In the Sand Village, the clones are everywhere, and the Arkham game begins

Chapter 1 Puppet Master
The smoke from the cooking stove rises and drifts towards the setting sun.

The setting sun exuded an alluring blood-like color, dyeing the entire Sand Village blood red.

"This is the third batch to retire from the front line this month."

Qingshui sat at the table, looking at a group of defeated soldiers passing by the window opposite, and couldn't help but sigh.

His name has a good meaning in the water-scarce country of Wind, and was given by the director of the orphanage.

The current time is the thirty-seventh year of Sunagakure.

Because the five major ninja villages were all established in the same year, the 37th year of Sunagakure and the 37th year of Konoha are the same year.

At this time, the ninja world was in the midst of the Second Ninja War, and the battle had reached a fever pitch.

The Sand Village has two main battle fronts. One is in the Rain Country on the northeast side, commanded by Elder Chiyo. His purpose is to suppress the Rain Village, prevent Hanzo from leading the Rain Village to become the sixth largest ninja village, and plunder the village's supplies.

The second front was in the east, led by the Third Kazekage, who attacked the Kingdom of Rivers and the Kingdom of Fire in order to occupy a piece of fertile land for the Sand Village.

However, since two high-ranking members of the Sand Village were killed by Konoha White Fang two years ago, the advantages that the Sand Village had gained on the battlefield in the past have gradually disappeared.

These have nothing to do with Qingshui for the time being, because he just retreated from the battlefield in the Rain Country last week.

There is no need to return to the battlefield for the time being.

Eleven years have passed since I traveled to the world of Naruto.

When he first traveled through time, he was just a baby. It was not until he was three years old, as his brain developed to a certain extent, that he slowly began to remember his past life.

Ever since he could remember, he had been in the orphanage in the Sand Village.

Therefore, he showed maturity and wisdom beyond his peers at an early age, successfully passed the entrance examination of the Ninja School, and was ahead of most of his classmates in the early stages of learning.

However, in terms of ninja talent, he is not actually the best, but just average, and his background is not as good as those students who have high-level ninjas and family support behind them.

So when he found that his progress was gradually being caught up by others, Shimizu chose to specialize in the special ninja profession of puppeteer in order to maintain his competitiveness.

In the resource-scarce Sand Village, everything depends on fighting.

"It will take another month for the injury on my leg to heal, and even longer for the internal injuries. During this time, I can only take on some extra income by helping people repair puppets. I don't think I will be able to take on missions to make money in the short term. Fortunately, I don't have to go to the battlefield.

But before that, I have to complete the puppet maintenance task assigned by the village."

Qingshui turned his attention back to the workbench.

He graduated from Ninja Academy last year.

To be precise, they were graduated. After seeing the neighboring Konoha Village doing so, the Sand Village followed suit and sent the senior ninja school students to the battlefield.

However, the top leaders still have some humanity and do not use them as cannon fodder. Instead, they are responsible for tasks such as guarding and patrolling the warehouse, escorting supplies and transmitting low-level intelligence. They are not on the front line of the battlefield, so although there is danger, it is not great.

Sending these senior ninja school students to the second line of the battlefield can free up some manpower and also allow these ninja reserves to be trained in advance.

However, if the front-line battlefield can no longer hold out one day, they will still have to serve as cannon fodder.

Puppet Masters are a feature of the Sand Village. They have a complete heritage, decent combat power, a high ceiling, and a good status. The only drawback is...

poor.

Especially in the already poor Sand Village.

The manufacturing and daily maintenance of puppets is a huge expense. "This mission... seems to be a little wrong."

Qingshui took out the mission scroll and frowned.

Repairing puppets is a normal task, usually D-level, and occasionally C-level, but it is generally the lowest reward for C-level tasks, which is 10,000 taels.

This time the village was unusually generous, and the reward for the task assigned to me was a full 60,000 taels. Moreover, the task was carried out in the form of a team, so I didn't have to share it with my teammates.

Moreover, only one puppet needs to be repaired, and the repair budget that does not exceed 10,000 taels will be reimbursed by the puppet army.

How could such a well-paid mission be the responsibility of an ordinary Genin puppeteer like me with no background?

"It's abnormal to be so generous..."

While thinking about the reason, Qingshui turned his gaze to a puppet nearly as tall as a person placed against the wall, and a square box popped up in his field of vision.

[Puppet name]: Fatty
【Comprehensive parameters】:
Height: 1.5 meters

Weight: 40.22kg
Material: Laminated wood combined with lightweight metal
Energy: None
Operation method: Chakra line

[Puppet Rating]: C
[Overall Evaluation]: Modified from the basic D-level teaching transport puppet, it is low-cost and has standard Genin-level combat capabilities, but it has certain requirements for the puppeteer's manipulation ability.

Fatty is Shimizu's only puppet, which he made by disassembling a teaching puppet he bought from the Ninja School and adding materials to it.

A light tap on the pop-up window appeared, and the three-view and split-view diagrams of the fat puppet appeared next to it, as well as detailed parameters of various aspects, including some existing defects.

Knowing this, it is easy to write a set of improvement and optimization plans. As a result, Fatty was transformed from a basic D-class teaching transport puppet into a C-class puppet with qualified Genin combat capabilities.

The panel is an ability that Qingshui brings with him when he travels through time. Apart from being able to obtain detailed data on the items he creates, no other functions have been discovered so far.

At the very bottom of the panel, there is a progress bar that has been expanded to about 80 percent.

Qingshui doesn't know what will happen after the progress bar is full, but he has some guesses about how to increase the progress bar.

Although the progress bar will usually grow over time, the speed is extremely slow, and may not grow by 0.1% in a month.

But sometimes there are significant changes.

It has appeared twice so far.

The first time was when Shimizu received the acceptance letter to the Ninja School, and the second time was when he graduated and became a Genin.

At that time, Shimizu guessed that this might be related to his own ninja level and personal status.

Turning his head, Qingshui looked at the other puppet beside him.

This is the goal of this mission.

This is a short humanoid puppet. Its left arm is a long mechanical claw connected by pieces of wood. There is a hole in the palm of its right arm, which can be used to eject an explosive kunai and switch to a spiral drill.

Although a panel popped up this time, there was basically no data except the name.

Because this thing was not made by Qingshui himself.

Qingshui picked up the tape measure and screws, disassembled the puppet, looked at it carefully for a while, and then reassembled the puppet.

This is also considered a product of my own manual production.

(End of this chapter)