Chapter 22: Spirit Roots

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any other references mentioned in this fanfic.

A/N: Hey everyone! I glad that you all liked the last chapter.

I'll answer a few questions before anything else.

Itachi and Tsunade are blacklisted because well Itachi did murder the entire Uchiha clan and Tsunade doesn't have the best track record in repaying debts.

Madam Ruby is a transvestite not gay, he even has a daughter.

Master Shu is Kenji's shinobi persona. It's when he is dressed as a fat kung-fu master with the fake beard.

More questions at the bottom.

Chapter 22

Kenji grunted in effort as he pushed his arm into the head of the large chakra beast, his fingers brushing against the protective tissue growing around the beast crystal.

"Ahh, almost got it. Aha!" he proclaimed triumphantly as he managed to get a firm grip and yank it out, splashing his clothes with drops of blood and brain matter.

His small tofu-I mean shikigami were scurrying around dismantling the rest of the stone rhino into usable parts.

One of them came to him with a water bottle and a towel in its fingerless hands.

Kenji rinsed the pentagonal purple crystal and dried it before holding it up to the sky. If he focused hard enough using ninshu, he could sense the echoes of the fallen beast still inside the crystal. It would disappear in a day or two however so there was no need to worry.

"With this I should have enough to begin testing my new idea," the blindfolded merchant thought as he gained a sly smile.

However he was brought out of his planning when he noticed a commotion behind him. He turned to see one of his paper dolls being engulfed by what seemed to be some green smile. Its teammates were beating the slime with anything they had in their hands, shoves, picks, axes, saws, hammers even a chisel.

The slime like creature however didn't look affected in the slightest, the shikigami inside of it stopped its struggling and transformed back into a slip of paper.

Kenji choose to intervene before it destroyed more of his workers. He crossed the distance and thrust a palm coated in chakra into its nucleus, causing it to burst.

He shook his hand to get rid of the goo before stopping and gaining a curious look, "Hmm… maybe? Oi someone collect all of this goo."

Looking toward the corpse of the large chakra beast, Kenji pried open the stomach even further to see if anymore more were hiding inside.

Slimes were actually plants-based chakra beasts, a result of chakra dust being introduced to algae. They had a transparent green semi-liquid body with a soft sac acting as the core. They were ranked as a level 0 chakra beast on account of there low combat level and their weak bodies. They were extremely weak to changes in temperature and any chakra-based attacks. Civilian could literally kill them with a cup of boiling water if they wanted. Because of this, they shared a symbiotic relationship with other bigger chakra beast in order to survive. Still if left alone they could cause a huge unbalance to the agriculture of the country.

Kenji spotted two more of those slimes hiding inside of the rhino and quickly disposed of them, but not before collecting the goo, also known as slime jelly.

For the next couple of hours, he worked carefully, to make sure that nothing went to waste.

"Looks like I'll be able to make so good armor out of those stone plates, and a decent weapon out of the horn," he muttered to himself before shaking his head, "lets leave that for later, at least until I finish my current project."

He returned to his shop and continued to man the third floor until it was closing time.

At exactly 9 PM the gates to his home would not allow anymore customers to enter his territory while those still shopping would receive a warning that they would be closing.

Kenji bid his workers farewell as they also went home.

"Now then, time for some crafting," the small boy declared as he headed for the staircase, only this time a hidden stairway opened up leading to a lower floor.

He descended into his workshop below the shop, a place that had all manner of tools and equipment scattered all over the place.

There were tables with half-finished sketches, numerous weapon and armor prototypes hung from the ceiling from metal chains.

On one side of the room was a large furnace with an anvil and hammer giving off an orange glow. While the other had a built-in wooden drawers filled with alchemy ingredients as well as his personal pill furnace.

He walked towards a stone table that was cleared of any materials and took out a brush and some ink and proceeded to draw a cultivation formula on it.

"Looks good, now for the next part?" he said as he went to a drawer and took out 9 large power stones and the beast crystal he had gotten from the stone rhino.

He placed the 9 stones around the large diagram spaced evenly apart and watched as the formula glowed a dark purple color as the chakra contained inside of the stones fueled it.

