Gambling

Neji generally planned before he acted, and this time was no different. For his "Money Making Plan" through gambling, the first issue was how to detect the numbers on the dice inside the cup, which the Byakugan had already solved. Next was transmitting the numbers he sensed in time. Finally, someone had to place the bets, then leave safely after winning.

To transmit the information, Neji thought of radio communication. The world of Naruto had a rather distorted level of technological development. It possessed things like televisions and radios, yet they were not widespread. Radio communication had likewise been invented. Neji found a fairly large electronics dealer and successfully bought a set of radio equipment. The signal transmitter being somewhat large was not a problem, but the receiver looked like a helmet and clearly would not do. Anyone bringing that into a casino would look suspicious.

For this, Neji used the Byakugan together with knowledge from his previous life to heavily modify the helmet. He removed all unnecessary components, even stripping out the signal decoder, and eventually turned it into a wristband. The wristband had only one function: upon receiving a signal, it released a faint electric current. A stronger signal produced a slightly stronger current, while a weaker signal produced a slightly weaker one. If not for Neji's powerful senses, even an ordinary jonin would likely struggle to notice such tiny currents, making it extremely discreet.

With the transmitting and receiving equipment ready, the next question was who would do the gambling. Neji himself obviously could not go. He did not trust entrusting it to someone else either. Having a Shadow Clone use the Transformation Jutsu to gamble would work, though. He remembered that Tsunade had repeatedly used the Transformation Jutsu to keep gambling while evading her gambling debts.

The only problem left was who to transform into. Selecting a target took time, but it was necessary. So Neji created five Shadow Clones and had them gather information on regular casino patrons who lost more often than they won, preferably people with no significant connections.

Over six days, they found six suitable targets. After organizing their information, Neji began his operation. He selected one of them as that day's target. The candidate was named Miki, a bachelor who lived alone on the edge of the village. He had no friends or relatives, loved gambling, and would head to the gambling houses whenever he had money, only to lose most of it. He was an excellent choice.

Near evening, Neji tampered with Miki's food and drugged him to sleep. He then had a Shadow Clone transform into Miki and leave Miki's home for a relatively large gambling house that Miki did not visit often. Everything went smoothly until the clone exchanged his money for chips and stood at the gambling table. Neji exchanged a total of five hundred thousand ryo in chips. He did not cheat immediately, instead starting to gamble normally. The game was simple: roll dice and guess high or low. Neji relied on luck for over an hour, and his luck was surprisingly good—he actually won over two hundred thousand ryo. Neji acted as though he was getting carried away and began steadily raising his bets, causing the money in his hands to fluctuate more sharply. At that point, his original body, standing a kilometer away, began carefully watching the situation and transmitting the dice results to the clone through radio.

The clone did not draw attention to himself. While increasing his bets, he controlled his ratio of wins to losses, making it look as though he was simply having a good run of luck. He also quietly set aside some of the high-value chips.

Another hour passed like this, and the casino was packed with clamorous voices. Neji calculated that he had won roughly four to five million ryo, so he quietly exchanged his chips and left the gambling house.

Neji returned to Miki's home along the same route. Two tails were indeed following him, but after confirming that there was nothing unusual about Miki, they left. No robbery or murder took place. Four to five million ryo had roughly the purchasing power of one to two million on Earth. It was not a small sum, but not enough for the gambling house to risk defying Konoha's security and do something excessive.

Once he saw the two men disappear into the distance, Neji put his backup plan into motion. His original body entered Miki's home and cast a genjutsu on the sleeping Miki, making him firmly believe that he had gone gambling the previous night and won three to four hundred thousand ryo. It also warned him not to gamble again anytime soon. Leaving three to four hundred thousand ryo beside Miki, Neji returned home.

After counting that night's gains, he had nearly four million ryo in profit after deducting the principal, almost half his net worth. After summarizing the evening's experience and noting a few precautions, Neji trained briefly before going to sleep.

Using the same method, Neji carried out five more operations. To reduce the risk of discovery, he only won around two million ryo each time and targeted a different gambling house every time. He did not keep shearing the same sheep, so all five operations went fairly smoothly and did not arouse much suspicion.

Across six operations, he earned more than fourteen million ryo. Adding the more than four million ryo he still had left, he now possessed over eighteen million ryo. He would not need to worry about money for some time, but finding a lasting source of income had also been added to his agenda. Gambling was not a long-term solution.