Chapter 2710: 100
Naruto sighed as he looked over the horrible mess, his clones having pulled basically everyone out to the hospital already. "What, exactly, happened?"
Teni grimaced. "Kumin warned that some of the power flows didn't look like they'd be able to handle the draw on a couple of the experimental weapons, but someone decided to prove he was wrong through powering them up."
"I dropped six warnings into the system about that last month."
"You did?"
"Yes, the calculations used to prove they were 'good enough' obviously didn't include the reduced transfer capacity from impurities and what would happen when the power conduits heated up. I got around some of that by not having impurities and I still left a larger safety margin. My designs also include temperature sensors that can cut the flow down to safer levels."
"Huh. That's not a bad idea, and it makes me think that I need to review more than just my personal parts of things more often. You don't feel like the kind of person who considers safety limits on your technology though."
"...I've consistently had wider safety margins on things than Hinata because I never trust that I've gotten things correct. A relatively small fizzle is better than a large explosion you weren't expecting, as the crater we're staring at can attest to."
"Good point."
"Of course, I also test copies of everything at various scales when possible and push them to destruction to see what the failure states are. Had someone built a smaller-scale power conduit and tested it then you might've picked up on some of this yourselves. You can do that with most technology, unlike most seals, though I do realize that not everyone is going to be able to reasonably scale things up one centimeter at a time."
Teni turned to stare at him. "You scale things up a centimeter at a time?"
"Yes. It makes it easier to tell what shouldn't be scaled at all and when I need to start adding relays and contactors too."
"And you test each one to destruction?"
"Well, no. After the first few I only test every tenth or hundredth iteration unless things go wildly out of predictions. Figuring out the prediction curves is admittedly complicated with some technologies. Much easier with seals when you can scale them at all, but I think I'm going to propose new testing rules for everyone going forward."
She flinched at that, probably guessing that she wasn't going to like how comprehensive he made those rules.
Gaara sighed as he looked over the list of potential genin to send to the upcoming Uzushio-hosted chunin exams. It was likely that things were going to be 'spectacular' again, though how much more you could improve upon a flying examination island was another question entirely. Of course, changing out the challenges for completely new ones nobody was expecting would be enough...for everyone else.
If their new island survived then they'd likely use it at least a few times without changing things up significantly, but Uzushio didn't currently feel 'settled' enough to stick to anything that long.
Notice had already gone out that they were going to allow anyone to participate in the 'genin checking' portions, and had provided a list of 'known genin exempt from testing due to previous completions' as well. A surprisingly small list in general, especially as it covered the entirety of the Elemental Nations, but the real annoyance there was that they knew about unadvertised promotions and deaths...and were essentially advertising that the shinobi in question were no longer genin in some fashion through excluding them from the list.
Of course, this was also a reasonably subtle 'reminder' that Uzushio would know if someone tried to sneak someone in that wasn't actually genin rank. Suna's records showed that they'd done that every so often for various reasons and had a few dozen 'believed someone else did it' based on post-exam reviews...but with broadcasting everything there had been some push to ensure that they 'looked good' internationally. Being able to point at Uzushio and rightfully claim that they would likely know and call them out publicly should hopefully be enough to shut those idiots up.
It was also annoyingly impossible to tell if the list of genin eligible to skip the test for being genin had been provided specifically to serve as a warning against sending non-genin, sending a direct and indirect message at the same time.
At least there hadn't been any requests for another exhibition match with Kankuro, even if they'd not actually come off too bad from the last one. How much of that was because they knew that he was still working out the kinks in his latest designs was another question entirely, because they definitely knew that detail. A letter had come just a few days ago with a list of obvious problems and a couple of suggested fixes, entirely unsolicited.
Hinata found Naruto in his office finishing up paperwork. "I thought you'd finished all of that for the day."
He scoffed. "Decided to take care of the latest round of complaints that various divisions have made about the new safety rules for anything experimental."
"Ah. Anyone else I need to talk to in the technology division?"
"Not this round. The only complaint there was a misreading. Lots of stupidity from those making experimental weapons though. If there's a chance of things exploding then you need to have a way to test it safely, but making a funnily-shaped blade with known-good techniques isn't even the right kind of experimental for the new rules to kick in."
"Oh, those idiots. Do you think they're complaining just to get back at you for calling their designs stupid and wasteful?"
"I don't think so, but only because I was able to demonstrate why they were stupid and wasteful on zombies. When the blunt spine of your blade is easier to kill a zombie with than the actual cutting edge then your blade design sucks."
Yeah, that had been a spectacular failure in blade design. "I see."
"Were you looking for me because you thought I was done with paperwork, or because you ran into something you wanted to ask me about?"
