Two weeks later.
The parchment spread across the floor of Sengoku's stone house was no longer a messy collection of rough drafts. It was a finalized, highly precise blueprint. Every line was drawn with purpose, every measurement meticulously calculated and refined.
He had given his new creation a name: The Pursuer.
The design had been stripped down to its absolute, most brutal essentials. It featured a dual-layered spherical iron shell. At its very core lay a perfectly measured slot designed to house a standard explosive tag. Spaced evenly around the exterior were five triangular steel spikes, each tethered to the shell by a short, durable steel wire. Furthermore, Sengoku had planned to score the inside of the iron shell with a deep crosshatch pattern, ensuring that upon detonation, the casing would violently shatter into maximum lethal shrapnel.
Its tactical purpose was simple and direct: close the distance, latch on, and self-destruct.
Based purely on the mechanical schematics, manufacturing the drone was well within Sengoku's current capabilities.
However…
Sengoku's gaze drifted away from the immaculate blueprint and landed on his coin pouch. It lay deflated on the floor, holding only a few pitiful copper coins that clinked faintly when shifted.
Designing a weapon and actually building it were two entirely different realities.
The fatal bottleneck wasn't the scrap iron, the steel spikes, or the internal spring. It wasn't even the expensive Kazekage Spider Silk he had abandoned.
It was the explosive tag.
Explosive tags were strictly regulated, military-grade ordnance. The meager monthly stipend of a seven-year-old academy orphan couldn't even cover a fraction of the cost, assuming he could even find a black-market dealer willing to sell to a child. The official channels were completely locked behind Jonin-level authorizations.
Without an explosive tag, The Pursuer was nothing more than a hollow, useless iron ball.
He had furiously brainstormed alternatives over the past two weeks. Could he use civilian fireworks? He quickly learned that in a world where explosive tags revolutionized warfare, black powder fireworks were a rare, highly monopolized luxury meant solely for the entertainment of wealthy lords. A single firework cost more than his spool of spider silk.
Could he synthesize his own black powder? Impossible. The raw chemical components were strictly controlled by the Hidden Sand's military infrastructure. There was nowhere for a civilian child to scavenge them.
What about asking Monzaemon? Sengoku immediately crushed the thought. Their fragile, passing acquaintance couldn't bear the weight of asking for highly illegal military contraband. If he asked a Jonin for explosives, he would be thrown into an Anbu interrogation cell by nightfall.
Every logical path was a dead end.
Was he supposed to just roll up the blueprint, hide it in a crack in the wall, and wait years until he officially graduated as a Genin? Or was he supposed to neuter the design, creating a hollow, non-explosive shell that achieved nothing?
Sengoku clenched his jaw. He refused to accept either outcome.
He stared intensely at the small square drawn in the center of his blueprint—the placeholder for the explosive tag. He had to secure funding.
A few dark, illicit methods flashed through his mind, but his cold rationality quickly suppressed them. The risk was too astronomical. An academy student trying to run scams or steal in a village full of trained assassins was a quick way to end up in an unmarked grave.
Sengoku carefully rolled up the scroll, hid it securely beneath a loose stone in his floorboards, and pulled his jacket tight. Pushing open his door, he stepped out into the crisp morning air of Sunagakure, his eyes scanning the awakening village with predatory focus. He needed a job.
His first target was the commercial district. He stepped into a dimly lit apothecary that smelled sharply of dried sea buckthorn and bitter cactus flowers.
"Do you buy scorpion venom?" Sengoku asked the shopkeeper, doing his best to keep his voice steady and mature.
The old man behind the counter didn't even look up from his abacus. "Only if it's from a live Desert Golden Scorpion with an intact venom sac. Think you can catch one of those, kid?" His tone dripped with skepticism.
Sengoku remained silent. His academy classes had covered the Desert Golden Scorpion: they were lightning-fast, their venom was highly corrosive, and they nested deep beneath the shifting sands. Catching one alive required specialized reinforced traps and thick handling gear—equipment he absolutely could not afford.
He turned and walked out without a word.
His next stop was a dusty ore appraiser's shop. He approached the burly, middle-aged owner and asked about selling scavenged, unpolished ore, or potentially taking on an apprenticeship.
The man paused, lowering his smithing hammer. He picked up a jagged, dark red rock from his table and tossed it lightly in his hand. "Alright, kid. What kind of ore is this?"
Sengoku stared at the stone. His knowledge of geology was limited to the basic introductory courses at the academy. He had absolutely no idea what it was. He shook his head.
"If you don't even know your basic rocks, don't come in here wasting my time," the owner grunted impatiently, waving a dismissive hand. "Get lost."
Sengoku's lips pressed into a thin, hard line. He turned on his heel and left.
His final attempt brought him to the village center, where a large wooden notice board displayed D-rank tasks and odd jobs meant for civilians.
He scanned the fluttering papers. The vast majority were grueling manual labor: washing dishes, hauling crates, mending roofs. The pay was incredibly bleak, barely enough to buy a single meal, let alone fund weapons development. The few postings that offered decent wages strictly required specialized trade knowledge, or explicitly stated: Adults Only.
Standing before the board, the cold, crushing reality of his situation set in, biting deeper than the morning desert wind.
Every legitimate door was slammed shut in his face. It didn't matter that he possessed the mature mind of an adult or the strategic knowledge of a past life. Without the necessary age, status, physical tools, and baseline capital, he was completely paralyzed.
A heavy, suffocating sense of powerlessness weighed down on him. He knew exactly what he needed to build to survive, yet he couldn't even grasp the starting line.