There's actually still a tangible gain the cave water provides us. By default, we can only make one clone if we want either Prime or the clone to have enough chakra to infuse a rune. With the cave water, it's likely that we'll be able to manage three rune infusions at once.
Hazou begins by parallelizing his prep days with Shadow Clone on 7Path. When the day of the infusion comes, Hazou and his SC both fashion their rune blanks on 7Path, where they have as much chakra as they need. The SC pops and Hazou (again refilled), brings both runes back to the Human Path. He casts Shadow Clone with the intent of producing one clone, costing 175 chakra and leaving each Hazou with 70 chakra. From our only known reference examples, rune infusion seems to take about 50 chakra. In short, it does seem to be possible to parallelize two rune infusions, so long as rune infusion costs do not scale much higher.
Three, however, is not feasible at present. Hazou would spend 200 chakra casting SC and each clone would be left with 38 chakra, less than our example threshold. If we get access to the cave water and it provides a reasonable cost reduction, this becomes possible (25% reduction reduces the cost of SC to 150, giving each Hazou clone 55 chakra).
Note that this doesn't mean "this is useful when Hazou is infusing three runes at once", this means "this is useful when Hazou is doing three infusion rolls on the same day and at least one of them happens to be a rune". It also for completeness runs into complications for runes where the chakra cost scales above 50 or the size above what we can transport between Paths, but I expect that the relevant use cases will still make up a substantial amount of our research projects. Getting the cave water will, more or less, add one more non-SSA research track to our capabilities, be it seal or rune, and I think that's worth going for.
@Sir Stompy thank you once again for including this as a suggestions. I'm adamant that this is by far and away the best solution to the problem, and it's quite validating to see that Noburi agrees.
Don't count your chakra chickens before they molt, mind you. It's better than choosing only one apprenticeship in that "wouldn't it be nice" sense, but Noburi has to actually go and win those social victories for it to work. And if he fails, he could end up sabotaging one of his relationships worse than if he set his sights on a controlled demolition. I don't dislike the option either but we're still a long way away from having proof that it's the best solution to the problem.
You need to wait until they're done moulting to count them because they have a nasty tendency to multiply in the process. If you just report back how many moulting chakra chickens you saw the strike force will be woefully unprepared for the amount of chakra chickens they actually have to face.
Don't count your chakra chickens before they molt, mind you. It's better than choosing only one apprenticeship in that "wouldn't it be nice" sense, but Noburi has to actually go and win those social victories for it to work. And if he fails, he could end up sabotaging one of his relationships worse than if he set his sights on a controlled demolition. I don't dislike the option either but we're still a long way away from having proof that it's the best solution to the problem.
It is a thousand times better than a "try and get both for eight hours a day" that was in the plan when I suggested it. Being greedy is an amazing way to get nothing.
But indeed, you are correct. We shall see what happens.
And if Tsunade manages to push two of (Mendknow, Mednin, VD) to 60 instead of water whip? Raising WW would become incredibly difficult, and Noburi's combat/survival build would be severely fucked.
Is that a realistic worry? I dunno, lets run the numbers!
Noburi has 325 xp banked
raising a skill 50 -> 60 costs 555xp.
raising two 50s to 60 costs 1110xp.
1110 - 325 = 785. if Noburi gains that much xp from Tsunade, his combat build gets crippled.
If Noburi gets the 7xp/day rate he got from shadowing Tsunade last time, this happens in 113 days(just under 4 months).
If Tsunade's direct instruction and collaboration is worth 9xp/day, this happens in 83 days(less than 3 months).
That's a bit risky. the solution? spend the XP on something we'll want eventually(Water Whip, Athletics, Chakra+Physique, ect), so that Tsunade doesn't have enough xp laying around to assign Noburi two non-combat capstones and wreck his surviveability.
[X] Noburi Training Plan: Staying Combat-Viable
Water Whip 50 -> 55 210xp
Athletics 45 -> 47 91xp
And you argued that there's no way the players would need to know the astronomy of the solar system when originally worldbuilding (to my recollection)!
