Ren opened his mouth, hesitated, and then closed it again.
Rin's question sounded strange no matter how he interpreted it.
If Ren did not understand her personality, he might have suspected that she was deliberately trying to embarrass him. However, the curiosity in her eyes was completely innocent.
She was clearly thinking about the technique's combat applications.
Ren was the one whose thoughts had wandered in an unnecessary direction.
"In theory, it can reinforce more than my arms and legs," he explained after a pause. "I've already tested it on my torso."
Rin's eyes immediately brightened.
"Then it could protect your vital organs too! If you activated it before receiving an attack, it might prevent serious injuries."
"Yes, but using it that way is more difficult."
Ren raised his right hand and allowed a thin layer of scale-like markings to spread across his skin.
"Snake-Limb Hardening was probably designed to turn the arms into emergency weapons. Oro—its creator likely intended the user to block blades or strike an enemy after being disarmed."
He had nearly mentioned Orochimaru.
Fortunately, Rin was too focused on the technique to notice his abrupt correction.
"The chakra pathway is simple when I use it on an arm or leg," Ren continued. "Reinforcing my chest or back requires much finer control. If the chakra is distributed unevenly, one area becomes harder while another remains vulnerable."
Rin nodded thoughtfully.
"So it isn't enough to simply pour more chakra into it."
"Exactly. Too much chakra creates unnecessary strain, while too little makes the defense unreliable. I'll need more practice before I can use it safely during battle."
Rin looked relieved by the answer. Ren looked away and quietly decided never to mention how strange her original question had sounded.
They spent the next few minutes reviewing their spar.
Rin's combination of water clones and Wild Water Wave had been effective, especially when used to restrict Ren's escape routes. Her final distraction with the falling kunai pouch had also been clever.
However, she still hesitated whenever an attack might seriously injure someone she cared about. That instinct was admirable in ordinary life, but on a battlefield, an enemy would exploit it without mercy.
Ren's wire trap had problems of its own.
They walked through the clearing together, collecting the kunai and shuriken embedded in tree trunks. Ren carefully loosened the transparent steel wires, checked them for damage, and rolled them into a compact bundle.
"Controlling this many wires without the Sharingan is much harder than it looks," he admitted. "Once they cross each other, even I have trouble tracking every angle."
"You still trapped all three of my clones," Rin pointed out.
"Only because I prepared the field first. In a real battle, I might not have enough time."
Wire techniques could create excellent traps, restrict movement, and redirect projectiles. Yet they required calculation, environmental awareness, and exceptional hand control.
An Uchiha could use the Sharingan to follow each wire and predict how it would move. Ren had to rely entirely on experience and spatial memory.
"I'll take it slowly," he decided. "It's useful, but it won't become one of my main offensive methods."
By the time they finished cleaning the training ground, the moon had climbed high above Konoha.
Ren and Rin returned to the residential district together. The streets were nearly empty, and most of the surrounding houses had gone dark.
They stopped between their neighboring homes.
"Good night, Ren," Rin said, offering him a small smile.
"Good night, Rin. Your progress tonight was impressive."
Her smile grew brighter.
After washing and changing, they retired to their separate rooms. Rin lay beneath her blanket remembering Kushina's question and the moment Ren had caught her kunai with his bare hand.
Ren, meanwhile, closed his eyes while reconstructing the sealing formula Kushina had taught him.
Eventually, both drifted to sleep.
Konoha slept with them, peaceful and unaware of how quickly the shadows beyond the Land of Fire were deepening.
Over the following weeks, Ren's schedule became increasingly crowded.
He arrived at Konoha Hospital every morning shortly after sunrise. There, he accompanied medical jōnin during their rounds, treated minor injuries, studied patient records, and attended lessons on anatomy, poisons, chakra networks, and surgical procedures.
Whenever the hospital received emergency cases, Ren assisted in the treatment rooms. At first, he was only trusted to prepare instruments and maintain basic healing ninjutsu.
As his experience increased, the senior medics allowed him to participate in more complicated internal and external procedures.
His afternoons changed depending on the day.
Sometimes, he trained near the Naka River, practicing Fire Release, swordsmanship, chakra control, and Snake-Limb Hardening.