"Okay. Now for the hard part," he muttered as he walked to his wood working corner and retrieved a cart of wooden mannequin parts.

Wood Mannequin Head +5

Quality: Ordinary

Defense: 30

+100

Chakra Points Needed to Upgrade: 1

He assembled the full-sized doll in seconds and placed it gently on the table, above the glowing formula.

"This would be a lot easier if I had an idea how Sasori was able to transform himself into a damn puppet," he complained and he used a drill to make a hole on the dummy's chest large enough to fit the beast crystal, "Maybe then I wouldn't have to result in all of this guess work."

He took the beast crystal and noticed how it had begun to lose it's purple hue, "Tch. It appears that the soul was weaker than I thought. It should still have enough juice before it crosses over though?"

Carefully he poured a mixture of epoxy and chakra sensitive liquids inside of the dummy before placing the chakra beast crystal inside and covering the hole with some duct tape.

This was as far as he had gotten in his research to make a living doll.

Mechanical. All-purpose. Intelligent. Doll.

M.A.I.D. for short was his secret project to create the perfect employee. They would be able to work 24/7 without stop, since they didn't need to eat or sleep. Be able to attend customers with a friendly and patient attitude. Protect themselves and the shop should it ever be under attack. And best or all he wouldn't have to pay them.

He took off his bandages and focused his eyes on the doll in front of him. His golden slit eyes narrowed as they noticed the chakra from the cultivation diagram begin to penetrate the beast crystal.

"The duct tape is holding surprisingly well this time. Perhaps I should upgrade it even further?"

His eyes noticed the nature chakra in the air was now being sucked into the doll.

Twitch.

Kenji face lit up at the small finger spasm. He didn't get his hopes up yet however.

The leg jerked out next, and the small boy had to suppress a squeal of joy.

Next the mannequin's face turned to face him, the lovely feminine face that he carved on it almost looked curious despite it being set in a firm expression.

It reached out a hand towards him but that was all it had the chance to do before it's chest bulged out ready to explode.

Kenji took out his shield umbrella and opened it in front of him.

Red Umbrella Shield +13

Quality: High-Human

Defense: 10

+1520

10+: 25% of chakra attacks get stored to create a powerful force field around the user. Amount of chakra stored is equal to its Defense rating.

12+: 4% chance to reflect jutsu back at the caster.

Chakra Points Needed to Upgrade: 1150

The doll exploded into, showering his workshop into a thousand splinters.

"Sigh. As I thought, there is still something that's missing," he muttered to himself as he looked around the room. The beast crystal had been thrown across the room, now a dark brown color as the remnants of the soul had been used up. The power stones had also shattered into tiny shards that littered the ground.

The small boy took out four shikigami talismans and threw them on the ground. They transformed into familiar tofu looking dolls, their little legs making a *poing* sound every time they took a step.

"Clean this place up. Separate the power stone shards, I can still use them for pills so make sure not to miss any," he ordered them.

They all saluted and ran for the metal locker that had cleaning supplies.

"Hughh! If only you guess could do basic math, I wouldn't have to go through all of this trouble," the small merchant lamented at their lack of intelligence.

"I suppose I can take a bath, Akame won't be back for a couple more days," he said as he untied his pony tail and let his waist length brown hair hang loosely.

Currently his shadow clone disguised as Master Shu was out off the village doing their first ever C-rank mission. Akame had chosen to tagalong just to serve as back up.

He mentally focused on his reserves.

Chakra: Chunin

Chakra Points: 5,203/5,400

Soul Point: 99

He was close to completing 100 soul points like he had promised Kaguya, but he wanted to wait for Akame to get home just in case it turned out to be something bad.

Kenji couldn't help but wonder what his friend was doing at the moment.

(Scene change)

Spears of hardened darkness erupted from the ground, turning the unlucky bandit in charge of guarding the cage with the hostages into a walking pincushion.

From the shadows emerged a white rabbit with glowing red eyes and a black crescent shaped moon on her head. She was wearing what looked to be white armor with two horns on it.

Her big eyes looked toward the people inside, which was made up of women and young children.

They looked scared but also hopeful at her appearance.

