After Murakami Hana took the fat ninja away, Hyuga Arin finally walked into the mountain cave.
"All right, it's fine now," Hyuga Arin called inside.
Only then did Nagato walk out from deep within the cave entrance.
"Teacher, what happened?"
He had vaguely sensed fighting outside, and in the end felt that three presences had disappeared.
"You'll know once you go out and take a look." A smile appeared on Hyuga Arin's face—though it carried a hint of malice.
Nagato sensed it keenly and looked at Hyuga Arin suspiciously.
Hyuga Arin, however, walked straight out. Even though he had a bad premonition, Nagato still followed.
As soon as he stepped out of the cave, he saw two corpses lying on the ground, their bodies bearing traces of scorching.
Nagato's gaze trembled. "Te… Teacher…"
Hyuga Arin squatted down, took out a kunai, and prodded the bodies. Without looking at Nagato, he spoke earnestly, "Nagato, no matter what choices you make in the future, death will always accompany you."
"If you don't want to be killed, you must be prepared to kill."
Hyuga Arin looked at the timid Nagato. At this stage, Nagato was still somewhat cowardly. If it weren't for Yahiko's death later on, he would never have undergone such a drastic change.
And in the end, he took Yahiko's dream as his own goal.
Nagato stared at the corpses and swallowed hard. He had always heard about people dying here and there, but this was the first time he had ever seen dead bodies.
But was it too cruel to demand such a brutal resolve from a child like him at this moment?
Also, Teacher—if you could just put away that smile, it might be more convincing!!!
Nagato glared at Hyuga Arin in irritation. The man still had a schadenfreude-filled grin on his face. One look and it was obvious his main purpose was to scare a kid.
Hyuga Arin stood up and coughed lightly twice, trying to recover his dignity as a teacher. He reached out and patted Nagato on the shoulder. "From now on, you'll have to rely on yourself."
"Teacher, I don't think there's a need to rush things so much," Nagato said with a pitiful, almost tearful tone.
Seeing corpses for the first time was inevitably frightening.
Hyuga Arin looked at Nagato meaningfully and said, "The Land of Rain won't give you time."
Uchiha Madara wouldn't either.
He didn't need to say the rest out loud.
As for Uchiha Madara, his own level was still far too low. If he were already max level, he'd go straight to Madara, call him an old bastard, and farm drops.
Uchiha Madara had plenty of good stuff on him—any random drop would count as a top-tier item.
Unfortunately, as the penultimate final boss, he wasn't that easy to farm.
Hyuga Arin walked back along the path they had come from. The poisonous water pool from before had already vanished.
Turning his head, he saw Nagato still standing there in a daze and shouted loudly, "Let's go."
Only then did Nagato snap back to his senses and hurriedly follow behind Hyuga Arin.
Hyuga Arin, meanwhile, turned his attention to his status panel.
[Name: I'm Hyuga Arin]
[Class: None]
[Level: Lv16 (3999/4000)]
[Chakra: 120/160 +50 +20]
[Skills: Gentle Fist (Lv5), Clone Technique (Lv2), Substitution Technique (Lv10), Transformation Technique (Lv10), Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm (Lv3), Byakugan (Lv3), Fire Release · Unknown Fire (Lv4), Medical NinTechnique (Lv2), Bear Wrestling Hand (Lv4), Brain Enkephalin (Lv8), Two-Tiger Style · Fire Heaven Form (Lv1)]
[Experience Pool: 4765]
Finally…
Finally, he was about to reach level 18.
He had waited for this day for who knew how long. There were barely any monsters to grind in Konoha, yet in less than a year of becoming a ninja, he had climbed from level 12 to level 18.
Only after level 18 would his true growth really begin.
In fact, judging by the experience provided by shinobi in the ninja world, reaching max level wasn't particularly difficult.
What truly devoured experience were skills. All kinds of advanced skills required massive amounts of experience in the later stages.
Moreover, many skills could be synthesized. Even the prerequisites for synthesis already required a lot of experience, and after synthesis, the experience cost was still enormous.
Suppressing his excitement, he first invested a bit of experience to level up once.
The chakra he had consumed instantly returned to full, and his physical attributes improved somewhat.
[Level: Lv17 (0/4500)]
Then he poured the remaining 4500 experience into it all at once.
[Level: Lv18 (0/5000)]
[Class Change Function Unlocked]
[Begin Class Change Now? Yes / No]
Hyuga Arin took a deep breath. While sending Nagato home, he split his focus and concentrated on the panel.
"Yes!!"
The panel before his eyes disappeared, replaced by five images.
The first image showed a burly man with red light blazing from his eyes. His fists had turned pitch-black, wrapped in crackling red lightning.
Above the image were the words: Pirate.
In the game, this was a stamina-based class. After successfully changing class, it unlocked a Haki energy bar. Each level-up increased strength and constitution.
Corresponding items could only be farmed in the Land of Water, along with various Devil Fruits—though Devil Fruits themselves weren't restricted by class.
However, many skills and pirate-exclusive items could only be used by this class.
High stamina, strong recovery, and solid attack power.
In the game, it was essentially a warrior-type class.
If Hyuga Arin didn't have special requirements, this was usually the route he would take.
The second image showed a ninja wearing a Konoha forehead protector, constantly using ninTechnique. His left eye was a Sharingan, his right eye a Byakugan.
Above the image were the words: Ninja.
In the game, this class was similar to a mage.
But Hyuga Arin dismissed it immediately. He already possessed ninja-class skill books.
If he chose the Ninja class, the bonuses would be an unknown—perhaps even no change at all.
It overlapped too much with his existing abilities, so he directly gave it up. Ninja skills and items didn't require a class unlock for him to use anyway.
The key point was that ordinary players entering the game world started with no energy bar and no class at all.
They began as ordinary people, grinding small animals early on, bandits in the midgame, and rogue ninjas in the late game. Only after reaching the required level would the class system unlock.
That was the normal start.
Hyuga Arin attending the Ninja Academy and becoming a ninja was, in game terms, exploiting a bug—equivalent to being born with the Ninja class.
The last image showed a man wearing training clothes, his body wrapped in white airflow. Behind him, various backgrounds flashed—famous landmarks, wilderness forests.
Above the image were two words:
Hunter.
This was the class Hyuga Arin wanted to choose.
In the game, this class was positioned as an assassin.
It sounded a bit absurd. Ninjas, who carried out assassinations, were categorized as mages, while Hunters—who didn't seem to fit the assassin archetype—were instead labeled as assassins.
But this had to do with the class system.
Ninjas seemed to handle assassination missions, but their ability usage involved water, fire, wind, and lightning. Ignoring the nature of their work and focusing purely on how they fought, they looked far more like mages.
Hunters, on the other hand, were the class best at concealing themselves in the game. As long as they used Zetsu, even bloodline limits among ninjas couldn't detect them.
If you failed to notice the opponent's strength and stepped into their attack range, wasn't that just waiting to be taken out by a full burst of damage?
How could that not count as an assassin?
These three were the game's three mainstream classes.
And beyond these three mainstream options, there were also two major pay-to-win classes.
Hyuga Arin looked toward the final two black-and-white images.
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