I spent another five days just training before I finally did something daring, or perhaps stupid was a better descriptor.

I went into the city.

I had already had several run-ins with people along the beach over the last few weeks, none of them had made any hostile moves towards me, and nobody had come to investigate my camp afterward. I was a fair deal stronger now as well, so I assumed that it would be safe enough to try walking around the city.

I got some strange looks, which might have been because of my clothes or my height.

The people in the Land of the Moon seemed to average about five foot five, with the occasional six-foot outlier. My height of somewhere around six-and-a-half-foot stuck out, nobody commented on it though, in fact nobody made any attempt to speak to me at all, glancing away when I made eye contact.

Strange.

I was able to Observe a lot of noteworthy things from within the city, including things I never had a chance to see from the outskirts. I saw that the money they used to pay for goods wasn’t the Ryo like I had expected, instead it was simply ‘Moon dollars’ only they were stamped metal coins with a half-moon printed on one side, and a stern face on the other. There were several denominations, ranging from as little as a ‘$1’ Coin to a ‘$100’ Coin.

It was extremely bizarre and It reminded me that I had ‘$100’ in the bottom left corner of my inventory. I had initially thought it might be a normal one-hundred-dollar bill, but when I tested it a moment later, I found myself holding a single one-hundred-dollar coin of the local currency. What was even more interesting was that I could withdraw it from my inventory in smaller denominations as well, along with a little drop-down prompt that changed the currency between Ryo and Moon Dollars. I placed it back and pulled out two fifty-dollar coins.

This was really fucking weird.

The discovery that I had working currency was a curse that immediately made me want to spend it on something, but I managed to restraint myself from buying anything for now. People hadn’t been near as weirded out by my clothing as I had first assumed they would be, what I needed was some more information because it had occurred to me last night that I might have been wrong.

What if this was after the King had been killed, but Shabadaba had won? What if Team Seven hadn’t come here at all because it was movie material and not part of the main story? I had no idea, and I needed to find out immediately.

I could offer someone an undetermined amount of money in exchange for answering some of my questions, perhaps one of the many working girls. I had a few burning questions that I needed answering, namely, who the King currently was, and if it was the old straight-haired guy I needed to know if his son was currently on the island, or if he was somewhere else that should help narrow the timeline down. I needed to figure out whether or not Shabadaba had already overthrown the King or if he were about to try so I could either run away or do something about it.

I hadn’t decided which yet.

I wandered around the city for several hours, observing everyone I met. I eventually stumbled upon a working girl performing a very lewd act in an alleyway. I waited out of sight until she had finished up and when her customer had vanished back I stepped into the alleyway and headed towards her.

Observe said her name was Yuna, twenty-seven years old, and she spotted me almost immediately, so I gave her a friendly wave.

“Hi!” I said happily. “I’m Sora.”

The first person I had spoken to since I had arrived, I’m not going to lie I was pretty excited, being on your own for weeks at a time sucked. Yuna raised an eyebrow at my cheery disposition.

“Hi, yourself,” Yuna said bemused. “I’m Yuna.”

I held my palm out with a ten-dollar coin sitting on top of it, and Yuna looked down at it before looking back up with a raised eyebrow.

“I’m not here for sex.” I smiled easily, “I was hoping you could answer, say three questions for this coin, how does that sound?”

Yuna tilted her head curiously before nodding. I grinned at her before flipping the coin into the air and snatching it before again before it could drop too far.

“Question number one,” I said cheerfully, “Who is the current King?”

Yuna blinked in surprise but answered immediately.

“Kakeru Tsuki,” Yuna said amusedly. “Is this a game of some sort? There is no way you don’t know that already.”

I just grinned at her and flipped the coin up into the air before snatching it once more.

“Where is the Prince?” I asked cheerfully. “Is he still in the land of the moon or did he go off on another trip?”

Yuna glanced up the alleyway in thought, before answering more hesitantly.

“Prince Michiru left the village, uh, about a week or so ago?” Yuna said not sounding very sure. “I’m not sure on the exact date, sorry.”

I just grinned again, before repeating the coin flip.

“Final question.” I said cheerfully, “When do you think he will return to the Land of the Moon?”

I would have to take her answer with a grain of salt, but then again I couldn’t really expect everybody to know what the prince's schedule was but even an estimate would be useful, however. Yuna bit her lip in thought, distracting me for a moment.

“I don’t know.” Yuna said thoughtfully, “Prince Michiru goes on trips like this frequently, last year he was gone for two months if that’s any help?”

I smiled at her.

“That’s good enough for me, Yuna,” I said happily, before flipping the coin over to her.

Yuna fumbled to catch it for a second before giggling.

“Not the usual way I make my money,” Yuna said amused while looking up through her eyelashes at me. “Sure I can’t interest you in something else?”