Heh. I think in specific it was something more physical -- trying to come up with a valid quantum physics for chakra, or maybe something about relativity? Still, you're definitely right in general.
Honestly, the thing I wish we had spent more time on was the economics. I don't think any of us thought about that in any detail.
XP inflation is already a thing we worry about, so we would rather not accelerate it. Also, I suspect it would be counterproductive -- players are not going to put less content in the plans, so they would simply become incomprehensibly telegraphic.
XP inflation is already a thing we worry about, so we would rather not accelerate it. Also, I suspect it would be counterproductive -- players are not going to put less content in the plans, so they would simply become incomprehensibly telegraphic.
There's actually still a tangible gain the cave water provides us. By default, we can only make one clone if we want either Prime or the clone to have enough chakra to infuse a rune. With the cave water, it's likely that we'll be able to manage three rune infusions at once.
And if Tsunade manages to push two of (Mendknow, Mednin, VD) to 60 instead of water whip? Raising WW would become incredibly difficult, and Noburi's combat/survival build would be severely fucked.
This plan does nothing other than slightly delay Tsunade in your unrealistic scenario, and more importantly will infuriate her by retroactively making Noburi switch focus from medicine to combat for the past several months right before Noburi tries to wow the pants off her.
Note that this doesn't mean "this is useful when Hazou is infusing three runes at once", this means "this is useful when Hazou is doing three infusion rolls on the same day and at least one of them happens to be a rune". It also for completeness runs into complications for runes where the chakra cost scales above 50 or the size above what we can transport between Paths, but I expect that the relevant use cases will still make up a substantial amount of our research projects. Getting the cave water will, more or less, add one more non-SSA research track to our capabilities, be it seal or rune, and I think that's worth going for.
We gain an additional research slot for any cycle in which we are infusing any runes at all, and this new research cycle can be used for runes or seals. It is very much decidedly not limited to the "we want to infuse three runes at once" use case. In the future, please read my posts before dismissing them out of hand.
The very next line of the post you quoted addresses this exact misconception:
We gain an additional research slot for any cycle in which we are infusing any runes at all, and this new research cycle can be used for runes or seals. It is very much decidedly not limited to the "we want to infuse three runes at once" use case. In the future, please read my posts before dismissing them out of hand.
I don't see how we're limited in slots by chakra, at all. If we want a refill to infuse a rune, we can finish up infusing on the other two tracks - which don't require chakra, hop back to the Seventh Path and refill from Nobs for the rune infusion.
I don't see how we're limited in slots by chakra, at all. If we want a refill to infuse a rune, we can finish up infusing on the other two tracks - which don't require chakra, hop back to the Seventh Path and refill from Nobs for the rune infusion.
SSA Consequences and research discontinuities are the biggest limiters here. Your scenario (analogous to one I previously posed Paperclipped of "after doing prep days for two different runes, can Hazou produce and infuse one, go back and refill, then produce and infuse the other one on the same day without breaking prep days?") works, but comes at the cost of Hazou having an SSA consequence during the second infusion, which is something to be avoided.
Also, for more context, Paper says that the above scenario takes 12 hours per rune, capping out at two runes parallelized as such during a given day. The focus of that equation was on large/expensive runes that we could not produce on the Seventh Path and could not afford to have casted SC while on the Human Path, so in theory the time constraints would be more lax for regular runes, but even then Paper has said that after clone reintegration/splitting Hazou needs "a few hours" to sort out his prep memories before infusion.
Unfortunately, therein lies the discontinuity problem. When I posed that particular gambit to Paper (prepare both projects, go to Human Path and infuse one, then come back and refill before going back and infusing the other), he ruled against it. While we can stagger out the two infusions by 12 hours, doing one "research day" after another without disrupting prep days, we cannot start the "infusion day" and then take a break for three hours while other Hazou's process other projects.
To summarize a little:
Hazou prepares one rune project and 1d6 paper-sealing projects. On infusion day, he doesn't want to be limited by the infusion chakra requirements of the rune, so he puts his 1d6 paper sealing projects on pause while he infuses the rune (breaking his clones and taking a few hours to sort out his memories in the process). Then he refills from Noburi, spins off his 1d6 clones again, and finishes up their infusion days. This does not work. The time gap in the middle of the research day disrupts the 1d6 paper seals and Hazou cannot complete his research.
