Maya had finally made her decision: ninjutsu was her path.
Every training path had one thing in common — the earlier you started, the better. The older you were when you began, the slower the progress and the lower the ceiling.
Ninjutsu especially. Never mind prodigies like Itachi or Kakashi, who were already elite Jonin by thirteen. Even Naruto, at thirteen, could pull off Rasengan competently. Look across the entire Naruto universe: almost every powerful figure had started young.
Ninjutsu had its weaknesses. It offered no path to immortality — longevity was as distant as a mirage. Early training burned through physical potential at a brutal rate, and in the later stages, users aged quickly and their abilities declined fast.
But ninjutsu had one advantage that no other powerful training path could match: it was accessible.
Take the Hunyuan Scripture as a comparison. Maya couldn't cultivate it — she lacked the required aptitude — but she could read its contents. The sections on meridians and acupoints were manageable; she'd trekked to Chinatown and tracked down a basic guide to Chinese meridian theory, worked through it with her adult intellect and university-level Chinese comprehension, and gotten the gist. Those parts made sense.
But then came the passages about "ingesting qi", "absorbing solar energy", "balancing opposing forces" — and Maya's brain simply stopped. She was technically what you'd call an ABC: born into a Western world, Chinese blood underneath. She could read all the characters individually. But strung together, they were gibberish. She'd eventually spent enormous effort at the New York Public Library, plowing through Daoist classical texts just to decode the terminology, and had barely achieved seventy or eighty percent comprehension. Theoretically, it was enough to begin Foundation Establishment cultivation — maybe.
But this was a low-tier technique from a low-tier sect. What happened at the advanced stages? Every library in the world wouldn't be enough. No reference material existed.
Ninjutsu, by contrast, was designed so that even Naruto could learn it. And Naruto, let's be honest, spent the entire series barely moving past clone jutsu and Rasengan.
With that settled, she headed home.
Maya stepped off the subway, jogged across Fifth Avenue, and headed toward the apartment in high spirits.
"Sweetheart, how did your interview go?"
Jennifer was walking out of the kitchen, towel in hand, when Maya stepped inside. The apartment smelled strongly of braised pork — Jennifer had been cooking pork knuckle again, clearly.
Maya swapped her shoes for slippers, then answered as she hung up her bag. "The spot at Town Center High School was already guaranteed a while ago. Today's interview was really just about the scholarship tiers."
Jennifer dropped onto the sofa beside Jack, who was reading the newspaper. She picked up the remote and clicked on the TV, then said casually, "How much money are we talking? Enough to cover the subway fare from Manhattan to Queens every day? Honestly, I don't see why you're going to all this trouble — you could just finish high school at the local school and apply somewhere decent afterward. You still have a few months before eighth grade graduation. Why the rush—"
"Thirty-five thousand dollars a year."
Maya tucked a loose strand of dark gold hair behind her ear and said it flatly, cutting right through Jennifer's monologue.
"What the fk?!" Jennifer's jaw dropped.
Jack let out an exaggerated whistle. "Well done, Maya!"
"How on earth — I've been in Broadway for years and I barely clear $20,000 a year! Jack gets two thousand dollars for a full script revision — how are you—"
Jack, whose annual income was closer to $15,000, cleared his throat quickly and pivoted. "There's probably a Stark Industries grant in there too, right? I believe Howard Stark himself went to Town Center High School."
Maya had briefly looked in on her baby brother James asleep in his crib before returning to answer. "Town Center gives $5,000 — the easiest to qualify for. Another $10,000 is from the New York City Board of Education. There's also $10,000 from the national scholarship, which is much harder to land. The last $10,000 is a Stark-endowed scholarship — ten spots per grade. The first three, I knew I had locked up early. Today's interview was specifically for the Stark money."
Jack nodded slowly, remembering. "That explains why you insisted on changing schools. Town Center really does produce remarkable people — well-funded, clearly. With that many major donors backing it, it can afford to be. Back in college, I had a scholarship too, but you could only hold one at a time. West Coast Film Academy isn't in the Ivy League, but it has a global reputation. Twenty thousand a year, at most."
Maya nodded. In her past life, Jia Baoyu had faced the same situation — multiple scholarships available, all with overlapping eligibility, all competing for a limited pool. In the end, he'd taken the one with the biggest name and the largest amount.
Same game, different continent.
Jennifer had settled down by now. She looked at the TV, where Jordan was weaving through defenders and scoring at will while the opposing team's big man roared in frustration, pounding his chest.
"You didn't win any scholarships before, though, did you?" Jennifer asked, eyes still on the screen.
Maya glanced over at the glass-fronted cabinet beside the television. Without turning her head, she said, "They're all in there."
Jennifer looked. The cabinet was stuffed with gold medals and trophies. She stared at it for a long moment.
"Tonight," she finally said, "we're having pork knuckle—proper Chinese-style."
After dinner, Maya skipped the TV, washed up, and dove under her covers.
Tonight was the night. The first step on the path to becoming a female Hokage.
Then her quilt was yanked off.
Cold air flooded in. Maya had been kneeling with her forehead buried in her pillow, murmuring her system chant under her breath. The sudden yank startled a yelp out of her.
Jennifer's voice: "Baby, what are you doing? Why are you kneeling in the blankets with your butt in the air?"
Maya's cheeks went scarlet. Her hard-won dignity, thoroughly demolished. She sat bolt upright.
"Oh my god, Jennifer! You'd better have a very good reason for this, because we are not done here!"
Jennifer lay down beside her and held down Maya's flailing hands. Pure innocence on her face. "I knocked for ages. You didn't answer. What was I supposed to do?"
Maya's blush faded. Her heartbeat returned to normal. "Fine. What couldn't wait until morning?"
