AN: BREH, I usually upload my chapters at midnight and go to sleep, wake up to see an influx of stones and comments, but I got literally none today. Was confused then I realised I FORGOT TO UPLOAD. Anyways here's your chapter.
Also guys, I'm starting a new fic, dw won't affect these updates. And it's something I'm really passionate about. It's about an mc who will dabble in everything entertainment wise. YouTube, singing, art, football, manga, anime, etc. but the main will be Acting.
And due to his supernatural acting skill, he gets so 'lost' in characters, he lowkey slowly going crazy. This isn't about a 'good' character. It's about someone who slowly loses their identity and goes insane in entertaining the world. I'm probably going to call it- [I have the worlds Greateat Entertainment System]. Will upload it later today, hope you guys enjoy. Anyways, back to this fic:
Power Stone Goals from now on: I always post a minimum of 5 chapters. Henceforth the following are the goals:
Every 150 powerstones, I upload an extra chapter.
If we hit top 30 in the 30-90 days power stone rankings, thats 1 more chapter
If we hit top 10 in the 30-90 days power stone rankings, thats 1 more chapter
If we are top 5...well lets get to that first. Happy readings!
Chapter 70: KAGE LEVEL PLAYER?!
The moon hung high in the night sky, its pale light spilling over the snowy ridges of the Land of Iron. Cold wind whispered through the pine trees as I moved silently through the narrow paths that led toward the capital.
The capital of the Land of Iron.
Unlike my previous movements, I chose to travel under the veil of night. The fewer eyes watching, the better. Before the sun dipped below the horizon, I had gathered everything I needed from the last settlement—dried food, scroll ink, warm gear, and some innocuous supplies. Nothing that would draw attention.
I traveled light, steady, and unhurried.
There was no reason to rush.
The summit hadn't officially begun yet, and arriving too early might just raise suspicions. Patience was more useful than speed.
After several miles of hiking through narrow ridges and steep, winding trails, I found a sheltered alcove beneath a rocky overhang. A decent place to rest.
I set up camp carefully, brushing snow away from the ground and igniting a small, chakra-masked fire. As I worked, pulling my cloak tighter and placing my travel pack near the fire's warmth, a faint chime echoed in the back of my mind.
A system notification.
No ordinary prompt. This one shimmered with the golden edge of a world-level alert.
{Congratulations for a player to be the first to reach the Kage rank!}
I froze, mid-motion, half-way through unpacking a ration scroll.
Another line followed immediately.
{The player will be provided with 3,000 EXP for the MONUMENTAL accomplishment and be the 4th (3/5) to gain access to the 'Elite-Chat.' There are only 2 more spots for the Elite-Chat}
I blinked.
"What?" I muttered.
The words repeated themselves in my head, but they didn't make more sense the second time around.
Kage-level?
The first?
Who the hell was this?
I had clawed my way to the Elite Jonin rank with blood and bone. Every step forward had been earned. Training, grinding, risking everything.
And I was nowhere close to the Kage level!
Kage?
Now someone has hit it?
My hand gripped the edge of the scroll pouch tightly. I stared into the small campfire, its glow flickering off the snowy ledges nearby.
How?
Was it someone with a broken build? A hidden quest? Some twisted AI-manipulated condition? But to be a real world too...so it had to follow a semblance of logic.
The Ai couldn't just make people overpowered...could it?
No name was listed in the system notification.
Only this massive, world-altering piece of news.
Whoever it was... they had surpassed me.
At least in rank.
And now they had access to Elite Chat.
I leaned back slowly, breathing in the frosty air. No use panicking. But it did mean one thing for certain.
(words in () is Shikomu, rest is the chat)
...
-Elite Chat-
Ghost: Seems like we have another unknown...no one reported to the Federation that they were inside of the Elite-Jonin Rank, let alone the Kage rank...
(This was good, this meant that this was a surprise even to the Guilds and the people controlling everything inside of the outside)
False Sage: Can any of you guys help me?
(What...what the hell did a Kage level player need from us noobs?)
False Sage: I was forced to merge with this person known as Orochimaru...
...
As I read that one line, everything made sense...well, kind of.
So it turns out, this player known as False Sage now, was someone who spawned inside of Orochimaru's training facilities.
Even though he had such shitty luck in his spawn, he persisted and continued playing the game. Eventually Orochimaru thought he brainwashed this subject properly and allowed him to go through some training.
Eventually, some missions.
He was infused with tens of different types of bloodlines so that his chakra volume and physique skyrocketed ... .but that didn't explain how he reached the Kage rank.
Also, the bloodlines didn't really manifest at all for him. He was just a regular civilian, or at least that's how it seemed.
His reasoning was the only reason he survived the experiments was due to being a player and thus much lower pain thresholds and thus insane tolerance.
And then when he became a Jonin…he picked a B rank quest but was able to pick a bloodline which he didn't disclose.
But I knew what this meant.
It probably means that Orochimaru thought this one specific bloodline was so unique, it was worth it to transfer his soul right into this body.
Since it was from a B rank quest, it definitely was not a truly overpowered bloodline like the Uchiha, Senju or Otsuki… so maybe it was an original…
An Original bloodline which made Orochimaru act like this…must be something useful for him.
That also made sense of the current rank, since Orochimaru was now the 'player.'
The title also made sense, 'False' Sage.
Orochimaru had access to Sage-Jutsu. But the player never did. So thus, now he became the False sage.