Hazou prepares one rune project and 1d6 paper-sealing projects. On infusion day, he doesn't want to be limited by the infusion chakra requirements of the rune, so he decides not to start preparing his paper seals for infusion until he's infused the rune. He spends 12 hours preparing the rune and infusing it, then refills from Noburi, spins off his 1d6 clones again, and spends another 12 hours working on those seals as well. This works, though if Hazou used SSA during the first session he would necessarily be infusing all these subsequent rolls with a Consequence active.
Although, I suppose that's not quite the end of it... if we adopted the two-per-day approach but reserved the first slot of the day to only non-SSA infusions, we could do as many infusions as Hazou is able to sustain[1] and then in the second batch of the day infuse the two SSA projects along with any others we can squeeze in alongside that. So, hmm, we may be able to avoid most of these limitations after all. If we wish to infuse an SSA rune in that cycle then our second batch of the day must still be a maximum of 2 projects in parallel (3 with the cave water), but if we can successfully push all the non-SSA infusions to the first batch of the day then we might just be fine.
(Hmmmmm, if we suppose that Hazou has one SSA rune, one SSA seal, and one non-SSA rune to research, alongside 1d6 regular paper seals to infuse, the cave water would still come in handy, since increasing the parallelization of the second batch to 3 projects means we could fit the non-SSA rune in the second batch as well, freeing up the first batch to be exclusively paper seals, raising the amount of projects Hazou can do there to as many as he can provide clones for. Still, this does sound pretty niche to me.)
[1] "Sustain" in this instance means "as many as Hazou can produce clones for", since he still has to do this in one fell swoop, preparing all the projects he'll infuse in that first chunk in parallel and then infusing them simultaneously before refilling and starting up the second research batch. If he is only infusing non-SSA seals here, he could infuse many of them at once, but if he wishes to infuse a non-SSA rune here we're back to a limit of 2 or 3 infusions in parallel.
If you wish to review Paper's rulings yourself to confirm what I've said or look for other edge cases, here's the post full of rulings in respond to my scenario-based questions:
You can certainly use SCs to train on the Seventh Path without issue at all times except on seal infusion days, where things become more complicated. As for research and SSA…
First, an implicit assumption that we haven't ruled on but is required for answering any of these questions to make sense: can prep days be done off-site?
Answer: Yes, prep days can be done away from the site of infusion, despite the extensive use of sealing facilities and implied importance of precise astrological measurements. However, at least 'a few hours' of work on infusion day must be done on-site.
This works.
When Hazou makes his clone on the Human Path, he (and the clone) have memories of crafting both runes. It will take some time (maybe 'an hour' or 'a few hours') for them to unjumble their memories and recheck their preparation, but the bottom line is that they'll be able to do both infusions in one day with no penalty. Just don't expect to be able to cram anything else into the same day.
There's an asterisk here – the clone presumably could have used SSA extensively during their preparation and crafting of the rune blank, and the associated mental trauma should be hitting Hazou Prime at the intermediary phase when the clone pops. However, since Hazou has not yet derived any benefit from SSA, we're tentatively ruling that we'll handwave the SSA Consequence until the actual infusion is done (so Hazou can do both infusions with no penalty, then will have two SSA consequences once the clone pops).
This works.
Hazou works on Rune A, clone preps Rune B. Hazou can craft and infuse Rune A normally, and the next day, will benefit from a +2 bonus to Rune B from the prep day.
This does not work.
On days 1-3, Hazou preps for the rune, reaching his maximum. On day 4, he does an extra, useless "prep day", then crafts the rune. On day 5, he cannot infuse the rune, since the infusion needs to be done on the same day as the research crafting.
There are two different times when a sealmaster would infuse a blank, runic or paper.
When the blank is for a seal he has previously researched
When he is in the process of researching it
If he has already learned the seal then he can make blanks and infuse them whenever he likes, even days or years later.
