'To please the Dark God I must find a decent sacrifice.'
'But in this place, even the simplest of sacrifices will probably be very strong.'
'I am too weak to capture them, and so I must grow stronger while I search for a suitable candidate.'
Haruto had a decent plan to figure out who he'd target first to create a suitable explosion and how he'd find them.
After all, he had access to the entirety of Konoha's 'public' finances at his fingertips through his day job.
And given how much money was being moved around, surely there'd be two or three idiots that were taking money away from the blessed children in the Dark God's kingdom who were truly deserving of the money but were instead being handed out peanuts!
Offending a person here or there, or even being born to parents who had offended the wrong people might get someone to withhold the funds of these innocent lambs.
And so Haruto was sure there'd be no shortage of idiots to sacrifice to the Dark God.
The only question that remained was improving his strength to a satisfactory degree that he wouldn't fumble the sacrificial ritual and wouldn't get caught by freaking atheists after he did the ritual.
But to grow stronger faster, Haruto knew he could only ask for help from a Jonin which was currently a very far fetched dream. A more realistic option was to abuse the power of money.
Specifically the power of explosive tags.
'Hmmm…'
Haruto studied the thick guide book that he'd taken back home yesterday and brought back to the office today but still couldn't wrap his head around why things were as odd as they were.
'Why is the hardware stuff so poorly documented while the software stuff is 'decently' explained in comparison?'
'Would it be to protect the knowledge of how these things were made?'
'But as far as I know, there aren't any 'production' factories within Konoha. Only printing and agriculture happen within the village while everything else is imported either from the surrounding civilian villages or directly from the capital.'
Not having a clear answer drawn out of proper evidence Haruto shelved the matter for now since he wasn't sure if deciphering such a question would even given him a satisfying answer or any meaningful advantage.
And being on a time schedule he didn't have a lot of time to waste, if any.
As such, while the bills and recites for today were being scanned into the system, Haruto continued to read the book about Chakra from where he'd left it off the last time.
However the very first line in the chapter about 'Chakra Control' stumped him.
'The basics of Chakra control start with learning about chakra density?'
'What's that…?'
'Is this Cultivation?'
As Haruto read further he slowly realised that fortunately or unfortunately this wasn't about the possibility of condensing qi and striking against the heavens to cultivate yourself to immortality in the Naruto world, or at least not yet.
Not that Haruto wanted to since he had dedicated himself to pleasing the Dark God. Instead it was about something different.
'Since Chakra is an energy formed out of a subjective energy, spiritual energy, it is extremely personal. To the degree that there is not even a 'standard' unit of measurement for Chakra.'
Freedom rejoices somewhere.
'That is, if ninja 'A' says to perform the Fireball jutsus 'I need to fill x, y and z tenketsus with seventy percent chakra' and ninja 'B' who quantifies chakra differently uses the same ratios to execute the jutsu they might just end up with a fireball exploding in their mouth and rupturing their throat and jaw.'
'This is since, what one unit of chakra means to one person could be wildly different from what it means to another simply based on how well they can control chakra and to what degree they can divide chakra to their own personal smallest indivisible 'unit'.'
'So the question arises, how does a person 'A' share their jutsu with person 'B'? After all, a single person can't be expected to develop every jutsu in the world from scratch can they?'
'It was because of this that the term chakra density was coined.'
'The smallest unit of a chakra for a person is 'generally' defined as the smallest amount of chakra or the density of chakra they can expel from their body to cause a visible phenomenon for that particular jutsu.'
'The key words are 'for that particular jutsu' meaning each jutsu has a particular 'least chakra density' attached to it per person.'
'How was any of this useful?' Haruto wondered as he read the literal words in the book that went on to explain further.
'Well let's say person 'A' now wants to teach person 'B' the fireball jutsu again after person 'B' has miraculously recovered from a ruptured throat and jaw.'
'Instead of telling person 'B' to fill seventy percent of their tenketsus x, y and z with chakra, person 'A' would simply say, the least chakra density of my clone jutsu is two units.'
'And the rest becomes a simple problem of ratios.'
'Given person 'A' can do clone jutsu in two units and person 'B' can do clone jutsu in ten units, if person 'A' can do fireball jutsu in five units how many units does person 'B' need to use for executing fireball jutsu?'
'The answer as you guessed it is, twenty five units of person 'B's chakra.'