…
-Elite Chat-
K.O.F: If you are merged with Orochimaru, how are you functioning as a player?
False Sage: Well, I have absolutely no control over my body anymore. But I still have access to player based schemes…well now it's just access to the Elite-Chat and Status page.
Ghost: Nice to see you online after so long, Keeper.
K.O.F: False Sage, I might have a way to help you.
Ghost: Ignoring me I see Keeper
False Sage: What's the way you can help me?
K.O.F: In the future when I ask for it, give me the location of Orochimaru. I will try my best to remove and destroy his soul.
…
After proposing my idea I left the chat be.
If this idea eventually worked ... .I might be able to have an Orochimaru which was loyal to me and wasn't a crazy person.
But for now none of this was my problem.
It didn't take long for me to reach the capital of the Land of Iron.
Just two more days.
The trek had been steady, uneventful. The snow-covered passes and tight ridges gave way to carefully carved roads that wound their way toward the fortified mountain city.
As I crossed the final stone arch into the capital, I could already feel the shift in atmosphere.
I kept my hood low and my chakra signature lower, renting a modest room at a quiet inn tucked between two blacksmith stalls. I sealed my gear beneath the floorboards with a three-layered Fuinjutsu lock and set the illusion seals in place.
I didn't even want to risk carrying Fuinjutsu scrolls around with me.
And for the first time in weeks, I decided it was time to log out.
...
The world blinked away in white.
And then, I opened my eyes.
I stood up inside the full-dive virtual reality tank—the water around me slowly draining as the tank hissed open. I pulled off the oxygen mask, blinking against the sudden brightness as the familiar scent of filtered air and heated wiring settled in around me.
It was dinnertime.
I pulled the visor off my head and rubbed my face, still not quite adjusted to the lighting of the real world. My door creaked open.
"Mathew!" my mom called, her voice warm but edged with concern. "I understand you really enjoy playing Elemental Nations, but we need you to spend some time with us."
I walked into the dinning room, stretching the stiffness out of my back.
"Yeah, Mom. I know. Sorry," I said quietly.
From the other side of the kitchen-dining room, my dad turned toward me. His eyes were tired, but there was a quiet fire in them that hadn't been there years ago.
"Yes, son," he added. "We know how life was in the underground. But now there's a whole new world to explore for us... together."
The guilt hit me harder than I expected.
I stepped into the room and saw the table set for three. Steam rose from a single pot in the center, a soft aroma drifting through the recycled air. I blinked, half in disbelief.
Pasta.
It wasn't synthetic. It wasn't protein blocks or heat packs. It was actual pasta, with real tomatoes and herbs.
Something I would never have imagined eating again.
Especially not in this world.
Not after what we'd all lived through.
The underground years.
The collapse of modern Earth.
The floods, the wars, the radiation zones. For so long, pasta—actual, home-cooked pasta—was a symbol of what I had lost.
And now it sat there, unassuming and beautiful, back at my table.
As a person who had lived through the Earth before the chaos, before the wars, before the games became more than just games...
It felt surreal.
And warm.
And painfully, achingly human.
I smiled, pulled out my chair, and sat with my family.
For a while, Shikomu could wait.
Right now, I felt like Mathew again...a name that somehow felt unfamiliar with all of the time I spent inside of the game world.
"Where is brother?" I questioned as I dug into the meal.
"His new job requires insane hours of work...16 hour days 7 days a week. That is why we even get the luxury of living on the surface. He is taking on a lot of the family burden." My mother ranted...
That was when I had realised I had been so focussed on the game I had stopped taking care of my own family.
I turned to the side to see that my father felt completely useless.
With his credentials, the Federation which had a monopoly over the jobs inside of this world other than the Guids, he couldn't do anything at all.
"I got a Voluntary position in our council...I am going to try and help out and see if I can work my way up to a paid role." My father explained.
"While your brother is earning more than enough money to sustain us....actually, more than we can spend any time soon. I want to make myself useful." He mentioned as he ate his food.
"Actually, I am talking to our neighbour who owns a cafe...I want to see if it would be possible for me to get a job."
I felt a wave of anger flow into me...
In the world I was living in before, my family had never struggled this way...
Now I am watching as my brother is slaving away.
My father, someone I respected, had to fight for a volunteering position...
And my mother had to work...my mother had sacrificed her entire life for me. In the other world she had struggled to take care of the entire house, and take care of her children at the same time.
She also managed full time work on top of that...
My family had sacrificed so much for me and now I....
"Sorry, give me a second." I told them as I walked back into my room.
"Mathew, what happened?" My mother called out but I went to the desk inside of my room and picked up something I barely used after the game had begun...
And dialed a number, hoping he would be in the real world right now.
"Hello?" A voice, slightly familiar, came from the other side of the line.
"Hi Yuki, it's me, Shikomu." I told him. Yuki had passed me his number ages ago. During the war when he had decided to come to my side actually...
And now was the first time I had contacted him.
After all, I never left the game, and I had Yoru for one-sided communications.
But what i had realised is while I had been so focussed on developing my power inside of the Elemental Nations world, I had forgotten why I was doing that.
"What is it, Shikomu? You never called before...also, what's your status in the game?"
I turned back to see the aged expression on my parents' faces.
"I need to meet you...in real life."
...
Authors note:
You can read some chapters ahead if you want to on my p#treon.com/Fat_Cultivator