If he is doing research then the prep days, the crafting, and the infusion must be contiguous. That means:
The normal scenario: Days 1-3 you do prep, day 4 you craft and infuse the blank. You get +6 on your crafting and infusion rolls.
Days 1-3 you do prep, day 4 you take a day off, day 5 you craft and infuse the blank. This is fine, but you get no benefit from the prep.
Days 1-3 you do prep, day 4 you craft the blank, day 5 you take off, day 6 you try to do the infusion but realize that you aren't 100% certain of the prep you did, plus the astrological influences have shifted slightly plus other handwavium has spoiled. That blank will 100% cause a failure if you infuse it, and you know it.
Days 1-3 you do prep, day 4 you craft the blank, day 5 you try to do the infusion and realize that this case is no different from the one above and you will definitely fail the infusion.
Days 1-2 you do prep, day 3 you take off, day 4 you do prep, day 5 you craft and infuse the blank. This is fine, but you only get the benefit of one prep day (+2).
This works.
The first instance of rune research will take ~12 hours. As the required work cannot be done on the Seventh Path, the second instance will take ~12 hours again. Both infusions will benefit from any prep days, and the second infusion will suffer from Hazou's SSA Consequence from the first infusion. We may levy a Mild Physical Consequence for overwork, but as you mentioned, due to SSA recovery, this is not very important.
Saying the above but in more detail:
Day 1-3: Hazō does prep on the Light Blaster rune. One of Hazō's Shadow Clones does prep on the Conjure Ice Cream rune. All of this happens on the Seventh Path.
Day 4:
Hazō unsummons to the Human Path. He spends 12 hours researching the LB rune. This consists of "a few hours" crafting, an hour infusing the LB rune, and some extra time doing other research-related activities.
This requires timeladdering up the crafting roll and therefore taking a -AB penalty on it.
He spent the full time on the infusion roll so he still receives his normal total.
He receives prep day bonuses on both rolls.
After the rolls are finished, he takes an SSA Consequence.
He returns to the Seventh Path, refills from Noburi, returns to the Human Path, and spends another 12 hours researching the CIC rune.
This works exactly as described above except now he has an additional -½ AB on both the crafting and infusion rolls due to his SSA Consequence.
After the rolls are finished, he acquires a second SSA Consequence.
This does not work.
It is a matter of GM taste to decide how much seal/rune research can be broken up without it becoming harmful to the sealing research. We're tentatively ruling that the break of "a few hours" is too much here. Also, recall that at least "a few hours" of the research work must be done on-site.
Neither 3 nor 5 worked, so neither will work when the runes become logistically more challenging. Of course, scenario 4 works with two large runes.
This does not work.
As mentioned in scenario 5, seal/rune research shouldn't be broken up too much, and the various preparatory steps plus the hour-long infusion will be unviable.
However, it does work for Hazou to craft a rune on the Human Path, go to the Seventh Path for a few seconds/minutes to refill, return to the Human Path to infuse, go to the Seventh Path to refill, return to the Human Path to craft again, go to the Seventh Path to refill, then finally return for a second infusion (analogous to scenario 4).
"Back so soon. Good." She threw her brush down, not caring that a drop of ink flicked onto the top sheet on her stack. "I assume you're here to tell me that you woke up and realized that training with me is the key to your entire future in Leaf and then you're going to apologize profusely for getting in my face about it and wanting to go off and study with that bitchy little stew-ruiner and her asshole husband."
Noburi stood in the doorway, blinking as he attempted to figure out which part of that to respond to. After a moment he bowed, walked to the chair across from Tsunade, and sat down. He sat straight, his back not touching the chair's, his feet flat on the floor and hands on his thighs. He forced himself not to wipe damp palms.
Noburi wants to convince Tsunade to put a deadline on their research so that he can convince the Toad Sages to push the start of his training until after that end date. The approach that Mari has helped him craft is to be open, honest, and straightforward about his needs and his desire to coordinate the different ways that he can advance his own career and his value to Leaf. Tsunade, of course, is a very relaxed person who is happy to respect other people's needs and desires, as well as to coordinate and cooperate with people in order to promote peace, harmony, and good feelings across the Elemental Nations.
