UK:GSW Chapter 439 — Konoha's Open-Conspiracy in Scientific Research, Uchiha Kei Awakens the Rinnegan
Very soon, Uchiha Madara discovered the game's extreme freedom—directly stealing other people's vehicles, fighting with the town guards, indulging in battle, getting killed when he lost, or simply running away to play cat-and-mouse with the guards.
After that, he collected resources, built houses, or crafted various tools and equipment. Because of the game's immense freedom and the sheer number of crafting recipes, even a single blade of grass had a use—turning Madara into a full-blown scavenger, bagging every piece of trash he found along the road.
He never touched the main quest; just free exploration alone had unknowingly kept him playing for an entire day.
The sheer freedom of the experience completely drew Madara in. When he finally snapped out of it, realizing a whole day had passed, he was astonished—and immediately logged out to find Muzi.
To his surprise, Muzi hadn't even left the game yet, so he could only use the genjutsu network's friends function to contact her.
When Muzi finally came out, she was brimming with excitement, gushing about how fun the new game was. She even asked "Senior Radama" how far he had progressed in the main story—had he unlocked the plotline to reach the first city in the wasteland, Fire Saint City?
That left Madara completely stumped, with a touch of embarrassment. After all, he had just spent the whole day messing around in free exploration without advancing the main story at all—yet still had an amazing time. That was… undeniably absurd.
Of course, for the sake of pride, Madara wasn't going to admit he had simply played around and forgotten about the main quest. Instead, he cleared his throat and claimed that he had spent the entire day carefully studying the various aspects of the game, learning quite a lot—knowledge that would help push the main story forward later, and give him early insight into useful things for the future.
Madara had also discovered something else—the game's various recipes and crafting methods could be replicated in the real world. Even that strange vehicle called a "motorcycle"—based on his own knowledge—he judged could be built in reality if the right materials were found.
In other words, those recipes were real. The only difference was that, unlike in the game, you couldn't simply complete a "progress bar" to instantly finish making something.
Regarding this, the old man Madara narrowed his eyes in amusement and said, "You know, this is very interesting. If these recipes are real and can be directly applied in the real world, why would Konoha release them? Aren't they afraid people will learn things they shouldn't?"
"You have to understand, a lot of what's in this game is extremely advanced for the shinobi world. If it's possible to replicate in reality, then if someone does, wouldn't Konoha lose a lot of profit—and even be strengthening potential enemies?"
"So… is Konoha just being foolish, or are they playing a much bigger game?"
He murmured this to himself, genuinely intrigued.
Foolishness? Madara didn't buy it at all. Having already met Uchiha Kei—and been persuaded into joining the so-called "side of justice"—he wasn't about to underestimate Konoha now.
If Konoha was doing this, there had to be a reason—it was just one Madara couldn't yet understand.
Muzi's expression turned subtle, but she said nothing.
In truth, she had heard about this from her "little brother," Senju Tobirama. According to him, given the current state of the shinobi world, replicating the game's content in reality wasn't a big problem. Craftsmen with enough skill could reproduce the relevant items in the real world as long as they found suitable materials.
In fact, Uchiha Kei and the others actually wanted people to be able to do this—even Orochimaru was pushing for it.
From a certain perspective, it was a way to test and discover talent, to find suitable technical skills. It was a recruitment and technology-mining scheme, using the game as the filter.
Some of that talent would inevitably come from other villages, and they might use these replicated technologies to strengthen their own factions.
In the past, this would have been outright aiding the enemy—a textbook example of letting your own intellectual property be stolen, practically suicide.
But for today's Konoha, it was different.
Konoha had already completed its initial industrialization.
An industrialized nation versus a non-industrialized one in terms of technology and production capacity was like a dimensionality-reduction strike. Once the game's items—whether useful tools or outright weapons—were replicated in reality, Konoha could immediately mass-produce them together with the Land of Fire and its allies, crushing the hand-crafted workshops of less advanced powers.
It was essentially like comparing late 19th-century Qing China to the British Empire after the Second Industrial Revolution—other powers simply had no way to compete.
And the idea that other nations could keep their replication work hidden was laughable. They seemed to forget that White Zetsu was now completely under Uchiha Kei's control. With an army of White Zetsu to gather intel, what could other factions possibly do to hide their technology?
In practice, the moment any faction successfully replicated something, Konoha would know immediately.
So, this was Konoha's real play—using the mountain of recipes and the extreme freedom in the new game to make other, not-yet-allied forces voluntarily spend their own resources to do Konoha's R&D for free.
Sure, Konoha could do it themselves, but that would cost huge amounts of time and money, not to mention strain their own talent pool. While the game's recipes were real, they relied on the mental network's virtual materials, which were designed using Earth technology.
To bring the same thing into the shinobi world, it would need modification and optimization—adapting it for the shinobi environment and available resources.
That process meant trial and error, finding suitable local substitutes—time-consuming and costly work.
