Today was the final day of the limited-time lottery event.
After a month of painstaking saving, Tachibana Kenji’s gold had increased from 1,520 to 3,875 coins.
And those weren’t merely the coins he had earned from his daily missions.
Over the past month, in order to accumulate as many coins as possible for draws from the limited-time prize pool, Tachibana Kenji had done practically anything he could think of—teasing cats and dogs, bullying children, helping impoverished neighbors.
He had stopped at nothing, using every bit of his free time to trigger system achievements.
He had even gone to the village mission hall to try accepting shinobi missions, hoping to discover a new way of earning gold coins.
Unfortunately, the number of regular missions available in the village had recently dropped sharply, while most genin-level missions required a squad to accept them.
Without a squad of his own, Tachibana Kenji couldn’t spend twenty-four hours a day camping out in the mission hall waiting for a suitable assignment.
In the end, he could only give up regretfully.
The event would end tomorrow, at which point the prize pool would disappear.
Although he hadn’t managed to save enough for a third ten-pull, he had no choice but to start drawing.
He had already performed quite a few draws, so Tachibana Kenji was fairly familiar with the process.
After the customary hand-washing, face-washing, and praying to every god he could think of, he opened the system panel.
Although the Water-type UP Pool had already accumulated thirty draws toward its pity count, Tachibana Kenji didn’t hesitate any longer.
He directly selected the Survival Rate-Up Pool.
“Let’s start with a twenty-pull!” Inside the system panel, two spheres of light spun and trembled at high speed before suddenly exploding.
Dazzling streams of light scattered in every direction.
“Ah, as expected, no gold.” He had said from the beginning that with his luck, it was inevitable that he wouldn’t get a gold-tier item without hitting pity.
Still, deep down, he couldn’t help harboring a little expectation.
Unfortunately, reality always seemed to fulfill your wishes precisely when you least wanted it to.
Although the little frog didn’t understand why Tachibana Kenji was sighing, it still obediently voiced its agreement.
Tachibana Kenji shook his head, pulled himself together, and turned his attention to the reward panel.
A hint of delight still appeared on his face.
Rewards: [Ability: Anticipation] (Purple-tier Item: Passive effect with no energy consumption.
Allows the ability holder to sense nearby dangers in advance.) [TM: Safeguard] (Purple-tier Item: A neutral secret technique.
After forming the required hand seals and activating the technique, the user gains an effect that grants immunity to most abnormal status conditions.
Maintaining the effect continuously consumes mental energy.) [Focus Sash] (Purple-tier Item: Even when subjected to a fatal attack, the holder will not die and will instead fall into a severely wounded, unconscious state.
Once the item’s effect activates, it enters a one-year cooldown.) [Super Potion] (Blue-tier Item: Can be taken internally or applied externally, greatly restoring the user’s injuries.) [Potion] ×3 (Blue-tier Item: Can be taken internally or applied externally, moderately restoring the user’s injuries.) White-tier Items ×13 As expected of an event prize pool, all three purple-tier rewards looked quite impressive.
First was Anticipation.
It was practically a god-tier passive ability, no less valuable than a gold-tier item.
In countless fictional settings, abilities like this were often the protagonist’s ultimate life-saving trump card.
For Tachibana Kenji, who might soon have to go onto the battlefield, it was an exceptionally practical ability.
Without saying another word, Tachibana Kenji immediately merged the sphere of light containing the ability into his body.
He planned to find an opportunity later to test its actual effects.
As for Safeguard, since it came in the form of a secret-technique scroll, the knowledge infusion immediately gave Tachibana Kenji a general understanding of the technique.
It was somewhat different from what he had initially imagined.
The immunity to “most abnormal status conditions” mentioned in the item description wasn’t nearly as overpowered as it sounded.
This technique was primarily designed to counter abnormal status effects caused by control-type ninjutsu.
Illusions, for example, as well as the Yamanaka Clan’s Mind Body Switch Technique and other techniques with similar control effects, could all be resisted while Safeguard was active.
It wasn’t like the Pokémon games, where even conditions such as burns, freezing, and poisoning could all be completely nullified simply because they were classified as status conditions.
