6 Training 2

[Skill [Basic Body Conditioning] has levelled up!]

As I received the latest notification, I steadily slowed down my pace from my run. Half a minute later, I stopped completely and rested my hands atop my knees, taking in large, deep breaths for my oxygen-deprived lungs. Wiping away the sweat soaking my face, I took a quick glance around me to check if anyone was looking before I silently summoned my inventory and reached in for an ice-cold bottle of water.

While greedily guzzling down the much-needed water, I summoned up my skills to check out the new effects.

[Skills]

[Observe] (Active) LVL: 3

The ability to read information about the targeted object or person through observation.

Improved proficiency in the ability reveals more information.

[Basic Body Conditioning] (Passive) LVL: 5

Increases your body's strength, speed and endurance through training

+5% to physical damage

+5% to movement speed

-5% to physical damage taken

+5% to physical stat growth rate

[Shurikenjutsu] (Passive) LVL: 3

Increases accuracy of thrown shuriken and kunai by 30%

Increases damage dealt by thrown shuriken and kunai by 30%

[Knife Fighting] (Passive) LVL: 2

Increases damage dealt with small, bladed weapons by 20%

[Beginner Taijutsu Mastery] (Passive) LVL: 3

+3% to physical damage

+3% to movement speed

[Meditation] (Active) LVL: 4

+30% to CP regeneration

+30% to HP regeneration

[Leaf Concentration Exercise] (Passive/Active) LVL 4

CP Cost: 3.5 per second

+4% to chakra control

[Stealth] (Passive) LVL 3

When sneaking, +15% harder to be detected.

It has been roughly three and a half weeks since I got that insane preparation quest and it had required me to focus almost entirely on levelling up the aforementioned skills. Especially for the first three weeks or so since I could only train when for a limited amount of time every day.

I had begun training openly with Rie's permission when I managed to convince her that since I was starting Shinobi Academy soon, I wanted to make sure I was ready. While she had reluctantly approved, there were some conditions attached.

Due to Rie's concern that I would injure or overexert myself, she limited my training time to only 2 hours a day, and she had prohibited me from experimenting with any form of chakra usage. Since there was no way I would be able to complete the quest with those restrictions, I had to squeeze in every possible opportunity to level up my skills, including sneaking out of the orphanage at night to train more. That was also when I received my [Stealth] skill and which proved to be a good way to train my sneaking skills as well.

Fortunately, the leaf control exercise was easy to hide when I practiced as I managed to attach several leaves under my shirt, on my torso or upper arm, and was able to continuously grind its level. Through it, I also figured out how to view my CP regeneration rate when I started actively using my chakra for the first time. It would appear next to my CP count in my status screen whenever any amount of chakra was consumed.

Currently, my CP restored at a rate of 1% every minute, while every INT point would increase the chakra recovery rate by 1% of that one 1%. Meaning that hypothetically, if I had 1000 CP and 20 INT, my chakra would recover by 10 per minute and the 20 INT points would raise that by 20%, totalling up to 12 per minute. Thus, I would need a 100 INT points in order to double my CP recovery rate.

It was not as slow as it might first appear however, as I could further increase the CP recovery through meditation, allowing me to only to take an hour's break to completely restore my chakra reserves whenever I depleted it.

Moreover, the entire ordeal provided an opportunity to further experiment with some of the system's properties. I found out I only needed a minimum of 5 hours of sleep in order to fully restore my HP & CP after waking up, and when I tried sleeping less, the amount of HP & CP restored reduced proportionately. Once, I stayed up the entire night, curious to see if I would receive any negative side effects or if I would receive a sleep deprivation status effect.

I discovered that while I was able to function without sleep, after the first 36 hours I indeed received a temporary [Sleep Deprived] status effect that reduced my stats by 10%, and an additional 10% for every subsequent 12 hours I remained awake after that. Equipped with this newfound knowledge, I attempted to maximize my training hours by staying up for 36 hours every two days and only taking quick, 3 hour naps which recovered my HP & CP by 60%.

However, even with my [Gamer's Mind] skill that protected me from any mental disorders, going through that prolonged period of self-imposed spartan lifestyle quickly proved to be mentally exhausting and unhealthy.

Despite not receiving any negative effects following that schedule, I did not have the persistence or perhaps single-mindedness to consistently maintain such a rigorous training regimen.

Thus, instead of pursuing maximum efficiency, I obliged my desire to preserve a lifestyle that still somewhat resembled normal human behavior by staying up once just once or twice a week and having at least 5 hours of sleep every night.

Another thing that I had discovered was that illusion barriers like the ones in 'The Gamer' anime didn't exist. Or at least I had no way of creating them yet. I cringed as I recalled learning that the hard way as I had embarrassedly tried holding my hand up and yelling various versions of "ID Create!" or "Instant Dungeon!" to no avail and my own chagrin.

I had also started to explore Konohagakure. Since I was under the strict gaze of the head caretaker Rie, who, limited my physical training hours, I took to touring the renowned hidden leaf village that I had only seen on screen before.

Firstly, the village was really more like the size of a small city. There were two main commercial districts that serviced the two separate citizenry – the shinobi side and the civilian side. Residential areas were littered throughout the village, but from what I could observe the civilian and shinobi population were generally segregated. Incidentally, the Konoha Orphanage was located near outskirts of the village in a civilian residential district.

Access to the training grounds were restricted for shinobi only to prevent any accidents that involved wandering civilians walking into potentially destructive ninjutsu, and the only non-shinobi exclusive sort of training area was a large open patch of land that had a dedicated running track for civilians to stay active and keep themselves healthy, which was where I am currently training right now.

