Ren could not accept missions.
He was still too small, too irrelevant for the system. But that never stopped him from observing—and for him, observing was more important than acting too early.
The administrative building of Konoha was not just a place for records and forms. It was the true economic heart of the village. People constantly came and went, carrying concerns, expectations, and money. Worried civilians, calculating merchants, tired shinobi. All orbited that same point.
D-Rank missions.
Tasks too simple to require chakra. Cleaning lands, caring for children, carrying small loads. Activities that could have been handled by ordinary civilians, but that still passed through the village's hands.
Ren quickly understood why.
Control.
By mediating even the most trivial problems, Konoha became indispensable. It created dependence. Civilians stopped solving issues on their own because they learned it was safer—and easier—to pay the village.
C-Rank missions.
Escorts, caravan protection, containing common bandits. Here the risk began to exist, and with it, the value increased. These missions were sold as an absolute necessity, proof that the world outside the walls was too dangerous to face alone.
Ren frowned as he noticed something troubling.
The same groups of bandits seemed to reappear with excessive frequency.
They were not eliminated.
They were not truly dismantled.
And this led him to a cold conclusion: **solving the problem completely was not in the system's interest**.
If the bandits ceased to exist, many missions would cease with them. Less contracts, less money circulating, less justification for the constant presence of armed shinobi.
It was more efficient to keep the problem at an acceptable level.
Controllable.
Ren suspected that, in some cases, this control went beyond mere omission. Leaked information. Ignored routes. Eyes closed at just the right moment. Perhaps even indirect funding, especially when the chaos needed to be directed outward.
After all, the same mechanism could be used against enemy villages.
Creating instability in rival territories, strengthening hostile local groups, weakening foreign economies—without declaring war openly. Failed missions "by chance" on one side, profitable missions on the other.
Modern warfare in this world was not done with jutsu alone.
It was done with contracts.
In the midst of this system, Ren began to notice important names that moved the gears with mastery, and one stood out: **Danzo Shimura**.
A man known for questionable actions.
A master at using the system to his advantage.
Hidden funding, secret missions, silent networks of influence. To many, he was just a cold opportunist. To Ren, he was someone who understood how the pieces fit—and who possessed real merits.
Danzo was not just a manipulator.
He had skills few in the village could match: leadership, strategy, courage in risky situations, and an impressive ability to maintain loyal allies. He built power without relying solely on chakra or extraordinary jutsu; he knew how to leverage the political, economic, and military system in his favor.
Ren perceived the man's ambiguity.
He used chaos and fear for his objectives, but also managed to keep the village functioning in ways few could. It was an example that, in that world, **strategic intelligence was as valuable as physical strength**.
Above the village… there was another problem.
The real money did not come only from missions.
It came from the **Daimyō of the Land of Fire**.
The funding that kept Konoha running—salaries, infrastructure, expansion—depended on the approval of a man who did not understand chakra, jutsu, or the real weight of his decisions.
A civilian governing soldiers capable of destroying mountains.
Ren felt a slight discomfort at the thought.
The Daimyō needed the villages to maintain power over the country. The villages needed the Daimyō's money to exist. Neither could break this link without collapsing the entire system.
It was a mutual… and dangerous… dependence.
If the Daimyō decided to cut funding, the Hokage could do little besides negotiate. Raw force would not solve it. Destroying one's own country would mean losing everything the village claimed to protect.
Ren then realized the true limit of shinobi power.
They were weapons.
They were not the masters of the board.
This reinforced something he had been understanding for some time: achieving individual strength would be useless without understanding economics, politics, and influence. A Hokage without the Daimyō's support was merely a general without supplies.
He sat on a distant bench, small enough to avoid attention, and let his thoughts organize.
Missions were more than work.
They were mechanisms of social control.
By agreeing to protect someone, Konoha granted security—and demanded loyalty. By refusing a mission, it instilled fear. Small villages, without alternatives, were forced to submit or disappear.
Ren realized that many wars began here, silently.
And that the peace preached by some was only a convenient pause between contracts.
When his time came, he could not depend solely on this model. He would need to create sources of wealth that did not rely on constant conflict. Real commerce, technology, seals, knowledge. Something to break the logic that violence was the only valid currency.
But he did not delude himself.
As long as that world existed in this form, missions would continue to be necessary. Someone would always profit from chaos.
Ren rose slowly, casting a final glance at the administrative building.
Learning to use the system would be inevitable.
Mastering it, essential.
Changing it… would be the real challenge.
Slowly.
Like everything else in that world.
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