'Of course, without the basis of the Clone Jutsu, or any common jutsu which encompasses similar tenketsus in both jutsu, everything else falls apart.'
'And with no other basis to learn clone jutsu as an absolute beginner the only way to learn it is trial and error even with the chakra pathways to follow laid out.'
'Is this the reason why academy students spend six whole years of their academy learning three basic jutsu.' Haruto pondered. 'Because they have to figure out how to do the first three jutsus?'
'Because those jutsu might cover a wide variety of militarily useful tenketsu so that the other jutsu they learn after that become easier to grasp and can be learnt based on these jutsu as a foundation.'
'But six years is a long time is it not?'
'I mean…after all, shouldn't everyone be able to guess the Tenketsu from the approximate location that the teachers provide? And then further guess the chakra amount through trial and error?'
Haruto paused for a second and nodded to himself as a thought arose.
'Well not everyone probably needs six whole years like Naruto since most of the time in the academy might be spent on refining the jutsus and improving chakra control.'
'After all there are only three hundred and sixty one tenketsu in the human body. So as long as one has a jutsu that encompasses a majority they should have a relatively easy time learning most other jutsu with this framework, given the person teaching them also knows those jutsu.'
With that Haruto continued reading the book.
'Hence, the three fundamental academy jutsu are the absolute essentials for almost every other basic jutsu known to ninja.'
'...at least in Konoha.' Haruto added.
Haruto closed the book and sat back in his chair quietly, staring blankly at the animation showing bills and recites being scanned into the system.
'Hmm…so there should be jutsu trading centers everywhere right?'
'After all, if people can only learn jutsus by learning other simpler jutsus, that means jutsu sharing should be a prime aspect of the shinobi world!'
Haruto shook his head.
He wasn't that naive even before he entered this world. And he sure as hell wasn't that naive now.
'Perhaps there are simple illegal jutsu sharing centers in the black markets or something, sharing jutsus no one cares about, you probably can't even trust them, what if someone gives you a jutsu in exchange for one only for you to explode once you try out what they gave you.'
'Especially since you have no idea about the 'new' tenketsu you're learning about.'
'Sigh…troublesome…troublesome…'
'But for now, my course of action should be to master all the three basic academy jutsu.' Haruto concluded.
His face had a soft frown because he couldn't do anything flashy and dangerous, but he knew doing something without understanding at least the basics would be even dangerous only to himself.
With a small popup on the screen Haruto knew the bills had been scanned and so he started working on entering all the details into the Logger software, his fingers merging and adding to the clicking and clacking of keyboard noises that echoed throughout the office space.
***
"Why's he reading a basic academy textbook?" Kushina asked the question in her mind. "He was doing that earlier too. Would a child that's a spy from a different village truly not know anything about the basics? I mean…he did spend quite a while in the academy didn't he?"
Tobirama wanted to say that Haruto was only doing it because he'd been ordered to lay low before so that he could get into an administrative position. And now that he'd gotten what he wanted he wanted to get stronger again in secret.
But over the short time he'd spent reading his book, over a dozen other employees had passed behind his desk, each peeking into his book to see what he was reading then giving him a strange look once they saw him reading such a basic textbook.
Even if Haruto wanted to grow stronger in secret, he wasn't keeping anything secret at all!
An unwilling and confused frown stemmed on Tobirama's face which prompted Hashirama to chuckle a little.
"Maybe he's just a little dumb?" Hashirama asked softly, "You've always given people more credit for their intelligence than they usually deserve, Tobi. Perhaps he truly didn't know what the I.T department was…"
Tobirama frowned again, "No. It's only to be better prepared in case they make the best use of the situation. If they don't then that's their fault. I just don't want the village to suffer any large losses because we failed to see what was staring us right in the face."
Izuna found himself nodding along with Tobirama unconsciously.
He'd always heard the same thing from Madara too quite often. That he was thinking too deeply about the intelligence of Hashirama and that he wasn't some great mastermind.
Which was why looking at Hashirama now in such a personal setting felt uncomfortable.
If Tobirama were likened to a wolf in terms of his intelligence, Hashirama seemed like a rather likable fluffy puppy, quite harmless and even cute in comparison.
Even still, decades of war between the Senju and Uchiha clan while Izuna had been alive was enough for him to develop a deep sense of distrust towards Hashirama, but then again, maybe Tobirama had been the cause of the death of his clan members all along?
