The heat inside the adamantine dome was stifling.
My lungs screamed for oxygen as the continuous onslaught of fire, wind, and lightning slamming against the sphere vibrated right through the metal and directly into my bones.
Don't break! Don't break! I chanted internally, my vision blurring at the edges as sweat instantly evaporated off my skin.
Through the microscopic gaps in the overlapping chains, I could see the terrifying volume of energy pressing in on me. The purple-and-black metal of the [Omnidirectional Weave] was glowing a blinding, translucent white.
CRACK.
My eyes snapped towards the sharp sound of a micro-fracture forming in the chain directly above my head. The raw force of the concentrated wind blades was finally starting to compromise the structural integrity.
I immediately pushed my stamina past my rapidly draining chakra reserves. I forced the metal to become denser, visualizing the Uzumaki runes compressing until the micro-fracture sealed shut with a harsh hiss.
I held it. For what felt like an eternity of pure torture, but I held the dome together.
BEEEEEEP.
A sharp, piercing alarm suddenly echoed through the chamber, cutting through the chaos.
Ah, what is it this time?! I thought, looking around for any other incoming obstacle.
But instead, the streams of fire vanished. The howling wind died down. And the crackling lightning ceased to exist.
The intricately carved nozzles slid silently back into the stone walls, and the room was plunged into total, suffocating silence.
I didn't even have the strength to dismiss the technique properly. My concentration shattered, and the glowing, white-hot chains instantly lost their shape, retracting back into my arms. My legs finally gave out, and I collapsed onto the smooth stone floor, gasping for air as the residual heat of the room slowly vented away.
A blinding flash of golden light consumed the chamber, completely washing away the gray stone.
When my vision cleared, the cool, dim light of the archive room greeted me. I rolled onto my back, staring up at the ancient stone ceiling as a wave of euphoric level-up energy washed over my battered body. The searing burns on my arms rapidly closed up, and the heavy exhaustion weighing down my muscles evaporated.
[TRIAL 3 OBJECTIVE CLEARED: 3 HOURS SURVIVED.]
[TRIAL 3 CLEARED: ADAMANTINE HARDENING]:
[SKILL MASTERY UNLOCKED: INDESTRUCTIBLE DURABILITY]
[REWARDS: +40 CON, +100,000 XP, +300,000 RYO]
[LEVEL UP!]
[NEW LEVEL: 217]
[FULL RECOVERY ACTIVATED]
[RYO BALANCE: 32,852,650 → 33,152,650 RYO]
I let out a long, shuddering breath, a tired grin spreading across my face.
We take those, I thought, clenching my fist. The density I felt in my muscles now was even more absurd. I felt like I could face-tank a direct hit from a Tailed Beast Bomb and walk away with a mild concussion.
I pulled myself up off the floor, feeling out my shoulders. The euphoria of the level-up was great, but there was a lingering, nagging thought in the back of my mind.
"System," I called out aloud, my voice echoing in the empty archive room. "How long did that take? Not just the three hours I spent in the chamber, but the overall time since I started Trial 3."
[TIME ELAPSED FOR TRIAL 3: 3 DAYS, 2 HOURS.]
[TOTAL TIME SPENT IN UZUMAKI CATACOMBS: 14 DAYS.]
Damn, fourteen days have already passed, huh? I mused. That's pretty insane, but three days going by in that trial that was only supposed to last three hours is pretty ridiculous.
I stared at the screen and held a hand to my chin. "System, why is time going by so quickly in the real world when it only feels like I'm in the trial space for a few hours at a time?" I asked. "Shouldn't it work like how the time dilation in the Dungeon Gates function? Some Gates' time dilation operates at a decreased pace too, but they don't let days go by as opposed to hours. Why is it so different?"
[ANSWER: The space-time seal properties sustaining these chambers were developed at a time when chakra was conceptually used differently (Ninshu), which results in them steadily degrading. Making the flow of time within the trial spaces operate at a drastically reduced rate compared to the outside world.
Your physical body remains synchronized with the current timeline of the present world, so time passes rapidly outside while you are engaged within the trials. While the trials are synchronized with the world of the past timeline.]
Ah, so that's why, I thought. They're similar in function, but this place is just old as shit. I think this is something I'll have to look into at another time.
