"If there's a next time, you can kill him," Murakami Hana said, looking at the fat shinobi with utter distaste.
This guy only ever caused him trouble.
Meaning he couldn't kill him this time.
Hyuga Akira sighed regretfully and picked up two cards from the two genin.
[Consumable: Return G-380] [Consumable: Dark Curtain F-100]
Hyuga Akira's eyes lit up as he glanced at the two cards. One was an amazing card that let him travel to a designated place he had visited before.
This thing was extremely useful.
The other was a dud. It could defend against theft or spying skills, but only players' abilities. With only one player around, this card was truly useless.
Chapter 62: Finally time for a class change
Only after Murakami Hana took the fat shinobi away did Hyuga Akira enter the cave.
"All right, it's fine now," Hyuga Akira called into the cave.
Only then did Nagato emerge from deep inside.
"Teacher, what happened?"
He had vaguely sensed a fight outside, and afterward, he had felt three fewer people.
"Go outside and you'll see." A smile appeared on Hyuga Akira's face, though it carried a hint of malice.
Nagato keenly picked up on it and looked at Hyuga Akira suspiciously.
Hyuga Akira simply walked outside. Despite his bad feeling, Nagato followed him out.
As soon as he emerged from the cave, he saw two corpses lying on the ground, with scorch marks still on them.
Nagato's gaze trembled. "T-Teacher..."
Hyuga Akira crouched down and took out a kunai to prod the corpses. Without looking at him, he said earnestly, "Nagato, whatever you choose in the future, death will always follow you."
"If you don't want to be killed, you need to be prepared to kill."
Hyuga Akira looked at the timid Nagato. At this stage, Nagato was somewhat cowardly. If not for Yahiko's eventual death, he would never have changed so drastically.
Besides, he had made Yahiko's dream his own goal.
Nagato swallowed as he looked at the corpses. Although he had always heard about people dying, this was his first time seeing a dead body.
But wasn't it too cruel to make a child like him accept something so harsh already?
And teacher, maybe you'd be more convincing if you stopped smiling!!!
Nagato looked at Hyuga Akira with some annoyance. He still wore a gloating smile; it was obvious this guy's main goal was to scare a child.
Hyuga Akira stood up and cleared his throat twice, trying to recover his dignity as a teacher. He patted Nagato's shoulder. "You'll have to rely on yourself from now on."
"Teacher, I don't think we need to rush this," Nagato said mournfully.
Seeing corpses for the first time was rather frightening.
Hyuga Akira gave Nagato a meaningful look. "The Land of Rain won't give you time."
Madara Uchiha certainly won't give you time either.
He didn't need to say that last part aloud.
His level was still too low to deal with Madara Uchiha. If he were already at max level, he could go straight to Madara Uchiha and say, "Drop some loot, old geezer."
Madara Uchiha had plenty of good stuff on him. Any single drop would count as a top-tier item.
Unfortunately, as the second-to-last major boss, he wasn't that easy to farm.
Hyuga Akira headed back the way they had come. The pool of poisonous water was already gone.
He turned to Nagato, who was still standing in a daze, and called loudly, "Let's go."
Nagato snapped out of his daze and hurried after Hyuga Akira.
Hyuga Akira looked at his panel.
[Name: I'm Xiao Ming] [Class: None] [Level: lv16 (3999/4000)] [Chakra: 120/160+50+20] [Skills: Gentle Fist (lv5), Clone Technique (lv2), Substitution Technique (lv10), Transformation Technique (lv10), Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm (lv3), Byakugan (lv3), Fire Release: Unknowing Fire (lv4), Medical Ninjutsu (lv2), Kumate (lv4), Naufra (lv8), Niko Style: Flame Sky Form (lv1)] [Experience Pool: 4765]
Finally...
Finally, level eighteen was within reach.
He had waited who knew how long for this day. There had barely been any mobs to farm in Konoha. Now, less than a year after becoming a shinobi, he was about to go from level twelve to level eighteen.
Only after level eighteen would he truly begin growing stronger.
In fact, given the experience provided by shinobi in the Shinobi World, reaching max level wasn't all that difficult.
Skills were what demanded the most experience. All the high-level skills required enormous amounts of experience in their later stages.
Moreover, quite a few skills could be combined. Meeting the combination requirements alone took plenty of experience, and they needed plenty more after being combined.
Suppressing his excitement, he first added one point of experience to gain a level.
His depleted chakra instantly refilled, and his physical attributes began to improve somewhat.
[Level: lv17 (0/4500)]
Finally, he put all 4,500 experience into it.
