Rikuya stared at the interface in front of him, and the wave of shock quickly metamorphosed into a surge of joy in his mind.
Meanwhile, he desperately tried to maintain a straight expression on his face, hiding his overflowing euphoria.
Even though his head was lowered, logically no one should be able to read the ripples of joy on his face.
However, this is the ninja world. No one can guarantee that there are no spies with strange abilities watching them.
Rikuya tried in his heart: "System?"
Several seconds passed without any sound echoing in his mind.
However, Rikuya was not disappointed in the slightest.
He kept trying to tap the interface in his mind.
As Rikuya touched the icon in his mind, the interface quickly changed, and along with it, a voice echoed in his mind:
"The Super Favorability System is trying to be activated. This will take one year off the user's remaining life. Do you agree?"
Rikuya heard a neutral voice without any clear emotion, it was impossible to tell whether it was a man's or a woman's voice.
His expression remained unchanged as his head lowered, but his heart felt a deep sense of relief.
One year of life? No big deal. Reasonable price.
Rikuya answered in his heart, "I agree."
After saying those words in his mind, Rikuya prepared himself for whatever changes might happen to his body.
However, after waiting a few seconds, he realized no physical changes had occurred.
Only a voice in his mind told him that the system was fully active.
"User agrees in one second. Standard met. One year of user's remaining life has been extracted. The system has been officially and perfectly activated!"
Rikuya felt mixed emotions hearing those words in his mind.
I mean, if I hesitated a few more seconds, the system wouldn't have activated perfectly?
Rikuya shook off the thought and looked at the system interface in front of him, which had now changed.
Three icons with labels appeared before him:
"User"
"Character Favorability"
"Exchange"
Rikuya stared at the three icons in silence. He tried hard to hold back his excitement and first clicked on the favorability icon.
"The first time a user clicks on Character Favorability, a random item will be awarded: Mid-Level Favorability Multiplier Fruit!"
"By using this fruit, the user can increase the favorability level of the designated character by two times every day, up to a maximum of 100!"
As the emotionless voice echoed in his mind, Rikuya's mind was instantly filled with detailed information regarding the fruit.
Seeing such a promising description, Rikuya's eyes almost sparkled.
Even though his head was still bowed, his breathing unconsciously became heavier.
With such a powerful item, wouldn't it be possible to realize the harem fantasy that had been hidden deep in his heart without any significant effort?
Rikuya thought about this and continued to click on the character's favorability side. Suddenly a sentence appeared in his mind, giving a little information about the character.
He ignored the sentence and looked at the list of characters with favorability levels that appeared.
This character's favorability is a collection of all characters who have a good impression of you. The ranking list is sorted by favorability level.
Rikuya soon noticed Pakura was ranked 19th on the favorability list.
His favorability rating towards me is currently only seven points.
Before Rikuya could ask anything in his mind, the system's mechanical voice rang automatically:
"Zero favorability points means we are strangers, one favorability point means we have heard of each other, five favorability points means we just nodded, and ten favorability points means we are just friends..."
Hearing the system's automatic explanation, Rikuya understood.
The super favorability system was not the same as the favorability system in the novels he had read before.
The favorability system in these novels usually starts at 50, which means a normal friend, and anything below 50 means dislike.
After all, the level of favorability towards the characters in the novels drops very easily.
As long as the main character says something wrong to someone, that person's favorability level will immediately drop by several points, or even more.
As for the favorability system itself, it is considered disgusting if the favorability is below zero, and forty favorability points means they are life and death friends.
And once it goes up, it will be very difficult to lower that level of favorability.
For example, if a good friend has a favorability level of 20, even if you accidentally say a few wrong words, he or she won't care and will just laugh it off.
The higher the favorability level, the better.
For those whose favorability rating is over 30, even if you often say the wrong thing or make a lot of mistakes.
Their minds will automatically defend themselves and seek rational justification.
Simply put, it's an enhanced version of the "love brain" during times of passion.
Moreover, this passionate love mentality will become deeper, more automatic, and more rational as time goes by, and will not slowly cool down.
And this is not just an illusion. When you use the system to increase your favorability towards a certain character, then that favorability will be the most real and sincere from the heart.