I left the alley thirty moon dollars lighter and feeling a little bit guilty.

Kakeru was still the king, Prince Michiru left on a trip some time ago, and Shabadaba was still alive, this meant one of two things. Either this was the year before the events of the movie, which meant that I could have an entire year of training before I needed to be worried about ninjas turning up or Shabadaba was about to send ninjas after the King, and Team Seven Minus Sasuke Plus Lee would be here very soon.

I left the city quickly after that, I needed to get back to training.

It had to have been at least a month since I had first woken up on the beach and almost a week since I’d found out about the possibility of the incoming ninja. Nothing had happened yet, at least nothing I had noticed, but if it was happening this year it must have been getting close to the coup.

I had been mindlessly grinding almost nonstop since then, only stopping occasionally to head into the city and check if anything of note had happened yet. I actually found a stall that was willing to buy some of the many uncooked fish that I had stashed in my inventory, still freshly preserved.

It was a mediocre source of money at best, but it was something.

I used it to buy some of the local clothing and an even pair of the sandals that everyone here seemed to wear. It made me feel strangely safer wearing their clothes like it would allow me to go beneath the notice of watching eyes if I only looked like them. I still got some glances, but I was putting it down to being a bit taller than most.

Fine, I visited Yuna again, I won’t lie.

Moving past that, I had finally gotten somewhere with Line Spear, whatever the skill used to decide how far it penetrated had to include some form of hidden kinetic damage rating because I could actually shatter a tiny amount of the bark on one of the many trees on the island now.

I had been trying to work my way up to trying it on my foot again, I really wanted to know what kind of damage it would do to a person, only I was a complete wuss when it came to pain and It was a struggle to work my way up to shooting myself again. If it cracked and broke a few layers of tree bark it was likely to punch through several layers of my not exceptionally durable skin.

I did have Heal in case it went badly, though.

“Stop being such a pussy and just do it,” I muttered.

I toggled Iron Hide off, took a deep breath, and then shot myself in the foot.

“Fuck!” I hissed at the sudden sharp pain.

Line Spear had dug a tiny, perfectly round hole, about as thick as pencil lead, and at most three-or-four millimeters into the top of my foot. The tiny hole was rapidly welling with blood, as a small notification had popped up in the corner of my vision.

-1 HP

The hole sealed shut a second later as my HP ticked back up to full, leaving my foot bloody but otherwise unharmed. I stared down at the blood on my foot, all that training for exactly one damage. I wasn’t anywhere near as durable as a tree was, not yet anyway and I was quite sure that Hidan was far more durable than any regular tree.

I sighed, it was progressing.

I toggled Iron Hide back on and dropped into Meditation. I used Line Spear six times before I was out of mana, and then I waited for meditation to drag my mana above the threshold, just before Iron Hide could steal the last of my mana again.

I fell into thought once more, but this time about the type of combat ninja’s preferred.

They were all close combat fighters to some degree, with different levels of range attacks, from kunai to jutsu. I would need to develop some kind of hand to hand mastery or do my best to just avoid it for as long as possible.

Ninjas tended to have great mobility, they could leap massive distance, hop from tree to tree, run up walls, and even over the top of the water. I needed to create the mana equivalent of wall running and water walking in case I ever had to fight in that kind of environment. Especially if I needed to get off this island without a boat. That would be something for tomorrow however, today I would do my best to become the man who could put a hole through a tree.

Two days later something finally happened.

I was heading to the city to visit Yuna again, only to find that almost everybody was hiding in their houses. I had immediately retreated and dropped into stealth the moment I realized something was going on. Soldiers and guards were moving throughout the city, hundreds of them at least, all engaging in lethal battles with one another while there was grey smoke curling up into the sky from the other side of the island, close to where the large round towers of the castle peaked up over the trees.

This had to be the start of Shabadaba’s coup.

I was still only level one, as I had failed to find any way to earn EXP since I had woken up here, my stats were a fair bit higher than the laborers now, but I had no chance of fighting any of these elite guards or soldiers, not with level fifties plus running around.

I would have to remain hidden as best I could.

I felt a spike of worry race up my spine as I realized that it was now highly likely that there were three ninjas on the island. They could be watching me right now and I wouldn’t even know until I was already dead. I would have to stop training in any way that might reveal that I had ‘chakra’ to them, at least while they were possibly in the city because if they saw me and assumed I was a ninja of some kind they would probably attack first and ask questions later. I should have developed some kind of sensory skill for this exact scenario, why hadn’t I done that already?

Fuck.

I would have to stay out of the city for a while then, at least until the fighting died down and the population started going outside again. When Team Seven Minus Sasuke Plus Lee had arrived here in the movie I was fairly sure nobody had been fighting openly at that point. The coup had already succeeded by then, and the King was squirreled away, injured, and dying in the mountain.