"I ran into your testing rules for joint jounin exams."
"...yes?"
"Why are you compiling rules for a joint jounin exam?"
"Because I'm thinking about running one?"
"It was bad enough getting everyone to sign a new chunin exam treaty. Unless you're going to limit things to Konoha and maybe Iwa?"
"Why would a new treaty be needed?"
Hinata sighed. "Because nobody is going to risk attending an exam without one?"
"I think you misunderstood my question. We've already got a treaty that'll cover it, why would we need another one?"
That...what? "When did you push through a jounin exam treaty?"
"I didn't?"
"Then the only exam treaty we have is for the chunin exams."
Naruto snorted. "No, that's the old one. The new one mentions 'chunin' exactly once, and that's in the 'this supersedes the previous joint chunin exam treaty' block. It covers any exam for promotion without naming ranks at all, provides for 'reasonable testing of a reasonable rank to obtain promotion from' as a pre-test, and does not mention any rank otherwise. Officially, that was done so that we can rename or insert new ranks or so that the Land of Iron can host and/or send their people that don't use the genin/chunin/jounin ranking system. In practice it means that anyone can host a joint promotion exam, including in theory for academy students to genin. The list of required areas to test candidates in would make that a bit mean though as generally you don't start on half the skills listed until you're already a shinobi."
"You...convinced everyone to replace a very specific exam treaty with an intentionally generic one?"
"Yes, and that was in the private notes on our end. Didn't share the full justification with allies, but I did include the desire to not mention ranks in a general sense in their briefings."
Okay, she'd known that Naruto had gotten scarily good at the diplomatic side of things, generally through being blunt and throwing out generations of 'traditional bullshit', but she'd not realized just how subtle he'd started being with his manipulations. "Is anyone else going to spot that?"
He shrugged. "If I go through with it then the announcement messages will cite the treaty directly. That should save six or seven waves of others claiming that we can't do that. I've actually got a draft of that part of such an announcement in the appropriate place for such things, if you want to take a look."
Twenty minutes later she was incredibly annoyed because the history of the draft in question indicated that it had been written before treaty negotiations had begun and had only been updated with the final treaty name and signing dates for Uzushio and the 'big five'. Even that was a minor change from the expected name in the original draft and the expected final signing dates had been within two days of the actual dates.
...then she realized that there was a question that she didn't have the answer to, and wasn't sure if she wanted to know. That is, where such an exam would be held, because she knew that even the new exam island was specifically geared towards chunin testing and would be difficult to re-scale some elements safely.
Ganbold scowled as they moved through the trees. How they'd lost all records of the settlement that had repeatedly repelled their forces was a mystery, but several of them had recalled enough to find it again. Except that none of the signs of its presence seemed to remain, somehow, even if several of the natural landmarks used to locate the place were still there. As such, they were obviously in the right place...if you ignored that there was no sign that the group of foreigners had ever existed and their impossible automated weapons were no longer present.
If not for the death records from the attempts against the settlement they'd not have any official proof that it had existed, and even those were...oddly vague. He knew that they'd been far more detailed originally, describing the mechanisms that had killed the men, because he'd personally written several of them. But now they only referred to an unspecified enemy. Some of the men were a bit spooked as a result, wondering if the settlement itself had been a mass hallucination of some kind or a test from the spirits.
He was pulled out of his somewhat circular musings on the settlement by coming to a small clearing...with an obvious gate sitting in a gap in a fence. The gate design wasn't one that he recognized, and it was wildly different from anything that had been seen of the settlement. Two primary vertical posts with two primary horizontal ones and nothing actually barring entry, and not actually connected to the fence itself, but it was obviously denoting a border of some kind. A path beyond the gate led to what looked like stairs going up the side of the mountain.
"I don't like this," Erdem said. "Nothing I remember says that there was anything to speak of on the mountain itself."
"And yet now the settlement is gone and this is here," Ganbold agreed, starting to wonder if the more superstitious men had the right idea after all.
"Even the plants look different on the mountain, as though they're not quite the same species as those on this side of that fence."
That...was a good and yet incredibly disturbing point. He looked back at the men following him. "We're going to explore a bit further, but do not attack anything that does not attack us for now."
The more...violent of his men looked annoyed at that, but all of them nodded. He then led them through the gate, gulping at the seemingly...otherworldly feeling on the other side. As though the very environment around them wanted them to be peaceful, at least a little? And possibly as though the air itself was cleaner than it should be.