I also visited the Konoha library when I had the bright idea to browse through their stockpiles of jutsu scrolls and start absorbing them to create skills. However, I had soon found out that most types of jutsu scrolls were instead located in a jutsu depository kept under lock and key in the Hokage's tower, while the shinobi section of the library only contained E and D ranked jutsu scrolls. And even worse, the shinobi section was strictly restricted to Shinobi Academy students and active shinobi only. Which meant that I was not allowed to just stroll in and absorb skills willy nilly.

The civilian section, on the other hand, contained volumes of books on a variety of different subjects, of which I had been mostly disinterested in. Rather than investing my time in agricultural tomes, I had been more intrigued by general knowledge subjects and the history of the Naru-verse. Partly due to my interest in the subject, but also to raise my INT levels from reading the books, as well as to read up on some of the material that will be covered in the Shinobi Academy ahead of time.

Even then I could not get myself to immerse myself in the literature. I could never have been considered a keen student or an eager learner in my past life. I only studied enough to achieve the minimum standards that was expected of someone in my station.

My parents were never a stern sort either, never really pushing me towards academic excellence, nor was I myself particularly motivated to get good grades. Growing up with the awareness that I would never be troubled financially did wonders to dampen any sort of ambition or desire to succeed. After all, I would never be able to surpass the legacy my prestigious dynasty had managed to establish… or so I had thought.

A week from my admission to the Shinobi Academy I finally left the orphanage and moved into the Academy student dormitory provided for orphan students. It was a small, studio apartment that contained the barest necessities such as substandard furniture and some antiquated appliances.

While I was now deprived of the admittedly comforting and therapeutic presence of the other children, in return I was free from the watchful gaze of the head caretaker and additionally received 20,000 ryo as a monthly allowance.

The sudden gain of a large sum of disposable income immediately sent me shopping for some upgrades to the current hovel that would be my home for the next few years. The unsatisfactory food I ate at the orphanage was replaced with some actual decent cuts of meats, cheeses, and fresh produce.

Silky bedsheets were purchased to replace the rough linen cloth that covered my bed, some comfortable chairs and decent looking furniture to furnish the apartment as well as decorations to adorn my shelves and walls.

At the end of the shopping spree I realized I had spent nearly half of the money that was expected to last me for the next month. And that was also when I registered that my concept of money and financial common sense was out of whack as a result of the opulent lifestyle I had always enjoyed in my previous life.

I had no choice but to return some of the furniture and decorations to the stores, who were merciful enough to do so without issue, but the storeowners chided me for my reckless spending when I explained my situation. But I had to keep the comfortable bedsheets and fluffy comforter because the coarse and scratchy bedsheets that I had from the orphanage were already driving me crazy.

Other than that, I also bought some new clothes as well. I picked out a series of different coloured long sleeve t-shirts as well as some shorts and a two pairs of black shinobi sandals.

I also wanted to buy some sharpened kunai and shuriken, as opposed to the blunted training weapons I had in my possession, but purchase of deadly shinobi weaponry was unexpectedly only available to Shinobi Academy students and active ninjas. So I had to make do with what I had at least until I entered the academy proper.

Initially, I was somewhat stumped when dinner time came, and I just stared at the ingredients I had bought in the day. I bought some premium produce along with some herbs and spices I somewhat recalled seeing on menus in my previous life, like thyme and rosemary. But I didn't know what I was expecting to happen as I clearly had no idea what to do with them.

Thankfully however, after some time searching through the fragmented memories of the original Shinji Ikari, and some hours I myself spent helping out in the orphanage kitchen, I managed to piece together a decent steak that was adequately seasoned and garnished.

Coupled with a couple slices of cheese atop a slice of sourdough bread, I had my first tolerable meal since I arrived in this world. I also felt somewhat regretful that I was not able to get wine that would have utterly perfected dinner.

The next big challenge was laundry, and even though I was somewhat aware detergent or something similar was necessary to properly wash my clothes, I unfortunately had no clue what to even do with it. So I settled for just soaking them in water and letting them dry in the sun to get rid of any stink.

With the freedom to intensify my physical training and three additional weeks of pseudo-intense training, I was naturally able to improve my once mediocre stats, which I could unabashedly say looked pretty decent now.

[Name: Shinji Ikari]

Age: 7

Level: 8

Next Level: 700/1800

HP: 1300/1300

CP: 3245/3245

STR: 22

VIT: 18

DEX: 27

INT: 51

CHA: 5

Points – 18

Ryo – 16830

[Perks]

[Lesser Chakra Sensitivity]: You have acquired a burgeoning talent in your ability to sense and manipulate chakra.

+20% to chakra-related skill effects

+10% increase to CP recovery rate

+10% increase to max CP

-10% CP cost to all chakra-related skills

I had received the [Lesser Chakra Sensitivity] perk when I reached 50 INT after deciding to pump in some of the free points I had available. My reasoning being that since I was going to enter the Shinobi Academy soon, I was going to need the boost to my general intelligence, reasoning skills and memory improvement in order to soak in as much knowledge as I could while I was there.

I was also able to raise my level up to 8 owing to the routine daily quests as well as my proactive approach in generating quests. I went out of my way to ask if people needed my help with something, setting goals and milestones for my training and generally exploring the village in search for 'side quests'. The quests created through this process were not anything special, but still provided me with a steady supply of EXP which I gratefully accepted.