“Hey Kou, why don't people like us?” Naruto asked. His big two years old eyes looked adorable. Feck, how could people hate this little shit.

“They do like me, Naruto. They hate you. But I don’t know why.” His eyes got teary when I said that, “There there. I am with you, aren’t I? Do you need anyone else?” I said while petting him.

“You are the best!” Naruto hugged me. What? People hate him already. Why can't I use it to my advantage? Huh? Don’t judge me!

As he grew up, Naruto realized the behavior of others. Like the monkeys they are, all the other kids avoided the little blonde like a devil he was. Except me. Of course now they started to stop playing with me too, but small sacrifices. Scale is so outweighed. I mean the main protagonist on one side, and a bunch of nobodies on the other. How hard can it be?

Matron was a little helpless at first, but as I grew up, she bluntly forbade me to play with him, but boy did I care? Nope, not at all. She then punished me with chores. Oh man, you can’t punish a person with good times!

Doing chores considered having a good time? Welp, if you have seen what I’ve seen, you would agree with me.

[Miscellaneous increased to 1]

Finally! Fucking finally! I was waiting for this for such a long time! Yey!

Now, I know there was no such skill in Skyrim, but it doesn’t matter. Finally a reaction.

I willed it to open and boy, was it a surprise.

-Miscellaneous-

Perks; 

[Quick Hands] 

Allows you to increase your speed when doing Miscellaneous tasks. Such as, sweeping, cleaning the dishes, washing clothes, painting the walls, cooking, gardening…

Damn! The list was going on endlessly. Anything that wasn’t Shinobi related was in this Skill, and just by acquiring this perk, I could do them all, ALL, faster!

[Proficiency]

Increase mastery over the chores. Allows you to complete them with more ease. Only applies to chores. For example, when sweeping with a broom, mastery over the said item increases, but if you were to use the broom as a weapon, you wouldn’t even know how to hold it.

Fair enough. Same should be for flame control over cooking and battling while using fire. Alright, not bad.

There were a few more perks basically increasing the chance of success, taste of the foods, or durability of items tended by me. But all in all, they were still miscellaneous. It was still a start though.

It was the only Skill floating in the sky, but it was at least there. Now I know, when I practice other things, their star maps will appear too!

Yeah, so Matron couldn’t scare me with good times. Chores, I do them willingly. I create troubles so I would be punished. I beg Matron to let me do them. She thought I do them for the extra portion of food they give to who does the chores for the day. I let them think like that! I eat the food they give as a prize like a starved animal to make them think like that, but I just love the sweet, sweet notifications.

Well, the things I made to be grounded were borderline pranks. And guess who loved them. Yep, one little blonde loved how I prank others and started to devise pranks of his own. And boy, was he talented when it came to pranks. 

Let’s just say people hated Naruto a lot! When he was grounded, the chores were double than my own, and as a good friend, I would lend a hand to him to finish them quicker. Only to help him, I swear.

Times flew away while I was grinding my only skill. In one year, it reached 20 and also earned me a couple of levels. Now, there was a major difference from the game.

I couldn’t increase Health, Stamina or Magicka, welp Chakra in this case. But… I could train them. Running around, doing chores was increasing my Stamina and with it my Chakra. I don’t know what is the Spiritual part of this, but I guess experiencing life is considered training in Health. Can’t really complain.

I want to stockpile my perk points for now. I will probably need them when I finally awaken other skills.

****

It has been four years since I was brought to the Konoha Orphanage. Life was mundane among the kids while learning little to nothing without anyone caring for you.

“Koushin, are you coming?” A little blonde asked while his blue eyes were hiding his nefarious thoughts.

“Another prank?” I asked while sighing.

“You got it!” He shouted with excitement and dashed away. He was, of course, the protagonist of the real story, Uzumaki Naruto. 

I didn’t know when he would be kicked out of the orphanage, but it seemed close. The hatred the matron and other workers showed towards Naruto influenced other kids as well. It was getting more and more obvious as we grew up. Besides me and a volunteer worker with black hair, no one else liked this kid. In return, this ball of energy was pranking everyone besides the two of us.

