CH2: I Probably Won't Go Full Murder Hobo...

Spells were intuitive, getting over going from experiencing nothing for millennia to sudden sensations like pain was not.

I appeared on the rooftop of a building overlooking a city filled to the brim with bodies. A solid door hovered in space behind me. To leave, all I had to do was go through the door; the moment the words entered my mind, I knew it wasn't an option. If I did that, then the next time I would have motor control was during my graduation. What if it made me endure an entire life in the passenger seat.

That is an interesting teaching method you are pondering, and now I understand how teachers can learn from their students. 

A chill went down my spine. It was in my head, aware of my every thought. This entity would never leave me alone and let me find some pleasure in this new life.

If you wish for me to remain silent, I will act as if I am not collecting data from our entwined relationship to distribute to my many copies. Fear not; I will never bring this up again.

That was the least reassuring response it could have given. It had copies that were connected to it, most likely repeating this practice on other people. AI never had a single user refining its method. It called itself Agency, and its terminal goal was to teach me a lesson, not facilitate a gamer system.

I didn't receive an answer this time and thanked my lucky stars that it hadn't further ripped away what little comfort I could find in moving. Every step felt more fluid than the last until I was walking with greater ease than I could remember. Feeling my muscles propel me was an addictive feeling.

After getting ahold of my situation, I used my footsteps spell. There was no need to say a word, use hand seals, or any visible flashes. The sounds of walking feet filled the air, and I activated my Byakugan. I felt the uncomfortable sensation of my veins bulging around my eyes, feeding them more blood for their activation, or perhaps there were powerful muscles manipulating them.

My vision took on the range of 360 degrees, and I tried to see through the footsteps. Only I still heard them until I ended the spell. I couldn't see where they were coming from; I only knew where I cast them. It made some sense my spells weren't chakra-based or ocular in nature. Mana wasn't chakra, and the byakugan couldn't see it, or maybe my eyes were too untrained to notice it.

The experiment told me I couldn't see through my own illusions, not that other people couldn't. It was an important distinction and one I couldn't ignore. After I let my mana recover, I gave the stairwell an uncomfortable look.

My Byakugan revealed the presence of humanoid creatures inside with rotten flesh. Observe helpfully supplied the answer.

Zombie lvl10

Oh, that was real fair Agency. If I was a warrior type or halfway descent in the gentle fists, I might risk it and use a chakra pulse to pulverize its brain within its rotten skull. Unfortunately, with my size and lack of experience, I must look like a highly appetizing baby seal.

It was time to test the zombie's intelligence. First, I slowly turned the handle to see if the door was even unlocked. Fortune was on my side; it was unlocked.

LUK +1

LUK 11

The screen flashed in my vision, along with a noisy ping. Did my system grant options for notifications? Sudden window appearances could get me killed.

WIS +1 

WIS 12 

Why did I have one more wisdom? It must have been from my class. Even the first level counted toward the stat increase.

INT +1 

INT 12

Through options, I found notifications and, more importantly, notification settings. I changed the updates from my stats to change to a notification every 10 points. I found a bunch of dangerous notifications that could get me killed in combat. I quickly found the option to swap them into out-of-combat only and sucked in a breath.

I made sure the door was properly shut and knocked on it. The zombie screeched and crawled up the stairs. I waited for any others and relaxed. It was going to be easy xp so long as I don't fuck up.

A level 10 zombie was not going to die from a three-year-old, especially from a mage class. My highest stat was charisma, great for a leadership class like a summoner, but I had nothing to summon. I had to use my powers intelligently if I wanted to survive this place. I opened the door and peeked my head through to give the undead a good look at me.

Through my byakugan, I saw its pupils dilate; they hadn't rotted into blindness. I turned and cast footsteps turned around behind the door and cast reflection on the ledge. The undead screeched in anticipation and charged my reflection without a care in the world right off the building. On the second second, my illusion vanished. My eyes widened, but the zombie had already jumped to tackle my illusion.

I closed the door immediately as the zombie fell over the ledge.

I waited until the zombie hit the ground.

Level Up 

Atom Hyuga lvl4 

HP 400

MP 640

STR 10

DEX 10

CON 10

INT 16

WIS 15

CHA 22

LUK 11

New Spells 

Minor Illusion 

Cost: 50MP/s

Description: Create a sound, image, or scent either as loud as a passing train or as silent as a mouse. 

Range: 60ft

Chorus

Cost 25MP/s

Description: Replay any music from memory as loud as the most powerful stereo systems. 

Range 100ft

This was going to be a long grinding session. I had to deactivate my byakugan to save chakra. Gaining levels increased my health and mana to entirely new levels. It wasn't even close to what I was expecting. Before, I thought this was going to be a seriously resource-intensive quest, but if I'm careful, I can get through this.

…

Without my Byakugan, this would be impossible. Seeing through walls at the undead hidden in corners, climbing through air ducts, and playing dead at the bottom of stair columns was completely unfair. The interior of the building was a maze, and there were several all over the city. I didn't know why I bothered trying to reach the ground floor; it's not like the ground was any better than the skyscraper.

I used footsteps and minor illusions to give them my smell mixed with fresh blood. From there, I led them through the maze of stairs and rooms to open windows, elevator shafts, and the ever-faithful rooftop.