Minato spoke up at this moment, "Perhaps he has a way to communicate with the spies using the book as a key? Maybe he can transfer messages in public by discussing certain sections of the text with a friend or a colleague to convey preplanned meanings in confidence?"
Tobirama nodded, "That might be the case. We'll only know of it when he attempts to contact his handlers in the village."
***
Having just finished printing his tallied receipt and bills, Haruto was about to stretch his shoulders but like any well deserving black company, Shinakawa dropped off his next assignment soundlessly.
'...how's a black company worker a better ninja than me… to be able to move so soundlessly… well I just haven't been blessed fully by the Dark God yet…maybe that's why…'
Haruto looked at it for a few seconds with a deadpan expression before setting them up to be scanned so that he could get to them once he finished his shift as the Prison Logger for the day.
His escort for today was Kakashi once again and so as they made their way towards the desk, Haruto asked him a few questions that were on his mind.
"Kakashi-san, why is the software side of things so advanced while the Hardware is so mismatched?"
Kakashi looked at Haruto, confused for a second about what Haruto was talking about, causing Haruto to mistake it as an expression that said he was overstepping his lines.
"Is it a secret? If so, never mind." Haruto shrugged, he didn't actually want to know he was just making small talk, in fact he already had a few guesses he just didn't want to spend a lot of time thinking about it since it wouldn't bring him any benefits.
'It won't let me serve the Lord any better. No use wasting my time bothering myself about it.'
But Kakashi coughed softly when he realised that Haruto was talking about the machines in the office space and mumbled out a reply.
"I don't exactly know, and this isn't a big secret anyway, but the physical devices had been brought over from Amegakure. And after its collapse, when Demigod Danzo was killed, they stopped producing these things and we lost our only source of supply for them that we won at the end of the Second Great Shinobi War."
"Oh!" Haruto nodded in understanding, "That makes sense. So we still don't know how to make them? I doubt we couldn't figure that out right?"
Kakashi shrugged, "It's not that we couldn't figure it out, it's just that by the time we tried to everything was already gone. Because it was an important factor in letting the Rain Village prosper through trade, the terrorists who targeted Danzo wiped it out first to bring him to his knees to negot-, oops, I've said too much."
Haruto's face scrunched up in response, as if telling, 'Seriously! You think I can't see you smirking under that mask in there! Trying to tease me by telling me just enough to keep wanting more and making me seem like I really want to know confidential stuff!?'
'Hmpf! Let's see who's more shameless then!'
Haruto immediately fell at Kakashi's feet.
Hugging his thighs as he made his best puppy dog eyes impression while looking at Kakashi like he was his sole lord and saviour in this terrible world.
"Oh great Kakashi-sama! The one hailed as the white haired god by many! Strong enough to topple the Moon Goddess!! Strong enough to flirt with death and return! Strong enough to know the secrets of reality! I wish for you to tell me the highly advanced knowledge you've gleaned by peering into fate with your hidden powers!"
Kakashi was first taken aback when someone so blatantly put their hands on a shinobi's weapons pouch, he was about to retaliate but then paused when he realised that Haruto had wished for him to retaliate so that he could ask for compensation in return and then deadpanned and finally continued walking like nothing happened since Haruto's weight on his leg was even less than the weight of his special sandals.
"Tsk." Haruto clicked his tongue audibly and continued walking normally, falling in step with Kakashi again after feeling disappointed that his cleverly thought out plan didn't work.
They reached their desk and Haruto continued to toil away, recording new entries in the sparsely populated logging book whenever any shinobi came up to him to record their entry for a daily session of 'therapy'.
Eventually, Kakashi decided on returning to normal life, out of the damp, dreary, blood and stench filled place that was the I.T department.
"Yo~ Let's go." Kakashi said softly, his expression softening slightly but unconsciously when he saw Haruto again.
Haruto quickly packed the register and tidied up the few doodles of eldritch creatures he'd drawn on a paper he'd stolen from it before stuffing it into his pocket.
Kakashi noticed of course.
"What're those things?" Kakashi asked once they were walking the long walk towards the office again.
"Oh? You want to know?!" Haruto asked with a sly smile that Kakashi immediately noticed was placed to annoy him because Haruto wouldn't say more as revenge for before.
But surprisingly after only a short silence, which was created because Kakashi couldn't bring himself to ask or care about something twice, Haruto spoke up again.
"Those are curses."