Then Jennifer started fidgeting — eyes drifting, words dissolving before they formed. "It's, um... it's just that... honey, okay, listen, the thing is..."
Under the steady gaze of her daughter's clear green eyes — that unnerving look that always made her feel transparent — Jennifer finally steeled herself, leaned close to Maya's small pink ear, and whispered:
"Sweetheart... you got $35,000, right? Do you think... could you maybe... help me buy a car?"
Of course.
Maya rubbed her ear, then exhaled quietly. Her mother really had been running on empty for so long that she'd come to ask her own daughter for money. She looked at Jennifer's anxious, apologetic expression — and spoke.
"Fine. The money hits in August when school starts. I'll get you one then. Five to eight thousand dollars, no more — you know this neighborhood doesn't hold onto nice cars."
"YES!" Jennifer shrieked, grabbed Maya's face, and planted a rapid series of kisses on her cheeks. "THAT'S MY GIRL!"
Maya wrinkled her nose, grabbed Jennifer's head, and pushed her firmly away. She snatched the nearest blanket corner and scrubbed at her face.
"Stop kissing me. If you insist on kissing me, at least brush your teeth first. You smell like pork knuckle. My face is not a pork knuckle."
Then her hand touched something wet.
She looked down. She'd pressed against the front of Jennifer's shirt, and a damp patch of milk had bloomed through the fabric.
Jennifer didn't react at all.
Maya quietly moved her hand away and cleared her throat twice. "Jennifer — you've been taking time off from Broadway for six months. Take another six. Take James to Central Park sometimes; the air's better there, and it's not far. Once the six months are up, I'll hand you thirty thousand dollars all at once. Spend it however you want."
Jennifer went still. She didn't say anything. She just pulled Maya into her arms, and one hand quietly moved to wipe the corner of her eye.
Then James started wailing from the other room — hungry. Jennifer slipped out to feed him.
Maya stacked her pillow against the headboard and sat up, looking out the window. With the soundproofing installed, she couldn't hear James crying. Only the ambient glow and muffled noise of the city filtered through.
The truth was: even if Jennifer hadn't come in tonight, Maya would have handed over the thirty thousand dollars once it arrived. No other reason than that Jennifer was her mother.
She didn't want to watch her rush back to Broadway stage roles weeks after giving birth. She didn't want to hear James screaming in an empty apartment because his mother had already left.
A few thousand dollars to put Jennifer behind the wheel of a new car — the neighbors watching with envy, Jennifer beaming — why not?
As for giving it all at once rather than in installments — that wasn't about trusting Jennifer to manage it well. Maya simply didn't want to see her mother standing there again, nervous and ashamed, asking her own daughter for money.
Jennifer was irresponsible. Vain. Shameless, sometimes. Clueless, often.
But she was still her mother.
Maya believed the same thing in both lives: feelings were like writing a book. You could pour your heart into it and still fail. But if you didn't pour your heart into it at all, failure was guaranteed.
Her past-life girlfriend had wrecked him thoroughly. But in this life, Maya still chose to invest fully — not in romance, which felt hopeless, but in family.
"Oh — wait!" She slapped her own forehead. "I almost forgot the important part!"
She shook off the sentimental detour. These things were decided the moment she transmigrated, weren't they?
More pressing question: did she want to aim for Hokage — or go full rogue and become a boss-tier missing-nin?
Maya slapped her cheeks, squared her shoulders, and got back to business.
"Open the Black Market."
A soft hum, and a gentle-looking little old man materialized in her mind. To his left, a kunai gleamed in the dim light. Today's refreshed item was just a kunai. Pass.
The real focus was the two storage slots beneath the old man's feet.
Slot one: A figure with a staff — a golden staff, actually. A monkey. Wait — no. There was text printed on his back: Third Hokage. Not Sun Wukong. Hiruzen Sarutobi.
Slot two: Long flowing black hair. An elaborate purple bow at the lower back. White skin, narrow eyes, and — okay, she'd rather not describe the rest in detail. It was Orochimaru.
Master and student. Both of them were bloodline physique cards — equip one, and you'd gain the matching physical constitution.
Sarutobi's card would grant his five elemental chakra natures: Earth, Water, Wind, Fire, and Lightning.
Orochimaru only had one natural affinity — Earth. On paper, the choice seemed obvious.
But both cards were rated Gold Lv.1, costing exactly 20,000 Influence Points each.
The implication of an Orochimaru physique, clearly, was that it would make his exclusive forbidden techniques significantly easier to learn later. That had been Jia Baoyu's original design intent.
After two or three years and seven or eight hundred Black Market refreshes, these two Gold-tier items were the only worthwhile pulls that had ever appeared. Gold Lv.1, the lowest rung of the Gold tier — but Gold nonetheless.
Unfortunately, she'd only saved enough for one.
Maya thought it over.
Then she tapped the Third Hokage.
"Purchase."
The little old man smiled and nodded. The Sarutobi card dissolved into a stream of golden light.
BANG.
It detonated inside her mind.
"AHHH—" Maya doubled over and rolled across the bed, both hands clutching her skull. "MY HEAD — it's splitting — it's splitting —"
Even someone as tough as her couldn't hold in the screaming. Fortunately the room was soundproofed. Otherwise Jennifer would have had her in an ambulance before the hour was out.
A full thirty minutes passed.
When it was over, Maya lay flat on her back like a broken ragdoll — eyes unfocused, dark gold hair damp and tangled, limbs splayed at unnatural angles. Her pink cartoon Supergirl pajamas were soaked through and plastered to her skin.
After a long while, she finally exhaled.
"Bull—" she said quietly, staring at the ceiling. "—shit. It's just a physique exchange. Not his full energy reserve. Was all of that really necessary?"