-Chapter 11-

-Chapter 11-

-Later in the evening-

-POV Kojiro Uzarima (MC)-

"We ambushed 12 ninja teams," said Ashina, struggling to believe what we had managed to accomplish in a single day.

I nodded, then quickly did the math in my head before saying:

"A total of 4 elite Jonin, 18 Jonin, 54 Chunin, and more than 84 Genin."

"I didn't think what you were saying actually made sense," said Ashina, clearly surprised by how our little secret operation had unfolded.

‘Even though, on the scale of the village of Iwa, these are not extremely significant losses given the number of ninjas that make up this great village, at our level, it's truly a painful loss,’ I thought.

‘Losing ninjas was part of the game for the great villages when they decided to go to war, but losing them to us was surely not part of the plan,’ I told myself.

"Hahahaha, do you really think this is the end?" said Tajima, happy to have survived his first day in enemy territory.

‘And without a single injury,’ I noted, as we had all received a little souvenir from our day infiltrating behind enemy lines, except for him.

"This is just the beginning," said Kimiko with a worried look before adding, "We should be more careful."

"I mostly agree with Kimiko," said Sosuke before adding in a neutral tone, not the least bit excited about our victory, "We were extremely lucky today. They have been at our borders for over three months, and they killed our Kusakage. That gave them unparalleled confidence in their total victory over us."

"No one could have predicted that 11 lunatics would infiltrate behind enemy lines," said Aina with a small smile.

"Next time, they will be on their guard," added Sosuke.

I nodded, though I was slightly distracted, because since our return from that expedition, I had been mentally 'conversing' with the divine tree and testing several things to understand the exact workings of my golden finger.

I had learned that I could store the energy I extracted from dead ninjas in a reservoir located just above the roots of my divine tree and that with this energy, I could create various fruits.

By separating the energy of the dead, I could produce fruits with different functions:

Strength fruits, chakra fruits, attribute fruits, and spiritual fruits.

I had even been able to create three levels for the chakra fruits.

‘These levels were quite similar to the rank requirements for Genin, Chunin, and Jonin, so let’s call them that,’ I thought.

I also noticed that I could separate and merge the energy to create a higher-quality fruit.

For example, for a person whose chakra level was equivalent to that of a Chunin, I could obtain a Chunin-level fruit or divide it into 10 Genin-level fruits.

‘Same goes for Jonin and Chunin-level fruits,’ I thought.

Conversely, by collecting the energy of 10 Genin, I could merge it into a Chunin-level fruit, and by collecting the energy of 10 Chunin, I could merge it into a Jonin-level fruit.

However, perhaps due to the fact that I had not yet gathered the energy of a Kage, I was unable to create a superior fruit, even though I had enough energy to do so.

The energy I collected by killing an elite Jonin allowed me to create 3 or 4 Jonin-level fruits.

I had been distracted for several minutes because I was struggling to determine what I could… actually, no, I was struggling to decide whether I should do what I had in mind.

‘With the energy I’ve accumulated now, I’m capable of creating 36 level 3 fruits,’ I thought, realizing that I was now at a turning point.

Aina eventually noticed something and said:

"What's wrong, big brother?"

That was her thing.

No one ever called me big brother except for her. So I lifted my head and saw everyone looking at me attentively.

I hesitated for a few more seconds before finally mentally shrugging:

‘This is not the time to think selfishly and paranoidly. These are my brothers and sisters.’

"I want to share something very important with you," I said before adding seriously, my brows furrowed, "But before I tell you, you must swear not to tell anyone. And when I say no one, I really mean no one."

They all nodded at the same time, but I added:

"You must never ask me questions about the origin of what I’m about to tell you, and we must never talk about it. Just act as if this moment never happened, okay?"

They all frowned but eventually nodded, so I took a deep breath and waved my right hand.

Twenty fruits fell in front of them, appearing seemingly out of nowhere, and then I said:

"Eat two each, then sleep. You’ll need it."

Initially skeptical, only Fumiko and Aina took a fruit and bit into it.

Then, quickly, they all did the same.

They looked at me with wide eyes, but I had already gotten up to leave the cave and inspect the surroundings.

I knew them well, and even though they had just promised me, they would definitely ask me questions at some point.

‘And if I stay with them, I will end up telling them a bit about the divine tree, which is absolutely out of the question. I will never reveal my cheat.’

I wasn’t particularly cautious, but I loved my family, the family I had built in this world, the clan I had created.

And I would never forgive myself if they were to die one day because of me.

---

-Three days later-

During the three days that had passed, I had the cave where we had taken refuge completely sealed to prevent any possible reconnaissance patrols from sensing our chakra.

During this period, I ate the remaining fruits and digested the gains they had given me.

I had to admit that I was surprised by how slow my chakra reservoir and body had taken to adapt to the new amount of chakra I had acquired from the divine tree's fruits.

I felt that I would need about twenty Jonin-level chakra fruits to reach the quasi-Kage level and around fifty more to enter the Kage level.

‘Only when I reach that level will I enter the high-power ranks of this world, which is already quite high at this point in history,’ I thought.

All the existing great ninja villages were formed from alliances of the most powerful clans that had survived the Sengoku period.

‘A period where only the strongest survived and where the weak perished,’ I thought, knowing that Kage-level powerhouses were not as rare as they were in Naruto’s era.

Feeling the new power I now possessed, it was only at that moment that I realized the vast gap that separated Kage from people like me.

But instead of fear or apprehension at the thought of having to fight monsters of this caliber in the near future, I was simply excited.

Since I had given out 20 level 3 fruits, each equivalent to the chakra required to be a Jonin, and had eaten the 18 other level 3 fruits, significantly increasing my chakra, I used the remaining energy to grow a different variety of fruits.

‘Attribute fruits.’

At first, I was reluctant to waste energy on anything other than chakra fruits, which greatly increased our combat strength.

The more chakra we had, the easier it was to perform the particularly exhausting yet incredibly useful jutsu.

‘Kage Bunshin no Jutsu.’

But once I tested a level 1 Fūton attribute fruit, I immediately realized how wrong I had been.

Not only was this fruit not a waste, but even with level 2 fruits, I could feel the direct impact it had on my skills.

Because of my modest birth, I hadn’t had the chance to be born with multiple attributes. That’s why I had worked so hard to deeply understand the only attribute I had.

But as soon as I ate a level 1 Fūton attribute fruit, I had, for a brief second, an insight into certain movements and gestures I was doing wrong and how I could improve them to be faster and sharper in my attacks.

It was so brief that for a moment, I thought it was an illusion.

But it was only when I circulated a small tornado in my palm again that I understood how much my control over my attribute had increased.

Unlike chakra fruits, even though I could increase the quality of the fruit using the energy stored in the divine tree’s roots, the initial quality of the fruit was determined by the deceased ninja’s natural affinity level rather than their chakra level or ninja rank.

The stronger a person’s natural affinity, the higher the level of the fruit.

It didn’t take me long to realize that the best thing to do was to use the energy stored in the roots, which contained a large amount of Doton attribute energy, to create many level 3 fruits using energy from Genin and Chunin.