"Curses?" Kakashi asked, confused from looking at the wriggling tentacles on the doodle's face.
"Hm~m. I wish to become an Author. A famous author. So those little guys are the enemies of my next book!"
"Ho~..." Kakashi sighed, a little interested about what such a book would entail but he wasn't too worked up about it, after all, he doubted anything could compare to the masterpiece that was Icha Icha.
"You're thinking something lewd..aren't you." Haruto questioned, giving Kakashi a side glance with a weirded out expression that screamed, 'This uncle is unsafe!' causing Kakashi to fumble a little before he walked ahead since they'd reached the office space.
Either way, right before Haruto opened the door, Kakashi left behind a few short words. "I'll be waiting to read whatever you can cook up.", causing Haruto to smile softly as he hummed out a sweet response, "Hm~m."
…
Inside the office, sitting in his cubicle, Haruto poured over the receipts and bills he was entering into the system while thinking about what Kakashi had told him before.
'So the Naruto world is in a Technological Dark Age…'
'Hmm…'
That was when Megumin interrupted Haruto's thoughts, 'Were you serious about making that story with those creepy 'curses'?'
'Huh? Oh…maybe?'
'I mean if I've got to become an Author once I return I need to make sure I have good writing skills right? What better way than to practice by copying the stories of others? So that I can write a flawless one once I return?'
'He~'
'Why? You interested?'
'Of course! I wish to see my Explosion Magic applied to them! I wish to see them explode!!!'
'Kakakakakakakaka~'
Haruto shook his head, staring at the folded paper that was now on the corner of his desk and thought about it a little seriously.
'I could use it as a cover to examine people training jutsus in various training grounds to draw the cursed techniques and other special effects?'
'But I'm a terrible artist though...'
'It took me two hours to draw half that doodle…and it was supposed to be Davy Jones in the first place...it just looks more like the cute version of Dagon…'
'Is there an arts class somewhere in the village that I could join?'
'I should ask Kakashi for advice…he surely knows a thing or two about art classes given all the missions he carries out.'
With that thought in his mind, Haruto continued focusing on the receipts and bills that he was supposed to be logging.
***
Meanwhile, Tobirama's expression scrunched up further while Hashirama laughed in the background.
"A spy drawing doodles to be an Author!? Are you being serious right now Tobi!?" Hashirama laughed unconditionally, not caring that Izuna himself seemed to be gloating in the fact that Tobirama was proven wrong in some way.
But Tobirama didn't give up.
Instead he doubled down.
"I bet he wants to use it as a cover to study various ninjutsu and transfer that knowledge back through his handler for various benefits."
"Sure bro." Hashirama laughed, patting Tobirama's shoulder sympathetically.
At this point even Minato who'd backed Tobirama up earlier fell short since it wasn't so easy to spy on other people using jutsus, even if it were as an undercover author.
Most people would immediately be on guard, and even if Haruto managed to spy on them, he wouldn't manage to copy anything other than hand seals from them which would already be public knowledge to the enemies from past wars and skirmishes during missions.
"So he's just an artist and an author?" Kushina asked seemingly interested in something before she looked at Tobirama with an expression of greed.
"Huh?" Tobirama was startled with Kushina's sudden enthusiasm and nearly faltered under her heavy gaze that seemed to say, 'Ask me what I want! Ask me what I want!'
It was almost like a golden retriever that had heard its favourite word or heard food drop into its bowl.
Luckily, Mito stepped in for the rescue.
"You want to insert a thought into him to see your child?"
Kushina's eyes snapped to Mito's and she nodded eagerly.
"If he isn't a spy then we can use him to see more of Konoha, right?! Aren't we all… 'dying' to see more of it?" Kushina veiled her 'idea' as a joke.
"Hmm…." Mito looked unconvinced, as did everyone else, but they didn't say no.
Instead Tobirama stepped up, "Let me use a suggestion first so that we know how it can be used and what it can actually do. In case Haruto needs to know your child in order for it to work, we'd only have wasted a potentially important resource."
Kushina lips curved downwards slightly as she felt saddened, but knowing that she had been a little impulsive before she agreed and stood back, for now.
"What will you make him do?" Mito asked Tobirama, eyeing him suspiciously. And it wasn't just him, Hashirama too wasn't overly fond of trying to manipulate someone's mind. Especially when Haruto seemed to be mostly innocent.