I checked my internal clock. With another seven days completely gone, I have less than two weeks left until the Chunin Exam Finals, I mused. There's no telling how many days the last two Clan Trials will consist of or what they'll even have me dealing with. I could easily find myself missing key details of the invasion. Even if I leave a [Shadow Clone] in my place back in the village, what if something critical happens—like Gaara snapping early, or Orochimaru launching a preemptive strike—while my real body is locked away in a time-distorted space?
I shook my head. I'll have to put a hold on Trials 4 and 5 for now, I thought. I'm not in a desperate rush to get them completed, anyways. I can always come back and finish them when there isn't an impending war looming over my head. Right now, I need to focus on gains that wouldn't rob me of my time. Such as—
And right on cue, a familiar, foreign set of memories flooded into my brain.
I closed my eyes to properly process the sudden influx of memories. It was like days' worth of intense dungeon-diving data had been downloaded directly into my brain all at once.
Alright, I began, let's see what you've been up to...
The first memory was of the [C-Rank Gate]. The clone and my Soldiers had stepped into a glowing, overgrown grotto. They had to fight through a swarm of aggressive, water-manipulating Naiads, but ultimately secured the [Purified Spirit Spring Water] with minimal casualties.
The next set of memories shifted to the [B-Rank Gate]. The environment was a suffocating, pitch-black forest. I watched through the clone's eyes as Rango and the Giant Red Tiger tore through packs of Blight-Wolves to clear a path to the boss—a massive, rotting Elder Treant. A well-placed volley of explosive tags and fire jutsu burned the beast to the ground, allowing the clone to carve out the [Heartwood of an Elder Treant].
Two for two. Nice, nice, I smirked.
But then the memories shifted to the final objective: the A-Rank Gate.
Riding high on the fairly simple victories of the first two gates, my clone had gotten cocky. He assumed that the [A-Rank Gate] would only pose a slight step up in difficulty, and had confidently entered the remaining gate without a concrete plan other than to grab the objective.
The memory sharpened, projecting the A-Rank environment clearly into my mind.
It was a massive courtyard suspended high in the sky. Broken stone pillars littered the floating platform, and the edges dropped off into an endless sea of clouds.
And resting in the center of the courtyard was the target.
It was a colossal statue of a Gargoyle, easily standing fifty feet tall. Its body looked like it was carved from a hyper-dense mixture of granite and metal.
As the clone and the Soldiers approached, the statue's eyes suddenly ignited with a piercing, blinding blue light. The Gargoyle broke out of its "frozen state" with a terrifying, ear-splitting screech. Its massive stone wings snapped open, generating a gale-force gust of wind that blew several of my Infantry Goblins right off the floating courtyard.
The clone immediately engaged, but it was a one-sided slaughter.
I watched the memory in awe as the clone's chakra-enhanced kunai literally bounced off the Gargoyle's metallic-granite skin, sparking harmlessly. Realizing physical attacks were useless, the clone leaped back and unleashed a massive [Fireball Jutsu].
The Gargoyle didn't even try to dodge. It simply curled its wings around its body like a shield. The stone skin actually absorbed the flames, glowing with intense thermal energy before the beast snapped its wings open, violently releasing the absorbed fire mixed with razor-sharp wind blasts right back at the clone.
What the hell?! It has a repulsive barrier for skin?! I thought, watching the clone desperately dodge the counter-attack.
But the Gargoyle wasn't done. The beast glowed with another intense energy. It crouched low, the ground beneath its claws cracking, before it launched itself thousands of feet straight up into the sky. It curled into a tight, glowing ball of kinetic energy at the apex of its ascent.
And then, it dropped.
It came crashing down like a literal meteor. The impact was apocalyptic. The shockwave of pure kinetic energy and heat shattered the courtyard, instantly atomizing the clone and the vast majority of the Shadow Soldiers caught in the blast radius.
That was where the memory ended abruptly.
I let out a low whistle, opening my eyes in the quiet archive room.
Yea, that's gonna be a bitch to deal with, I mused.
Suddenly, a connection flared to life in my mind via the [Shadow Link]. A steady stream of visual feedback poured into me from Rango's perspective.
