Professional... otaku?

Library and Shopping

Elma was just sitting in her chair as she completely forgotten where she is. This was a bit too much for her. Too many things happened at once. She was just staring dumbly at the Third. After a while it became inappropriate and Hiruzen signaled it with a short cough. Elma regained her senses and apologized. The old man just laughed, and stood up.

"Haha, no problem at all, I know it well, its a bit much for my old heart too, so don't worry. Naruto, I'll have someone arrange for your weekly allowance as we discussed, also, the guards at the Academy will be told you are free to use the inner library. Make sure not to cause a mess though, leave everything as it is when you leave. Now I have to go, I still have some matters to attend to. Good night, for you two." he said and seen himself out. Actually Elma jumped up and rushed to lead the Hokage out, while Dix just said a few words as farewells, then headed to his own room. He had much to think about.

He quickly changed clothes then threw himself onto the bed. He wanted to know exactly why this happened. He was satisfied with the outcome, sure, but this was way out of the expectations. He only wanted to show a bit of his skills to be regarded as someone useful. With that he could slowly build up his value and sooner or later become a respected man. But now the hokage jumped at him for some reason, and he wanted to know why. Dix wanted to know what part he was missing, because this time he came out better than anticipated, but any other time this could bit him in the ass.

He went trough most of his memories, as he tried to find out what he missed. Soon he understood the problem. He tried to approach Hiruzen trough more personal means, while he failed to understand that he will probably think more like a general, instead of a friend. The second Dix's genius became obvious, he probably started thinking of him as an exploitable resource. Having a genius young ninja with the nine tailed beast inside him would be extremely useful, if nurtured properly, and he had the eyes to discern this.

Dix found a parallel between the Hokage's situation and a country in his previous world. At the beginning of the cold war when the USA had monopoly over nuclear weaponry in the whole world. Their rival superpower the Soviet Union did everything possible to hasten research towards these seemingly ultimate weapons, so they are not left defenseless. In this world, the hidden village of the Land of Lightning, Kumogakure can be considered as the leading military power. They have two superweapons, namely the Fourth Raikage, Ai, who we can safely assume to be the strongest kage among the five, and Killer B, a Jinchuuriki who has almost complete control over the Eight Tailed Beast. If war were to break out, then Konoha would have to fight with no outstanding ninjas under its belt, while Hiruzen Sarutobi is an old and comparatively weak kage. In this state the Third worried a lot about the future of the village, there was even a risk of the complete destruction of Konoha, which he couldn't let happen, no matter what. He needed a strong enough power to counteract the dangers lurking outside the village.

Dix understood this and cursed himself for his oversight. This was quite obvious, but he failed to calculate with it, and now he had to reconsider his options. But as he kept thinking he understood that this was even better than he originally thought. Having the complete backing of the military leader of the region would help him a ton. Hiruzen was free to finance Dix as a potential trump-card, which he never considered before. What he has seen in the anime made him think the Third would not care about something like this, but it turned out he misjudged his character.

Having a weekly allowance gave him many options to boost his already extremely fast growth. He needed a lot of funds to kickstart his seal studies and he got access to a proper library he could use for hours together with the clones. Also he needed some money for an important event he couldn't miss that will happen soon and he will need to prepare for it.

Dix thought hard for a good while about his future possibilities and ways to strengthen himself, until sleep overcame him.

The next morning he woke up early to go and check out the wolf cub in the woods. He passed the gates and from then he rushed trough the trees to arrive at the temporary campsite. He found the clone sitting cross-legged with his back to a tree near the campfire that had barely any cinder in it. The pup was sleeping in the hole formed by his legs. Dix found the sight adorable and gave a thumbs-up to his clone, who just nodded back. He left the clone there to keep caring for the pup while he rushed back to the permanent camp and started the morning practice. He wanted to go back to the village to check on the library he was provided, but he just left a few minutes ago and it would be strange to go back right away.

Thus, he summoned the squads to start training. Squad C, as there were no new jutsus for now, had no work so they joined to other teams evenly.

After an exhausting 3 hours he finished the session and was happy to see the reduced time of the training helped his brain not to overload at the end. He even felt like he can handle a bit more, so he raised it to 4 hours. He wanted to find the sweetspot where its still hard to handle, so it improves him, while its not actually risky.

With that done he decided to head back and finally see that library. Also he wanted to shop a bit. Too bad people just won't take him seriously, considering he is 4 years old and all. He didn't get his money yet, so he just wanted to window shop, to look around and see the values and exchange rates. There were many things he had to get a hold of, so scouting took priority. He entered various shops, and while he had seen the shopkeepers worried and annoyed faces, they didn't dare do anything, so he just looked around, sometimes even asked question politely, which earned him a surprised face and an answer.

He went a whole circle around the village, stopped at many stores and at the end he was satisfied with his findings. He found what he wanted and got to know the prices. He just had to get his hands on his allowance. The Third said a man would deliver it to the orphanage the next day in the afternoon. It was still before noon so he had to put up with not buying anything. With that done, he headed towards the Academy. Dix found it interesting, that every administrative facility was located in the Ninja Academy, even the Hokage's office, which meant his private library was at that same place too. He asked for permission to enter politely, and as the guards were already notified, they stepped aside without a word.

When he skimmed trough the titles of the books and scrolls he got really excited. He wanted to read all of them. He started summoning clones without end. When the floor was full of clones he started summoning them on the walls and even the ceiling. When all space was occupied with clones Dix started to handle out books and scrolls to every single one of them. It was an extremely strange sight, but it was funny for sure.

They started reading however it was possible, usually hold whatever they read above their head, as they were so tightly packed. Some finished fast, some needed a lot of time. When one finished they would throw the book back to the original that put whatever they got back into their proper place, then handed out another. After a few hours he had to stop and disperse the clones, as it was midday and he wanted to get some food.

Upon cancelling the jutsu his head started to hurt real bad. It was as if his brain wanted to explode. He actually got scared of the grim possibilities and even panicked a bit. It took a while, but after around two minutes it started subsiding. He let out a relieved sigh while his head was still hurting some.

"Well that was unexpected..." he said to himself. He had no idea why this happened, he didn't really know how many clones were summoned but he thought its around a hundred. Maybe it was more. He has to be more careful in the future.

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Thanks for the read!

You find the official discord for the novel here: https://discord.gg/XCEDp7H9tA