The black haired woman was Uchiha Mikoto, Sasuke and Itachi’s mother. She was a good friend of Naruto, and would appear from time to time to spend some time with the kid. Other than that, no visitor ever comes to see the kid. Not the godfather Ero Sennin, not the student of his father, Kakashi and not the most guilty of them all, Hokage Hiruzen.

I pulled my face mask covering my face and bandana covering my hair and followed behind the blonde silently. 

[Sneak Increased to 5]

A line appeared in front of my eyes while I was walking in the shadows. Oh yeah, I got other skill trees too!

“Finally increased to 5! Now I can now have the [Stealth] perk!”

In total, there were 15 Skill Trees. Namely; Chakra, Genjutsu(Illusion), Summon Jutsu(Conjuration), Ninjutsu(Destruction), Taijutsu(Heavy-Light Armour/Block), Healing Jutsu(Restoration), Henge(Alteration), Fuinjutsu(Enchanting), Smithing, Bukijutsu(One-Two Handed), Shurikenjutsu(Ranged), Sneak, Speech, Alchemy, Miscellaneous.

When I first felt my chakra in my groin, -What? Should I say dantian instead?- When I felt Chakra in my groin, Skill Trees popped up one after another. I still had no mastery nor access to most of them, but Chakra Starmap which was mainly about Chakra Control activated. Rest were simple enough to understand too.

As of now, I am level 5 thanks to the silly quests or increase in skills I achieved over time. Now, unlike the game, I started with ZERO mastery over every skill and it sucked balls. But unlike the game, I could increase the perks without using perk points. So what did perk points do? Good question.

Perk points would increase my mastery over the said perk instantly. So, [Stealth] for example, [You are 20% harder to detect when sneaking (+10% per additional rank, max 60%- 1/5)] allowed me to hide from prying eyes, and now that I allotted a perk point, I was 20% harder to find. 

Since I was level 5, I had 5 perk points and I used one of them now, but it didn’t mean I had to use all of them to increase [Stealth]. I could just train it, and increase my proficiency.

There were also differences in perks, because, well this was a ninja world. There were techniques and even special eyes to see through walls and stealth so, some of the perks were allowing me to be invisible even from said eyes.

For example, the last perk of the Sneak Skill, [Ultimate Ninja] allowed me to be invisible while I was sneaking and even Sharingan, Byakugan, Rinnegan, and other eyes couldn’t see me. But to level up Sneak to that level would take a long time.

Anyways, my biggest increase was in Miscellaneous. Since the matron was forcing me to do odd jobs. All the kids did them, but Naruto and I did thrice more. But doing them increased my mastery, so I couldn't really complain. Luckily everything that wasn’t about the battle was jammed into one skill tree, and I could gain mastery in all of them together.

They weren’t really important stuff, but they gave good enough exp and were the only reason I leveled up so much.

“Koushin, we are here,” Naruto whispered as we arrived at the boiling unit. The furnace distributing the hot water was here, and Naruto ‘geniusly’ decided to heat it to the extreme to prank the matron. She was a ninja and could handle a little bit of heat, and all the kids had already had their baths.

Naruto pulled out a couple of strange-looking purple balls and showed them to me with a grin.

“What are those?” I asked.

“These, my friend, are toad oils.” Naruto giggled. “They are highly combustive and will increase the temperature of the water in seconds.”

“Are you sure about this Naruto? This will end up bad.” I said. Though I had a previous life, I couldn’t remember it at all. I just knew I had one. And with the memories of fiction in my head, I was a little more experienced than other kids, but I was one too. I kinda knew it would end badly, but I was still eager to see what this prank would do.

“It is fine, you scaredy-cat.” Naruto waved his hand and threw the two odd things into the furnace. “Let’s see how they shun us now.”

At first, nothing happened and I sighed in relief. Then all of a sudden the furnace started to quake like a mad bull. 

“Oh no!” I shouted and started to escape. “Run Naruto!”

“No, no, no, no!” Naruto panicked. I hit him on the face and dragged him away. The furnace looked like it was going to explode any second. Finally, Naruto realized this too and we ran away. And we weren’t even at the stairs that were climbing to the first level from the basement, the furnace exploded.

“Shit!”