"Rango! You survived that?!" I communicated, genuinely surprised.
Through the link, Rango projected a visual. He had used his elite [Stealth] capabilities to slip behind a massive chunk of rubble at the very edge of the courtyard right before the meteor hit, managing to escape the lethal blast radius along with two severely damaged Ice Warriors.
Through Rango's memory transmission, I was able to see a critical flaw he had observed in the Gargoyle's defenses.
Speaking of which, the beast was currently pulling itself out of the massive crater it had created, but it looked drastically different. The high-energy meteor attack had forced it to completely expend its outer layer of armor. The impenetrable shell had crumbled off, exposing areas of vulnerability—which all coalesced into a glowing blue chakra core pulsating in the center of its chest.
Through Rango's shared senses, I could feel the ambient chakra shifting. It was attempting to reform its shell, pulling the stone back together, but the process was slow. I estimated it would take approximately two minutes for the armor to fully regenerate.
Ablative armor, I thought as things started to click in place. The more energy it outputs, the more layers of armor it strips off. The meteor dive is most likely its strongest attack, but it leaves it completely vulnerable while the stone reforms.
I stood up, and brought out my [Ivory Shortsword].
I can't waste this opportunity, I thought. I have the exact intel needed to dismantle it, and Rango and the other two Soldiers are perfectly positioned around the area.
I stretched out my limbs. Time to rock, I thought, locking onto one of the Ice Warriors.
[SKILL ACTIVATED: Shadow Exchange]
A split-second later, the freezing, high-altitude winds of the [A-Rank Gate] slapped me across the face. My feet hit the cracked, floating stone of the courtyard. I immediately dropped into a low crouch, taking in the apocalyptic state of the battlefield.
The floating platform was massive, but it was completely devastated. Craters littered the stone, and massive pillars were snapped like twigs. Hovering directly above the central crater was the beast itself.
[BOSS DETECTED: Abyssal Gargoyle (A-Rank) - Lv. 10]
It was desperately trying to patch the massive, gaping holes in its armor. Jagged rocks were slowly levitating from the ground, fusing back onto its exposed, glowing blue core.
Nah, it's time to put a stop to that, I thought, whipping out a kunai attached with explosive tags straight at its chest.
BOOM!
The explosion wasn't massive, but it was just enough to shatter the newly formed layer of rock over its chest. The Gargoyle let out an ear-splitting, metallic screech, its glowing blue eyes locking instantly onto me.
"Yeah, I'm over here, ugly!" I shouted.
The beast's massive wings snapped open, and it launched itself into the sky.
[SKILL ACTIVATED: Multi-Shadow Clone Jutsu]
Dozens of my clones appeared in a massive cloud of smoke. Without missing a beat, I extended my right arm out. "COME FORTH!" I commanded. My Soldiers immediately deployed from my expanding shadow, stepping out of the smoke. "All of you, spread out!"
My clones scattered into different positions.
"Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu!"
"Wind Style: Vacuum Wave!"
A barrage of sweeping wind blades and massive fireballs peppered the airborne Gargoyle. The beast screeched, instinctively trying to absorb the ninjutsu with its wings, but its armor was too fractured. The attacks chipped away at its wings, completely distracting it.
I didn't waste a single second. I surged chakra into my arms and activated my chains. I whipped my right arm out, sending a chain lashing through the air like a striking viper. It wrapped perfectly around the joint of the Gargoyle's left wing.
"Get over here!" I roared, planting my feet into the stone.
I violently yanked the chain backward. The fifty-foot stone beast was entirely ripped out of its flight path. I used its own momentum against it, swinging the colossal Gargoyle in a vicious half-circle before slamming it directly into the floating courtyard.
CRASH!
The impact cratered the stone. My clones and Soldiers immediately dog-piled the beast, hacking and blasting at the remaining chunks of its outer shell.
But the Gargoyle began to glow with a terrifying, blinding blue light.
Oh shit, it's absorbing the ambient energy! I realized.
The beast spun violently, its massive wings generating hyper-compressed mini-tornadoes. The tornadic winds ripped up the broken pillars and massive boulders, hurling the debris across the courtyard like cannonballs.
I flipped backward, narrowly dodging a flying slab of granite, but a jagged piece of rubble slammed into my shoulder.