We need to know both the outcome and how Tsunade will feel about Noburi going forward. Grab those dice!
Noburi, Rapport (24) + 3 (invoke "Zone of Friendship") + 3 (invoke "I Will Be the Next Tsunade") + 3 (invoke "Prepped with Lady Firehair, Manipulatrix Extraordinaire") +/- ? (modifier: QM opinion on Tsunade's fundamental opinion on the issue) + 6 (dice) = ?
Tsunade, Presence (?) + 3 (dice): ??
I'm not going to roll any further.
"Yes, ma'am."
Blonde eyebrows rose.
"Ma'am, I want this. I want to be a powerful ninja, I want to be an asset to Leaf, and most importantly I want to be...well, you. I want to save as many people as you have saved. I want to walk into a room where someone is bleeding and watch everyone, including the patient, stop worrying because they know everything is going to be okay. I think—"
"Yeah, because sucking up always works with me."
"Just being honest, ma'am. I recognize that studying under you is key to advancing my medical skills, and to gaining the experience I need to be the doctor I want to be. You are the priority, ma'am. I am going to study with you no matter what the Sages say, but I'm in a bind. Gamabunta makes the decision as to whether I remain the Toad Summoner, but the Sages are a big influence on him. They were there when I was inducted, and the only reason that Gamabunta accepted me was that Fukasaku spoke up in my favor."
"Oh, please. That was staged and if you don't realize it then I don't know what to tell you."
Noburi blinked.
Tsunade snorted. "They did that to Jiraiya too and admitted it twenty years later during a drunken bar crawl in Sand. They've been doing it to every summoner candidate for centuries. Gamabunta is the bad guy, acts like he's going to wave the candidate off, then either Ma or Pa comes up with some stupid reason why maybe he should give them a chance. Then the other one joins in with something else and Gamabunta gets 'talked around'. It puts the summoner on the back foot and keeps them respectful and cooperative for a few years."
"...That's an awfully manipulative way to start a relationship."
"Welcome to statesmanship. The three of them have a responsibility to the Toad Clan, not to Leaf and not to your career. They know perfectly well that human ninja are completely untrustworthy and that they become summoners in order to advance their own interests, not those of the Toad Clan. Given all that, it's absolutely appropriate for them to start things off with the most leverage they can get."
"I see."
"Anyway, you were going to say that you can't refuse those manipulative little fogeys because it might cost you your place as Summoner."
"Did the Slug Boss do that to you, ma'am?"
"Katsuyu is a little different than the other Bosses, but that's not the topic."
"No, ma'am. I intend to ask them to delay the start of my training until you and I are done. What I wanted to ask you is if you could give me some idea of how long you're thinking of us working together? It would help if I had a date to give them."
"You want me to pinky-promise that we'll have discovered everything interesting and I'll be done with you on Tuesday?"
Noburi smiled slightly. "I'd like to think it will take a little longer than Tuesday, ma'am."
"Sure, whatever. Of course, it's the later months that are actually productive, so when I tell you we're done in a month, I can pretty much guarantee that we'll discover some critical new thing in twenty-nine days twelve hours."
"Were you thinking a month, ma'am?"
"Obviously not, you stupid—" She placed her palms flat on the desk, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "No, Noburi. I was not thinking that it would take a month to learn every relevant secret of a complex bloodline such as that of the Wakahisa." She studied him. "Three. Three months. It may not be enough time, but it's probably as much time as I can stand to spend in a room with a snot-nosed brat like you anyway. And I suppose maybe you have a point about it being valuable for you to get some actual skills." She frowned, then shook her head. "Tell those bug-spikers that you'll be free on September second."
"Yes, ma'am." He waited a moment to see if there was anything else, but she had already gone back to her paperwork, so he stood up.
He paused at the door and looked over his shoulder. "Ma'am?"
"What?"
"It sounds like you have a problem with the Sages. It's none of my business, ma'am, but I'm concerned that it might become my business if I get caught between you and them. Would you be willing to tell me why you dislike them?"
