Mission Complete, System Repaired, Database Unlocked

By the time Shiro and Yamada arrived, the battle was already over, and nothing unexpected had happened. After all, Team 7 was the protagonist team—C-rank missions turning into A-rank missions was practically routine for them. Shiro did not have that kind of treatment. Their mission was a C-rank one, and the intelligence had been basically accurate, so there had not been many surprises. As for the Explosive Tags, the couple had simply seen too many enemies and thrown them out in a moment of panic.

They were still only genin, after all. They did not have much Chakra or many ninjutsu options, so this was all they could do. As expected, Qian and Ming chose life.

Money could be earned again, but once life was gone, everything was over. On this point, they were quite practical.

Thus, when Shiro and Yamada arrived, the bandits had already been wiped out. Chosuke and Seiyu were sitting on the ground resting. The moment Chosuke saw them, he charged over and shouted, "You bastard, Shiro! Didn't we agree on an assassination? What the hell were you doing?!"

"Huh? Didn't we just pull off a perfect assassination?" At Shiro's words, Yamada and the other two immediately looked at him strangely.

"You call that an assassination?" Yamada looked at Shiro as if asking whether he was mentally impaired.

"Of course it was an assassination. If you kill everyone who saw you, isn't that a perfect assassination?" Shiro said seriously to the three of them.

"..." x3

The three stared speechlessly at the utterly serious Shiro. Yamada once again felt that letting Shiro and the others graduate from the Academy after only one year had been a mistake.

Of course, Shiro had not acted recklessly. He had some confidence in his teammates. They were ninjas who had been tempered by war; there was no way they could lose to a mere group of bandits. Besides, Yamada had been keeping an eye on the ninja among them, so Shiro had felt reasonably assured. After all, it was only called an assassination if you had the strength to pull it off. Without strength, it was just throwing your life away.

That was why Yamada had not stopped them. Although Chunin were cannon fodder in the original story, that was only because the story revolved around the protagonists, whose companions were either members of powerful clans or geniuses. Naturally, Chunin seemed unremarkable. But in reality, Chunin were already considered the middle-tier strength of a ninja village. There were only so many Jonin. Even at Konoha's peak, it had only a little over a hundred Jonin positions, while a major ninja village had roughly over ten thousand ninja, or seven to eight thousand even counting only active-duty ninja. Therefore, Chunin were actually quite strong.

What was more, anyone capable of serving as a squad leader, even if they were not Jonin, was at least among the elite of the Chunin. Chosuke and the others understood this, so they did not blame him too much. They had seen their share of the world, after all. They were people who had survived Hanzo the Demigod!

With the mission complete, they did not delay. After cleaning up the battlefield, they headed for the nearest town. Along the way, Chosuke and Seiyu learned of Shiro's results, and they fell rather silent. During training, they had roughly known that Shiro was stronger than them, but they had not known he was stronger by this much!

After all, Seiyu and Chosuke had needed to use Explosive Tags against a group of bandits just to ensure they could defeat them without being injured. Yet Shiro had dealt with a similarly sized group by himself, and there had even been ninja among them. The gap between them was obvious. It was fine for now, but once Shiro's strength improved again, if they still failed to keep up...

Then they would become Shiro's burden. And that meant Shiro would soon leave this squad. They had fought together for over a year, after all, so they felt somewhat upset. That was why they barely spoke along the way.

Yamada had already sensed this coming. Shiro had "developed" a fairly practical ninjutsu at such a young age, which already qualified him as a genius. Although the technique had considerable limitations and was low-ranked, that did not prevent Shiro from earning the title of genius.

Yes, in their eyes, Reinforcement Magecraft was not especially valuable. First, the degree of enhancement depended on one's level of practice with the technique. Its high growth potential was an advantage, but they did not know where its limits lay. If its ceiling was low, that would be troublesome. It would also inevitably consume a great deal of effort, and it could only enhance taijutsu. That alone greatly reduced its value. Second, perhaps because the systems were different, the technique performed terribly on others. It consumed a lot, its enhancement was far weaker than Shiro's, and its activation time was long. This had already been discovered when Shiro submitted the technique. However, considering that Shiro was still young, and that the technique had been developed based on his own physique, making it poorly adaptable and newly developed, they had merely encouraged him, fed him some Will of Fire pep talk, and set the technique aside.

That was why Chosuke and the others did not know Reinforcement Magecraft. It was not some profound technique that they would be unable to learn.

Meanwhile, Shiro was excited because he had just received a system notification: the system had been repaired to 30%, the database had been unlocked, and the energy storage system had been completely repaired!