The three Shinobi would likely remain close to Shabadaba as well, at least until they had news of Michiru’s return, how long would that be? It couldn’t be more than a couple of days at most, the King had been still alive when they got there.

I quietly returned to my camp.

I spent the better part of two hours trying to figure out how to go about creating a sensory skill that wouldn’t alert the ninjas that I was here. I had no idea if one of them was a sensory type and letting out a burst of mana like some kind of echolocator could bring them right to me if they could feel my energy.

I knew that Nagato had some kind of sensory rain jutsu, but that seemed very un-stealthy and likely very costly. Naruto could sense everything around him while he was in Sage Mode, something to do with nature chakra I think, and that Yamanaka dude had a Cerebro-type machine that he used to keep track all the ninja during the war.

Karin had some kind of inborn ability to sense chakra from a far distance away, could I do the same if I tried to focus on things with energy? Civilians had chakra in this world, not a lot judging by most of their stats, but it wasn’t just ninjas.

If I tried to focus on the people hiding in the houses within the city it might work. I assumed that a sensory skill would come from the brain, I had no idea which part of the brain, so my best bet was to just push chakra into my head and hope I didn’t explode.

An hour later I still hadn’t exploded, but I did, however, finally unlock the ability to sense ‘energy.’

You have unlocked a new skill, Energy Sense!

I hoped that chakra was included under the term ‘Energy.’

Energy Sense (Level 1) – Sense energy around the user.

Type – Toggle.

Cast Time – Instant.

Target – Self.

Cost – 21(25) Mana per second.

Sense energy signatures within 5m (+5 per level.) Understanding increases with skill level. Grants EXP while Energy Sense is active.

Incredible, now I would be able to tell if someone were standing directly behind me, for a substantial mana cost.

Despite my complaints, I toggled it on anyway before I dropped into Meditate to ensure I could leave it on for now. The first thing I realized was that I now knew where every tree within five meters of me was located.

There was enough chakra in them to faintly register to the skill.

I imagine the chakra networks of people would light up like a Christmas tree, I could feel tiny little things moving around within my range, but they were uh, blurry? For lack of a better term.

Energy Sense is now level 2.

The range suddenly increased, and I could sense even more trees, along with what I now knew had to be a small lizard of some kind, it didn’t feel too different from the trees, but it was a much more condensed form of energy. My mana remained rather steady with the help of Meditate, so I starting adding Iron Hide into the mix occasionally to try and train them both at the same time.

Energy Sense is now level 3.

I felt my range expand again, and even smaller creatures that I had overlooked before appeared within my perception, one of those things had to be a large insect of some kind, and it was disgusting long and wiggly.

Gross.

If I could get this skill to a hundred-meter range I might even start feeling safe again, but that was an exceptionally long way off. Either way, nobody had come running up to kick my ass, and I was using a great deal of my mana every second. If they couldn’t sense this much mana being used constantly I was probably going to be fine.

Whether that was because they weren’t sensor types, it wasn’t enough energy for them to feel, or they were simply too far away, I wasn’t sure.

I took a risk, jamming my finger down into the sand and cast Line Spear a single time, a little puff of sand skipped away from my finger as is dug a thin tunnel in the loose material. Almost a hundred mana in one go, if that didn’t alert them then I was going to keep training.

Several hours passed and nobody had turned up, despite my constant usage of Line Spear with my finger buried in the sand. So I decided to keep on training like normal, although I did move further down the beach and away from the city, it was better to be safe than dead.

I made a very careful trip to the edge of the city every day to see if anything big was happening but as far as I could tell from outside the city, it was becoming calmer by the day. The fighting seemed to have mostly died down after the first night, although I did spot a small fight break out near the docks.

By the third day, people were moving around outside again, trying their best to go about their business despite the fear that was pervading the city. The soldiers that had been everywhere in the wake of the fight had finally started to disappear back to wherever their barracks were located at the castle, and I saw a family dragged out of their houses at one point before they were taken up to the castle. Hours later that still hadn’t returned and I stayed in the trees like a coward, feeling terrible because of it.

I spent some time sneaking around the mountainous area of the island, and when I got close enough I could see some of the King’s remaining guards patrolling the area. The King would be hiding somewhere in a stone chamber in the mountain, slowly dying from his wounds. I could most likely heal him if they didn’t try to kill me on sight, but I wasn’t about to take the chance while all of the remaining guards were there and likely keyed up on adrenaline.

I would have a chance when team seven arrived, whoever was watching the docks would likely tell the King’s guards about the ninjas arriving with Prince Michiru. The remaining guards would end up staging a rescue at the castle when Shabadaba ganked Michiru. I would be able to slip in and talk to the king while that was all going down, Heal him back to full health before he died, and try to see if I could cure his stone affliction. Hopefully, I would get some goodwill out of it, and passage the island, all I had to do was wait.