now I had a Daimyo to save. 

I drew closer to the position of the Daimyo’s caravan as I saw the bodies of dozens of Samurai strewn about. Danzo had been thorough in his attention. While he’d personally come for me, he’d sent this hit squad of immortal ninja after the Daimyo. Zabuza Momochi, Demon of the Mist, Haku of the Ice Release, and several of his root ninja were working their way through the Daimyo’s guards. All that remained were the three Guardian ninja he’d brought with him and about a dozen samurai that surrounded his form. He remained sitting on his throne, looking bored at the happenings. I watched as Kenpachi, one of the Ninja guards, manoevred into the Demon of the Mist’s guard, and cleaved his hand from his body before cutting said body in half. In that same instant, the guard was almost sliced in twain by Zabuza’s return attack. A tendril of sand around his waist was enough to pull him out of danger before he was sent to the Pure Lands. 

All eyes turned to me instantly. “Kazekage-Same” more than a few voices intoned in relief. It was obvious that they were much out of their league in this fight. Dealing with reincarnated ninja was a different kind of ballgame from what the Daimyo’s guards had to deal with on a more regular basis. 
“Hello everyone. I heard you needed some help.”

“Took you long enough, boy. I almost lost all my patience” The Daimyo spoke, still seated on his throne. 

A/N; Halfway done with this. I’m back back, I guess.