He clenched his fist hard, feeling the power surging through his muscles. He was far stronger than he had been yesterday.
"So that's how it works..." Uchiha Makoto murmured.
"Makoto? What did you say?" Guy asked, tilting his head.
"Nothing." Uchiha Makoto snapped out of his thoughts and smiled.
"Come on, I'll teach you the principles. But this is harder than ordinary Iron Body, so brace yourself."
"Youth fears no hardship!" Guy gave him a thumbs-up, his teeth flashing with a gleam.
Teaching Guy was much less trouble than teaching Obito.
Guy might have had a one-track mind, but his talent for Taijutsu was genuinely impressive.
Uchiha Makoto demonstrated it just three times and explained the principles five times before Guy managed to harden only his palm.
Granted, it lasted only half a second, and his entire arm shook afterward.
"I... I did it!"
Guy stared at his right hand, which shone with a metallic sheen, tears of excitement welling in his eyes.
"Makoto! I did it!"
"You've still got a long way to go." Uchiha Makoto said that aloud, but inwardly, he was quite pleased.
Obito had practiced for a whole day, yet he still kept making his entire body stiff, as though someone had cast a paralysis technique on him.
Guy, on the other hand, wouldn't slack off even if Makoto told him he was doing well.
That was another reason he could succeed.
"Keep practicing," Uchiha Makoto said. "Until you can use it in an actual fight."
"Yes!"
He watched Guy resume trying to harden both hands while doing a handstand.
Uchiha Makoto walked into the shade of a tree, sat down, and began to think.
The system's mechanics were becoming clearer and clearer.
First, telling the same lie to different people allowed the manifestation percentages to stack.
Obito's 80% plus Guy's 70% had pushed it straight past 100%, even producing a qualitative change.
Second, the manifested result depended on what the listener "imagined its upper limit to be."
Obito thought Iron Body just made you a bit tougher, so what manifested had only ordinary hardness.
Guy thought Iron Body should be hard enough to block swords, so the manifested version was tougher.
"Perception determines the ceiling!"
Uchiha Makoto rubbed his chin. "Looks like getting them to believe me won't be enough. I'll have to find ways to broaden their perceptions, too."
For example, if he could make Guy believe that "Iron Body, trained to its ultimate level, can tank a Tailed Beast Bomb," what would the manifested result be?
Just thinking about it thrilled Uchiha Makoto.
But that raised a problem: how could he make Guy believe it?
If you mentioned a "Tailed Beast Bomb" to a hot-blooded idiot who hadn't even finished learning Chakra Nature Transformation, he might think you meant a new flavor of dumpling.
"Still a long road ahead!" Uchiha Makoto sighed.
But at least he had made a good start.
Flowing Iron Block had fully manifested, and its effects had exceeded his expectations.
Next, he needed Obito to master it as soon as possible. Even if he only reached the beginner level, as long as he could use it in combat, he probably wouldn't lose their next match.
As for the other advanced applications...
Uchiha Makoto recalled the techniques the CP9 members had used in the anime from his previous life: Iron Body: Steel, Iron Body: Wheel, and Iron Body: Empty Wood.
Those would all require greater trust or a more specific understanding.
There was no rushing it.
"One step at a time." He stood and brushed the dust off his pants.
"Let's get through the challenge in front of us first."
Over on the training ground, Guy could already harden his hands the instant they touched the ground while doing handstand push-ups.
Each hardening lasted only three-tenths of a second, and he had to catch his breath for ages after every repetition, but at least he was improving.
Uchiha Makoto walked over. "Guy, take a break. Haste makes waste."
"But Makoto! Youth never stops!"
"You stop so you can run farther." Uchiha Makoto pulled him up. "Come on, I'll treat you to ramen."
"Really?!"
"When have I ever lied to you?"
Guy's eyes lit up again.
Uchiha Makoto silently added:
Well, aside from those "white lies" I told to make you stronger.
When training ended that evening, Uchiha Makoto pushed open the creaking wooden door, and the dust stirred up inside made him sneeze.
"Achoo!"
He rubbed his nose and squinted as he looked around this "home."
He called it home, but it wasn't much different from an abandoned house.
Cobwebs hung in the corners, one table leg was crooked, and the window paper had a hole that rustled whenever the wind blew.
"I'm home," he told the empty room.
No one answered. The only sound was a rat scurrying across a ceiling beam.
"Grumble-"
Uchiha Makoto glanced down at his stomach and sighed.
The original owner of this body had lost his parents in battle three years ago.
They had left him this house, and the monthly relief money from the clan was only enough to buy a little rice and some pickled vegetables.
That money kept him from starving, but that was about it.
He walked over to the stove and opened the rice jar.
A thin layer of rice covered the bottom, its whiteness almost glaring.
"All right, then."
Uchiha Makoto scooped out half a bowl, rinsed it, and tossed it into the pot. Then he fished a few pickled vegetables out of another jar, chopped them up, and threw them in.
A pot of porridge with pickled vegetables.
He crouched in front of the stove, watching flames lick the bottom of the pot, their light flickering across his face.
Once the porridge was ready, Uchiha Makoto ladled out a bowl and sat at the table with the crooked leg.
The porridge was thin, and the pickled vegetables were salty. He downed the entire bowl, but his stomach was still growling.
"Something's wrong." He set down the bowl and felt his abdomen.
Hungry.
Absolutely ravenous.
Uchiha Makoto frowned.
"Is it the system?"
He thought about how often he had used the Lie-Into-Reality System over the past few days to manifest Iron Body and alter his physique.
After all, this body was still fundamentally a child's.
The energy demands brought on by the system's modifications probably far exceeded what someone his age could handle.
"I need to get some money."
Uchiha Makoto stared at the empty bowl. "Forget training. At this rate, I might starve to death."
The question was, how?
Uchiha Makoto thought for a long time before his gaze finally settled outside the window.
There was a tree out there, with a hollow beneath it.
The next day.
"Obito!"
At the edge of the training ground, Uchiha Makoto found Obito, who had just finished training and was drenched in sweat.
"Makoto!" Obito's eyes lit up. "Are we practicing Flowing Iron Block again today? I can already harden half my body!"
"We'll talk about that later." Uchiha Makoto pulled him aside and lowered his voice. "Let me ask you something."
"What is it?" Obito leaned closer.
"Do you believe... there are tree hollows with hidden treasure in this world?"
Obito paused. "Tree hollows with hidden treasure?"
"You know, that kind." Uchiha Makoto gestured as he spoke. "There's a hollow beneath some big tree, and inside is treasure someone buried. It could be gold, silver, jewels, or maybe..."
"Money?" Obito supplied.
"Right." Uchiha Makoto stared at him. "A lot of money. About a million ryō?"
"A-a million ryō?!" Obito's eyes went wide. "You're kidding, right, Makoto? Who would put money in a tree hollow?!"
"I'm not kidding." Uchiha Makoto's expression was serious.
"I really found a tree hollow downstream along the Naka River, beneath the biggest cedar tree. It's really deep. I shone a flashlight inside, and it was full of money bags. From a rough estimate, there's at least a million ryō."
Obito stood with his mouth hanging open, speechless for a long while.
A million ryō.
Before you continue