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Chapter 52 - Arc 4 - Brawling in the Streets: Item Appraisal? Hunger?
🕑 Added 2024-07-01 03:01:59 +0000 UTCChapter 52 is here, it's mostly another expo chapter but Monday should have some action.
Still, Tenten should be allowed to go on a rant about a sword, it's her divine right.
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[Item Appraisal Skill Obtained:
Through hard work and dedication trying to determine the attributes of several different items, you’ve gained the ability to appraise items just like you could a person. Unlike a person though, you’ll need a solid minute of concentrated observation to get any more than the basic name of an item. More info and faster speeds will unlock as you level this skill by determining the status of more varied and stronger items.]
She got it trying to figure out how much a First-Aid Spray would heal, so it immediately procs, which is something she finds very convenient and nice. Her system is normally more prickly than that, and it’s appreciated.
[First-Aid Spray
Consumable
Uncommon
Spray on wounds and watch them go, heals a base health of 150, one use]
So the first thing she has to say to that is, well, awesome. It’s not a ton of information, but it’s more than enough for her to be super happy about it. Name, quality, type, and a brief description with a mechanics blurb is far more than she was asking for. She was just reading the label to hope it’d start spouting numbers! She wasn’t even sure she’d understand the numbers that it started spouting!
With her First Aid Skill, 150 becomes 165, and given a quick check puts her at 144 HP, well it’s a full heal just like in the games. Funnily enough, she’d completely forgotten she had the ability to observe other people, it just hasn’t come up as something she does manually in quite some time. It appears to happen automatically with significant enemies, and it’d just slipped her mind. She doesn’t have time to feel like a dumbass though, there’s more stuff to check!
First thing’s first, her sword.
[Hunger
Weapon
Epic
At this moment, you can tell that it’s a sword that uses blood to empower itself.]
At this moment? So it has further description but she can’t read it yet. This does mean descriptions are somewhat personalized, which raises a lot of questions on its own. Far more importantly, “Hunger?” she questions the sword, giving it a look over. She named it Thirsty, if anything should be overriding that, it’s ‘Chaos Blade’, why Hunger?
Logical deduction states it must have an overriding name, an origin name one could say, that precedes both Thirsty and Chaos Blade. If that’s true, there’s probably research she can do into the weapon, and Higurashi’s being a dead end isn’t a-
“Did you just say Hunger?” Tenten cuts in after a moment, “like the Hunger?”
“Yeah, I can read its name now, it’s not Thirsty like I had engraved on the scabbard… That’s awkward, I’m misnaming my sword, is that as bad as misgendering? Ino had a rant about that once, I didn’t really get it but I listened! I always listen…”
“How would I know?” Tenten snickers at her, “I know swords, not identities… If that sword is named Hunger, a lot of things make a lot of sense very suddenly, and I like none of it.”
“So you know of it? You told me you couldn’t do anything back at the shop…” Sakura holds her shiny blade up, looking at the glowing sigils on it with a gentle smile. Her sword is such a good girl, boy, shit now she’s misgendering it too. “Do swords have gender? Ino says it’s important to get those right.”
“No…” Tenten coughs into her fist, “I told you we didn’t know anything at the shop because you gave us the wrong name. You wrote ‘Chaos Blade’ on the sheet, which as far as I could tell came from a game, I just thought you were quirky, and kind of a bitch for not giving us a warning.”
“I genuinely didn’t know, Kakashi just gave it to me one day,” Sakura admits with a pained sigh. This sword has been the greatest gift she’s ever been given, and also the biggest hassle. Was he trying to hurt her, or did he believe in her that much?
“Hunger is an obscure Be Plus ranked Demon sword, in the short time it wasn’t locked away by - well presumably Kakashi - it claimed the lives of several small villages just like this one. It’s said holding it whispers dark things into your head, but upon your first kills with it, it takes over your mind like an infection and commands you to keep killing until you can’t anymore, at which point it has you turn the sword on yourself. It’ll then wait at your corpse for the next victim to come across it and see its power.” Tenten sounds oddly excited while recanting that, and Sakura’s just happy to not have her fearing her for the moment. It’s a cool story too, fairy tales do get out of hand, but they’re always cool.
“Yeah that uh, didn’t happen.” Sakura points out with a mild sweatdrop, not to discourage her just, it feels a little awkward to have that kind of misconception out there. “I’ve killed with it several times, not just including the zombies from earlier, and the most I’ve gotten is these red eyes.” She gestures to her permanently red eyes pointedly, “which Sasuke thinks are hot. I dunno why I said that, just like, he said that once and it came to mind all of a sudden.”