[-8% HP]
Then, a stray wind blade slashed across my thigh.
[-16% HP]
Simultaneously, my system interface flashed red as the tornadoes shredded my troops.
[-250 CP]
[-1,200 CP]
[-1,500 CP]
It's clearing my Soldiers faster than they can regenerate, I winced, watching the destruction. But, it's leaving its core fully exposed.
I pulled [Knight Killer] from my inventory, and gave it to my nearest clone. "Be ready when I give the signal," I told him, and he nodded back.
Then, using my trajectory mastery, I shot my chains upward, latching onto the massive chunks of debris swirling in the tornados. I vaulted myself from boulder to boulder, ascending rapidly through the chaotic winds until I was directly above the Gargoyle.
The beast looked up, its glowing core pulsing as it locked onto me in mid-air.
Exactly where I want you, I smirked. "NOW!" I shouted, signaling my clone as I plummeted toward the beast.
My clone utilized [Dagger Throw], sending the blade soaring with terrifying speed at the Gargoyle's blind spot. The Gargoyle ignored it, flapping its wings to unleash a massive wind blade directly at my descending form.
[SKILL ACTIVATED: Shadow Thunder God]
I vanished from the sky and materialized right beside the soaring dagger, perfectly slipping beneath the beast's line of sight. I equipped my [Ivory Shortsword] and cocked my arm back to deliver a [Critical Strike] directly into its exposed core.
But the Gargoyle noticed quicker than I gave it credit for, and shifted its body. The blue light inside its chest intensified to the level of a miniature sun, and it launched itself straight upward.
Confusion flashed across my face for a split second, until I understood exactly what it was doing. The meteor dive! I realized, feeling the ambient temperature instantly skyrocket.
It ascended thousands of feet into the air, and curled into a devastating ball of pure kinetic energy.
"Evade!" I mentally commanded my Soldiers as I teleported back to the ground.
I didn't try to run. Instead, I slammed my hands together.
[SKILL ACTIVATED: Adamantine Sealing Chains - Omnidirectional Weave]
Eight chains exploded from my body, rapidly weaving into a dense metallic dome around me as the Gargoyle sped faster towards the ground.
BOOOOOOOOOOM!
The beast struck the courtyard with the force of a tactical nuke.
The shockwave caused absolute devastation. The kinetic impact shattered the very foundations of the floating platform, and a wave of superheated energy washed over everything.
Inside the dome, the heat spiked instantly. My skin blistered, and my arms seized up in agony as the massive kinetic force transferred through the chains.
[-21% HP]
[-6,500 CP]
My chakra gauge plummeted as the blast completely wiped out the rest of my deployed Shadow Soldiers. But as the blinding light faded and the ringing in my ears subsided, the dome remained standing.
I slowly retracted the chains, gasping for air as I looked out at the completely leveled courtyard.
In the center of the devastation lay the Gargoyle. Its armor was entirely gone. It was now just a fragile, twitching mass of stone curled around a violently pulsating blue core.
So that was your last desperate attempt, huh? I smirked darkly. I'm glad you understood what you had to do to attempt to take me down!
I hurled [Knight Killer] straight at it.
[SKILL ACTIVATED: Shadow Thunder God]
I materialized right in front of the grounded Gargoyle, catching the dagger in my left hand as I equipped the [Ivory Shortsword] in my right.
Before the beast could even attempt to move, I plunged [Knight Killer] deep into its lower chest, wedging the jagged blade to pry the stony wound open. Then, I drove the [Ivory Shortsword] straight into the gap, gripping the hilt with both hands. Coating the blade with a dense layer of chakra, I violently ripped my arms in an upward motion.
CRAAACK!
The blue core shattered like glass.
The Gargoyle let out one final, distorted mechanical screech before its massive body collapsed into a pile of lifeless, gray dust.
[CRITICAL HIT!]
[BOSS DEFEATED!]
A symphony of golden notifications began to flood my vision.
[DUNGEON CLEARED!]
[+1,000,000 DUNGEON COMPLETION XP BONUS]
[(55% HP x 50 RYO) x 5.5 RANK BONUS: +15,125 BONUS RYO]
[RYO BALANCE: 33,152,650 → 34,167,775 RYO]
[LEVEL UP!]