She snorted. "I like them fine. Ma and I have been tweaking each other's noses since before your dad got your mom drunk enough to marry him. Speaking of which, you need to get them down here at some point so we can go at it again. And stop kowtowing to them the way I'm sure you have been. Push back."
"Yes, ma'am."
o-o-o-o
Noburi needs to get the Toad Sages on page with his training plan. Let's see how he does.
Noburi, Rapport (24) + 3 (invoke "Zone of Friendship") + 3 (invoke "Prepped with Lady Firehair, Manipulatrix Extraordinaire") +/- ? (modifier: QM opinion on the Toad Sage's fundamental opinion on the issue) - 6 (dice) = ? Reroll! Noburi, Rapport (24) + 3 (invoke "Zone of Friendship") + 3 (invoke "Prepped with Lady Firehair, Manipulatrix Extraordinaire") +/- ? (modifier: QM opinion on the Toad Sage's fundamental opinion on the issue) - 3 (dice) = ?
"You're late," Shima snapped. "You were supposed to be here early."
Noburi raised an eyebrow. "Ma'am, it's not even dawn on the Human Path. I'm not late, so why are you lying and saying I am?"
"Are you mouthing off to us, boy?" Fukasaku demanded. "That's a bold move for a snot-nosed brat like you."
"I'm young, sir, but I'm not snot-nosed, I'm not a brat, and you're both being unnecessarily rude."
Shima sniffed. "You're later than I'd like."
Noburi's grin was brief but bright as the flame of a firefly.
"Well, I'm sorry to hear that. Before we start training, there's a thing I'd like to talk about."
"Oh? I suppose you're going to tell us that we aren't important enough for you to accept our incredibly generous offer to train you so that you can become an actually competent summoner and you're going to throw us over in favor of that bitchy little medical braggart?"
"Ma'am, I cannot begin to tell you how much I don't want to get caught in the middle of your and Tsunade's ongoing spat. Speaking of which, she asked that I invite you down to the Human Path for a visit."
Shima sniffed. "I suppose it's been a few years since I put her in her place. Might be fun to get some more practice in. Tell her we'll be there Thursday."
"Yes, ma'am. May I give her a time?"
"We'll be there when we're there!" Fukasaku snapped. "Tell her to keep her schedule clear."
"Sir, I'm not going to do that. I'll tell her you're coming. I'll summon you whenever you say and the three of you can sort out when you actually get together."
"Hrmph. Fine."
"Thank you. Now, as to the thing I needed to talk to you about: I need your advice on how to solve a problem I'm having."
The two old toads perked up at that. Fukasaku twitched his robe straight and wiped webbed hands down its folds, straightening out all the wrinkles.
"Well?" Shima demanded after a moment. "We're not getting any younger here."
"Yes, ma'am." He shifted in the chair and folded his hands on the table, leaning forward slightly. "I'm caught between different responsibilities coming out of my different roles. I am the Toad Summoner, which means I have a responsibility to the Toad Clan to be the best and strongest summoner I can be. I am a medic of Leaf, which puts me under the authority of Lady Tsunade as chief medical officer. I am a ninja of Leaf, which puts me under the authority of the Hokage. My bloodline was a significant factor in Leaf winning the war"—he grimaced—"to the extent that we can be said to have won it. Regardless, Lady Tsunade, who is my legal superior, wants to study my bloodline. Doing so will make me a better asset to Leaf, which is my duty to the city and the Hokage, and it will make me a stronger ninja, which is my duty to the Toad Clan and to myself.
"She is...not the 'sharing is caring' type," Noburi said, smiling. "She expects to work with me for the next three months, starting immediately, and she expects to have full-time access to me. At the same time, you two have very generously agreed to train me and you were expecting to start immediately. Working with you is an honor, and a privilege, and is my duty." He leaned back, spreading to his arms in a 'what can you do' gesture. "I'm stuck between different obligations, and I'm going to have to disappoint someone no matter what I do. I'm hoping that I can maintain my positive relationship"—he interrupted himself with a laugh—"my current relationship, however one might describe it, with all three of you. I'd be grateful for any suggestions you have on how to manage this."
