On the last day, thousands of planets went through high-dimensional evolution, and in the capital, a huge pile of artificial universes sat next to a silver Mechanical Core.
All members of the Kaelard Civilization merged their minds, joining with the Mechanical Core, and began their high-dimensional evolution.
In the end, the Kaelard failed, and also succeeded. They failed because the high-dimensional evolution didn't work, and all the Kaelard people's minds turned into nothing. But the Mechanical Core plan worked, successfully dodging the universe's big collapse.
Even though the Mechanical Core plan worked during the universe's collapse, the Mechanical Core itself was damaged. Only the Kaelard's main technology, energy creation, was saved. A lot of other knowledge and tech were broken or missing.
It was in this state that Ryuji, now Kisuke, merged with the Mechanical Core. Even though he got the Mechanical Core, he had to rely on his own ideas and research to make things.
But for Kisuke, this was a huge treasure.
While in the hazy void, Kisuke was sorting through the Mechanical Core's knowledge when one world pulled him in, which shocked him.
Kisuke had tried to enter worlds many times before, no one wants to just float in nothingness, and the void had too many dangers. But he had tried many worlds and couldn't get into any of them, almost losing his soul completely. That's why Kisuke had been floating in the void.
When Kisuke felt this pull, he went towards that world. He arrived in front of a big ball of light in that world, and on it was a black hole, sucking in void energy.
Kisuke felt the pull coming from this black hole. He looked at it, gritted his teeth, and plunged in.
Kisuke suddenly woke up, looking at the dark sky outside his window. Even though he had a new life now, Kisuke still felt a chill from his time in the void.
"Whether it's God's hate or the Devil's temptation, this time, I'll stand at the very top."
Kisuke Takahashi, a normal villager from a seaside village in the Land of Waves, usually made his living by fishing.
His parents had died a few years ago, leaving him a house and a little money. He himself had worked too hard trying to earn more money and died, and because of his death, Ryuji, now Kisuke, came to this world.
Through bits of memory, and words like Land of Waves, ninja, and Gato, Kisuke knew for sure this was the Naruto world.
Naruto, an anime Kisuke had watched in his old life. The Naruto world had five super-powerful countries, and each country had a ninja village. The top leaders of the five great ninja villages were called Kage. The five great ninja villages were the Hidden Leaf Village, Hidden Sand Village, Hidden Cloud Village, Hidden Mist Village, and Hidden Stone Village.
Outside the five great countries, there were also many small countries, with many small ninja villages squeezed between the big ones.
The Land of Waves was a small island country in the Naruto world with no ninja, just a small town and a few far-off villages. It only had one big bridge connecting it to the outside world. Its economy was really weak, and people's lives were very hard.
But even now, Gato secretly controlled the Land of Waves.
It was currently the 58th year of Konoha, two years before Naruto would graduate.
Kisuke got out of bed, went to the table, turned on the lamp, and sat down.
Kisuke licked his thin lips, thought for a moment, and then wrote a name on a piece of paper.
"Gato."
Gato seemed to run a shipping company, and he was one of the richest men in the world. But secretly, he used gangsters and ninja to smuggle drugs and illegal goods, and he also wanted to take over other companies and countries.
He used his money and violence to control all sea transport in the Land of Waves. For an island country like the Land of Waves, controlling the sea transport, their lifeline, meant controlling the country's money, politics, and all its people.
In the Land of Waves, you couldn't do anything without Gato being involved.
"Koga, go to the forest tonight and collect energy points. Be back before dawn tomorrow, and make sure no one sees you."
"Yes, Master."
Kisuke watched Koga leave, then wrote down all sorts of plans on paper, a habit of his.
He finished perfecting the plans on the paper, then burned it. He walked to the bed, lay down, and thought.
"I still need more energy points. Once I summon a few more robot soldiers, I can go after Gato."
"Gato hires ninja. How strong are these ninja? That's a variable I need to consider. I can use the robot soldiers to test their strength."
"The Land of Waves' feudal lord, I need to control him too. If both the feudal lord and Gato are under my control, then I can officially set up the machine factory."
Kisuke's breathing became steady, his head felt heavy, and he slowly fell asleep.
The next morning.
Sunlight streamed into the wooden shack, golden rays pouring in and lighting up the whole room.
Kisuke opened his eyes and saw Koga standing by the door. Koga looked about the same as yesterday, just with some bloodstains on him. On the ground were eight wild animals, three wolves, two bears, one pig, and two deer.
"Looks like a decent haul yesterday."
Kisuke told Koga to kill the eight wild animals one by one. After that, the animals slowly turned into blue light and went into Kisuke's body.
Kisuke didn't need to do the killing himself, his robot soldiers could get energy points for him.
Only when an animal died near Kisuke would its death energy reach its maximum. If it was too far away, some energy would be lost.
This was the start-up phase, so every energy point counted.
[Energy Points: +4]
[Energy Points: +6]
[Energy Points: +8]
He watched the energy points go up to seventy-two.
Kisuke watched all the animals turn into energy. He opened the Mechanical Core screen:
Master Name: Kisuke Takahashi
Item Name: Mechanical Core
Item Level: World Secret Treasure
Main Power: Energy Change
Buildings: Fully Automatic Machine Factory [Locked], Civilization Lab [Locked], All Things Research Center [Locked], Library of Truth [Locked]
Energy Points: 72
Civilization Spark: 0
"Still too little. To build a fully automatic machine factory, I need 1000 energy points to unlock it and a lot of materials to build the factory."
"Looks like I still need to go out. There probably aren't any more places nearby to get energy points."
Kisuke stood up, grabbed the things he packed yesterday, opened the door, and walked out, with Koga right behind him.
Kisuke's seaside village was just a small place, with over a hundred people, facing the sea, living off the sea.
This was also the situation the Land of Waves faced now. Gato controlled sea transport, making the Land of Waves poorer and poorer.
Kisuke stood tall on the sandy beach, looking out into the distance. He saw only the vast, endless blue sea and sky merging into one, making it hard to tell where the sea ended and the sky began. As the saying goes, "Fog locks the head, head locks fog, sky joins the tail, tail joins sky." The distant waves, shining under the bright sun, looked like golden fish scales spread out, or like playful children constantly jumping towards the shore.
After a moment, he turned and headed towards the capital of the Land of Waves. Under the sunlight, Kisuke's back looked especially bright.