[LEVEL UP!]
[LEVEL UP!]
[NEW LEVEL: 220]
[FULL RECOVERY ACTIVATED]
I dropped my weapons, throwing my head back as an unbelievable torrent of energy washed over my body, instantly healing the burns on my arms and restoring my drained chakra.
"Ohhhhh, yeaaaa. That's what I'm talking about," I grinned, flexing my hands.
[REWARDS]:
Item: Gargoyle Tear (A-Rank Material)
Item: Abyssal Granite Plating (A-Rank Material)
Item: Gargoyle's Wind Core (A-Rank Material)
[NOTICE: ALL INGREDIENTS OBTAINED]:
Purified Spirit Spring Water (1/1)
Heartwood of an Elder Treant (1/1)
Tear of a Gargoyle (1/1)
[CRAFT HOLY WATER OF LIFE NOW?]: Y/N
"Yea, get to that. Chop, chop," I said, confirming the prompt.
[Crafting 'Holy Water of Life' (x3)...]
[CRAFTING COMPLETE.]
Three ornate, bottle-like vials materialized in front of me, glowing with a soft, ethereal silver hue.
"Alright," I sighed, tiredly. "These didn't take as long as I thought they would."
I was about to leave the dungeon, but the notifications weren't finished. The interface shifted from golden to a deep, royal purple.
[NOTICE: THE PLAYER HAS REACHED THE REQUIRED LEVEL AND SHADOW ARMY EVOLUTION THRESHOLD.]
[THE PLAYER IS NOW POWERFUL ENOUGH TO DEFEAT MULTIPLE JONIN-LEVEL COMBATANTS WITH EASE.]
[BONUS REWARDS: +32 STAT POINTS, 20,480,000 RYO]
[RYO BALANCE: 34,167,775 → 54,647,775 RYO]
The shadows cast by the broken pillars around the courtyard began to boil. My Soldiers, who had retreated to the safety of my shadow, began to emerge and drop to one knee, their bodies trembling as the dark aura radiating off them suddenly shifted.
The familiar, deep Blue-Black aura of my army completely vanished. In its place, a violent, crackling Yellow-Black aura erupted from their forms, carrying a terrifying, suffocating pressure.
[SHADOW ARMY EVOLUTION COMPLETE.]
[THE AURA OF YOUR SOLDIERS HAS EVOLVED.]
Aye, uh-huh you know what it is, black and yellow, black and yellow, black and yellow, I sang internally, a massive grin on my face as the exact same yellow-black aura flickered around my fingertips. Oh yea, that's what I'm talking about.
[DUNGEON CLEARED. LEAVE NOW?]: Y/N
"Yea, get me out of here," I confirmed, while recalling my Soldiers back to me.
The environment changed instantly and my feet hit the soft grass of a secluded clearing on the outskirts of Konoha.
I took a deep breath, letting the scent of pine and earth ground me. The sky above the treeline was painted in deep hues of purple and orange as the sun dipped below the horizon, signaling the arrival of late evening.
[TIME ELAPSED: 9 HOURS]
Nine hours, I thought, stretching my arms above my head. Not bad. It didn't take too long at all.
Physically, I felt completely immaculate. The level-up had given me a full reset. My chakra coils were brimming with energy, my muscles felt impossibly dense and springy, and the agonizing burns from the Gargoyle's meteor dive were completely gone.
But mentally? Mentally, I was absolutely fried.
Between the suffocating, "three-hour" elemental torture of the third trial, processing the sensory overload of my clone's dungeon-diving memories, and then fighting a fifty-foot stone demon in the stratosphere... my brain felt like overcooked ramen.
"I need a small break to reset," I muttered softly, locking onto the Soldier I had left in my apartment.
[SKILL ACTIVATED: Shadow Exchange]
I warped back to my room. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but it's good to be back," I said, looking around the small space.
My stomach let out a loud, demanding rumble, echoing through the quiet room.
I chuckled, rubbing the back of my neck. "Right. Priorities," I said, making my way to the kitchen area. "I need a solid meal, a hot shower, and a couple hours of sleep in my own bed."
Because tomorrow, I get to see what a castle has in store for me.