As Rikuya thought about this, his worries about the future disappeared completely.
Even though there aren't many strong women in this world, there are still some.
If you increase their favorability level to the maximum, you can turn things around completely.
Moreover, he hadn't even seen the system's exchange function, so there must be other battle-related items.
Rikuya thought for a moment and said to himself:
"Give some of that favorability to Pakura, and use the Favorability Multiplier Fruit on Pakura."
"Ding, assignment successful, Pakura's favorability level increased to 8 points!"
"Successfully using the Favorability Multiplier Fruit, Pakura's favorability increased from eight points to sixteen points!"
"The user provides added value for the first time. Based on the added value provided, you gain one skill value point!"
"The user uses the item for the first time. Based on the item's level, he gains 30 skill points!"
"The user successfully increased his popularity by nine points and gained nine skill points!"
Listening to the system prompt ringing in his mind, Rikuya let out a sigh of relief and turned his attention back to reality.
Luckily, the people in the office were still discussing in low voices, and for the twenty seconds or so that he lowered his head, although it would attract a few more glances, it wouldn't attract too much attention.
But what about skill values?
This thing is supposed to be the currency in the system.
And it seems that every time you increase a character's favorability, you will gain one skill value point.
He didn't know if this skill value exchange ability was strong. If it was strong, maybe it could become a perpetual motion machine?
"Mr. Rikuya, are you okay?"
Suddenly, a cold female voice sounded in Rikuya's ears, and the voice was filled with obvious worry.
Rikuya turned to look at Pakura, only to see that Pakura's fiery body was leaning slightly towards him.
A clear expression of worry also appeared on her cold and beautiful face.
Rikuya knew that this was the result of sixteen favorability points.
After all, by the system's standards, sixteen favorability points was already considered a relatively good ordinary friend.
Rikuya habitually showed a gentle smile on his face, shook his head slightly, and said softly:
"Good."
Pakura looked at Rikuya with worry, she didn't know why.
Suddenly he felt very close to Rikuya and felt like they were good friends.
Pakura started to feel strange about this matter.
After all, he rarely met Rikuya.
Whenever they met, they only exchanged formal pleasantries, and in all cases they simply nodded as a sign of acquaintance.
Pakura started to think:
"Strange, why... wait, we're friends, what makes me curious!"
Pakura thought about it for less than half a second, and suddenly felt strange about her thoughts at that time.
Of course, Rikuya and him were already friends before. Even though they didn't meet much and didn't talk much, they immediately became close!
If other people knew Pakura's current change of mind and ideas, they would definitely be horrified.
Because it is clear that his thoughts have been distorted and changed by some force, but the person himself is not aware of it and takes it for granted!
Pakura chuckled and looked at Rikuya calmly.
Due to his personality, he doesn't have many friends, and Rikuya is one of his most important friends.
Rikuya didn't have time to observe Pakura at the moment. He was carefully considering what he was going to say next.
Even though he has the system as a super plug-in, he still has to fix the big mistake that Sunagakure Village is about to make.
This will give him enough buffer time to increase his combat effectiveness and have sufficient self-protection capabilities.
Only after he has sufficient self-protection capabilities can he think about other things.
Chiyo watched the crowd whispering softly, until eventually the conversation grew louder and was no longer a whisper. Then she said softly:
"You all are the backbone of the remaining village at this time. What do you think?"
Chiyo's old, hoarse voice was not very loud and was easily drowned out by the crowd's increasingly loud conversations.
However, as soon as he said that, the noise in the office that had been getting louder, immediately disappeared!
This shows how much influence Chiyo has in Sunagakure Village!
After a moment of silence, a middle-aged man who looked to be in his forties spoke carefully:
"Elder Chiyo, the Third Kazekage has disappeared. I think we should immediately mobilize all forces in the village and conduct a thorough search of the entire village from inside to outside."
This was the most normal and logical answer, and also what most of the Jonin present were thinking.
After all, the Kazekage, the village head and the core of the entire Hidden Wind Village, had disappeared. This was a very serious matter.
Chiyo nodded slightly and turned to look at Rikuya.
"Rikuya, what do you think?"
