The beautiful night disappeared ... and got replaced by the gorgeous morning sunlight ..
Tanjō woke up earlier than the well-known rooster ...
resting inside of the library ... reading a scroll with a spiral sign ... on the back ...
"The Endless Stairs ..." his voice uttered under his breath as his eyes fell on the contents inside the scroll ...
the second technique ... had a dozen techniques inside of it .. of which if all of them combined .. they would make a powerful end result ...
this was the Uzumaki Shinobi Scroll ...
A spiral in the dark ..
an endless trail towards the great unknown ...
increases in steps from the point of origin at a constant speed ..
.. a short introduction .. that had Tanjō on the floor wrecking his brains to find the real meaning from within these words ...
the first technique .. was a speedy movement technique .. which completely matched with the whole content ..
even if he was dumb . he would still be able to tell which was which by just reading ...
the introduction was easygoing and very simple to understand ...
everything had an end ... a person .. had to just give enough effort to find it ... .
but without knowing the origin .. it was simply giving up without even trying ..
and Tanjō here .. understood the contents fully but couldn't grasp the real meaning and the beginning of the spiral ..
he had to use the human mind to think about the whole thing ...
it was like trying to find the origin of life .. albeit the origin of life being the most difficult one to get through ..
the spiral was a technique that had an unknown end ... and each step that went wrong ... made the end much far away to reach ...
but before anything .. Tanjō had himself indulged with the techniques .. inside the scroll ...
"As Fast As Lightning " the first technique had such an exciting title .. and beside it .. was a yellow flash ... that constantly shone through the title .. like in a cut scene ...
Tanjō read the first contents .. and found the technique to be harder than he had anticipated it to be .....
one had to know that in this continent ... a speedy technique was easy .. even the high Tier ones .. were easy to go through .... and truth to be told ... Tanjō himself had gotten his library ... a few of those high Tier speedy techniques ... but none of them had this problem ...
it was completely incomprehensible ... as time passed .. he got himself working around it to find ... any loopholes ...
but strangely enough ... nothing was revealed to him .. infact the whole scroll seemed to have nothing concealed ... it was like an open book ...
Tanjō himself found it hard to believe ... although it had been a few months ... he could still be considered to be a genius ....
not in battle but intelligence ... his intelligence .. could even topple the count's intelligence ..
the count was like a frog in the middle of a raging ocean ... before his intelligence ...
Tanjō had comprehended ... 100's of books ... and scrolls .. in just a week ...
and each everyone of them .. had a concealed point of which he unlocked to see it's full contents .. even the shadow manual .. couldn't hide anything from him .. yet this one .. was really open ... and had nothing to hide .. but its contents were like riddles and riddles had a meaning ... and an origin ..
he simply couldn't understand .. the manual ..
and now that he started reading it .. he remembered the senior giving him the three manuals ... in order ... the first one was the shadow .. and the next one was the spiral one .. and the spiral one was harder than the shadow one ...
and with each successive completion .. the next scroll in order .. would open ...
each scroll was like a lock ... that needed a key from the one from before ...
and now realising how hard the Uzumaki scroll .. was .. he couldn't even fathom how hard the last manual would be ..
he knew that .. this was the real step to becoming a real Shinobi .. and he was determined to comprehend it before the seniors came back to receive .. a few prodigies ..
and they would undoubtedly want to see his progress ...
although the senior .. who gave him the manuals made it clear that he wanted him to keep them as a secret he at least .. needed to improvise .. with another high Tier skill .. which could impress the chatterbox senior ..
and he had already comprehended .. countless .. techniques .. that were considered high Tier ...
each skill .. based on a different category and unique class .. he finished all of them in no time ..
and he knew that the merchants .. would take a long time to bring high quality products ... and techniques .. from the kingdom's library ...
and with bandits ... on every route ... the merchants could even take months to deliver them ..
although he had comprehended .. more than he should .. he felt like .. he could do better to impress the seniors more ...
and maybe if he practiced the shadow skill before the senior who gave the manuals to him ... maybe .. he'd give him some hints to how he could practise the Uzumaki scroll ....
what he didn't know was .. that .. that senior .. only expected him to get over the first manual in at least a few years .. since that's how long it took the respected seniors from the high prestige classes ... to comprehend it ...
even at old age .. it was harder than when it was still at the beginner phase ..
when they grew .. the shadow skill fed on their experience and improved itself .. in the long run ...
so to the senior .. it would simply make that .. an enough reason for him to take Tanjō for himself ...
with nothing else to do ... Tanjō stood up .. tidied his library and walked out ... and met with Unmei .. who greeted him with a smile on her face ...
he smiled back and walked out of their residence ...
just like his daily ... usual routine ... he went past by the clothing Store and greeted the owners with a smile before heading towards his tree ...
he sighed as he closed his eyes ... under the beautiful atmosphere .. and fresh air ...
he relaxed his muscles .. as his eyes under the lids got tired ..
suddenly ... a looming darkness washed over him ... and made his eyes twitch ...