But thanks to the game, Konoha could offload that cost entirely onto the rest of the shinobi world. Other factions would even be thrilled to do it, thinking Konoha was foolishly giving away valuable information.
Of course, some people would be suspicious. Such "foolish" actions inevitably raised questions about hidden motives.
But suspicion alone meant nothing—because the game was on general sale to everyone, every faction could access it, and thus every faction could get the same information.
Once the information became public, it naturally turned into: If you don't research it, your enemies will, and whoever gets results first will be ahead.
A variant arms race would take shape, forcing every faction to join in.
In other words—an open conspiracy.
Senju Hashirama had heard about all this before, though his brain couldn't fully process it. His only reaction was, "Wow, these guys are really devious."
That was about as far as his thoughts went. Even if he thought Uchiha Kei and his people were scheming, he wasn't about to make trouble. All he had to do was play his Muzi role, do his own thing, and happily enjoy the game.
And since "Muzi" didn't know about these matters, she couldn't tell Madara—especially since Madara still didn't know Muzi was actually Senju Hashirama.
Whether he would find out in the future… only time would tell.
For now, Muzi suggested they try the online mode together. Single-player could wait—multiplayer was where the fun was.
Madara naturally didn't refuse, agreeing with a smile—only to stop smiling moments later, when Uzumaki Kenshin, Muzi's irritating fiancé, also showed up to join their multiplayer session.
Let's just say Madara found Kenshin's very presence annoying, but could do nothing about it because of Muzi.
Between being frustrated and swallowing his pride, Madara chose the latter.
While The Last Ninja was causing a huge sensation, its absurdly rich content gave players an unprecedented experience. Backend data showed that among players on the genjutsu network, 70% were playing The Last Ninja. Across all games, it dominated half the market.
For shinobi world players, The Last Ninja was an all-you-can-eat banquet—something for everyone, with so much content they could happily lose themselves in it.
If there had been a survey, Uchiha Kei would have seen top-tier, overwhelmingly positive reviews.
And, exactly as planned, once people discovered the game's recipes and crafting methods could be realized in reality, every faction immediately began research—assigning specialists to evaluate the possibilities.
Once they realized that many items couldn't be made exactly like in the game but could be recreated with substitute materials, no one could sit still.
Professional game-strategy teams were ordered into the game, tasked with deep exploration to gather more recipes and materials, and to dig for any other hidden useful content.
Research groups and development teams sprang up everywhere, dedicated to bringing these things into reality.
Vehicles, jetpacks—anything judged potentially replicable received research investment.
Some mocked Konoha for being foolish, while a few quietly worried there was some darker plot behind it.
But under the pressure of the arms race—where falling behind another village even briefly could be disastrous—even the suspicious had no choice but to press forward.
In the shinobi world, falling behind really did mean getting beaten—and beaten badly.
Thus, an invisible scientific arms race began.
The same trend appeared in Shinobi World No. 2. Even though it couldn't directly connect to the main world's genjutsu network, it had its own "local network," allowing players to experience all game content—including multiplayer—in non-networked areas.
Once they discovered the recipes could be replicated, factions there couldn't sit still either—including daimyō and nobles.
With ninja already becoming harder to control due to the Shinobi Alliance—and Akatsuki looming overhead—the daimyō and nobles were deeply uneasy, so of course they wouldn't pass up any chance to strengthen themselves.
And even without danger, things like motorcycles and cars were highly attractive to the wealthy. They were more than willing to fund research just to use such flashy vehicles in real life.
Historically, before major technological booms, it was often nobles and the wealthy—those with time and money—who drove research, producing "toys" that became status symbols before eventually becoming part of the larger tech explosion.
The game's vehicles fit this perfectly—and with a chance of real-world replication, the wealthy had no qualms about spending heavily on development.
Half a month passed in this way.
Finally, it was time for Uchiha Kei's main mission to be tallied.
When the completion rate—217%—appeared, Kei saw the system's celebration effects flash before him, followed by his rewards.
Among them, the one that caught his attention most was an upgrade to his Mental Network Mastery skill.
This time, it didn't disappoint—his mastery had finally reached LV5.
In that instant, the mental network world underwent a massive upgrade—more functions, greater performance, stronger effects.
And, through its link to the Sharingan, that upgrade brought a shockwave of power.
It was like the manifestation of a world's rules, empowering his eyes to an extreme degree—his ocular power surged, skyrocketed, exploded!
Kei was already an Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan wielder, and for an Uchiha, whose eyes were so deeply tied to life and spirit, strengthening the Sharingan inevitably strengthened the body as well.
This was no exception—Kei felt his very life essence ascend. His Eternal Mangekyō triggered a chain reaction during the upgrade.
Almost without realizing it, the Yin–Yang Release that represented the source of chakra manifested in his hands, completely under his control. His Eternal Mangekyō underwent a new qualitative transformation—finally becoming a Rinnegan identical to Uchiha Sasuke's.
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