Not far up the mountain was another of the gates, the path splitting beyond it. One path went further up, the other looked more like it was going around the mountain. Possibly to a cave? There was another fence and yet another shift in the appearance of the plants to either side of said fence. He signaled his men to stay back for the moment, stepping through the gate...and finding that the otherworldly feeling intensified.
He was nearly ready to call his men forward, feelings be damned, when he spotted something in the trees. Focusing, he realized that it looked like a person in odd clothing...except that they appeared to have a fox tail. And, as their head became more visible, fox ears. That twitched like a fox's would. Gulping, he glanced around and realized that he could see two other foxes watching him...with far more intelligence than foxes should show.
There might be something to the beliefs of the more...superstitious men after all, and he decided that they were not prepared for this. He backed up through the weird gate, gesturing for his men to retreat back down the mountain. They didn't question him, though he wasn't sure if they'd seen the fox person. This had become a 'document what they found so far and let someone else investigate more deeply' situation, especially as so far it didn't seem to be a combat problem. The settlement with the people that might have some information on the flying fortress, or possibly a way to take the fight to it, was missing anyway and might never have existed, as problematic that was for this new situation's potential long-term existence.
Yoko sighed as she settled into her office, finally done with the Land of Demons shrine network. It had taken longer than she'd have liked, and had involved far too much 'putting on a show' prepwork, but all of the shrines Shion had been in charge of were either replaced or removed. In the former case, several of them had the added show of the 'dark chakra' demon they'd been holding being forced out of containment and torn apart by light chakra during the enshrinements.
That alone had very obviously 'sold' the legitimacy of the Land of Shrines to the locals, above and beyond Shion's personal approval. Mortals could contain demons, but the general opinion of the people was that it took more than that to destroy them. Nevermind that the 'demons' seemed to largely be the remains of people who had delved too deeply into dark chakra and lost themselves to it. Nor that most of the 'demons' had been starting to fall apart on their own, possibly because the effects that had been anchoring them had failed.
At this point the running theory was that the bulk of them had only been able to maintain themselves due to the lingering effects of the God Tree and the destruction of it had caused them to start to fade. The exceptions seemed to have stone tablets as anchors instead, and when dealing with the 'body shrine' of Mōryō they'd destroyed such a tablet that had been placed inside of the seal there. Not that said tablet had been 'active' after Mōryō's defeat.
Regardless, she had to go through and double-check records before being unavailable again due to needing to help Naruto with construction tasks. She'd had clones looking over things, but wanted to go back over it all and compare progress notes on training. There had also been an issue with omamori stock that had supposedly been resolved properly by the individual shrines but that she'd not double-checked on yet and possibly a need to order more sealing ink for making the things from Uzushio.
Creating a reliable way of producing that for Shrine Island was proving to be difficult. The process was far too fiddly and even the bulk ink production that Konoha and Uzushio managed had a handful of people monitoring it at all times. Automating it would be nice, but was proving difficult, and it was specialized enough to not be a good fit for shrine maidens to learn to handle. Luckily they had enough money coming in from donations and omamori sales to cover just buying it by the barrel.
Ino sat down to dinner, shaking her head. "Naruto, I know you're busy with moon building prep, but you really need to get around to putting in the rest of the requests for staff for the exams."
Naruto blinked. "I'm reasonably certain I already finished that, and even included extra observers and medical staff."
"...you've barely touched the testing station staff."
"Oh. They're not needed."
Hinata sighed. "What did you do to automate things this time?"
"Sanshi made a breakthrough on some of the automated puppet personality routines, coupled with me figuring out one of the Tome's control systems. Well, I figured out what it does, but my version is still around ten times larger than it's version, but I was able to bury those in the infrastructure instead of needing to put copies in the puppets anyway."
"You're going to do most of the testing with automated puppets."
"Yes, because I was unhappy with Iwa's standards for some of the testing when they rented the previous island. Automated testers means you don't need to worry about most of the staffing and finding those with the right skills and should smooth out the differences between villages running exams on the island. It also means that I can quadruple the number of testing stations without issue and let all of them run overnight."
Ino nodded as she considered that. "And you don't have to dedicate anywhere near as many people to things, leaving Uzushio itself in a better position for continuing to take care of day to day items. The hospital will be seriously reduced in staff, but is rarely stressed and summoning means that medic-nin can be moved around quickly if needed anyway."
"So," Hinata said. "Have you stress-tested the system yet?"
Naruto shrugged. "I threw four times the expected number of testees in clones at it every few days for a few weeks to try and spot problems. None came up, but monitoring things to ensure that everything appears to be going well is part of the reason we're running things instead of renting the new island out first."
