The crimson eyes burned through the torrential rain.
Three black magatama spun lazily around the pupil—the unmistakable Sharingan of an Uchiha warrior.
Ren didn’t waste a millisecond thinking about bloodlines or family trees.
In the Warring States Era, an Uchiha didn’t care if you were a cousin or an orphan; if you weren’t wearing their clan emblem, you were a corpse.
The enemy leaped.
The movement was a blur to Ren’s ten-year-old, un-enhanced eyes.
Instinct—carved into this host body’s short, brutal life—took over.
Ren threw himself sideways into the mud.
Clang!
A steel katana bit deep into the tree trunk right where his head had been.
The sheer wind pressure from the strike tore across Ren’s cheek, drawing a line of blood.
Ren scrambled backward, his heart pounding a frantic rhythm.
His physical body was weak, but his mind was crystal clear.
He has the Sharingan, which means he reads kinetic movement.
Direct attacks are useless.
I need to break his focus.
Without standing, Ren kicked a spray of wet mud directly at the Uchiha’s face while sweeping his left hand through the forest floor, grabbing a handful of wet gravel and leaves.
The Uchiha tilted his head back with effortless grace, dodging the mud, a faint smirk forming on his lips—until Ren threw the handful of gravel straight into the air and brought his chipped kunai down onto a exposed tree root.
Crack!
The decaying root snapped under the pressure, triggering a small mudslide down the slippery embankment.
The Uchiha’s foot slipped an inch.
It wasn’t a lethal mistake, but for a split second, his center of gravity shifted.
Ren didn’t try to fight.
He turned and sprinted down the slope into the dense fog, driving his feet hard into the earth.
‘Chakra,’ Ren thought frantically as he ran, searching his host’s memories.
‘Focus on the navel.
Pull it out, spread it to the feet.’
A faint warmth flared in his gut.
It felt crude, unrefined, like trying to funnel raw fire through narrow glass tubes, but his speed doubled instantly.
He leaped over a fallen log just as a thrown shuriken sliced through the air, embedding itself in the bark behind him.
The Uchiha was pursuing effortlessly, gliding through the canopy above like a phantom.
“Rats from small clans always run the same way,” a cold voice echoed from the trees.
Ren’s mind raced.
He had 30 points of investment on the line.
If he died right now, the simulation would end early, leaving him with nothing.
He needed to turn this environment into a trap.
Ahead, the forest opened up into a narrow ravine crossed by a roaring river.
A broken wooden rope bridge hung precariously across the gap.
Ren didn’t slow down.
He charged straight for the edge.
Behind him, the Uchiha landed softly on the muddy bank, drawing his sword.
“End of the line, kid.”
Ren turned around at the cliff’s edge, gasping for air, his kunai raised defensively.
But his eyes weren’t looking at the ninja—they were tracking the fraying, tension-strained ropes anchoring the bridge to the post right next to him.
The Uchiha lunged forward, blade whistling toward Ren’s neck.
Ren didn’t dodge.
Instead, he channeled every drop of his unrefined chakra into his arms and slammed his kunai directly into the main support rope.
SNAP!
The massive tension of the heavy wet bridge snapped like a whip, recoiling violently across the mudbank.
The thick, fraying rope lashed across the Uchiha’s legs mid-stride, shattering his balance and yanking him off the cliff edge into the churning river below.
A sharp gasp echoed, followed by a heavy splash into the roaring rapids.
Ren collapsed onto his knees at the edge of the muddy ravine, rain drenching his clothes, chest heaving.
He looked down at his shaking, mud-caked hands.
He had survived his first five minutes.
A silent notification flickered at the edge of his vision:
[Event Altered: Survived an Encounter with an Elite Uchiha Scout]
Ren wiped the blood from his cheek, a cold smile breaking across his face.
‘Now…
let’s see how much I can learn before this life ends.’