Getting the Shadow Clone Jutsu

No wonder I couldn't learn it through guesswork. It really was worthy of being a B-rank ninjutsu.

Calling it unimpressive would have been rather arrogant. After all, the two highest-ranked scrolls in my possession were both B-rank: one was Fire Style, and the other was the Shadow Clone Jutsu. I hadn't even started learning either of them.

Its complexity was simply not something the basic Clone Technique could compare to.

The key point: a shadow clone needed its own simulated set of Chakra pathways inside its body.

Right. Shadow Clones could use ninjutsu too. How had I not thought of that?

Before using ninjutsu, I first needed to memorize the human Chakra pathway diagram. That was easy enough—one look with the Sharingan, then repeated practice in my mind.

Hand Seals were not as simple as the "Ren" seal, at least not for beginners. Once I had memorized the entire process, Hand Seals merely allowed Chakra to be mobilized faster. Since it didn't involve Nature Transformation, the omission of Hand Seals could be much more liberal.

I bought two books introducing Chakra pathways, memorized them during class while slacking off, and spent an entire day preparing.

There were still limits on casting speed, but thankfully, failure would not consume too much Chakra.

Ox—Dog—Dragon—Rat—Dog—Boar.

An identical version of myself appeared before me.

At least one-third of my Chakra was gone, leaving me short of breath for a moment.

Shadow Clone Sasuke raised his right index and middle fingers together, swept them beside his head, and gave me a wink.

"How was that? I'm pretty good, right~?"

Sasuke held his forehead. Didn't only the Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu create clones with independent consciousness? Had I remembered wrong?

"Have some restraint. Now isn't the time to get too wild."

"Looks like skipping class still isn't realistic for you. Keep it up~ Bye."

With that, the Shadow Clone vanished into smoke with a poof.

As our memories merged, the Shadow Clone's Chakra, which had not stabilized for long, gradually became chaotic and uncontrollable.

Wasn't it supposed to be that once I got the ninjutsu scroll, I could just close and open my Sharingan and learn it?

Why didn't I have even a little protagonist's plot armor?!

My first Shadow Clone lasted less than half a minute in total. Since I had not dispelled it voluntarily, even more Chakra had been wasted.

Forget using a Shadow Clone to skip class for an entire day—it couldn't even last half a lesson.

My training returned to Tree Climbing and Water Walking.

Two weeks passed. Tree Climbing was steady now, while Water Walking still occasionally got my shoes wet. I had no idea whether that was normal.

Being able to walk on calm water was nothing impressive. The several rivers flowing through the village were not particularly swift either.

But leaving the village was out of the question for now. Mainly because I didn't dare. What if I ran into someone from Root, or ninja from another village? If they got hotheaded, I would just die. At most, Itachi would return to the village for revenge.

The improvement in my Chakra control was obvious, and my Chakra reserves had also increased slightly as a result.

My Shadow Clone could now last three hours.

As for range, around four kilometers was my current limit.

Konoha was roughly semicircular, with its longest diameter under five kilometers. The Ninja Academy was practically in the middle. Sending a Shadow Clone to school while the original trained in the village was completely feasible.

As long as no one got itchy fingers and stabbed my Shadow Clone with a kunai... Well, to be safe, the original should attend whenever there was a combat class.

The inheritance within the Clan Grounds had yet to be fully picked over, but the crops in the fields had begun to ripen.

Was food valuable?

Not really. Without a sales channel, I could only sell at wholesale prices. Other farmers in Konoha said that selling wholesale to middlemen brought in just over ten Ryo per kilogram.

Was food expensive?

Yes! The cheapest rice on the market cost thirty Ryo per kilogram.

Konoha had no national grain reserve to stabilize food prices. Everything depended on how grain merchants and resellers set their prices.

Don't be fooled by the running water, electricity, gas, and even television. There was no agricultural machinery for fieldwork. Harvesting, sowing, and plowing were all entirely manual. Human labor, draft oxen, and at most some ancient farm tools that would not have looked out of place in a museum.

Then, once the harvest was done, threshers, flour mills... all kinds of processing machines were unexpectedly well-stocked. I found a complete set of communal equipment in the Uchiha Clan Grounds. That place probably counted as a mill.

It gave off a bizarrely disjointed cyberpunk feeling.

Most of the fields were rice, while wheat, potatoes, and vegetables occupied scattered plots. I copied the farmland from my crude map at scale and did the calculations. Altogether, there were over seventy mu.

Even if I didn't eat it, the livestock still had to. Once winter came, I would need to stockpile plenty of fodder for them... Those cows could really eat.

I couldn't raise so many next year. I would slaughter one during the New Year; as long as there was enough for me to eat with some left over, that would be fine.

But the rice was about to ripen. How much could I harvest in a day? Even with my ninja Physical fitness, there was no way I could be faster than the combined efforts of four farming households. If it rained, all the work would be for nothing.

Ninja missions started at five thousand Ryo at minimum. A Chunin or Jonin led a team of three, but only three people actually worked, and the Genin probably wouldn't even receive one thousand Ryo each in the end.

Could a little ninja harvest two mu a day? Six mu for five thousand Ryo in labor costs meant a ninja earned nearly one thousand Ryo per mu. Farming would have to cost nothing for that to make sense.

The missions issued by ninja villages truly weren't something ordinary people could afford.

The fields had long since been drained.

Sasuke harvested a small patch himself to estimate the total yield.

It was miserable.

One mu would probably barely produce two hundred kilograms.

Sasuke interlaced his fingers beneath his nose, his gaze deep and profound. All he lacked was a pair of glasses that could Emit Light.

The information that suddenly surfaced in his mind was clearly not good news just from his expression.

Even with Shadow Clones, I still couldn't skip class. Harvesting crops in the fields was no easy task, and if I was unlucky, I might run into snakes, leeches, mosquitoes... Between two evils, I chose the lesser one: going to class.

Although mental fatigue carried over, injuries did not. Mosquitoes and insects would not even bite a Shadow Clone without flesh and blood.

After school, Sasuke watched Naruto and his little friends go wild on the playground equipment from a dirt slope, debating whether he should approach him.

Among those their age, Naruto was the only one whose stamina and energy could barely be considered Genin-level.

Perhaps Kiba Inuzuka counted too, but a kid with a mother obviously wouldn't lack spending money. Besides, he kept dogs. How rich did someone have to be to afford raising dogs? If I hired him as Child Laborer at such a young age, would his mother block my path after school?

Naruto walked toward him. Farther away were the backs of other parents picking up their children and gradually disappearing.

Naruto scrunched up his face, trying hard to look fierce as he stood over Sasuke, who was sitting on the bench, with his chin raised arrogantly.

"Why do you keep looking down on us from up high? Looking for a fight?!"

Like a delinquent. No, he already was one.

The fishing plan had worked perfectly, but Sasuke had not figured out how to begin. Hiring Child Laborer really was a little...

Forget it. I wasn't a good person to begin with. Being a capitalist was pretty nice.

The Anbu, Root, the crows on the wires, and the Nine-Tails in his stomach—you all had to bear witness! The Jinchuriki came to me on his own. I hadn't even said anything.

"I... want to ask you for a favor."

Naruto narrowed his eyes and leaned closer.

"Hmm~ You want my help~?"

"You're hemming and hawing. Are you too embarrassed to get your hands dirty doing something bad?"

"Who talked bad about you? Do you want to splash paint or throw mud at them?"

Sasuke's gaze sharpened as he stared at Naruto.

"Something even worse. Would you do it?"

For some reason, the hairs on Naruto's back stood on end.