Akame tapped on the ground twice signally for the attack to start.

From the depth of the forest came a volley of arrows that rained down on the bandit camp. Each of the arrows traveled silently and with expert precision as they killed their targets instantly, drilling through armor, muscle, and bone almost effortlessly.

Then a gigantic rolling ball crashed into the middle of the camp, crushing tents and people alike.

The bandits were now aware of an attack but that didn't save them as two whirlwinds began to attack them, gouging out pieces of earth and flesh out of anything that it touched.

The bandit leader rushed out of his tent with a kunai in one hand watching as his camp was thrown in chaos.

He brought up his kunai to block an arrow aimed at his throat but was surprised as the force behind it caused him to skid back.

"What the hell," he screamed angrily, before he was assaulted with a flurry of arrows aimed at him.

He began to weave hand seals to make a fireball and burn them to cinders but he never got the chance to finish as an arrow pierced the back of his head, killing him instantly.

The entire battle had only last about two minutes, and once it was over three people walked to the center of the camp.

Kenji, or rather Master Shu, stroked his fake kung-fu beard and grinned at his teammates, his Bow of Artemis in his hand, "Looks like this mission is a success?"

An Akimichi girl scowled as she dusted her clothes, "Whatever. Come on let's hurry back to the village. I need to take a bath, I hate rolling around on the dirt."

An Inuzuka clansmen rolled his eyes, while his canine partner sat obediently at his side.

"Sure, we just need to return the captives to the closest village, and we can go back home," Kenji told them.

Kenji stripped the corpses of any useful items and raided the camp for equipment and treasure. He was slightly disappointed to find they only had a total of 4,000 ryo but the rare plants in the store house was more than enough to lighten his mood.

The civilians would need to be escorted back to their home but after that, the mission was official completed and they could all go back to the Leaf.

(Scene change)

Kenji was working on the third floor again when he received an influx of new memories.

Akame appeared only seconds latter coming out of a shadow.

She hoped on the counter wearing her shrine priestess outfit and presented him a storage ring.

"Did you enjoy yourself?" he asked with a smile as he took the ring and scratched her chin.

'Hmph. They were weak. I need a stronger challenge,' came her arrogant respond through their mental connection.

"Hmm… you've been getting a big head lately. Better be careful, Lin-Lin and Drago have been training extra hard to catch up to you."

'The mutt and the lizard. As if.'

Kenji got a teasing smile as he pinched her sides, "I don't know, you might want to cut back on those carrots and start training some more. You're getting kind of oof-"

The small merchant didn't even get to finish as an indignant Akame headbutted him before scratching his face.

"You take that back! I am not fat!" she shouted using her real voice that sounded like it belonged to a high-pitched prepubescent girl.

"Hahaha!" Kenji laughed as he held her by the scuff of her neck. "Right. I'm sorry. I'm glad your back safe."

"Hmph," she said crossing her arms and looking away.

"Here I made you some carrot cake," the small boy said as he waved his hand and slice of cake appeared on the counter, causing Akame's nose and ears to twitch.

"I'll forgive you, but only this once," she said with a glare.

"Whatever you say, your majesty," he said sarcastically as he placed her back on the counter.

She didn't say anything more as she began to stuff her face with the delicious treat.

When she finally came back for air, she looked around the room curiously before looking at her partner, "Where are the others?"

Kenji looked up from his woodwork, "Drago is currently guarding the fourth flour, while Lin-Lin is guarding the storage house. Dewdrop is still in her cacoon, she's close to reaching level 2. Stumpy is hiding somewhere underground and Silvy is in the pound out front."

Akame wiped the frosting off her face, "Hmph. The nerve of them to not greet their elder sister when she returns. I should beat some manners into them later for not showing me enough face."

"Showing face? Why are you talking like that? Have you been reading my novels again," Kenji said with a frown, "You know how you get afterwards."

"I don't know what you are talking about," she said looking away, "I'm just saying as the eldest of your partners they should look up to me and show me the proper respect."

"Right. I'm not getting into this discussion again," the small boy said giving up this conversation before it was too late.

