Konoha, one evening after sunset.
Having just finished his training for the evening, Shin'un trudged wearily down Konoha's streets, his muscles still aching all over and his mind exhausted.
Despite his mental exhaustion, Shin'un's thoughts kept turning.
Should I play matchmaker for Minato Namikaze and Kushina?
After thinking it over for a moment, Shin'un abandoned the impractical idea.
Shin'un remembered that Kushina had only truly changed her opinion of Minato Namikaze during the future Second Shinobi World War.
A group of Cloud ninja had abducted Kushina. After they reached Konoha's border, Minato Namikaze caught up to them alone and rescued her. Following that iconic scene of him carrying her under the moonlight, Minato Namikaze and Kushina revealed their feelings to each other.
Only then did the two establish their relationship as lovers.
"Hmm..."
Walking down Konoha's streets, Shin'un had a gripe he wasn't sure he should voice.
Granted, a hero rescuing a damsel in distress was romantic no matter the circumstances.
But Masashi Kishimoto had clearly ignored reality when writing that part of the story. It was far too contrived.
Kushina Uzumaki was Konoha's future Nine-Tails Jinchuriki. In any other ninja village, she would have been placed under direct supervision and had her movements restricted. Although Konoha's restrictions on its jinchūriki were somewhat looser, surely Anbu would still have followed and protected her at all times.
How could a ninja village's strategically important figure be so easily abducted by ninja from another village?
Naruto had countless similar plot holes. Shin'un could even name several more examples.
Sage Mode granted extremely powerful sensory abilities, yet Jiraiya, with Sage Mode active, had still let Pain sneak up behind him and launch a surprise attack, even losing an arm as a result.
Senjutsu supposedly couldn't be absorbed, yet when Jiraiya used a senjutsu Rasengan, the Preta Path, one of the Six Paths of Pain, absorbed it all the same.
There were similar issues, too: the unlimited chakra of those under Impure World Reincarnation, Konan's six hundred billion Explosive Tags, the differences in Rinne Rebirth between its earlier and later appearances...
Of course, Naruto was an enormous serialized work, after all. With the story's structure constantly being adjusted, plot holes and inconsistencies in its settings were perfectly normal.
But for Shin'un as he was now, those plot holes could very well become things that actually happened.
This was the real world, after all. Manga and novels needed to follow logic, but reality didn't.
Shin'un shook his head and decided to leave Kushina and Minato Namikaze's relationship alone. He would let things take their course.
Right now, Shin'un needed to give his own situation some serious thought.
With a thought, a panel appeared before him.
Since [Extreme Reaction] had finished loading last week, Shin'un had yet to edit his next skill.
After all, the Skill Editor only had one loading slot and could only load one skill at a time. Once loading began, it couldn't be stopped halfway through.
The time needed to load a single skill was measured in years.
Under those conditions, Shin'un had to think things through before he could begin editing his next skill.
After eating, Shin'un lay straight down on the **.
Calling up the Skill Editor panel, Shin'un fixed his gaze on the two input fields in its upper half.
[Input field] [Input field]
After thinking it over these past few days, Shin'un already had a general idea for his next skill.
He now needed a skill with a simple effect that also had room for development.
He needed the effect to be simple because [Extreme Reaction] had taken eight years to load. Shin'un wasn't sure whether the Skill Editor took that long to load any skill, or whether it was because the effect of the skill he had edited was too powerful.
Back then, the effect Shin'un had entered for the skill was: raise reaction ability to its limit.
When Shin'un discovered that the Skill Editor could only load one skill at a time, he had even regretted not editing a more powerful skill.
For example, a skill that could kill someone with nothing more than a look.
But now, Shin'un felt that his decision to edit [Extreme Reaction] had been truly wise.
Bizarre methods of attack always had counters. Hidan of the Akatsuki's Blood Curse Secret Technique, for example, became completely useless as long as he was prevented from obtaining blood.
By contrast, [Extreme Reaction] had increased his powers of observation and his brain's reaction speed severalfold, making anyone he looked at seem to move in slow motion.
No matter what kind of battle he faced, Shin'un could always react a step ahead of his enemy. In a real fight, that was often the difference between life and death.
Combining it with Naruto's existing ninja system would allow the two to complement each other, giving Shin'un far greater potential for growth than an ordinary person. That was the overall plan he had laid out for himself.
With that path as his foundation, the kinds of skills Shin'un would have in the future were already beginning to take shape.
Simple effects, strong growth potential, greater head-on combat ability, and coverage for his weaknesses.
Those four requirements would serve as Shin'un's guiding principles for editing skills from then on.
Putting his thoughts aside, Shin'un turned his attention back to the editor panel before him.
His reactions were now extremely fast. His terrifying powers of observation could even make everything before his eyes appear to freeze.
Strength, speed, and other things tied to his body were things Shin'un could improve himself through hard training.
Only things tied entirely to a ninja's innate talent left Shin'un with no way to proceed.
Nature transformation techniques, for example.
Shin'un had tested his chakra nature as soon as he first extracted chakra.
Although he only had one nature, Shin'un was still fairly satisfied.
That was because his one nature was Lightning Release, which had considerable offensive power and came with a paralyzing effect.
What Shin'un currently lacked was a means of attack with sufficient power.
And so.
Shin'un clicked the input field on the panel and entered his ideas with his mind.
[Skill name]: Lightning Release Mastery [Skill effect]: Greatly increases talent for Lightning Release, allowing twice the results with half the effort when training in Lightning Release and progress far faster than before.
After entering all his ideas for the skill, Shin'un stopped to review them.
Once he confirmed that the text he had entered was correct, Shin'un turned his gaze to the confirm button beneath the input fields.
"Phew..."
Taking a deep breath, Shin'un actually felt a little nervous.
A few seconds later, Shin'un's gaze gradually grew resolute, and he pressed the confirm button with his mind.
"Ding~"
A notification sounded in Shin'un's ears.
When Shin'un looked toward the bottom of the panel again, the skill name [Lightning Release Mastery] appeared before the progress bar. The bar behind it had lit up, indicating that loading was underway.
Looking at the progress bar, Shin'un sank into thought.
His previous skill, [Extreme Reaction], had taken a full eight years to load. Shin'un had grown from an infant into a fourth-year Ninja Academy student.
Over those eight years, Shin'un had tried many methods to speed up the progress bar's loading.
Dripping blood on it, slaughtering animals, exercising daily, meditating, supplying chakra...
Shin'un had tried every method he could think of, but the progress bar had continued creeping along at its own pace.
Now that Shin'un had edited another skill, the progress bar had started loading from the beginning again.
Shin'un could only hope that the progress bar would load faster on its own, rather than still being unfinished years later, after the Second Shinobi World War had begun.