Ever since Chiyo mentioned that the Kazekage had disappeared, he had been keeping an eye on everyone's performance.
And he found that among everyone present, only Rikuya's appearance was the most commendable.
He didn't look panicked at all, instead he looked like he had expected it.
That's why Chiyo asked Rikuya first.
Rikuya had already organized his words. He raised his head slightly, looked directly at Chiyo, and said in a deep voice:
"Elder Chiyo, I don't think this is possible!"
As soon as those words came out, everyone's eyes immediately turned to Rikuya.
Rikuya turned a deaf ear to the gaze and continued in a deep voice:
"Elder Chiyo, you know my teacher's character very well. He would never leave the village with his guards left and right without anyone's knowledge!"
"If we rule out the possibility that the teacher left without permission, there is only one possibility."
"That means the teacher might have been killed, and most likely in this village!"
When Chiyo heard this, her half-closed eyes suddenly opened and stared straight at Rikuya.
It seems like this is the first time he's really paid attention to Rikuya!
Before Chiyo could speak, the strong middle-aged man who spoke first stood up suddenly.
Dissatisfaction was evident on his fleshy face, and he glared at Rikuya fiercely:
"Rikuya, watch your words! The Third Kazekage was the strongest Kazekage in the history of Sunagakure Village. How could he be killed, and killed in this village!"
"What Jonin Aoki said is true. How could such a powerful Kazekage-sama be killed, and killed secretly in the village?!"
"That's right! And Kazekage-sama is always accompanied by two elite Jonin who always follow him closely."
"Who in the current ninja world has the ability to kill the Third Kazekage and his two bodyguards without attracting the attention of the village ninja?"
"Yes, if we want to kill Kazekage-sama and his guards without everyone in the village knowing, we have to do it within a minute or even less than half a minute. Do you think that's possible?"
As the burly man stood up, the second and third Jonin also stood up, glaring at Rikuya and replying fiercely.
The other Jonin who didn't stand up didn't say anything, but they all looked at Rikuya with unfriendly eyes.
The Third Kazekage was the pride of Sunagakure Village.
The Sunagakure ninjas who had always been unable to compete with other villages, could now hold their heads high in front of ninjas from other large villages thanks to the existence of the Kazekage.
Rikuya's words aroused public anger.
Rikuya's expression remained unchanged despite being stared at by dozens of battle-trained Jonin.
He continued to stare directly at Chiyo and said calmly:
"Elder Chiyo, you are a senior who has experienced the First and Second Ninja World Wars. I wonder, can my teacher rank among the top five among the Kage of the five great ninja villages?"
After Rikuya said this, Chiyo didn't answer and remained silent.
At the same time, a hint of sadness appeared on his calm face.
As one of the living fossils of the ninja world, Chiyo and her brother have witnessed the changes in the ninja world over the past few decades.
How could they not realize the possibility behind the sudden and unexplained disappearance of the Third Kazekage?
However, Chiyo did not dare to admit it in her heart.
The Sunagakure villagers have always felt inferior for various reasons, and have become arrogant to compensate for their inferiority complex.
Now, thanks to the existence of the Third Kazekage, the ninja's mentality is starting to improve a little.
But now you tell them that their strongest Kazekage was killed around the village, and most likely within the village.
But they were completely unaware of it and only realized it after they had been missing for a day.
Wouldn't their Sunagakure Village become a laughing stock?
Moreover, this was a huge blow to Sunagakure Village. The villagers and ninjas would surely become even more humble and fearful because of this incident.
There may even be more rebellions.
But Rikuya's cruel words immediately shattered Chiyo and her brother's cunning thoughts. It was cruel, but also realistic.
When the several Jonin standing around heard Rikuya's words, they looked at each other in confusion.
Then one by one they sat down helplessly.
Even though Chiyo didn't say anything, everyone present knew the answer.
Because Sunagakure Village is located in the desert and has scarce resources, coupled with various other reasons, its high-level combat power has always been half a head weaker than the other four great ninja villages.
The Kazekage who is said to be the strongest is only the strongest Kazekage in Sunagakure Village. If he was placed in another ninja village, haha.
The atmosphere in the office suddenly turned gloomy.