On other days, he reported to Orochimaru's laboratory and faced mountains of experimental data. He organized research notes, conducted blood analyses, monitored tissue cultures, and prepared biological samples whose origins Orochimaru rarely explained.
Ren had learned not to ask questions unless he genuinely wanted the answers.
After returning home, he spent two hours studying Kushina's sealing manual. Only then did he turn his attention to the ninjutsu inside the system, using Dialogue whenever possible and entering Practice sessions when time allowed.
Team Minato's missions continued as well.
Once or twice a week, Ren, Rin, Kakashi, and Obito were assigned patrols, supply escorts, intelligence deliveries, or bandit-suppression operations. Minato was absent for several of them, so temporary jōnin commanders supervised the team.
None of these responsibilities could be neglected.
With every obligation packed into the same schedule, Ren felt as though he were preparing for medical finals, a shinobi promotion examination, and a war at the same time.
He was exhausted almost every night.
Fortunately, the results justified the effort.
During Kushina's third sealing lesson, Ren finally established a connection with the Sealing Barrier Method. The gloomy red-haired girl bound in black chains officially entered his conquest list, bringing the total number of available targets to thirteen.
That did not mean she became easier to approach.
Ren was terrible at communicating with her.
Whenever he entered Dialogue, the Sealing Barrier Method either ignored him or ordered him to leave. During Practice sessions, Ren drew rune arrays inside the dark cage while she silently watched from the corner.
Even completing a formula correctly earned almost no reaction.
Her favorability remained in the single digits.
"She's difficult," Ren muttered after another unsuccessful conversation. "At least the Water Formation Wall occasionally responds."
The Sealing Barrier Method merely tightened the chains around herself and turned away.
Ren decided patience was his only option. A volatile, gloomy target like this could not be forced into opening up.
Orochimaru, in contrast, provided a far more immediate surprise.
When Ren's second month of work ended, Orochimaru presented him with a six-page research report concerning the Nerve Activation Technique. According to him, the document represented the newest results of his experiments.
Whether that claim was completely true was impossible to determine.
Orochimaru might have given Ren cutting-edge research, or he might have handed him discarded notes merely to observe how he would react.
The system settled the question of whether the report was useful.
The moment Ren touched it, a notification appeared.
[Special item detected.]
[Body Fragment—Nerve Activation Technique: Sealed Left Arm]
Ren stared at the words.
"A sealed left arm?"
Was he developing a ninjutsu or assembling a person piece by piece?
Despite the absurd description, Ren immediately understood the item's value. After returning home, he carefully transcribed the entire research report so he could preserve its contents.
He then offered the original document to the Nerve Activation Technique.
The system's illusion opened before him.
A cold chamber appeared within his mind.
The unfinished girl representing the Nerve Activation Technique lay motionless on a stone platform. Her skin was pale, and her body seemed incomplete, as if entire sections of her existence had been erased.
The research report dissolved into countless fragments of pale light.
Those fragments gathered beside her left shoulder, gradually constructing an arm. Bones formed first, followed by nerves, blood vessels, muscles, and skin.
Her newly restored fingers twitched.
The girl did not awaken, but a trace of color returned to her previously lifeless face.
[After a difficult search, you recovered the fragmented left arm of the Nerve Activation Technique from a serpent's nest west of Konoha. You have successfully returned it to the incomplete girl.]
[The sleeping girl remains unaware of your presence, but her condition has improved. She is now one step closer to awakening.]
[Favorability +5.]
[Favorability limit increased by 11.]
[Current favorability: 14/36 — Stranger]
The Nerve Activation Technique had recovered its sealed left arm.
Because the technique remained incomplete, Ren had never dared to enter a full Practice session with it. Experimenting with an unfinished technique involving the nervous system could result in paralysis, permanent chakra-network damage, or worse.
Instead, he relied entirely on Dialogue.
The unconscious girl never answered. No matter what Ren said, she remained asleep on the stone platform.
Occasionally, however, the system awarded a single point of favorability. Perhaps some part of her could hear him, even if she could not respond.
Based on the newest information, at least four fragments remained missing: the sealed right arm, left leg, right leg, and heart.
Ren estimated that recovering one or two additional pieces would raise the favorability limit beyond fifty. More importantly, each restored fragment might complete another section of the technique.