Moreover, since it was an active skill that had to be activated in advance, its practical value was greatly reduced.
It could only be described as extremely useful in specific situations.
Finally, there was the Focus Sash.
How should he put it?
Its effect looked absurdly powerful, and in practice, it really was.
The only problem was that its conditions for use were rather harsh.
It wasn’t that a once-per-year chance to survive a fatal blow was too infrequent.
The real issue was what happened afterward.
Once it saved his life, it would leave him severely wounded and unconscious.
If that happened on a battlefield, there probably wouldn’t be much difference between being severely wounded and unconscious and simply being dead.
He could only say that it saved his life—but didn’t quite save it completely.
Even so, Tachibana Kenji was very much a man who cherished his life.
He immediately tied the Focus Sash around his arm.
After all, being alive was still better than being dead.
He even planned to attach his Hidden Mist Village insignia to it later.
From then on, he would practically weld the thing to his left arm and never take it off again.
Although the latter two rewards weren’t quite as perfect as he had imagined, Anticipation alone made Tachibana Kenji feel that the twenty-pull had been completely worthwhile.
As usual, he put away the blue- and white-tier items, then selected anything that might prove useful and placed it inside his shinobi pouch for everyday use.
Tachibana Kenji began to hesitate.
He still had 675 gold coins, enough for four more single pulls.
Should he spend them all on this event’s prize pool?
Moreover, although he had already obtained three purple-tier items today, the only TM ( Technical Machine) he had received was the neutral Safeguard scroll.
He hadn’t obtained a technique corresponding to any other elemental affinity, meaning he still couldn’t unlock a new permanent prize pool.
For some reason, it felt like something was missing.
“Lanzai, do you think I should keep drawing?” Unable to make up his mind, Tachibana Kenji turned to Lan with a pitiful expression and asked for help.
Lan looked at its master in confusion and shook its head.
Although Lan’s head-shaking wasn’t actually meant to indicate that it didn’t want him to continue, it nevertheless gave Tachibana Kenji an excuse to back down from his impulse to take one more gamble.
After all, four draws required him to complete eleven days’ worth of daily missions.
If he used them on an event prize pool that would disappear tomorrow, he would get neither the guaranteed purple-tier reward from a ten-pull nor any progress toward the gold-tier pity counter.
If he ended up drawing four useless white-tier rewards like rice, firewood, cooking oil, and salt, the good mood he had gained from obtaining three life-saving items today would probably disappear completely.
Better to save them for the Water-type prize pool.
If he could first obtain a gold-tier Water-type reward, it might provide a qualitative improvement to his combat strength.
Letting go of that tiny bit of obsession, Tachibana Kenji could finally go to sleep peacefully with the satisfaction of having finished his draws.
Unfortunately, some people were destined to spend tonight without sleep.
…
On a tiny island near Kirigakure.
It happened to be the same island where Tachibana Kenji and the other Medical Ninjas had undergone their closed-door training.
Some of the temporary structures left behind from that time still stood in the center of the island.
Although many people were currently moving about the island, not a single one of them intended to spend the night inside those buildings.
From noon until now, more than a hundred Ninja Academy students on the island had been fighting one another in order to pass their graduation examination.
Anyone who tried to rest inside such conspicuous buildings in the center of the island was destined to become everyone’s target.
There was something rather ironic about it.
Three months ago, a group of doctors and shinobi who had previously been complete strangers had helped and taught one another so that they could become Medical Ninjas.
And now, a group of children barely ten years old were fighting for the right to become genin.
To pass the examination, each of them had to kill at least one classmate they had known for several years and seize the token in their possession.
According to the Ninja Academy’s original plan, every student would receive one token before boarding the island, after which the boat would leave.
When the boat returned around noon the following day, any student who possessed two tokens would be allowed to board and leave the island, officially becoming a genin of the Bloody Mist.
However, it seemed that one student on the island had some serious disagreements with the Ninja Academy’s plan.
He looked toward the night sky, which had grown steadily darker and was now approaching complete darkness.
Zabuza Momochi tightened his grip around the kunai in his hand.
He was ready to make his move.