Chapter 26:

Within a night, Ichigo completed the mission assigned to her by Nero. She destroyed all the ships and even the facility that built them before returning to Ichinose's side the next day as if she had nothing to do with it showing just how terrifying she had become.

Nero even felt like she deserved a higher rank than lvl 5, but since he hadn't developed any weapons or equipment above lvl five classification he wouldn't be able to properly reward her.

Although Nero seemed to have come up with the most basic structure which could could attributed to his reluctance to deal with a complex chain of command. He did however meticulously write down the special privileges, rights and requirements to rise in rank. As could be expected he also compiled a list of weapons, cybernetic enhancements and even special procedures to increase one's strength once they rise in level. He placed strict requirements for obtaining these however since he didn't have the resources to just give them away freely.

A prime example being Ichigo herself. As if right now she was like a high spec machine, it performed perfectly and as required but needed large pools of resources to maintain so was the case for Ichigo.

Nero had to do monthly physical check-ups on her to renew several of her artificial implants. That cost mana, time and even some rare specialized nanites he had built.

This further cemented Nero's desire to hasten his progress and find man-power. Something that was seemingly impossible a while back, but with his cybermind and micro-chip implants that were designed to feed information to the user things would quicken. He even scraped his entire brain for any information he had so much as come across back on earth while also relying on the systems knowledge to run countless theoretical experiments to speed up the progress of his work by decades and even centuries in some fields. Whether it be Computer related fields, Biology, Maths, Black smiting, building techniques, Geographical subjects and many other fields. Anything he didn't know would be filled in by his machines and run through countless experiments before the most optimal situations remained. From there Nero would find people and implant the knowledge into their minds before having them confirm the most suitable methods on their subject of study, using nanites that consumed mana to cover every little gap meant he couldn't actually use for more important things. Like say building a Dyson sphere, or even focusing all his energy into researching the special enzymes that could absorb nature energy.

Nero figured that he'd need people with malleable minds for this to work, so he figured people in their early teens to early twenties would work best.

As of now he had 380 microchips ready to be implanted, he had already tested the effect on Ichigo and found out it worked as it should. For this Nero figured he'd buy slaves, or simply wait for Soragakure to fall before employing the desperate refuges with promises of safety and food.

Nero knew for a fact that Soragakure would fall, the only reason he even agreed to 'help' was because he wanted to know the exact location of the zero tails, but he still found the entire situation in Soragakure annoying and time consuming. Sadly her could only move as freely as he wanted once Soragakure fell, but Nero didn't want to be unprepared for some battles against others who would try to rise in power during this time. Hence why he had already placed in a position of power in the underworld. He didn't manage to gain full reign like serpernt though since in the end the four lieutenants shared it amongst themselves.

That would soon change though. Nero didn't plan to take over as a ruler or some sort of leader though, he simply planned to plunder as many materials as he could and gather as much man-power as possible before relocating his entire operation to the sea. There he could slowly build his power and spread his influence while being hidden from any threats that could hinder his plans.

Now all he had to do was wait as everything fell into place, then he'd swoop like a hero and help everyone move past this tragic even. To the world he would be known as Ryū, the merciful and kind man who helped Soragakure rise to its feet after suffering a terrible defeat due to their former arrogance.

He knew that Ichinose wouldn't agree to this plan though, so he felt it was better to appear to be helping while also weakening Soragakure so that they wouldn't even have time to think of vengeance after their defeat which was inevitable. No matter how much Ichigo grew. She was still far too lacking to actually catch a ninja who was most likely sent on this mission because of his stealth capabilities. And Ichinose was also too trusting, Nero imagined that she was thinking along the lines that him ordering the destruction of her the port where they kept their ships was to help them somehow gain an advantage. It was truly surprising how people could reason that someone had good intentions even while they blatantly did the most heinous acts.

Nero estimated that only a week or two before Soragakure fell and then everything would follow soon after.

.....

As I said I'm changing the course from my original plot which was to have Nero save Soragakure and work with Ichinose to establish a popular flying island that specialized in trade while secretly being a powerful organization that could strike any village and fly away soon after.