Unfortunately, Ren could not develop those missing parts himself.
The Nerve Activation Technique involved neurology, cellular biology, bioelectric signals, and extremely precise chakra control. Its completed form would be at least a B-rank ninjutsu.
Understanding Orochimaru's research notes was already difficult. Improving upon them was far beyond Ren's current ability.
He had asked Tsunade for help.
She was undoubtedly capable of advancing the technique, but relying on her schedule was nearly impossible. Tsunade often vanished from the hospital immediately after teaching her classes and sometimes failed to appear for several days.
On more than one occasion, Ren had entered her office and noticed the unmistakable scent of alcohol lingering in the air.
For now, his best hope was Orochimaru.
"Work harder," Ren murmured while imagining the Sannin bent over his microscope. "The technique still needs four more body parts."
If Orochimaru ever learned that Ren was silently urging him to complete a dismembered system avatar, even he might find the situation strange.
Aside from the Sealing Barrier Method and Nerve Activation Technique, Ren's other targets progressed steadily.
[Current Conquest Progress]
[Three Basic Techniques — 100]
[Great Fireball Technique — 100]
[Healing Technique — Attachment: 99/100]
[Phoenix Sage Fire Technique — Intimate: 71]
[Water Release: Wild Water Wave — Intimate: 70]
[Hatake Swordsmanship — Friendly: 37]
[Fire Release: Dragon Fire Technique — Friendly: 28]
[Eight Gates — Stranger: 22]
The Healing Technique remained locked at ninety-nine favorability.
Ren had already identified the reason. Its special event required him to treat one hundred patients, and he had not yet reached that total.
He was not worried.
New patients entered Konoha Hospital every day. Ren and Rin also participated in emergency treatments whenever missions returned with injured shinobi.
Completing the event was merely a matter of time.
Considering that reaching the fourth stage usually produced a qualitative improvement, the extra requirement was reasonable.
The Phoenix Sage Fire Technique had received most of Ren's Practice time and was approaching the Attachment stage. Its ability to launch and manipulate numerous smaller flames made it more versatile than the Great Fireball Technique.
The Dragon Fire Technique and Water Formation Wall had also unlocked new characteristics.
[Fire Release: Dragon Fire Technique]
[Stage Reward: Physique +1]
[Characteristic—Piercing Flame: Your Dragon Fire Technique possesses exceptional stability and is difficult for external forces to disrupt. Its effective range is increased by 15%. By charging the technique before release, its range increases by an additional 1% per second, stacking up to five times.]
The improvement was straightforward but valuable.
Dragon Fire already excelled at concentrated attacks along wires or direct trajectories. Greater stability would make it harder for wind, water, or enemy chakra to scatter the flames.
The second characteristic was even more defensive.
[Water Release: Water Formation Wall]
[Stage Reward: Physique +1]
[Characteristic—Water-Body Fusion: The Water Formation Wall observes your combat habits and anticipates the openings you commonly expose. Its defensive strength is increased by 25%. When you face a surprise attack that is difficult to resist, the technique has a 20% chance of activating automatically to protect you.]
Ren read the final line twice.
An automatic defensive response could save his life.
A twenty-percent chance was not reliable enough to build a strategy around, but battles were often decided by a single unexpected moment. If the Water Formation Wall activated when Ren was ambushed, poisoned, exhausted, or unable to form seals, it could turn certain death into survival.
Both new characteristics were useful. Their numerical increases were not as dramatic as the Great Fireball Technique or Wild Water Wave, but they made the original techniques considerably stronger.
Once Phoenix Sage Fire and Hatake Swordsmanship reached their next stages, Ren intended to dedicate more time to Dragon Fire and Water Formation Wall.
His path forward was becoming clearer.
Medical ninjutsu would keep him and his teammates alive. Fūinjutsu would expand the Inscribed Blade's power. Orochimaru's research would strengthen his body, while the system continuously transformed familiar techniques into weapons no ordinary shinobi could predict.
Ren was improving every day.
Yet beyond Konoha's walls, border conflicts were spreading, supply lines were being reinforced, and high-ranking missions were becoming increasingly frequent.
Ren had finally established a stable path to power—but the approaching war had no intention of waiting for him to finish walking it.