"Simple," Shima said. "Tell that batty herb witch that you've got more important things to do because you're already committed to studying with us."
"Ma'am, not only would that be breaking my oath of loyalty to the medical corps and possibly to the Hokage, not only would it utterly ruin my relationship with Lady Tsunade, it would also have her pull my spine out through my nose. No, I'm not going to tell her that."
"You're wanting us to delay your training, aren't you, boy?" Fukasaku demanded.
"It would definitely be helpful, sir. With respect, the medical research may be more time-sensitive than my general training; like Hazō told you, Leaf is in a bad position right now with all this Akatsuki stuff. My bloodline has already been a meaningful factor in a world war based solely on the very limited training I was given in it as a genin. If there are more secrets to unlock, it could be critical for turning this around. For example, Orochimaru told us that Konan is just a web of chakra stretching between sheets of paper; what if it's possible for me to suck that chakra out of the air and tear her apart?" He didn't mention that mist drain already made that conceivable, but mostly he didn't mention it because he didn't want to sidetrack the conversation. Besides, there was no way that he could drain fast enough to kill Konan before she could react. Not without more training.
"There's also the fact of relative time," Noburi continued. "I don't know if this is correct, but I'm hoping it is: the two of you are much longer-lived than humans. Would it be true that three months to you isn't as big a deal as it is to humans?" He held his breath; that question had been the subject of much debate among the Gōketsu during the planning for this session. It had come very close to being nixed.
"Of course three months is important! Why would you think we wouldn't care about three months, you brat? We have better things to do than sit around twiddling our fingers while you prance around down there until you finally deign to come and graciously permit us to train you!"
"Sir, I'm sorry," Noburi said. "I'm young and humans are short-lived compared to you; it's hard for me to know what time feels like from your perspective. I took a guess and I was wrong. I apologize."
"Hrmph." / "As you should."
"In any case, how would you like to proceed? I'm hoping that you'll be willing to let me delay the start of my training for three months until Lady Tsunade is done with me, and then I'm all yours all day every day. If that's not okay then...well, tell me what you would like me to do. You've been very kind to offer me training and I want to be respectful of that."
The two sages exchanged speaking looks, and head-tilts, and other marital communications.
"Fine," Shima grumbled. "Take your three months. Take us as your second pick behind that rude little tramp, it's fine. We're just the Toad Sages, after all. Not like it's an incredible honor to have us agree to train you."
"It really is, ma'am," Noburi said, riding right past the wagonload of guilt-trip. "Thank you for being willing to train me, and for being gracious enough to help me manage my different responsibilities."
He forced himself to let out his breath silently; it wouldn't do to ruin the 'calm and mature' look he had been struggling to maintain.
o-o-o-o
Hazō closed his eyes and let his senses sink into the ground around him. He couldn't at first, his chakra still too roiled and spiky after a day of running, his mind unwilling to release the zanshin necessary for traveling at ninja speed through the wilderness. The trip had taken him back in time to his missing-nin days and he found himself to aware, too raw, to achieve the stillness required by the Earthshaping jutsu.
It's all right, he assured himself. After they arrived at the abandoned gold mine, he had helped Kagome-sensei and Kei build an initial perimeter and both of them were on guard now. Hazō was as safe as if he were in his own bed—perhaps more so, since it was much less likely that Hidan would find him in a random chunk of bush than in his own bed at home.
He breathed, and slowly his mind calmed. Mental fingers unclenched, one by one, from the fistful of concerns that had been weighing on him. His chakra calmed and steadied until eventually it was able to slip into the soil without being rejected.
He spread his awareness out, introducing himself to every speck of soil, every jot and tittle of Earth that dwelt in the earth. He noticed what and where everything was, all the nuances of 'flavor' and 'sound' that defined the various natures around him. Most of it was the normal sort of thing that he found anywhere but, here and there, in tiny specks and small flecks, there were fragments of a yellow metal that sang a single-tone note with no other voices mixed in.