"Tanjō-san ..." Tanjō instantly shot up .. and his forehead met with her's ..
the girl fell on her butt .. as she held her forehead in pain ...
Tanjō went up to her and apologised before rubbing her forehead with his fingers .. to prevent swelling ...
"Oh .. sorry .. I ... what are you doing here ..." he asked ...
Marianna rubbed her forehead with her hand .. and chuckled awkwardly ..
"You said .. we could meet again .. under the tree .... remember ..."
Tanjō chortled .. and looked at her ... "I was only saying that .. I didn't actually mean it to be literal ... I didn't know you could even go out from such a distance ... " he laughed .. which caused the whining little lady to laugh along ...
"So .."
"So ...." the two both looked at each other awkwardly ..
no words came out of their mouths ... as they tried to converse with each other ...
"Hey ... Tanjō .... there's going to be another match today ... at grandma Hizashi's place ... want to come ..??" Tanjō's eyes shone with excitement as he grabbed Marianna's wrist ... and ran towards the teenager in blue ...
this was Snake ... the participant .. from a few months ago .. when the two seniors came to take prodigies ..
after losing though ... Snake was a normal person without grudges .. even if he had grudges .. he simply hid them well ... and the pride everyone spoke about .. was a nonexistent thing
he was a nice guy to converse with ... even without Tanjō's current prestige .. the latter would've still spoken to him and made friends ..
his real name was .. Wang Jin ...
in these past few months .. he hung out with Tanjō at different times .. and made him feel like a friend .. and he was Tanjō's first real friend ..
just like before .. Tanjō's eye ability allowed him to show him motives .. and real feelings .. and with that .. he knew right away that Wang Jin .. was a nice person ..
although he didn't know why he could feel and see other people's feelings and emotions ... he felt at rest .. knowing that ... he had a real first friend ...
"Big brother Jin ... when are you going to train me ..?? .. it's been so long .." the latter had black lines on his face as he remembered exactly a few days ago when he was with the little battle maniac .. and missing training .. for a few days .. was considered .. 'so long' ...
"But I was with you .. not so long ago ..." Wang Jin complained ... and pouted ...
"Uh .. okay then ... I'll train again next week ..??" Wang Jin pretended to look for something around him as he increased his pace towards a beautiful small house ... made of wood ...
"Tanjō-san .. what is this match ..?? you speak of ..." Marianna asked curiously ... as she tugged on Tanjō's sleeves ..
"You'll see when we get there ... it's really fun ...." of course .. his fun .. was a different kind of 'fun' ...
Marianna followed behind them ... like a little obedient girl ...
all the while .. her hand holding Tanjō's tightly ...
the leading person ... Wang Jin ... knocked on the door with a weird pattern ...
three knocks of different sounds ...
he then cleared his throat ... "Meiyo-no satsujin ... " ... after saying that .. the door locks from the other side .. could be heard clicking and unlocking ...
"Eh .. what was that .. what did he say ...??" Tanjō turned to look at her and raised a brow ..
"I thought you knew how to speak ... my language ..." Marianna squinted her eyes .. and harumphed ...
"I only know the basics ... not everything ..." Tanjō scratched his head and looked at her ... and said it in her language .. of which he learnt ...
"It means ... honour killing ..." he then chuckled lightly .. with a weird expression on his face ...
he didn't even wait for her to reply ... immediately when the door got open .. he rushed in and dragged her with him ...
in the inside ... it was like a luxurious shack ...
there were dragon faced lamps
... each with an evil expression and open mouth ...
fire lit up from their throats and acted as live lamps ...
every pair of eyes .. glowed in a beautiful orange light .. which illuminated .. the staircase that led down ... into the darkness ..
although there were still lamps inside ... it was hard to see .... the bottom ...
"Tanjō-san .. you're here too ... good!! .." a beautiful middle aged woman .. appeared with a lantern in her hand ..
she wore a white long dress ... that had a red dragon .. on the front ... her shoulders were adorned with dragon looking iron shoulder blades ...
"Come..." the woman immediately caught Tanjō's hand and ran down the stairs like a maiden who had just gotten her first love ...