Skill Points Gone Wrong

[Name: Seimei]

[Overall Strength: Chunin (Kage)]

[Talent: Chunin]

[Affinity: Water, Wind]

[Special Abilities: Ninja Tool Crafting, Scientific Research.]

[Evaluation: As a ninja, he is trash, but he is a top-tier artisan. With ninja tools in hand, his strength will increase significantly, enough to become a legendary Ninja Artisan.]

After entering the borders of the Land of Artisans, Ruri extracted the Senjutsu chakra from Seimei. Before arriving at Takumigakure, the two needed to have a good talk.

Communication was built upon Ruri's absolute strength. Seimei had been stripped of all his ninja tools, and his base strength was not worth mentioning.

"Talk-no-jutsu" is actually quite logical. Chakra is a combination of spiritual and physical energy. When an opponent is beaten to a pulp, their chakra is surely depleted, and their spirit must be weakened to rock bottom. In such a state, one's will is easily influenced. This explains why Naruto's "Talk-no-jutsu" is so powerful; after all, he lacks everything except chakra.

Therefore, after Ruri's "Talk-no-jutsu," Seimei agreed to become a member of Takigakure as a collaborator, provided that Ruri fulfilled everything he promised and supplied him with sufficient materials for crafting and research.

In truth, Seimei's goals did not conflict with Ruri's. Seimei wanted to break the situation where the Five Great Nations oppressed smaller ones, and Ruri wanted Takigakure to rise, which also required leveraging the power of smaller nations to contend with the Five Great Nations. Furthermore, as an artisan, Seimei possessed a spirit of pursuing perfect ninja tools, and Ruri could provide more materials than Takumigakure ever could, along with research directions he had never even imagined!

Of course, Ruri did not trust him completely. Taking advantage of a moment when Seimei was not paying attention, he used the Phantom Dragons Nine Consuming Seals to seal the flames of Amaterasu inside his body. Seimei was not like Shizuka or Mitsunosuke, who were simple samurai; Ruri dared not seal Seven-Tails chakra and his own chakra into him. If he accidentally helped him break through, he would become even harder to deal with.

Although the system's civilian version of Amaterasu could not burn people to death, it could easily burn ninja tools. Once Seimei harbored ulterior motives and crafted tools for private use, Ruri could trigger the Amaterasu flames from within to incinerate the tools directly. A Seimei without his gear was nothing to fear.

Returning to Takigakure, the first thing Ruri did was visit Kakuzu. Another month had passed, and he wondered if there had been any progress in the development of medical ninjutsu.

"Lord Takikage." Jianming, the head of the Medical Team who was planning to go out to purchase materials, happened to see Ruri at the entrance and bowed quickly.

"Jianming, is there any progress in medical ninjutsu?" Ruri walked closer to the house and asked. Jianming was only at the Chunin level, but he was young and possessed exquisite control over chakra, which was why he had been chosen as the head of the Medical Team. Kakuzu's treatment and the development of medical ninjutsu were both under his charge.

"This... Lord Takikage, please look." Jianming signaled his assistant to bring over a tray, on which lay a fresh, live fish that had just been caught.

Right before Ruri's eyes, Jianming used a blade to cut open the fish's belly, and the fish, which had been flopping around just a moment ago, immediately lost its vitality.

Seimei, who was following behind Ruri, watched all this with great interest. Ruri had spoken to him about medical ninjutsu before, and he was very interested. Human life was truly miraculous; he had experimented with it while crafting ninja tools. During his battle with Ruri, he had even used a secret technique to borrow the life force of others to enhance the power of his tools, but he had never known how to restore life force.

Seeing the green chakra appear in Jianming's hands, Ruri's eyes lit up. Wasn't this exactly what medical ninjutsu looked like in the original story? Could it be that they had succeeded?!

Jianming placed his hand over the fish's belly, and the cut wound healed at a speed visible to the naked eye. After a while, it was as good as new, but the fish did not flop around as it had before; it just lay motionless on the tray.

Can it only heal wounds but not bring the fish back to life? Ruri thought, frowning. He had probably guessed the reason: medical ninjutsu in the original story worked by accelerating cell division to heal wounds, while what Jianming had achieved was merely using chakra to promote skin tissue growth. The wound looked healed on the surface, but in reality, it was just like sewing a patch of skin over the wound; it wasn't a healing process at all.

Of course, it had only been four months since the Medical Team was established. For Jianming and the others to achieve this much with zero foundation was already quite impressive. Moreover, this technique was not entirely useless; it could be used to cover skin for minor external injuries, which could prevent infection. It could probably count as a type of medical ninjutsu—a decent start.

"Hmm..." Jianming mused, then hesitated before saying, "It's not that it can't move."

"Oh?" Hearing this, Ruri was a bit confused. If they had truly reached that level, they could have started treating Kakuzu immediately. Why hadn't they begun? And Jianming was someone who wore his heart on his sleeve; if progress had been that smooth, why would he show such a hesitant expression?

Jianming extended five chakra threads from between his fingers, connecting them to the fish's body. His fingers moved rhythmically, and under the manipulation of the chakra threads, the dead fish actually began to move!

Uh... this is Puppet Technique, right?? Puppet Technique and medical ninjutsu both require precise chakra control, and both can make inanimate objects move, yes, but these two types of ninjutsu are fundamentally different. Have your skill points gone this far astray?!

Seeing no reaction, Jianming thought Ruri felt mocked and was becoming angry out of shame. Rumor had it that this Takikage acted with lightning speed and liked to break people's limbs at the slightest disagreement—for instance, breaking the legs of Kubi Ichiro, or the arms of Hagane Maomori and Tobirama...

Losing the support of the chakra threads, the fish that had been flopping around hit the ground with a thwack. Jianming was extremely nervous, looking at his hands—which could hold chopsticks and weave hand signs—with a sense of reluctance. Would Lord Takikage...

Seeing Jianming's expression, Ruri guessed his thoughts. Was he really that brutal? This characterization was all wrong!

"You've done very well. Although this technique cannot bring the dead back to life or regrow flesh and bone, it has other uses. For example... puppet shows!" Ruri felt he had come up with a great idea. Although Jianming could use chakra threads, manipulating a puppet and manipulating a dead fish were not on the same level of difficulty, let alone manipulating a puppet for combat!

Chakra threads were only the foundation of Puppet Technique. To become combat-ready, one had to practice extensively, and high-quality puppets were also necessary, but it seemed no one in Takigakure was skilled at crafting them.

Therefore, organizing puppet show performances would, firstly, train the ninjas' ability to control chakra threads, and secondly, allow them to practice the detailed movements of controlling puppets.

Actually, the main reason was that Ruri felt the village was too boring; there were no entertainment activities at all. During wartime, they were exhausted from running for their lives and worried about survival every day, so there was no time to think about such things. But in times of peace, it couldn't be like that.

With ninjas participating in production, food and clothing were no longer a concern, and with a surplus of labor, the villagers naturally had more free time. Ruri estimated that the rumors in the village about "Lord Takikage liking to break limbs at the slightest disagreement" might have been spread by this group of people who had nothing better to do after eating. He had to find some entertainment to help them pass the time!