He waited until he had fully saturated the area with his chakra and identified the feeling of gold spread through it, and then he reached out with that chakra and twisted.
gold, you should be here, alone
am not
no. you should be
...am with others
yes, but you should be here, alone
...yes
As always, his brain struggled to interpret the inputs that the Earthshaping jutsu was feeding it as Hazō pulled and prodded. Finally, it all clicked together and the soil began to flow.
It was slow, painfully slow. The sun was on the horizon by the time he was done and the bottom of its disk was hidden behind the trees before he finished withdrawing all his chakra from the earth and stood up, sighing and brushing off his pants.
Kagome-sensei rolled his eyes. "You had to bring it up underneath yourself? You couldn't put it somewhere else? In front of you, maybe?"
"Oh come on. Tell me you've never wanted to sit on a literal mountain of gold."
Kagome-sensei sniffed. "Hardly a mountain."
Hazō rolled his eyes. "Fine. A metaphoric mountain, then."
"What's it a meta for?"
"For the amount of economic destruction Mari will rain down on our enemies with this much gold behind her! Mwahaha!"
Kagome-sensei nodded. "Sounds good. Maybe she can hire missions to kill all those Hagoromo stinkers."
"That's not... Sure, fine. Moving on: help me bag up all this gold dust, okay? I want to get at least a few hundred pounds of it back to Leaf tonight and Noburi is going to be checking in on the Seventh Path any minute."
Author's Note: You had your date with Ino, then left Leaf in the morning. I wanted to write the date but there wasn't enough in the tank.
The plan called to have Canvass sniff you over as you left the city, to make sure no trackers were on you. She smelled something weird on Kei that freaked her out, although she couldn't precisely identify it. It was on Hazō and Kagome as well, but probably as a secondary contact, she thought. (i.e. it got on Kei and then you interacted with her enough to get some of it on you.) All three of you scrubbed until it was gone.
It took a few hours to get to the gold mine, then you spent the rest of the day mining, several hours moving the gold dust to the Seventh Path, a night of not enough sleep, and then three days of travel. You have now set up your research base in Aisu Bay. The plan called for it to happen on a skytower but Kagome-sensei freaked out at the idea since it could involve a seal failure happening right on top of a Five Seal Barrier seal with who knows what weird interactions. Instead, you are set up on a flyspeck island that is just slightly to the right of the 'Y' in 'Aisu Bay' on the map. You will probably need to click to enlarge, then right click and 'open image in new tab' so that you can zoom in enough to see it.
We aren't going to get too fussy about how much gold there is in the mine aside from 'more than enough.' You can use Earthshaping's filtering ability to pull the pure gold dust out, no need to mix it with dirt. Earthshaping is fine with manipulating metal ore but it's not as good at manipulating pure metal (which gold is), so uniting it into ingots is possible but not practical. Instead, you shipped it home in bags as pure gold dust.
Once she had the dust in hand, Mari melted it into ingots and then went to Naruto and said "hey, yo, mah dude, take this vig and then mint the rest of it into coins for us." Naruto said "why are you talking like that? Also, fine, happy to do it, but I'm not going to have you destroying Leaf's economy. You can have all the coins that I mint but we'll need to set some rules about how much of it you use in Fire and the rest will have to be dumped on someone else's economy."
The Gōketsu now have enough to cover all their debts and several gracious plenties more.
It took a few hours to get to the gold mine, then you spent the rest of the day mining, several hours moving the gold dust to the Seventh Path, a night of not enough sleep, and then three days of travel. You have now set up your research base in Aisu Bay. The plan called for it to happen on a skytower but Kagome-sensei freaked out at the idea since it could involve a seal failure happening right on top of a Five Seal Barrier seal with who knows what weird interactions. Instead, you are set up on a flyspeck island that is just slightly to the right of the 'Y' in 'Aisu Bay' on the map. You will probably need to click to enlarge, then right click and 'open image in new tab' so that you can zoom in enough to see it.
The plan called to have Canvass sniff you over as you left the city, to make sure no trackers were on you. She smelled something weird on you that freaked her out, but it was faint. Probably a secondary contact, she thought. (i.e. it got on someone else, you interacted with that person enough to get some of it on you.