That was admittedly a good point, though how the other villages would react to the testing being handled by automatons instead of actual people was another question entirely. Then again, until things had been shaken up the bulk of the villages tested with methods that barely tested candidates at all. Having a method requiring a comparable number of shinobi that did a lot more direct testing would essentially be doing what had been done before, just better.
And Naruto was very good at 'replace what someone else was doing with a better option'.
Onoki looked around at the arrival area for the replacement island, finding that it was very similar to the old one's. A map with multiple arrival pads in the proper places for the countries you might be arriving from, based on how many departure pads were expected to be in use from each of them. This one was circular instead of rectangular though, and included some pads in spots that were further out than expected.
He led the way along the path to the nearest stairs, finding that a legend was sitting next to them. Finding that the new pads corresponded to the area around the Land of Demons. That made sense, given that he knew the Land of Shrines had expanded out that way, though he didn't think that they ran shinobi training like others did. Not that things didn't change over time, of course, and being a bit 'too far away' wasn't a factor anymore.
"Good morning," Naruto greeted, startling some of the group. It had been half-expected though, as the Uzukage was unnervingly stealthy...as were a significant number of his people at this point.
"Morning," Onoki replied, glancing around the area for signs of 'expansion zones'. There seemed to still be plenty for that. "I see there's a wider distribution of possible attendees this time."
"Mostly spectators from the new areas, though I wouldn't put it past some of the shrine maidens or guards to show up for the genin testing phase."
"Ah, yes. Is that going to become a thing that we're all expected to open up to the masses?"
"No, I just figured that people would want a chance to see the new island."
"About that. Reports are that it's...smaller than expected, with far fewer testing areas."
The grin on the blond's face was disturbing. "Reports can be deceiving. We didn't even have to mess with them to accomplish that."
For some, claiming you could mess with someone else's reports would be overestimating your abilities. Unfortunately, not for Uzushio. They were known to be able to do things such as put appointments down in his own handwriting while also trapping his office. Merely 'messing with reports' would be trivial for them. On the other hand, the statement said a number of other things about the island, the biggest being an acknowledgement that the island was deceptively small.
How you made a flying island deceptively small was something that he couldn't figure out though.
Mei looked at the map, frowning. It was a digital screen, which was nice because you could 'search' for specific destinations with the little keyboard under it, but punching in 'arena' had simply returned a 'not currently available' message. "How is the arena not currently available?"
"I have no clue," Ao replied. "Though I note that the meeting time is in two hours and the information provided said that we could head to the arena starting in around ten minutes. Perhaps this is a test of patience?"
"Showing up early is rarely a problem and we're not actually at the testing phase for anything yet."
"Um," one of the genin said, before clamming up. She sighed and turned to the boy, Shatomo, raising her eyebrow to prompt him to continue. He gulped, but held up the sheet he was holding. "The wording implies that we literally can't head to the arena before the time mentioned, though I don't yet know why that would be the case."
She pulled out her own copy and re-read that section, finding that she concurred with the assessment. In fact, now that she was paying it proper attention, it was using standard wording for missions for things such as 'do not arrive before this time'. Except that normally it was a bit more flexible on missions. "Well, that's interesting. I wonder if they've just locked it out of the maps until then or if there's something else going on."
Someone else might've said something, but a horn sounding and lights appearing on the dome that dominated the island interrupted. As a group they moved up to the rooftops, wondering what was going on, and she noted that several other villages had done the same thing nearby. She didn't get a lot of time to process that before movement dropped her into a state of shock, the entire central forest tilting and spinning out of the way...to reveal a larger than she'd expected arena in a safer-looking forest.
"I do believe that Naruto has outdone himself," Ao commented. "Again."
"Several times over," Mei agreed. "Because I know there are animals in the forest that just flipped upside-down, and I highly doubt that they'd be able to handle things suddenly being the wrong way up normally."
"...I hadn't considered that part, but if the island has a giant hole in the middle of it to hold both areas for the dome then everything is likely compressed into a much smaller area."
Somehow she thought that there was a lot more to this trick than the obvious, but they now had an arena to head towards.
Naruto looked out over the group as one of his clones let him know that the broadcasts were all active. "Hello and welcome to the new examination island. We've improved upon the design significantly, but I'm sure those of you paying attention have noticed some of that already. As is now standard procedure, there will be a day of testing to see if you're worthy of the rank of genin to ensure that you can handle the rigors of the actual examination. As an excuse to let more people see the island, this testing will start at sunrise tomorrow, and will accept anyone who can make their way to the island. Everyone will have until sunset to complete the testing, and those participating in the exams will have until an hour after sunset to submit their paperwork."
