Game of Shadow

Chapter 40

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto nor The Gamer. I own nothing, really.

Chapter 40

My first night in the tower in the middle of the Forest of Death was… not the best, if I was being honest.

I spent around half of it meditating and working on my mindscape. I didn't change much though… on the surface, at least. But I did improve it as much as I possibly could. Since I now knew that the trick was in adding details to make it harder for others to make changes, I added small stuff everywhere. I filled walls with internal designs and structures, I painted the inside of houses with pictures and drawings that I had made at one point or another when I didn't actually know how they looked, and I put an intricate maze-like design on the underside of the very ground my mindscape was based on.

Eventually though, the weariness of the second test and all the time I had spent awake and working got to me and I fell asleep. Sleep that was plagued by my usual nightmares, this time also accompanied by yellow slitted eyes, wide fanged mouths and Konoha burning in purple flames. I was grateful that, at least, I managed to actually rest, even if it wasn't peaceful.

The fact that we had completed the test in the first of five days was a boon too, since it allowed me to relax a bit and gather my thoughts, not to mention work on my mind defenses.

My first day in the tower I spent either exploring the place, or what I could explore of it, and, when I found the way, sitting at the top of it making drawings of the sight. Fortunately, I didn't run in with any of the Sand Team's members, especially Gaara, for obvious reasons. I wasn't sure that the Jinchuriki would control himself if he saw me again, which brought all types of worries to my already concerned mind.

Training had also been on my mind, but honestly, I still felt like shit due to the Cursed Mark. I could barely walk around and draw, let alone work out. And that brings me to something that I did do, which is to check the skill I got for all my troubles.

[Cursed Seal: First Stage – Lvl 1

Sacrificing their own chakra, the user can access the well of chakra given by the Seal at the cost of their own mind.

Increases the efficacy of jutsu by 5%.

Consumption – 29 Chakra Points every second.]

It was… something, that was for sure. Overall, it meant that I could basically throw all the jutsu that I wanted to and more through the span of around twenty seconds. Great, honestly, but it wasn't all that. Although, that was mainly because I didn't have Jutsu that used much chakra to begin with. My techniques were great, but I had leveled them so much and they were so low ranked that they didn't require me to use that much energy on them.

The fact that it didn't give me a number for how much this 'well of chakra' actually was had bothered me for all of five minutes before I dismissed the screen and called for my status, mostly to check on stuff. So, imagine my surprise when I found something new beneath the Chakra Points text.

[Cursed Chakra Points: 0/6750]

'That's ten times my actual Chakra Points,' I realized with wide eyes. 'Was the Mark this broken in canon?' Then I paused and sighed. 'Of course it was. Sasuke matched a Kyubi coated Naruto with this shit.'

The problem, however, was the 'at the cost of their own mind' part, obviously. I wasn't sure if that was taken care of with my newly improved defenses or if it would wreck those anyway and affect me like before I made the changes. It would be something to test in the future, that was a given. For the preliminaries, if they even happened to begin with, I would need to avoid using it.