I opened my eyes.

If it weren't for the instantaneous panic that lanced through me at that moment, I would have fallen back to sleep.

I remembered the heat. The pain. My mind instinctively flinched away from those memories. I blinked, ready to face my afterlife…

A blue crystalline square appeared out of nowhere in front of my vision instead.

Congratulations! You have been chosen to be reincarnated in the land of Kirigakure no Sato with the power of 'The Gamer'. Please enjoy and express customer satisfaction after your death.

….what?

I blinked again. The…thing didn't go away.

I looked beyond it, and it obligingly became transparent so I could look around at my hazy surroundings. No idea.

I read the pop up again. I felt a little dizzy. Yes, I had died. Yes, something definitely happened after my death…but I didn't remember. It was a scary feeling. To be aware that something happened but no idea what. My own memories betrayed me yet again.

It wasn't uncommon after all. People forgot things all the time. So did I. But every time I realized it, I was always a little scared. Of course I wished for picture perfect memory, who didn't? Specially because I had been a medical student in my previous life.

I shifted uncomfortably. Then I realized two things.

One, I was reincarnated. As in, baby.

Two, I was in Kirigakure no Sato, the bloody Mist. In Naruto. The most dangerous land post Warring Era. Where bloodline users die like crazy. Go missing via Orochi or Danzo or any other crazy lunatics. Or become missing nin. Or they join the rebellion.

Fuck this life.

Seriously, fuck this life.

I might have asked for the powers of 'The Gamer' and I get it, you get to kill loads of people in Mist, but it's a freaking crazy place. Crazy.

Even regardless of all those thoughts, a tinge of excitement crept up over me. It's not like I was bloodthirsty or anything…I just a bit of an adrenaline junkie. Just a tinge.

'Main menu?' I thought. There was no way I was going to speak, specially when I knew where I was. Kiri was a place to either be super strong or be hidden among the crowd. And I was a very normal person in my previous life, actually.

A little nicer, a little kinder than the norm but very very average. I would need to know the average here to blend in. At least in my younger years

'The Gamer' is a growth multiplier. So it was obvious that even with average training, I could still become extraordinary. So obviously, I need to go out with a bang!

Mwahahaha!

Right.

So. What can I do? I focused on the screen in front of me. Or screens, more like it.

[Perfect Recall] can be accessed when Intelligence is over 100.

My eyes widened in shock.

Wait. It was a possibility?

But why was the required Intelligence number so high? Or was it? Maybe it was an average number?

Ugh. Half information was always so frustrating. She dismissed it. The next one was the Main Menu page.

[Status]

[Inventory]

[Reputation]

[Skills]

[Settings]

She focused on [Settings] because that was one of the basics of every game.

It opened up into a new page.

[Gamer eyes] skill locked

[Party] partially disabled

[Gamer's Mind] skillpermanently disabled

[Gamer's Body] skill active

[Natural Perks] unlocked

What.

Okay, was not expecting that. I was expecting stuff like 'background music' or something. Not the pre-determined selections.

My eyes roamed over the words, getting fixed on a single one.

[Party] partially disabled

Why 'partially'? If I didn't have party mode at all, I wouldn't have to tell anyone about it. But why 'partial'. I narrowed my eyes suspiciously. There was something missing.

I went back to the previous page and chose [Skills]. There had to b something there.

Skill List

Passive Skills:

Gamer's Body:

Partially grants a body that allows the Gamer to live as if in a game.

Pain sensation decreases

HP & CP recovers fully after sleep

Physical Resistance: Level 3

Resists all abnormal status by 3%

Medicine: Level 57

Knowledge of the body and how to heal it.

Increases the experience gain of [Medical Ninjutsu] by 57%

Active Skills:

Charisma: Level 35

Gives you the ability to get people to like you.

Increases [Reputation] gain by 35%

Breathing: Level 72

You can breathe steadily.