[Level: lv18 (0/5000)] [Class change function unlocked] [Begin class change now: Yes or No]
Hyuga Akira took a deep breath, splitting his attention between taking Nagato home and focusing on the panel.
"Yes!!"
The panel before him vanished, replaced by five images.
The first showed a burly man with red light shining from his eyes. Both his fists had turned black, with red lightning crackling around them.
The word "Pirate" appeared above the image.
It was a stamina-based class in the game. Completing the class change unlocked a haki energy bar, and each level increased strength and constitution.
Its corresponding items could only be farmed in the Land of Water, along with various Devil Fruits, though Devil Fruits had no class restrictions.
Only certain skills and pirate-exclusive items required this class to use.
High stamina, good recovery, and decent attack power.
It was similar to a warrior class in a game.
If Hyuga Akira hadn't had special requirements, this was generally the route he would have taken.
The second image showed a shinobi wearing a Konoha forehead protector, constantly performing ninjutsu, with a Sharingan in his left eye and a Byakugan in his right.
The word "Shinobi" appeared above the image.
In the game, it was similar to a mage class.
However, Hyuga Akira immediately ruled this class out, because he already had the shinobi class skill book.
The benefits of changing to the shinobi class were unknown. It might not even change anything.
It overlapped with his own abilities, so he rejected it outright. He could already use shinobi skills and items without unlocking the class.
The main point was that ordinary players entered the game world without an energy bar or any class.
They started as ordinary people, farming small animals early on, bandits in the middle stages, and wandering ninja later. Only after reaching the class change level would they unlock the class system.
That was the normal start.
Hyuga Akira had become a shinobi through the Ninja Academy. In game terms, that counted as exploiting a bug: he effectively came with the shinobi class built in.
The last showed a man in training clothes, wrapped in white currents of energy. Various backgrounds constantly flashed behind him, from famous historical sites to forests in the wilderness.
A word appeared above the image.
Hunter.
The class Hyuga Akira wanted to choose.
This class was positioned as an assassin in the game.
It was rather ridiculous: shinobi, who carried out assassinations, were classified as mages, while hunters, who had nothing to do with assassins, were actually classified as assassins.
This was also related to the class systems.
Shinobi might seem to carry out assassination missions, but their abilities involved water, fire, wind, and lightning. Ignoring the nature of their work and looking only at how their abilities manifested, they looked like mages no matter how you viewed them.
The hunter class, meanwhile, was the best in the game at concealing itself. By using Zetsu, they could evade even shinobi kekkei genkai.
If you entered someone's attack range without discovering their strength, weren't you just waiting for them to take you out with a combo?
How could that not count as an assassin?
These three were the game's three main classes.
Beyond these three main classes, there were also two paid classes.
Hyuga Akira looked at the final two black-and-white images.
Chapter 63: Why is this class change so full of twists and turns?
The game he had originally played had paid features.
Especially during the closed beta, most rewards came through paid draws. Hyuga Akira had spent just a little and drawn the Byakugan.
Any class could use a kekkei genkai like this; only the energy consumed differed.
Pirates used stamina, hunters used nen, and shinobi naturally used ordinary chakra.
In the game, the type of energy bar made no difference to the Byakugan's functions, but it did have some impact on the higher-level Tenseigan synthesized from the Byakugan.
A stamina-powered Tenseigan couldn't use ninety percent of its skills, while one powered by nen still had half its abilities unavailable.
Only the shinobi system could unlock all its abilities.
However, if you were willing to spend money, you could pay to unlock dual classes. As long as one of them was the shinobi class, the impact wouldn't be so great.
That was also why Hyuga Akira chose hunter, because in a certain theoretical sense, he already counted as having unlocked dual classes.
After unlocking dual classes in the game, the two classes' energy bars merged into one, and players could learn and use every skill from both classes.
However, experience in the game was limited. Although spending money could unlock some game content, everyone gained experience at roughly the same rate and through roughly the same methods.
Having two classes meant developing two classes with the same amount of experience other players had.
It had a major impact on player-versus-player combat, but it offered a very satisfying gameplay experience.
It depended on personal preference.
For Hyuga Akira, though, this was already the real world. Just how far two classes could take him would depend on how he developed them.
Aside from draws and dual classes.
The final thing players could spend money on was classes themselves.
Beyond pirate, shinobi, and hunter, there were two more classes that could only be obtained by paying.
As a light spender, Hyuga Akira naturally hadn't topped up much, so the last two classes were black and white, indicating that he couldn't change to them.
The first wore a black kimono and held a long sword, facing a towering monster.
The words "Soul Reaper" appeared above the image.
Before you continue