“You should get boys out of your mind if you’re in a relationship with the Yamanaka Heiress.” Tenten teases her, and she almost quirks her brow and asks ‘wha’ like a dummy before she remembers.
“N-no, Ino and I are just friends.” She can’t help the sudden need to rub her arm, but she doesn’t look away, she needs just another moment before her scan skill kicks in and-
[Tenten Higurashi
Threat Level: High]
- it seems Tenten isn’t that much stronger than her. That also confirms the threat levels are relative, as in the grand scheme of things Tenten is probably moderate at best universal threat level. “I just said that to get Lee to stop bothering me without hurting his feelings. I um, didn’t want to make the mission awkward.”
“Aww… I really thought I’d met a lesbian.” Tenten gives her an odd pout, finally jumping off the table she’s been sitting on for, well, ever, so Neji can get to the documents under her ass without using Byakugan and risking getting an eyeful while he’s at it. When you have the ability to look through things like clothes, actively avoiding doing so is probably a lot of effort and it’s only reasonable for people to try and help you out.
Either that or they’re just peeping twenty-four seven and no one knows so no one says anything… or worse they do know and don’t say anything because the Hyuuga are that important. This isn’t something she wants to think about, Tenten meeting Ino, is something she can smile about.
“Well, I can introduce you to Ino if you want to meet someone into girls.” Sakura says, “She does love me, I’m just not sure how that works in my head… Maybe I like her, maybe I don’t? Maybe I really like rocks? Rocks are cool.”
“Rocks are cool…” Tenten agrees, “I can’t believe I touched Hunger and didn’t murder anyone, I’m awesome.”
“That you are.” It’s really not that big a deal, the legend is obviously fake if this is actually that sword, but anything to make Tenten like her a little more without having to be manipulative or do strange missions or be weird and reputation-hungry. Being nice is just an easy thing she can do. She finds she enjoys the smiles she creates when she’s being genuine, they make her smile too.
[Charm has raised by 1]
Twenty charm? That’s incredible. Soon she’ll rule this world.
[Neji Hyuuga
Threat Level: Very High]
What about her crossbow?
Picking it up, she gives it her focus. Zoning out and into the wood, she finds it’s pretty and remarkably smooth.
[Crossbow of Magic
Weapon
Rare
Capable of shooting and activating bolts with magical energy to initiate spells on impact. Should it be used to fire normal bolts, the bolts will explode immediately and deal damage to the user.]
Well, that’s inconvenient, she only had like thirty of those bolts to begin with and she’s already used several of them. She’ll either need to figure out a different everyday use ranged weapon, or figure out how to enchant bolts herself. Probably that first one, though perhaps picking up a crafting skill or two when she gets home isn’t a bad idea. But what tree would enchanted bolts even be under? Fletching? Probably not, though maybe… How does one even make a magical weapon? Tenten’s family doesn’t do it, they said as much quite rudely. Well, Tenten said as much quite rudely, but she was supposedly quoting her father.
[Notice: Before you can unlock crafting skills you will need to do the crafting tutorial, would you like to start it?]
No, fuck no, not right now. Maybe once she’s home… That does explain why she hasn’t gotten any random crafting skills yet though. She’s moving that up to an urgent objective once she gets home.
“We should probably get going.” Sakura finally says, picking up the hammer Tenten gave her earlier from where she left it against a counter. “I’m recovered, and there’s no reason to spend hours trapped in the first safe room.”
[Tenten Higurashi’s Greathammer
Uncommon
Unlike a normal warhammer which is actually quite small despite common belief due to a desire to take advantage of the velocity squared part of the force equation, this thing’s comically large. It’s also smithed by Tenten Higurashi herself. Despite being weighty and cumbersome, it’s well cared for and balanced as well as any ridiculously humongous greathammer could possibly be, making it ideal for when you really, truly, absolutely, need something smooshed.]
“Wow, you made this?” Sakura asks.
“You can tell that?” Tenten asks, “Jeez, whatever that secret you have is, it’s nuts.”
“It’s also none of our business.” Neji huffs at Tenten, glaring lightly, “Let’s head out. Get those grenades ready.”
“You got it, boss.” Tenten gives him a salute of all things, before pulling a big metal ball from her pouch.
“That’s not a grenade, that’s a whole underwater mine.” Sakura deadpans.
“I didn’t say they were small.” Tenten sticks out her tongue a little and gives Sakura a wink.
Comments
Dopplerdee
I'm loving that Tenten is just unhinged. Also Sakura juat not getting that she's built differently.