"As long as the suggestion might not be pronounced, we might not even be able to notice any effects, so if we simply ask him to betray-"
"No." Hashirama stated plainly.
On the surface such a suggestion did seem impulsive and mostly stupid at first. What if the thought insertion worked perfectly and Haruto actually betrayed the village?
While Tobirama didn't particularly care if 'Haruto' himself betrayed the village or not, what Tobirama did want to test was Haruto's moral compass.
Would such a thought cause Haruto to immediately act out? If so, how would he? Would he try to kill his comrades? His colleagues?
Clearly if Haruto was the focal point behind whatever was happening with gathering all of Konoha's previously dead shinobi and Izuna, he must have a strong sense of something, some unique factor that could shine in through trouble.
If that wasn't revealed and Haruto eventually grew too strong to do anything else, there wouldn't be anything for them to do then.
So he wanted to get rid of the problem now.
If Haruto would truly betray the village today, he'd likely be killed before he even set his foot out of the village regardless of how he did it.
As for why he wasn't simply trying to manipulate Haruto with some thought insertion like 'Become absolutely loyal to Konoha.' or something similar, it was because he couldn't measure it.
Haruto might in the best case, truly become loyal to the village, in which case he might just act as usual.
But in the worst case, how was Tobirama supposed to know if Haruto noticed such a thought and then simply pretended to act on it to fool any shinobi who he assumed had done it to him?
But when Tobirama looked at everyone and then at the short blue screen that was in front of him, he sighed knowing that he couldn't use it to do anything drastic.
So instead he shifted his plans and spoke softly to do something more 'unconventional' yet daring, "Ok, then I wish to make him dance around the street in his…underwear while on his way home today."
"..."
A stiff silence filled the enigmatic room.
"Erm…Tobi…" Hashirama started speaking but Mito placed a hand over his and stopped him as she whispered, "It's alright Hashi. We've already lost him. He's a lost cause."
Izuna on the other hand looked horrified.
'This man! This man! Who caused the deaths of countless of my clan members just thought of this!?'
'In the same brain!?'
'How dare he!!!!'
***
Looking through the Guide book on his desk Haruto frowned as he studied the various modifications the book had gone through.
There were no outward modifications, i.e no one had taken a pen or a pencil to it and scratched out something or made notes in the margins.
No, in the sections regarding the Operating System directly, Haruto could see how each progressive writer treated it as a more and more transparent black box.
Something they didn't understand but had tried to modify in order to get more than one of the same peripheral working on the same device since they had learnt how to manufacture those.
And as such, eventually, they'd cracked the surface of the OS along with the drivers and rewritten it to be able to use more than one of the same peripheral for whatever reason.
'And yet their OS runs like shit.' Haruto stated, nearly throwing the book at the wall.
Opening his eyes after keeping them closed for a while, Haruto looked at the guide book about the machine in front of him again.
He slowly picked it up and began to flip through the sections he'd just read.
It was clear to him that the main flaw in the OS that the Konoha shinobi had built was that they didn't really understand how the hardware worked.
Whether it was because they lacked access to better hardware when the supplies were destroyed or because the high end supplies were highly restricted and used in truly key areas Haruto didn't know.
From what he could see the programmers had no concept of what a cache was.
And because of the software side of things developing so fast without the hardware to catch up with it, the poison known as object oriented programmers, had slowed everything down to a crawl.
'...can I rewrite the operating system?'
Haruto was fairly certain that given enough time he could write an operating system that was a billion times faster and more effective than the nonsense that was currently running on the machines that they were given.
But doing so would take time.
And above all, it had next to no practical benefit for him.
'Can I set up a secret server for Jutsu trading somewhere and then collect the jutsus from all around the world?'
Well that was nothing more than a pipe dream and Haruto knew it.
To host a server that could connect everyone around the world first meant that they needed to be physically connected with ethernet cables, which Haruto was pretty sure was not possible in the Shinobi world given how closed off each village was.
And to be able to change that required real power to convince even just one singular more nation to allow someone to set up an internet connection between two nations to share information and then Haruto had to make sure he could 'hack' into it to use the bandwidth for his own jutsu sharing platform.
'A pipe dream.'
'...'
'But…if…it's ever possible…' Haruto thought again after a pause. 'I'm sure it won't ever run on this shitty OS….'
As such Haruto added a new plan to the bottom of his priority list, something he'd treat as a hobby to do when he was bored rather than a job or a goal.
'Rewriting the OS.'