Akame however didn't feel like letting it go as she went on, "Why not? Haven't I been there for you. Don't I deserve some recognition!"

Sigh. "What do you want?"

"…can I make a sect-"

"No."

Akame began to through a tantum on the counter hoping up and down, "But I want one! I want it! I want it! I want it!"

Kenji rolled his eyes behind his bandages, "I already told you that I can't allow you to make any more chakra beasts. I allowed your friends to stay here but that is it. I don't think I can handle anymore superpowered rabbits at this time."

"Whyyy? I'll take care of them I promise. You won't have to do anything," she whined.

"First of all, you aren't responsible enough. Second of all if I allow it then the others will want one to. So no," the brunet said firmly.

"Please," the small bunny pleaded trying to make her eyes look bigger.

"You do remember that I can't see you right," Kenji said as he waved his hand over his covered eyes. He could only see things in echolocation so he couldn't see what type of expression she had, but he could feel her emotions as a hint. "Fine. Let's see… bring me back 4 Level 2 chakra beast crystal and you can have your sect."

"Yes!" she cheered as she did a back flip and stood up right placing one of her paws in a guts pose. "I'll get to it right now."

She disappeared into her own shadow as if it were a pool of water.

Kenji sighed, "That should keep her busy for a few weeks at least."

He put away his woodworking tools and took out a black and silver cauldron the size of a large pot.

Alchemy Cauldron +16

Quality: High-human

Defense: 700

+1200

+Temperature control seals

10: Can make Elixirs from any type of materials.

12: 5% of discovering a new recipe.

14: Can give insight into different ingredients.

16: Elixirs made are 500% stronger.

Chakra Points Needed to Upgrade: 3,000

He added 4 cups of water that he had purified with his fermentation tank. Then he added some green slime jelly and some crushed power stone shards.

He activated the cauldron and let the insides heat up, coming to a boil in only a fraction of the time. The slime and the shards had dissolved into the water turning it a turquoise color.

Next, he lowered the heat and added a bright blue flower, a red mushroom, and some fire ginseng into the mixture. They dissolved almost instantly causing purple fumes to appear. Next he added the horn of a spiked chameleon that was known for its ability to absorb certain materials.

For the last ingredient he took out a knife and peeled off a thin layer from his skin, using medical ninjutsu to numb the area just before he did it so he wouldn't feel the pain.

He dropped the bloody piece inside and watched as the mixture turned red.

Kenji let the mixture alone as he partially healed his wound, leaving only a red scar.

In 10 minutes, the elixir was finished and he took it out of the cauldron and into glass vials.

Epidermis Potion

Quality: Mid-human

+ Coves the area affected in a layer of realistic looking skin.

Chakra Points Needed to Upgrade: N/A

The potion was a pale peach color with the consistence of yogurt.

He tilted the vial on his scar and watched as a few drops touched his skin. The liquid had smoothed itself out and turned into the same shade and texture as the rest of his skin.

When he touched it, he noticed that it felt warm like real skin. There was nothing to give away that it was fake.

"Hmm? This is a good start. The formula needs more work but if it works, I can sell the elixir to the hospital and the shinobi corps. The hospital can use it to perform skin grafts and shinobi could use it to make a realistic looking disguise without having to rely on the transformation technique."

Of course, there was also the cosmetic option but that would require more human testing.

(Scene change)

It was night time, and the grounds were closed off to any more visitors.

Kenji was sitting outside with Akame, Lin-Lin, Drago, Silvy, Stumpy, and Dewdrop's cocoon.

He looked at Akame, the leader of this pack, "Remember to stop me if anything weird starts happening."

'Yeah. Yeah. Get on with it.'

Going into a lotus meditative stance he closed his mind and went through the process of purifying his chakra.

At this point he was fairly used to the process of condensing his chakra, to the point where he didn't even feel bothered by the excess heat.

The chakra turned into a golden drop which flowed into his reserves.

He had been nervous to attempt this for some time as he felt that amount of purified chakra in him was getting too much to handle for his body.

He observed the golden chakra liquid with batted breath waiting for any type of reaction.

He didn't have to wait long however as a sharp pain sprouted in his stomach.

