{Somewhere in the Land of Fire}
{7:44 PM, 2nd July 13 Yrs ANB}
{3rd Person POV}
Ren was currently dashing through the forest around Konoha by using tree hopping. His chakra sensing allowed him to easily dodge any nearby patrols as he flew through the terrain. It's been almost an hour since he left the village, and now that he was finally outside the patrol range, he could go around the village.
Although the Third Shinobi War took a lot of lives and after the war ended, the shinobi population of the elemental nations was at an all-time low. Through the past 12 years, the Shinobi villages have healed. A new generation of shinobi were ready to fight old battles and even Konoha's patrol routes now extend almost 25 km away from the village.
After going for another couple of km, Ren took a sigh of relief. Now that he was out of Konoha, he could take a break and think about his plan. There were some things he needed to do so he found an isolated clearing and sat down on a tree. His chakra sensing was at a level now that he could passively sense all around him for 70m so he wasn't worried about getting jumped.
He opened his inventory and looked through the scrolls that both Kakashi and Hatake sensei gave him. The scroll Kakashi gave him contained more information about the darker side of being a missing-nin and a mask to hide his identity.
Hayate's scroll, on the other hand, had the location of a safe house that only he knew about, and the shadow clone jutsu that Ren had asked him to teach before the exams started.
'''...burn the scroll after learning the jutsu, never leak it'''
Ren read through the message at the end that sensei had left and then he put the scroll back in his inventory, putting it there was as good as burning it anyway. The hideout that Hayate sensei had marked was in the opposite direction and should be around 45 km away from here.
'Let's leave the hideout alone for now, I should level up first and then head to the nearest black market.' Ren thought as he opened up his quest panel. He hadn't accepted a lot of his quest rewards and saved them up as emergency boosters.
He opened his status and saw the experience fill up as he accepted the rewards from a lot of small quests.
...
[Status Window]
[Name: Ren]
[Title: Rookie of the Year]
[Level: 32 Next Level: 430,000/500,000]
[Chakra: 5530/6000]
[STR: 143]
[VIT: 139]
[END: 133]
[DEX: 213]
[INT: 150]
[CHA: 120]
[Control: 70%]
[Fire: 30%, Wind: 50%, Water:0%, Earth: 20%, Lightning: 0%]
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
[Specialization: Chakra Sensor]
Money: 213,000 Ryo
Attribute Points: 33
...
'I leveled up 2 times from all those quests... I wonder if I should save Zabuza's corpse, it should give me at least 70,000 Exp right.' Ren thought as he stared at his stats, he thought about it for a moment and then he decided to use Zabuza's body for an exp boost too.
'If I want to become a bounty hunter then I need a better idea of how much exp hunting a Jonin missing-nin would give me.'
...
[Bounty Target detected {Momoichi Zabuza}]
[Would you like to extract bounty?]
[Yes/No]
...
He clicked on yes and unexpectedly he leveled up several times from that. A barrage of notifications lit up in front of him as his exp bar skyrocketed.
...
[Obtained scroll {Kenjutsu Style: Kubikiribōchō}]
[Obtained +100,000 Ryo]
[EXP +8,300,000(+830,000)]
...
'I got around 9 million Exp from that... how the fuck did we manage to kill this guy.' Ren's thoughts went flying in the direction of being an actual bounty hunter, if the Jonin had multipliers in millions then he could clean up the lower level Jonins and quickly level up.
He stared at his new level and exp requirement in surprise as he calculated.
'If I have one more body of Zabuza's caliber then I would still level up at least 3 times. Maybe the quick leveling is because I am too underleveled corresponding to my strength...' Ren thought as he stared at his new Status screen after he added the newly gained attribute points into INT and CHA.
...
[Status Window]
[Name: Ren]
[Title: Rookie of the Year]
[Level: 40 Next Level: 1,560,000/2,500,000]
[Chakra: 7000/7100]
[STR: 143]
[VIT: 139]
[END: 133]
[DEX: 213]
[INT: 201]
[CHA: 142]
[Control: 70%]
[Fire: 30%, Wind: 50%, Water:0%, Earth: 20%, Lightning: 0%]
[Specialization: Chakra Sensor]
Money: 223,000 Ryo
Attribute Points: 0
...
He not only used the remaining stockpile that he had but he also used all the stats he got from leveling up and dumped them into INT and CHA. The reason he prioritized INT was because he gained his chakra sensor skill the last time he pushed his INT through to 100 points.
This time though nothing happened except his passive sensing range got a huge boost.
'Maybe the next limit is 250? I should try that later, anyway INT has always been the best stat to upgrade, it is the hardest stat to increase without the help of the system.' Ren thought as he closed his status window and untied his forehead protector.
He stared at the Konoha symbol for a moment and then he pulled out a kunai from his inventory and used it to cross the symbol out.
'Why do I even have to do this, isn't it just dumb to tell everyone that I'm a missing-nin, I probably should have a bounty if anyone checked hard enough...' Ren thought as he tied the forehead protector back around his forehead, he pulled out the mask that Kakashi had given him and placed it over his face.
It wasn't quite durable and looked like one of those cheap masks that were sold during the Nine-Tails Festival.
He checked everything one more time and then took off, his improved sensing range scanning just a little bit further as he zoomed in toward the next town.
The Miyazaki Town was a small business hub that connected Konoha to the Tanzaku Quarters one of the more important business hubs.
The Miyazaki Town wasn't big enough that Konoha should have a squad permanently stationed there for security. And it wasn't small enough that having a constant flow of people coming and going through the black market wouldn't be suspicious.
Ren didn't go straight for the black market, he removed his mask and his forehead protector before he changed into a casual set of clothes. After that, he went to book a hotel room for the night. He repeated this process at 3 different hotels and then he walked away from the town.
'I need to learn the Shadow Clone Jutsu for this plan to work.'
...
---------------------------
{Somewhere in the Land of Rain}
Zetsu stared at Obito and asked, "Are you sure about this?"
"Yeah, our plan is delayed by at least 1-2 years because of Ichibi's death. Unlike the Kyubi we don't have a backup option for the Ichibi. So we should use this incident to instigate the war between Suna and Konoha. The number of shinobi in the various villages has been increasing lately as well, a small culling would make our plans a little easier. We just need to give it a little nudge anyway..." Obito spoke, since he lost Yagura he hadn't planned on directly interfering with the Shinobi villages.
'But plans change, and this time it would be too easy to mess things up, though Kiri won't fight, and instigating Iwa and Kumo to give up on their hatred against each other would be hard...'
...