A new professional rating had appeared in the system — and with it, a dedicated breakdown of her ninja stats: Ninjutsu, Taijutsu, Genjutsu, Chakra volume, and Combat Experience, all now rendered in precise numbers. The tiered progression was clearly defined too: each rank was a clean 4x multiplier over the last, starting from the baseline of an "excellent" Genin graduate.
The reason they specified excellent Genin rather than just Genin was something Maya had already worked out. During the Second Shinobi World War, with the First and Second Hokage both dead and the Sannin not yet at their peak, Konoha had been propped up by the Third alone. To keep the war effort going, students who had no business graduating were stamped with a Genin headband and sent directly to the front lines. Even in peacetime, the Genin rank was full of time-servers who'd aged into it without earning it — the bar was essentially meaningless as a measurement.
Maya had some reservations about the scaling. Red-level fighters, for instance, could handle five Kage-level opponents simultaneously without breaking a sweat. If it hadn't been for Hashirama's wood clone soaking up hits during that particular battle, a single Red-level clone would have wiped out an entire division on its own. The numbers felt off.
But then she thought it through: one at level 2 is definitely stronger than two at level 1. Two fighters at peak level 1, perfectly coordinated, still can't exceed what a single level 2 is capable of. Concentrating power in a single entity was always more efficient than distributing it across several. Looked at that way, the system's math held up.
More importantly: her skill list had grown. A new Gold-tier technique had appeared — and it was a composite one. Nara Clan Secret Arts had upgraded from Gold Tier 1 to Gold Tier 2. Maya allowed herself a moment of genuine satisfaction. Her choice had been right.
The "Special Genin" designation still puzzled her, though. She knew the Naruto universe had a "Special Jonin" category — ninja who'd hit or exceeded standard Jonin levels in one area while remaining around Chunin level in the others. Kurenai had earned that title through her superior genjutsu; young Anko had received it the same way. Asuma and Kakashi, by contrast, were full Jonin — elite ones at that.
The name was a little embarrassing. But the Hanson Sage Art she'd been quietly cultivating had been working. She couldn't always feel it happening, but the low-grade sage chakra it produced had been slowly strengthening her body every single day. Her chakra reserves were visibly growing.
Naruto's chakra reserves at fourteen — not counting the Nine-Tails' contribution — were five times Kakashi's at his absolute peak. And Kakashi was already known to have naturally low reserves even by Kage-level standards. That meant a dead-last dropout Genin had five times the chakra of a top-tier village captain.
By the system's numbers, Naruto at that age would have had reserves exceeding 1,000. Maya's current count sat at 35 — near the "excellent Chunin" threshold, reached from zero in under a month.
Still, 35 versus 1,000. Maya had to admit Kishimoto handed his protagonist a truly absurd starting advantage.
Her Ninjutsu score was another story. At 52, she'd already surpassed the Chunin benchmark of 40 — clearing the entire pre-exam Class of Twelve. If she could just learn the three basic Academy jutsu and stack a bit more combat experience, she might realistically beat the version of Sasuke who could already use the Chidori.
Naruto's ninjutsu score during the Chunin Exams arc, meanwhile, was effectively zero-point-something. He'd won everything through sheer chakra volume, infinite Shadow Clones, and one particular transformation technique that involved summoning a giant toad to sit on a tanuki. His ninjutsu competence at that stage was essentially negative.
Maya smiled to herself, quietly pleased.
Almost no taijutsu, and no genjutsu. Neither of those were problems anymore — not real ones. Every category had gone up. Some had gone up a lot, others only a little. But everything was moving.
She was a lopsided Genin, sure — but that suited her just fine. "Jutsu Doctor" had a nice ring to it. That was the path she was choosing — and someday, the name "Dr. Hansen" wouldn't just be a joke.
Decision made, Maya closed the system and settled comfortably into practicing her newly acquired Nara Clan Secret Arts.
A shadow curled out and nudged the pencil on her desk, sending it rolling slowly back and forth. A second shadow sharpened into a blade-like edge and began stabbing at the target board across the room.
Gradually, as her precision improved, one shadow became two. The pencil gave way to her pencil case. Then, without quite planning it, she found a pair of invisible hands — extensions of pure shadow — methodically opening the pencil case, lifting each pen and eraser out one by one, and placing them neatly into the cup on her desk. Then reversing the process. Then doing it again.
After a full morning of this, she'd identified something interesting: when she used shadow techniques, she didn't need hand seals — not a single one.
In the original world, seals functioned like device drivers — software telling the hardware what to do. But the hardware here was different. This was the Marvel universe. A new environment needed a new driver. At the Six Paths level, ninja could release techniques without seals at all — a single thought was enough. In this world, apparently, the same principle applied.
There was a trade-off, though. Like Shikamaru, she couldn't move freely while maintaining shadow control. It wasn't that movement was impossible — just that any significant motion while her technique was active caused her control to degrade sharply. That was already a problem with inanimate objects. Against a living target, even minor movement could break the connection entirely.
Her ideal version of shadow control was purely mental — she wanted to be able to lock someone down with a thought, without having to mirror their posture with her own body. The current requirement felt clumsy.
The shadow aggregation technique was the exception. That one — the pulling function, drawing objects toward her — could be used while moving, just like Shikamaru's version.
Shadow Strangle was also usable while moving — that was the good news. The bad news was that the blade-form extension she'd been practicing had been stabbing the target board for an hour, and the board remained perfectly intact. Her offensive shadow application had basically no penetrating force. A casual kunai throw did more damage.
Then there was the contact requirement: her shadow had to physically connect with the target's shadow to engage the technique. In daylight, in public, that meant her shadow would visibly elongate and snake across the ground until it reached someone else's — in full view of anyone watching.
Maya gave that scenario exactly two seconds of thought. She'd immediately be clocked as a mutant. Worse, she'd be clocked as a tentacle-type mutant. Absolutely not.
The Rasengan had an advantage there — it was bright and visible regardless of time of day, but small enough to conceal in her palm if she needed to. You couldn't hide a shadow that was crawling across a sidewalk toward someone's feet.
Shadow techniques were night-only, and even then only when the target wasn't standing under crossed light sources — multiple lamps at different angles could eliminate a person's shadow entirely. Operating theaters used exactly that principle: specialized multi-directional lighting designed so surgeons cast no shadow over the field.
Maya had one option and she was already taking it: keep training. Keep refining. See if she could eventually think her way around every one of these limitations.