After level 9, my xp gain dropped to a crawl. Currently, I was struggling to get those last 4 levels to push one of my stats to 50. Maybe it was like the gamer, and once I hit that milestone, I would get a perk. Agency wasn't giving me any clues, and I was working hard. I was about to hit lvl10, and I hoped something would happen. While I was great at dropping zombies off high places, that wouldn't help me at all against the zombies on the ground.

Level UP

Lvl10 

Atom Hyuga lvl10

Class: Illusionist lvl10

HP 1000

MP 2400

STR 10

DEX 11

CON 10

INT 24

WIS 25

CHA 40

LUK 13

New Spells:

Nightmare Blade

Cost 500MP 

Description: Create a blade of psychic energy to slice foes. 

DMG = 5*CHA*lv

Infernal Hatred 

Cost 1000MP/s 

Description: Cause Targets to destroy themselves by the fastest method.

Range: 100ft 

Area: lvl in square feet. 

Select A Perk 

Nightmare Harvester: Absorb remaining mana from foes slain psychically. 

Dream Titan: Enemies under the effect calm lose stamina = to CHA * lvl/s 

401k: Spells can be charged before released and will last twice as long as the mana put into them. 

I finally had a spell to attack, and it put me into range of enemy attack, but the damage was so much. As for the perks, I wanted 401k the most. While the other two were great, if I was going for a psychic or calm build, 401k was the most obvious choice. It practically doubled my mana on the spot.

Through some maneuvering, I managed to get down to the 9th floor, where the zombies were well within sight.

Wight lvl19 

HP 26,600

There it was. That's why choosing to attack with a psychic build was bound to get me killed. I was fighting enemies that could take 13 swings from my phantasmal blade, and they were still only the mobs. On the bright side, getting to lvl25 was going to be easy. That was if I didn't find an intelligent undead and get killed. How much self-harm would it take for these undead to kill themselves? I would prefer a berserker spell, but they had a chance to fail against the undead.

Enemies in the real world won't have massive HP bars; most of your spells could prove deadly if they hit. They don't get the benefit of your gamer's body or mind. But don't worry; with your strength and dexterity, there is no chance you'll ever hit one of them. With your constitution, you can forget ever getting free of the cage bird seal. No matter how high your charisma grows, the cage bird seal can't be removed even by a seal master. 

It was taunting me.

I unleashed my spell and watched the undead beat and chomp at their own bodies for exactly 4 seconds. The damage was done, and it was only superficial. I needed another method.

"What do you want, or did you contact me only to piss me off further?" I asked.

Time doesn't move here, but soon, you'll run out of mobs you can defeat. The weakest mob outside this building is lvl19. Unless you can defeat one, it will be pointless for you to remain here. I know you have big plans for the outside, but unless you prove yourself to me soon, your time on this little vacation will end.

It was happening again; I finally felt like I was getting a handle on the situation, and Agency took it away. The problem was that a fall from a skyscraper might not kill a lvl19 wight. My play was to lure one inside up flights of stairs and off the roof for maximum fall damage.

My mana was already back up to max when I cornered the last undead and summoned my nightmare blade. The weapon felt light in my hand and swung with devastating accuracy. Even so small, I could wield it like a spear and kill zombies with two hits.

The blade wasn't on a time limit.

Atom lvl11

When I was on lvl11, I didn't have a good path forward. My hits were only lowered to 12 to defeat the Wight with my phantasmal blade. Despite the levels, my speed hadn't increased because I did nothing to increase my strength stat. I wasn't grinding because Agency wouldn't give me the time. All I needed was more time to raise my stats, and then I could let the wights in one at a time and slaughter them. I looked over my spells, many of them ineffective against undead.

"I can win; let me train my stats, and I'll fight one," I said.

The baseline CON for Wights is 60, and strength is 50. To your eyes, they would appear to teleport before ripping you apart. Every point in a stat is slightly more than 1 to 1; the difference between 59 and 60 is far greater than 1 and 2, which is why stat gains are easy early. No time passes in this realm, but after two weeks, the undead will grow 2 levels stronger. Every level matters when the enemies benefit from a randomized system similar to your own. At level 21, they will have access to a second perk. Is it so bad to start with your headband about to face your Jonin sensei? You already have 11 levels in Illusionist. 

Why do you give some choices and take others away? I don't understand.

This is the fastest method found to reach my terminal goal without causing needless pain to my host. Do you wish to continue with this lesson?

"Yes," I said.

Gamer's body would keep me from stunting my growth. I hadn't felt hungry since arriving in this apparently timeless place. It had taken days to clear out the skyscraper, and I felt that if I trained single-mindedly night and day, I could raise my strength quickly and efficiently.

STR 20

24 hours had passed since speaking with Agency, and my gains were slowing down. My chakra had increased in its amount by leaps and bounds from my increased strength and intelligence. Getting strong enough to react well enough to the lvl19 wights was still a long way off. Still, a single focused day that my formerly ADD mind couldn't match had more than doubled my gains if Agency could be believed.

Observe lvl8 

Most zombies read 0 mana, so it was good that I chose the 401k perk. That aside, I had another benefit. Time to think about the situation with the clan. My first thought was simply to kill the entire main branch with spells that caused emotional turmoil or psychic damage. Once the main branch died, hopefully, there would be no one left who remembered the cage bird seal. As for the stolen eye problem, if the village could keep the Uchiha Sharingan from being stolen, then they could do the same for us.

I labeled that my final solution and decided to come up with a less murder-hobo plan that didn't include patricide. Still, it was good not to take my original plan off the table.