Acquiring the spiritual root!

Outside the sect, within a certain forest.

Itachi was stood up, patting the dust off his robes and relinquishing in his victory. It was not an easy one.

" Now that I have completed my mission, it's important I make my way back to the sect without being noticed "

But before he did that he took a look at his right arm, it was broken.

"The opening ceremony is tomorrow, if the instructor or elders see my current state, without a doubt ill be under suspicion, leaving the sect grounds is strictly forbidden, especially for an outer sect clansman like myself "

With this thought, Itachi opened the system and looked at the 'Ability stones" section.

Within that section, he found a certain stone.

[ Healing stone; as long as you still have a breath left in you, you will make a complete recovery from any injury, except regenerating dismembered limbs]

Price: 50 points

Itachi looked at the dashboard but was inwardly surprised at the cost.

" Hmm, it's incredibly cheap, almost too cheap. "

With that, Itachi bought the stone. Blue light shrouded the system panel, then a small stone that looked like a pebble appeared in his palm, it looked almost translucent. Itachi admired the stone a little longer then without a second thought crushed it.

The stone was incredibly fragile, as soon as the stone was crushed, it dissolved into blue specs of light that shrouded Itachi. As the specs of light entered Itachi, he felt a very comfortable sensation. He closed his eyes and enjoyed the feeling.

When he looked at his arm, it was healing at a visible speed, all the cuts and bruises he got were also healing, not only that, when the specs of light stopped hovering around his skin, it started to travel to his robes, his robes that were once soaked in blood seemed to be completely clean now, not a speck of dirt on them.

The life and death battle that Itachi had just now seemed like a dream, he looked as though he hadn't even walked out of his house. Spotless and clean.

" Truly miraculous… How can this system be this overpowered, even in my first life, this healing speed would put the highest of medical ninja to shame, in fact, I don't even think Lord Hashirama is capable of such high speeds of healing "

Itachi was a nerd in terms of Konoha history, in the past he read up on all the Hokage and knew practically everything there was to know about Konoha, including their historic events and figures. He knew it all.

Only by acquiring knowledge can one have the upper edge when fighting enemies, Itachi knew this concept very well.

As Itachi was absorbed in his thoughts, he had forgotten to turn off the system interface, he was too busy admiring the miraculous healing.

When he looked at the interface he noticed a sudden increase in the price of the healing stone.

[ Healing stone: 100 points ]

" Huh? The price increased after I bought the first stone… "

" The system seems to have its drawbacks. This is important information, I guess if it was merely 50 points I would be able to abuse this healing feature. What if I buy it again? Will the price double or will it increase by 50 each time?"

Itachi was about to click buy but then changed his mind, he didn't want to buy the ability stones unless it was absolutely necessary. From here on out he would be more careful. If he was in need of one and had insufficient points, the consequences would be dire.

This was the system's way of stopping Itachi's over-reliance on it, the system seems to want Itachi to improve with his own strength, relying on the system alone will halt his own progress and cause an over-reliance.

Itachi breathed in some fresh air and then turned off the system interface.

" From here on out I need to be careful when buying items from the system, they might increase in price by a large margin "

Itachi left these thoughts alone then walked over to the beast sprawled on the floor and then grabbed the divine dagger that was embedded into the beast.

𝙋𝙪𝙡𝙡𝙡𝙡

Itachi pulled the dagger out with all his strength and then placed the dagger back into the system's spacial inventory.

With this, Itachi turned around and left towards the sect. Fastening his steps, he followed the markings he left on the trees, eventually, he saw the bright lights at the base of the mountain and quickly walked towards it.

After about 45 minutes, Itachi arrived in front of his dorm. There was not a soul in sight, except the occasional guards patrolling the area. The new recruits were all fast asleep.

Itachi's ascent up the mountain was extremely smooth, after mapping out the terrain in his mind he was able to swiftly avoid the patrolling guards and arrive at his destination, with all his experience as Anbu Captain, avoiding guards was as easy as blinking to him.

𝘾𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙠…

Itachi opened his dorms door and then slowly walked inside, the moonlight was shining in from one of his windows, lightly illuminating his room that was shrouded in darkness.

Itachi dressed into his nightwear and then took a seat cross-legged on his bed.

It was already 2 am and he has to wake up early for the ceremony. If he didn't sleep now he would be drowsy the next morning, but before that Itachi had one last thing left to do.

"It's time I activate this spiritual root, some things must be done in haste, and this is one of them, the faster I activate this root the better "

With that being said, Itachi opened his inventory and saw the root that was covered in golden and blue light, he then inwardly shouted; " Activate! "

All of a sudden, the root disappeared from the inventory like a wisp of smoke, but contrary to expectation, nothing happened. No blue light, nothing magical at all.

Itachi sat there in confusion.

" Did the system just scam me?… "

Itachi closed his eyes and tried to calm his beating heart, he had risked his life and came so far only to be scammed! He did not feel any change in his body!

Itachi was about to get up from his seated position and go to sleep.

But then suddenly…

Itachi's world started to spin, the bed in front of him looked upside down and he couldn't tell what direction he was facing, he felt as though he was in a tornado!

At the same time, Itachi was assaulted with unbearable pain, even with Itachi's high pain tolerance, this current pain was on another level! It felt like his body was getting stabbed by hundreds of swords!

"Uhggh"

Itachi groaned in pain as sweat poured down his forehead like a waterfall. This caught him by surprise, he had no idea what was going on.

He didn't even have the energy to think! The pain was so bad his mind had completely shut down!

The pain was getting worse by the second, he felt like something was remolding his body as if his bones were getting eaten by millions of insects and growing anew, the process repeated over and over again.

Just when Itachi was about to take in a breath, a new wave of torture assaulted him, this time it moved onto his organs and skin.

This process repeated itself over and over again, each time the pain got worse. After about 30 rounds of suffering, Itachi heaved a sigh of relief, it felt like the pain had temporarily stopped. But to his dismay, a new even worse torture had assaulted him!

Itachi sensed something crawling within every vein of his being! Like a massive snake slithering through his veins, threatening to rip apart his blood vessels, it reached his heart, his organs, and the rest of his body. The snake-like sensation was everywhere!

He felt a boundless power from this snake like energy, as if it contained the power to wipe out the whole universe!

" D…don't tell me this is Qi?… Itachi said inwardly as he grit his teeth, he was biting his lips so hard that blood was seeping out. Enduring this pain was utter torture to him, something he had never experienced!

It was like an unknown force was ripping his body to shreds and then rebuilding it!

Although Itachi was in insurmountable pain, a hint of excitement flashed in his eyes! He thought this was something to do with activating his spiritual root! Who knew the process would be this violent.

The snake-like feeling suddenly crept up to his chest and then to his neck, as if it was opening every single pour in his body, as it closed in on his neck, the pain got worse 10 fold!

Itachi's breathing fastened at a rapid pace, as the energy reached his neck he felt like he was about to suffocate! He tried to calm his breathing but to no avail!

" Shit! " Itachi let out a rare curse through his gritted teeth, he was slowly losing consciousness! He could not endure this any further!

Before Itachi could let out another word, darkness had already descended.

𝙋𝙡𝙤𝙥…

Itachi lost consciousness as his head knocked back and landed on the bed.