"So comfortable."

Once again, Suzuki was submerged in the same high-end, steaming onsen where he had taken a bath a few nights prior. As expected, the same ’accidental’ mistake from before didn’t repeat itself. Shiro and Kuro were currently passed out in the living room of his hotel suite, fully stuffed with premium cat food and completely exhausted from their trip.

The two kitties were still young, and they needed ample sleep to grow.

Yet, Suzuki knew those two possessed terrifying potential. The proof? The simple fact that they could fluidly converse in human language.

In the Naruto world, countless shinobi utilized animal familiars. Kiba’s dog, Akamaru, and the vast majority of other ninja hounds could only bark and communicate via scent or specialized jutsu. The only animals universally known to speak human languages were the ancient summons: the Toads of Mount Myoboku, the Slugs of Shikkotsu Forest, and the Snakes of Ryuchi Cave.

But wasn’t that to be expected? Those three legendary species resided in Sage Regions—special, uncharted locations overflowing with dense, ancient natural energy. Absorbing that ambient senjutsu chakra over centuries allowed them to evolve, grow to monstrous sizes, and gain human sentience.

So, what did it mean when Shiro and Kuro—two stray cats born on the filthy, chakra-barren streets—had achieved human speech entirely on their own?

The answer was clear. Both Shiro and Kuro were freakishly exceptional, one-in-a-million mutant anomalies. With the proper training and resources, they could become as powerful as the legendary summons.

But enough about them for now. I just want to relax.

When a person is constantly busy building an empire and mastering lethal jutsu, time seems to accelerate. There never felt like enough hours in the day.

Especially with all the things I still need to learn.

It often felt like his progress was too slow. But as he leaned his head back against the smooth stones of the hot spring, a sudden, brilliant idea surfaced in his mind.

Why did I completely forget about the Shadow Clone Jutsu’s training hack?

He hadn’t considered it before because his chakra reserves were limited. Unlike Naruto Uzumaki—who possessed practically unlimited chakra thanks to his Uzumaki lineage and the Nine-Tails—Suzuki’s raw chakra capacity was currently capped at the high-Jonin level.

That amount was significant, but massive chakra reserves alone didn’t guarantee victory in battle. Countless shinobi with average or even abysmally low chakra reserves had trained themselves to become the absolute strongest fighters in the world.

The prime example? Might Guy.

With my current physical durability, I should be able to handle the strain of learning the Eight Inner Gates, right?

Tsunade had already given him the complete technical scrolls for Creation Rebirth, her ultimate regeneration jutsu. If Suzuki successfully mastered it, he could theoretically open the Eight Gates without his body tearing itself apart. The Creation Rebirth would instantly heal the catastrophic cellular damage caused by the Gates as it happened.

Granted, there was currently no enemy on the planet that required him to forcibly open all Eight Gates and sacrifice his life.

But it’s still essential to learn the theory.

The Eight Gates was a pure taijutsu technique. That meant the underlying physical principles and chakra-gate manipulations could be easily recorded by the Manager and shared across the multiverse with the other Suzukis. It was a highly dangerous, double-edged sword, but if any of them ever found themselves in an absolutely desperate, do-or-die situation, having that ’nuke’ in their back pocket would be invaluable.

His short-term goals were now set: after extracting every drop of medical and combat knowledge from Tsunade, he would return to Konoha, approach Might Guy, and aggressively pursue taijutsu training. He might even leverage his position to ask Hiruzen for access to the Forbidden Scroll of Seals.

For an ordinary ninja, acquiring a single A-Rank jutsu was a lifelong dream. But for Suzuki? After securing the Hokage’s backing, his entire trajectory had shifted dramatically.

"But what else?" he murmured, watching the steam rise off the water.

What else could he do to rapidly scale his power ceiling? Should he attempt to become a Jinchuriki?

Like Naruto, who became arguably the strongest shinobi in history by harboring the Nine-Tails...

Wait, no. Naruto became the strongest because he’s the literal reincarnation of Asura Otsutsuki.

Being a Jinchuriki was just a massive bonus. Naruto was also the son of the Fourth Hokage, an Uzumaki with monstrous vitality, and the child of prophecy. If he wasn’t strong with all those buffs, it would be embarrassing.

When Suzuki objectively considered the miserable, highly scrutinized fate of Naruto and the other Jinchuriki, he sighed heavily and instantly discarded the idea.

"Yeah, let’s definitely not do that."

It wasn’t that Suzuki was afraid of the Tailed Beasts. He was absolutely confident that, with the Manager’s computational power, he could effortlessly suppress and control a Bijuu’s chakra. Furthermore, he was rapidly becoming a prodigy in Fuinjutsu (Sealing Techniques). In fact, he could arguably become the greatest sealing master in history.

Fuinjutsu was, at its core, simply coding. It was a programming language written in chakra. If you wrote a specific string of characters and inputted the correct variables, a specific, mathematical result would occur. With the Manager flawlessly optimizing and debugging complex sealing formulas in his mind, he could create seals that even the Uzumaki clan had never dreamed of.

No, what terrified Suzuki wasn’t the Tailed Beasts. It was the ancient, ghostly voyeur watching the ninja world from the afterlife: Hagoromo Otsutsuki, the Sage of Six Paths.

Hagoromo might be physically dead, but his chakra and will still actively manipulated the world. If a random, unprophesied mortal suddenly captured a Tailed Beast and disrupted his grand, century-spanning plan for his sons’ reincarnations, what would the Sage do?

Hagoromo wouldn’t intervene directly. He would likely manipulate the Toads of Mount Myoboku to issue a new ’prophecy,’ directing Naruto and Sasuke to take Suzuki down. The plot armor would be suffocating.

So, what was his counterplay?

If Suzuki wanted to transcend his mortal limitations and stand on equal footing with the literal gods of the shinobi world, was there a safe path?

I don’t actually want to fight them, Suzuki reasoned. I just want to live and enjoy a life with a peace of mind, but to do that, I need enough raw power that even Hagoromo hesitates to mess with me.

Anyone who had been successfully brainwashed by a talking toad and willingly sealed his own mother just because he blindly believed a vague prophecy was inherently dangerous and unpredictable. Suzuki needed to be incredibly careful.

My situation in this world is honestly quite similar to Kim Min-Jun’s in Solo Leveling.

When Suzuki compared notes with his alternate self, he realized the ultimate stakes were essentially the same: the true, apocalyptic threats eventually came from outer space (the Otsutsuki Clan and the Monarchs/Rulers).

As for the terrestrial threats on the planet—Akatsuki, Danzo, Madara—Suzuki felt wholly confident he could handle them through a combination of superior economics, assassination, and overwhelming firepower.

With that comforting realization, his tense muscles finally relaxed. For the first time in weeks, he allowed himself to fully unwind in the hot water. At least the local villains weren’t world-ending gods that caused him utter despair.

Yet, just as he closed his eyes to enjoy the quiet moment...

Slide.

The wooden door to the private men’s onsen slowly slid open.

"..." Suzuki opened one eye.

Manager...

He sincerely wished the Manager would start issuing proximity alerts for these kinds of highly volatile, cliché situations. Why did the AI always remain perfectly silent whenever a classic harem trope occurred?

"Ah! I-I am so sorry!"

Suzuki immediately sighed in profound relief upon hearing the feminine shriek of surprise. The panicked apology meant she had realized her mistake, and the situation would defuse immediately without any awkward drama.

But once again, he had severely underestimated the sheer, terrifying power of the author plot.