Clang! Clang! Clang!With three sharp strikes of the wooden clapper, Zhang Ming opened his eyes.
Konoha's main street. Inside a narrow apartment.
Darkness filled his vision. The summer night wind blew against the wind chimes on the balcony, producing a lonely, lingering sound.
A foreign soul had descended upon Konoha, taking over Naruto's body.
[Ding! "Lying Flat System" loading…][7%]
Zhang Ming's head throbbed violently. A blurry red haze clouded his vision.
Am I going blind?The pain! Hissss—!
It was just a game… why did I suddenly collapse? How am I supposed to go to work tomorrow?The internship is about to turn into a full-time job. I've finally endured this long, and now…
The pain gradually faded. Zhang Ming forced his eyes open. In the dim light, he saw an unfamiliar, messy room.
The air reeked faintly. Faded yellow wallpaper clung to the damp, moldy walls. Clothes and books were scattered across the wooden floor.
Something clicked in his mind. He glanced down at his own hand.
His pupils widened. "Ah!" He stumbled back in shock.
His hands had become… smaller?
[System loading progress: 13%]
A cold, mechanical voice rang in his head. Shards of memory stabbed into his brain like needles, making him cry out in agony as he rolled across the bed.
Voices kept drilling into his ears like crawling ants. The pain nearly knocked him out.
— That kid, right? He's disgusting!— I told you not to play with him. Who knows what that freak will do!— It was that fox demon who killed the Fourth Hokage.— Naruto, do you have the Will of Fire?— The Hokage is the strongest in the village, the one who protects us. You have to work hard, Naruto, and become Hokage someday.
"Hokage? What kind of sick joke is this?" Zhang Ming's skull felt like it was splitting apart.
All around him was darkness. Not far away, he saw two tiny holes.
Staggering forward, he pressed his eye against one. Outside were people—faces of every kind. Their eyes brimmed with scorn, indifference, and disgust.
— Get lost, you monster!— We won't sell to you. Scram!— Why don't you just die already? How do you even have the courage to keep living, you demon?!
The icy rejection and searing pain suffocated him. Zhang Ming flipped over, pounding his chest with clenched teeth just to breathe again.
[System loading progress: 17%]
He jolted awake, back on the bed. A translucent panel slowly appeared before his eyes.
He wasn't new to this—novels, games, he'd seen this before. He understood his situation.
He had transmigrated—become Uzumaki Naruto. At this stage, he was still in the Ninja Academy, on the verge of the Genin graduation exam.
The one consolation: he hadn't come empty-handed. Like many others who crossed into foreign worlds, he had a system. It was still loading, but still—a system was better than nothing.
Peering out at the night sky through the window, Zhang Ming had no intention of sleeping. He climbed out of bed and flicked on the light.
Click! The bright glow drove away his unease.
"From now on, I'm Uzumaki Naruto."
He ignored the messy room and the foul-smelling desk. No one could blame an unloved orphan for not cleaning—there wasn't even anyone around to scold him.
Naruto sat at the desk, picked up pen and paper, and tried writing. The characters flowed out naturally, as though he'd always known this world's script.
He even tested speaking—the words came out in multiple languages he could switch between. Though here, only the local tongue mattered.
He pulled open his shirt. No seal was visible on his stomach. That could be troublesome—the Four Symbols Seal.
The leaking chakra of the Nine-Tails seeped through the gaps of the seal, flowing along his meridians until it transformed into ordinary blue chakra.
Though he could use the Nine-Tails' chakra for now, it wasn't sustainable.
After pondering for a while, Naruto wrote out a training plan. In this world, only strength gave you a voice. The stronger he became, the smoother his path would be.
Then came the matter of life itself. Scratching his head, Naruto walked to the mirror. Staring at his young reflection, he bared his teeth and grinned widely.
"To hell with becoming Hokage!"
Why protect those who despised him? Dream on. Let them all die instead—trash!
Releasing all the negative emotions he'd been bottling up, he suddenly felt lighter.
Forget Hokage. What mattered was living well for himself. Companions, village, Will of Fire—they could all rot. He would live for his own enjoyment.
Once the system fully loaded, he'd be untouchable in this village.
Humming a tune, Naruto jotted down his Genin training schedule:
"To become the coolest guy in the village!"
[System loading progress: 34%]
The next morning, sunlight streamed in.
The first thing Naruto did upon waking was check the panel.
[System loading progress: 79%]
"Damn, this loading speed is like a 2G network," he muttered with frustration.
He yawned. Sleep had eluded him all night. Now that it was morning, he dragged himself up to wash.
A few classes of ninja theory awaited, but he planned to nap in the classroom anyway. His classmates were used to it—no one cared about the village pariah.
After washing, he even spent an hour cleaning his room.
When it came to choosing clothes, he hesitated. His old outfit screamed "wannabe punk"—and that oversized jacket was unbearable in summer.
In the end, he chose a simple black T-shirt and brown shorts, leaving the goggles behind. After all, he wasn't a Genin yet. He had no forehead protector.
"I'm heading out!" he shouted into the empty apartment. No reply. He shrugged, slammed the door, and left.
He lived in an old apartment block on Konoha Street. It took several winding alleys to reach the main road.
The moment he stepped into the sunlight, he froze.
The villagers' eyes turned toward him, full of dislike. He only shrugged, lowered his head, and walked silently through the crowd.
Faces were cold, their gazes sliding off him like knives before quickly retracting.
[System loading progress: 87%]
At the Ninja Academy, Shikamaru lazily scanned the crowd until something caught his eye. Nudging Choji, he pointed ahead.
"Isn't that Naruto?"
Choji paused mid-bite, a potato chip halfway to his mouth. "Got beaten up again?"
"Looks like it." Shikamaru's dead-fish eyes narrowed. "Those people are way out of line."
Crunching the last chip, Choji shoved through the crowd with Shikamaru. However arrogant Naruto's bullies were, none dared provoke the clans of the Ino-Shika-Cho trio.