Chương 13: Money Money Money.

With his money in his pockets, Haruto walked carefully back home making sure not to act out of pocket to get anyone suspicious about his wealth. In fact, he stuffed his hands in his pockets and balled it inside it to make it appear as if his pockets were only bulging because he had his hands in them. His total salary for the month was fifty five thousand ryo. About the pay out of two D-Class missions, which wasn't a lot but also wasn't too little for the work he did.

And Haruto was already counting his chickens, wondering just how many explosive tags he could buy with the money so that he could set up a drastic explosion somewhere to please the Dark God.

'An explosive tag costs about four hundred ryo. If I keep some money to feed myself for the month, I'll have a hundred explosive tags for me to use.'

'Hmmm… but buying it all from a single shop will be suspicious. I should purchase small amounts from the various weapons stores in the village on different days to reduce suspicion.'

'... I could even ask different children to purchase them for me and give them all one or two explosive tags as payment.'

'But for today, I should still get an explosive tag for safety… maybe three.' Haruto quietly changed his direction to the nearest Shinobi Wares store which he found out about after asking around a little. He looked at the entrance of the store and sighed a little, considering how fast everything was moving since he'd come to this world and then finally entered the store causing a little bell at the top to go off before he looked for the shop owner.

The shop owner was an eastern looking old man who was holding his daughter in his lap. The little girl was wearing a pink qipao style dress with her hair in two little buns on top of her head. She was holding a wooden kunai and was fidgeting with it nonstop.

'Tenten?' Haruto wondered.

"Yes?" the shopkeeper asked kindly, causing Haruto to become stiff. There was just something about the voice of the shopkeeper that registered Haruto as a predator looking down at a prey.

"I need three explosive tags sir." The shopkeeper's eyes suddenly glinted, unnoticed by Haruto before he started speaking, "What'll you do with three? Even a decent trap requires at least ten explosive tags. You need to be pumped in these matters. And luckily for you we're running a discount for ten tags at the moment, only valid for the next three hours. Buy ten at the price of just nine! So what do you say?" Haruto, overwhelmed by the sudden information, could only nod.

'I have money for ten… why not buy ten…'

"How much is the range on one Explosive Tag sir?"

"Our store's explosive tags are the very best! No comparison. The range is about ten feet in open terrain!" Haruto nodded and paid happily while the little Ten Ten jumped down from her father's lap and picked up the bundle of explosive tags to hand over to Haruto. Haruto took the bundle and pulled the little girl's cheek as a measure of her cuteness, which she did not like, as made clear by her attempt to bite off Haruto's fingers for the blasphemous act, before leaving the store.

It was only after Haruto left the shop did he realise that he'd just been gotten and scammed out of money for nine explosive tags. Haruto sighed deeply and looked at the store, "By the Dark God… next time I'll get you…" With all that, Haruto finally reached home. He first carefully stashed all his money in a safe in the house before cooking himself something delicious using the spices that Mitsuo's mother had given him in the market a month ago. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval.

Report sightings. It took some time to finish cooking everything and Haruto finally sat down to eat as usual with his textbook about Chakra. Today was finally the day Haruto decided he would knead some chakra within himself. And before doing so, Haruto read through the textbook about any do's and don't's while eating.

'When beginning converting spiritual and physical energy into chakra it is recommended that you start by doing so in the stomach tenketsu since it is the largest tenketsu and the easiest to access by far.'

'If you convert all physical energy and spiritual energy into chakra in your body and use up all the chakra without letting your body rest and recover, you will die.'

'Perfectly created chakra is neither hot, nor cold, but both at once.' Haruto quickly finished his dinner and washed his plates and bowls before sitting crosslegged on the floor. He closed his eyes and focused inwards and tried to sense the world inside. At first all he could see was the System screen that only he could see. But very quickly he began to feel something more. A clouded mass lingering inside his head, and a different energetic mass covering his entire body.

'Are these my spiritual energies and my physical energies?' Haruto questioned no one in particular.

'Must be…'

'What was it again? I can only form chakra inside a tenketsu, so I have to drag these energies into a tenketsu to form chakra right? Easy… let's do it.' Since the stomach tenketsu was recommended for the first time, Haruto started with that. With slow, almost gentle caressing calls, Haruto separated some of the spiritual energy from the cloud inside his head and guided it towards his stomach. It was as if he were playing with a cat, holding a fiddle and guiding it where to move next.

The spiritual energy sometimes pulled closer to his indicated direction, sometimes pushed away wanting to return to the mind's cloud, and sometimes appeared uninterested in his commands all together. But eventually, after about a minute or so of coaxing his spiritual energy to do his bidding, Haruto managed to drag a chunk of it to the tenketsu in his stomach. Almost as soon as he did, something rather unique occurred.

The spiritual energy that was before behaving like a disobedient child, suddenly became a stiff soldier. It didn't move an inch from its place unless Haruto commanded it and stayed firmly within the bounds of the tenketsu as if something special contained it.

'Huh…what exactly are Chakra pathways? Why are they so special with regards to chakra?'

'It also raises the question… if Chakra was given to humans by Kaguya… as according to Naruto lore, did we have chakra pathways before that? If so, why? If not, then how did humans evolve Chakra pathways?' The spiritual energy in his tenketsu felt cool, as if he had just gulped down a bottle of ice cold water during a hot summer day. It brought relief to his body and eased his actions making him feel slightly lazy at the moment.

With his eyes still closed, Haruto soon focused on the other cloud of energy in his body that was present throughout it, like a constant companion. Haruto focused his mind and tried separating some of the energy but failed terribly.

'Huh… why can't I separate the physical energy in my body? Is there a problem with me?' Haruto was puzzled for a minute or so before he had a different idea.

'What if I tense the muscle group that the energy belongs to?' And that worked! As soon as Haruto tensed his stomach, the physical energy around it began to coalesce and move towards an area with less tension, in this case, his tenketsu which was kept relaxed. It was almost as if he had wrung his physical energy dry from his body.

'So spiritual energy requires the mind to compress and physical energy requires the body to compress… interesting.' As soon as the physical energy was distilled into the stomach tenketsu, a warm feeling replaced the previous cold. It felt like sunbathing on a cool spring day. The energy energised him and made his body feel slightly jumpy unlike when he'd gathered the Spiritual energy. Now with both the spiritual energy and the physical energy in the tenketsu all that was left was to knead them into chakra.

And Haruto did just that. With a soft stir, as if he were mixing sugar in water, Haruto began to gently move the spiritual energy with his mind. At first the mixture of the two energies was distinct and separate, as if the two energies were oil and water. But slowly, as Haruto kept at it, the energies soon mixed with each other and turned into a generic mixture. And after a few minutes more of stirring when both the energies completely lost their individuality and merged fully with each other, Haruto sighed.

The chakra he had just created was now sitting in his stomach tenketsu, moving slowly and spreading to the various parts of his body as if it had a mind of its own. A refreshing feeling spread throughout Haruto's body, as if he'd just taken a shower.

'It's slightly cool to the touch.' Haruto noticed.

'Did I add a little too much spiritual energy?'

'Makes sense, the cloud of energy near the brain is small, it must be more dense.' Yet Haruto was happy as indicated by the slight smile on his face. He felt proud at having accomplished what his predecessor had never been able to do.

'Yes…this means I have what it takes to be a shinobi.'