Increases VIT by 7.2

Music: Level 69

You can use your voice or any instrument to create music. Your voice is pleasant to the ear.

Increases [Reputation] gain with people of high nobility by 6.9%

Increases [Reputation] gain with people who hear you by 6.9%

Cooking: Level 41

Increases [Reputation] gain for all who eat your food by 41%

Can provide [Buffs]

Meditation: Level 1

You can sit still and meditate to gain the knowledge of the world to become a sage.

This is a selected skill

Increases your wisdom by 0.1

Increases your HP & CP regeneration by 1%

Cannot be activated in battlefield

Cannot be activated with another skill

Telepathy: Level 1 (Cost: 50 CP)

You can mentally communicate with people around you.

This is a selected skill

[Party] system can be partially accessed through this

Can induce [Debuffs] or abnormal status effects on targets.

So freaking OP.

How is this even possible. This is crazy. This last skill…

Also I had some useful skills for [Reputation] gains. Was that me or was the game trying to push me on a path, huh?

This whole thing had quite a lot of good things but there were also some things that could have been skills but were discarded. Like hair dressing. Or something.

Looks like I really did have a hand in the settings management of this game, then I must have selected these skills for a reason.

The 'selected skill' makes it obvious the path I wanted to follow. But what's weird was the meditation skill. The description made me think about Sage Mode, but it only had a permanent bonus for Wisdom. And only for 0.1 which wasn't that good. The end result would be 10 which was decent but was it even worth it?

Then there was only one answer.

This is an upgradable skill.

A skill window popped up in front of me instantly.

You have received +1 Wisdom.

Huh. Looks like I really was right. That's a relief. But until the age of 2 or 3 at least, I wouldn't be doing much anyway. Kakashi was 5 when he went though the Academy in Konoha. That was the youngest age someone could be ready that I knew of. So before that I would need way more skills than these.

But until I could actually move around enough to get those skills, I would need to level up [Meditation] and [Telepathy].

I would need to be really really subtle with [Telepathy] because bloodline users were killed in Kiri. I also need to acquire information about when I was born and general information about the world. Information about Kiri was ridiculously vague in Narutoverse so [Telepathy] was actually the perfect skill to have.

Next was the [Status] screen. The basic info about myself.

Status

Name: Izumi Kawaguchi

Title: The Gamer

Level: 1

Exp: 0%

HP: 82/82 (HP regeneration: 0.8% per hour)

CP: 372/372 (CP regeneration: 4.9% per hour) [locked]

STR: 1

VIT: 8.2 (1+7.2)

DEX: 1

INT: 29

WIS: 49.1 (41+0.1)

LUK: 17

Status Points: 0

Hm. It wasn't as terrible as I expected. And Wisdom was almost 50. There could be some kind of [Natural Perk] from that, right? Or not.

But that was a thought for another time. So breakdown for HP and HP regen was VIT. Convenient but also annoying. It would have been nice if one of them increased with STR and DEX cause they were both super important to life as a ninja.

INT and VIT gave rise to Chakra and WIS governed the CP regen. So it was actually better to increase INT instead of WIS in general but again, I shouldn't be showing anything too special before I know more about the timeline and my family.

It doesn't say I have any other bloodline limits but who knows? They would count 'The Gamer' system as one and I had no interest in being a broodmare.

The regeneration was fine for a normal human being but I wouldn't survive if it took me 100 hours to actually fully heal. I would need VIT in 1000 to get full HP in an hour. Or sleep.

That…was possible. Maybe. But then my level would need to be really really high. Also, depends on how many status points I get per level. I should just assume I would get exp per missions and kills. Maybe not even missions. Who knows if there is a Quest system?

Quest System locked until first Quest.

What about Mini-map?

Mini-map unlocked!

No explored area!

It showed a dark screen with a speck of light in the center.

It was a little comical, to be honest. But that was most of the basics that I could think of. Now, I just need to upgrade [Meditation] skill to its maximum. There is no age or mention of the caste system that is so popular in Mist, so I would have to discover it as I go.

