Chapter 8: Camping
While walking back cautiously to the nearby town, Arthur considered how fortunate he was to have stumbled across a Kekkei Genkai user.
Characters like Yukimi were not a common find. Perhaps by chance, her story was developed by Elysium's artificial intelligence systems, allowing him to cross paths.
Or perhaps the programs knew he would tread on this path of darkness, placing her in the same situation as him. Regardless, he knew that the hardware functions of the world couldn't be altered. The moment he entered the pod, everything was static, only changeable by the player's choices.
Putting those thoughts aside, he knew what he needed—more Kekkei Genkai.
They were very unique, with only a few being effective in combat. The Smoke Kekkei Genkai, for instance, can deceive a prominent ninja's senses. This was shown when Kakashi, a user of the Sharingan, fought Yukimi's clanmates and couldn't differentiate them from real smoke.
Other Kekkei Genkai could form hardened crystals, absorb chakra, explode objects on contact, and even generate their own magnetic force. But out of all the Kekkei Genkai in this world, only one surpassed them all: the Rinnegan.
Arthur didn't want to think further about that ocular technique.
With each passing hour, his body had fully accumulated all the foreign cells. He approached the town he'd previously avoided, keeping a safe distance.
Citizens could be heard rustling about. Arthur couldn't help but feel the bitter taste of their normalcy.
He closed his eyes and focused on his chakra. Channeling it, his body became weightless until it dissolved entirely. He was smoke, a formless cloud drifting in the breeze.
It was exhilarating—a newfound freedom of movement—but he didn't let the excitement get to him.