By the time Year 40 rolled around, I was finally starting to feel like I wasn't just a walking medical bill. My "nightmare mode" health was slowly leveling out the constant low-grade fevers were gone, and I wasn't coughing up a lung every time the wind picked up. I was still the smallest kid on the block, but I had enough energy to do more than just stare at the ceiling and wait for my next nap.
But the real change wasn't my physical stats. It was the "gift" I brought over from my old life something that was finally starting to click into place.
At first, I thought I was just really focused. But then I realized it was more than that. When I watched Sharyu or the other mechanics working on a puppet, it was like my brain was hit with a high-speed download. One look at a disassembly sequence, the way a specific gear fit into a housing, or the exact pressure a tech used with a file and it was there. Permanently. No fuzziness, no forgetting. It was like I had a high-def internal hard drive that never ran out of space.
I tried testing it out on my old life. I could pull up mechanical blueprints from my old firm back in the States, complex stress-test formulas, and even the boring-ass operation manuals for CNC machines I hadn't looked at in five years. Everything was crystal clear.
Holy crap, I thought. I've got an eidetic memory. I'm a human Wikipedia.
It wasn't just about recording data, either. My comprehension levels were through the roof. When the squad guys would sit around grumbling about how Chakra-conductive metal affected energy efficiency, I didn't just memorize what they said I understood the why. My old-world knowledge of circuit boards and electrical resistance mapped perfectly onto the Chakra system. Electrons, Chakra at the end of the day, it's all just energy looking for the path of least resistance.
One afternoon, an old mechanic was complaining about a ball-and-socket joint that kept jamming because of the desert grit. I looked at the structure and my brain immediately spat out the concept of sealed ball bearings. This world didn't really have standardized industrial bearings yet, but I knew the physics. I started wondering if a different lubrication or a tweak to the housing design could fix it.
I even started "scanning" the way they carved. I'd spend hours watching a master craftsman use a tiny graver to etch Chakra channels into a metal plate. I'd watch his breathing, the way his fingers stayed perfectly steady, and the rhythm of the blade.
I'd look at my own tiny, weak hand and try to mimic that stillness. My muscles were still junk, but my control over them was insane. If I wanted my finger to move exactly one millimeter, it moved one millimeter. Not 1.1. Not 0.9. Just... precision.
It was a weird feeling. My "hardware" this four-year-old body was still a budget model with limited RAM, but my "software" was running on a supercomputer.
I started putting this to use whenever Sharyu brought home "safe" scrap parts for me to mess with. While other kids were outside eating sand or playing ninja, I was sitting on the floor, systematically disassembling and reassembling puppet joints. My movements were slow, but they were precise. I wasn't playing; I was doing forensic engineering.
I'd trace the broken Chakra circuits with my fingertip, mentally simulating the flow. Okay, if the energy hits this curve at high speed, it's gonna generate heat. That's why the wood charred here. If I widened the line or gave it a smoother radius... My old STEM degree and the Puppet Arts were having a serious chemical reaction in my head. I wasn't just a spectator anymore. I was starting to design.
I'd watch the squad struggle to keep a heavy-puppet joint light enough to move fast but strong enough to take a hit. What if I used a honeycomb internal structure? I wondered. It'd be a nightmare to machine by hand, but with Chakra-aided carving, it might actually work.
Or when I saw lines burn out from over-use: This thing needs a fuse. Or a better heat sink. Or we just need to optimize the layout so we don't get a local hotspot.
I was a high-performance learning machine hidden in the corner of a dusty logistics shed. My database was thirty years of engineering knowledge. My sensors were my eyes. My processor was my overpowered soul. And my goal? Master the Puppet Technique and build something that would make the "Sannin" look like they were playing with toys.
Sharyu started to notice. He'd see me handling parts with a logic that didn't make sense for a three-year-old. He'd see me laying out parts in a perfect sequence, sometimes more organized than the new apprentices he was training. At first, he just thought I was a weirdly focused kid. Eventually, he just shrugged and figured I had a "knack" for the family business. It was the first time I'd seen him look genuinely proud or at least, less sad.
As for me, I was having the time of my life.
Frail body? Whatever. Middle of a war zone? I'll deal.
As long as I had this "gift," as long as I had my brain, and as long as I had this world full of mechanical puzzles to solve... I was good.
I looked at my small, steady hands and felt a surge of confidence. One day, these hands were going to build something that would change everything. I was going to grab my destiny and make it work.
I just had to keep learning.