Therefore, Shiro was eager to reach an inn in town and study it properly. He still had a mountain of questions, after all. Naturally, he had long considered leaving the squad, but it was not as if they would be permanently separated. They were all in the same village. Besides, Shiro's body was only seven years old, while his mental age was already over twenty. He was not as concerned about this matter as Chosuke and the others were.

As for why the system had repaired itself so quickly, it was mainly because of that Ten-Tails Fragment. No matter how shattered it was, it was still a fragment of the Ten-Tails. This shoddy system could not absorb it all at once. Shiro had learned that over the past week, and had already enhanced his Mana to C++. However, that merely represented the amount of Chakra he would have as an adult, so there had not been much immediate change. Still, it made Shiro understand that attributes needed to be enhanced as early as possible, because only then could they turn into actual benefits.

As for why he had only enhanced it to C++, Shiro wanted to continue too, but he could not enhance it any further. The reason was unknown.

Fortunately, he had already learned the quirks of this lousy system over the past two years, so he was not too surprised. He also did not continue enhancing his other attributes. After all, his other two attributes could currently be supported entirely by Reinforcement Magecraft, and that was enough for now. What he lacked most at present was energy. Good steel had to be used on the blade, so Shiro had been waiting for this moment!

And now that the moment had arrived, how could he not be excited? After all, it concerned whether he had a way to return!

Although he had gradually come to accept his family and friends in this world over the past two years, that did not mean he felt no attachment to his original world. He had not been alone in that world!

Thus, the four of them continued toward the town in silence. After a while, Team Yamada arrived at an inn in town. "Everyone, rest for the night first. We'll stay here for a day tomorrow, so relax properly!" Seeing that the children were rather quiet, Yamada decided to let them unwind. The mission was already complete, so there was no need to rush. They had plenty of time.

No matter how mature Chosuke and the others were, they were still children. Hearing this, they happily responded and went to their rooms. Shiro had been unable to wait any longer himself, so naturally, he had no objections.

Seeing how restless they were, Yamada smiled. "They're still children after all."

Then he returned to his room to rest as well.

The moment Shiro returned to his room, he eagerly communicated with the system. "System, how much of the database has been repaired?"

"The database has been fully repaired, but 10% of its data has been lost."

"Ten percent?" Although he had been unable to wait any longer, Shiro ultimately forced himself to calm down. After hesitating, he asked the system, "Then... can I still go back?"

"Retrieving information."

Shiro waited nervously for the system's answer.

"Retrieval complete. The host can return to the original world. Information regarding the method of return is incomplete. The world coordinates have been preserved intact!"

"Great!" Unable to contain his joy, Shiro cried out excitedly!

"Shiro, what happened over there?!" Since Shiro had shouted in Chinese in his excitement, Yamada and the others thought something unexpected had happened to him. They immediately asked anxiously while preparing for battle!

"Oh, I'm fine. I made a small breakthrough in my training and couldn't hold it in. Sorry." Only then did Shiro remember that he was currently at an inn, and he hurriedly calmed his excitement.

"You brat, get some proper rest now. It's fine to pause your training for a while. Don't hurt yourself. All right, get some rest. Tomorrow, have fun for the whole day."

"Got it, Teacher Yamada. I'll rest now." Shiro answered with a sigh of relief.

Fortunately, two years of ninja life had tempered Shiro. Otherwise, the old him might not have been able to calm down at all.

"The world coordinates are intact, but the method of traveling between worlds is missing. In other words, as long as I find a way to travel between worlds, I might be able to go back?" Shiro thought for a while. "Looks like I have one more reason to become stronger."

"System, I fused with Shirou Emiya's Heroic Spirit Card, so I should possess his abilities. Even if Unlimited Blade Works is incomplete, what about the Clairvoyance and Mind's Eye among his personal skills? And the Class Skills? Why don't I have those abilities?" After learning that returning to his original world was currently impossible, Shiro began asking the questions that had plagued him all along. This was what he relied on to become stronger. Shiro knew his own limits well—without this Heroic Spirit Card, he would probably have died on the battlefield long ago. Even if he had somehow survived the Third Shinobi World War, with his trash-tier physique, he would most likely die in the village-destroying war sparked by a bag of rice. Therefore, Shiro cared deeply about this matter.

After learning that he had hope of returning, this was the first question Shiro asked. Only by possessing sufficient strength would he be qualified to seek a method of traveling between worlds and put it into practice. Without strength, all of it would be nothing but fantasy.

"Retrieving data."