He let that sit for a moment, in part so that the broadcast could show when sunrise and sunset were for those watching from elsewhere, before continuing. "This afternoon is a different matter, of course. While it won't be as important for tomorrow's portion of things, anyone continuing on to the chunin testing itself will need to familiarize themselves with the island's map stations. To provide an incentive, your 'first exam on the island' gifts are not being delivered. If you want three single-use meal scrolls, a new weapon pouch with built-in refilling seal, and your choice of one chakra-conducting blade then you will need to go fetch them. The tokens for them can be retrieved from the registration offices, one set per individual registered to take the exams, along with the list of places you will need to travel to in order to redeem them."
Pausing, he looked over the group that appeared ready to bolt out of the arena, before grinning. "If you want to show off, anyone claiming all their gifts in the next two hours can then attempt a skill test for one of Uzushio's deluxe tents as well, though that will require finding the test and accomplishing the task set forth. Good luck."
The genin flowed out of the arena at the obvious dismissal, and it was nice to see that they wouldn't be likely to be marking any of them down for being stupid enough to not feel that the gifts were worth the effort. Some of them already had decent tents though, so not going for it would be less of a concern. Once all the genin were out of the arena, and those who had stopped at the in-arena map stations instead of waiting until they were out of the dome had been noted, he jumped down into the group of leaders and sensei.
"You're making the rest of us look cheap," A noted. "Giving away valuable gifts like this all the time."
"I disagree," Naruto replied. "I'm showing how much Uzushio has available to export. The rest of you just don't have a proper advertising budget for your exports. We even got the meal scrolls to work without chakra at all by rigging them with a pull tab."
"Ruri is going to be disappointed that she isn't old enough to participate," Orochimaru commented, shaking her head. "She's definitely going to show up in the morning no matter what Guren might say otherwise, of course, but not being able to get the gifts is going to have her pouting."
"I anticipated that. Anyone who earns an honorary forehead protector tomorrow and isn't registered for the exams will get their own gifts." He then pulled out a stack of packets. "Anyone want copies of the details on the items mentioned and the price sheets for them?"
He wasn't surprised that all of the packets were claimed, even Shisui grabbing one.
Isato had found the computer maps to be incredibly easy to use, provided you had ever used a computer for anything. Admittedly, in Suna that was probably a rare skill right now. Getting to a registration office, having her exam entrance identification checked, and obtaining the gift tokens had been easy enough. Running around the outside of the island to reach the places with the gifts had been harder and was kind of a test of stamina all on its own, and she'd been surprised that there were choices for every one of them to suit personal tastes, but she'd managed it with enough time to be told the name of the location the skill challenge was in.
...that had turned out to be inside the island. Down into the basement of a building and into a tunnel system, one that wouldn't let her go anywhere but where she was supposed to and was thus trivial to navigate. Eventually this led her to a room with a giant opening along one side, leading outside. With the bulk of the island obviously above them.
"Welcome," a woman with a weird forehead protector called out. "Here to try to earn a tent?"
"Of course," Isato replied.
"You get to choose one of three tests. The easiest is to simply survive jumping to the ocean surface without major injuries. If the medic has to fix broken bones or you need to be fished out of the water because you can't swim then you fail. Next is hitting one of the floating targets from up here with kunai, you'd need to hit three targets with no more than thirty throws. Last is to climb back up the outside of the island to the platform above here, though if you fall off and meet the requirements of jumping then you'll be considered to have passed. Note that the outside of the island is resistant to surface-sticking so you'll be restricted to the handholds available."
Blinking, she moved over to the opening and found that straight down was the ocean...with a platform holding a transport pad off to the side, presumably to get back up. Several floating targets were spread out as well, visible but not all that large. Turning to look up had her grimacing, because it was obvious that the handholds were not going to be easy to use. Luckily she could swim, and had practiced diving from heights.
"Do I need to do anything before jumping?" she asked.
The woman shook her head. "No, if that's the route you want to go then you can jump when ready."
It took a moment to mentally prepare, but when she was ready she jumped. Angling herself for entry was easy enough, and she formed the basic chakra protection on her hands that should let her enter the water more safely. This was much higher than she'd ever done this before though, and she was starting to panic by the time she finally reached the surface. Her chakra did its job and allowed her to not feel like she'd struck solid rock, and she angled herself to come back up where she thought the platform was.
She got that a little too accurate as she slammed into the bottom of the platform and had to make her way out from under it.
"Good job," a man said as she pulled herself onto the platform. He handed her a token. "You can take this to one of the tent shops to claim your tent."
"Thank you," she replied, putting the token in her pocket. "I assume the transport pad will bring me back up to the island."
"Of course, to a dedicated arrival point. Follow the signs."
"Thank you."
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