Then, I closed my eyes, removed all thoughts from my mind and just relaxed. My mind focused only on my body and the chakra swirling in it.

-x-

[Telepathy] has leveled up!

[Telepathy] is now level 27!

I opened my eyes as soon as the matron was gone. The matron kept changing because everyone believed that there was a ghost in the orphanage. The number of volunteers had decreased as well. The orphanage was always short-handed and I tried my best to keep out of everyone's way.

At the age of 4, I had leveled up a lot of my skills and gotten quite a few skills as well. That was the best part about being 'The Gamer'. You can only ever get better.

I got out of bed and got ready. Today would be an important day. First impressions mattered because that's how people remembered you by.

I walked and walked and walked and then I could run faster than ever. It was gamble to put so much into the [Walk] skill. When it became level 10, it upgraded into the skill [Run] which had much better benefits that I had expected.

Run: Level 65 (Cost: 10 CP)

You can run efficiently. You can now use chakra to run.

Increases VIT by 6.5

Increases DEX by 6.5

Chakra increases your running speed by 65%

The fact was as a child, I had gained passives that increased my base score permanently but in a way that was suitable subtle enough to not bring me to attention. So, okay, there were theories about a ghost but ninjas had come about to check and I even though I had unlocked my chakra by [Meditation] Level 50, it wasn't enough to suspect me. Why?

This was the bloody Mist.

When kids showed potential, they were thrown into the Academy…which brings me to my next problem. I made a miscalculation.

I was born of the lowest caste which gave me a classification. The classification system wasn't what was bad. It was the fact that I would be thrown in the most dangerous situations. The worst of missions. That could be tricky to handle. It was a high risk, high reward situation.

It wasn't really the best situation to handle so I brought up my Status screen with a frown on my face, wondering about the future.

Status

Name: Izumi Kawaguchi

Title: The Gamer

Class: Low class civilian

Level: 1

Exp: 0%

HP: 147/147 (HP regeneration: 1.4% per hour)

CP: 467/350 (CP regeneration: 9.5% per hour)

STR: 1

VIT: 14.7 (1+7.2+6.5)

DEX: 7.5 (1+6.5)

INT: 32

WIS: 95 (41+54)

LUK: 17

Status Points: 0

My INT increased while I read the books and understood the language, but I received no skill for it. It made me think there were silent skills or such that were hidden or that could not be accessed due to some reason or the other.

There was also my success with [Meditation] skill. It had evolved as well. Evolution gave rise to awesome skills it seemed. So what was the most important was 'time'.

And with the Academy, what I would start to get was the evolving part of my skill coming to play.

After level 20, [Telepathy] became subtle. It became a little like genjutsu. If it was subtle enough, if I could direct it in a way that they thought it was their own thought process, she could survive.

Kiri was a place that prized physical skills above all. STR, VIT and DEX were the skills that would be trained the most in the Academy.

There was this skill that evolved from [Meditation].

Awareness: Level 54

You have a distinct awareness of the people around you as you are aware of yourself.

Skills can be used simultaneously

Increases Wisdom by 54

Area of Awareness is 540m around you

I also got a [Natural Perk] due to WIS reaching 50. That was actually pretty interesting.

Genius: Lv MAX

You can now be called a 'genius'. You can solve problems, observe your surroundings and notice things that may be invisible to people around you.

The game was going to affect the way I thought soon. Or maybe it already had. I was pretty sure I was going to get a superiority complex with the way it was going.

I remembered Pein and shuddered. As long as it wasn't a God Complex, it would be okay… I hope.

With a steadying breath, I entered the Academy which would decide my future.

Physical Resistance: Level 33

Charisma: Level 37

Breathing: Level 100

Telepathy: Level 27

Run: Level 65

Awareness: Level 54

So that's it for the first chapter of my newest story! R&R!