The golden liquid began to move sporadically almost as if it were alive, and it took every amount of mental discipline for Kenji to not break concentration.

It took several minutes for it to settle down but once it did it had condensed into a single golden ball.

Just as he thought that the worst was over a root like tendril began to grow outward from the surface of the golden ball. It was followed by more and more roots that began to grow longer in length.

These roots seemed to ignore any physical obstacle as they passed through the walls of his stomach.

That wasn't to say that it was painless though as Kenji began to scream when he felt them drill their way into his bones and muscle tissue.

He could feel Akane try to help but there was nothing she could do as the roots penetrated every square inch of his body forming a network of golden lines. He noticed some of them merge into his cardiovascular system.

His chakra system also seemed to be partial connected at certain points but not completely.

Kenji felt a burning sensation on his skin, and it took him a second to realize he was on fire.

No that wasn't correct.

His body was engulfed in phantom flames.

Somewhere in the back of his mind he felt new information grow.

Chakra: Chunin

Chakra Points: 5,203/5,400

Cultivation: First Stage

Soul Points: 0

That was the last thing he remembered before his mind couldn't take it anymore and he passed out.

(Scene change)

Kaguya had been keeping a close eye on Kenji, just like she always did when he was doing something interesting, when she felt it.

She was unsure of what was happing, when he suddenly started screaming out in pain.

She would admit that she had panicked for a fraction of a second before she noticed a strange phenomenon occurring inside of him.

Using the limited amount of godly power in her, she noticed as his soul grew stronger as it fed on the golden chakra liquid. The connection between his soul and his mortal body grew stronger with the addition of those strange root-like structures.

This entire scene reminded her of something she had read in one of those martial arts novels that her General was so fond of writing, the establishing of a cultivator's base.

Her follower was always the first to dismiss anything that related to cultivation since to him it was just something that he had created to make some money.

She however new different, she had witnessed his power on many occasions and seen what it could do. His power wasn't something simple like granting objects powers like she had originally thought. No, it was the bending of reality.

The chakra beasts, the artifacts, the strange pill that carried magical properties had all been created from his thoughts and ideas. It was similar to her ability to create different dimensions and erase things from existent. The only difference was that Kenji had no control or knowledge of his power.

His body gave off a new type of energy in the form of invisible flames as a byproduct of his soul interacting with the nature chakra in the air.

Kaguya metaphorically reached out a hand and took some of this mysterious power for herself.

Qi, she subconsciously named it, was different from the chakra she had come to know. It felt foreign to her touch almost as if it contained the essence of the person that it belonged to.

She absorbed it into herself and noticed the seal placed on her lose some of their strength for a fraction of a second

"This… could this be what I have been waiting for? With this new energy I might be able to break the seals placed on me," she pondered as she went back to looking at Kenji who had collapsed on the ground with his pets surrounding him in worry.

Her gaze switched to the other test subjects that she had selected to receive a cultivation formula. Out of the thousand she had chosen only a handful had managed survive the initial stages of cultivating. Out of those few, only some showed any talent. The red-haired girl with the panda currently held the most promise, but even she paled in comparison to Kenji.

"I had better choose an appropriate gift, since he did complete his side of the bargain. Now the only question is what to give him. Hmmm?"

A/N: Done.

This chapter is shorter than usual since I'm down with a cold currently.

Someone asked why shinobi don't automatically have a higher at Kenji's shop. The answer is because Kenji wanted to give power to the nobles and civilians by making everyone equal where only money counted.

Now as I was saying the slimes, are actually single celled organisms that absorbed some chakra dust, like amoebas.

Dewdrop is the butterfly, but she is going through an evolution into a Level 2 chakra beast.

Kenji finally gained some spirit roots! Yay! He will now be able to cultivate his soul and stuff.

Qi is going to be the power of one's soul, think of it working similar to aura from RWBY if you don't now much about cultivation novels. I'll get more into in the next chapter so don't feel to put out.

By the way I recommend reading a 'Tales of Demons and Gods' it a graphic novel that deals with cultivation. It's also very funny.

Well until next time. I going to take some medicine and sleep. Bye-bye.