Konoha Village.
Chiba was utterly dumbfounded.
He had once dug through the archives at the orphanage, and made a few discreet inquiries besides.
Every scrap of evidence pointed to the same thing: in this life, Chiba’s parents had been nothing more than low-ranking civilian ninja of Konoha, killed on a B-rank escort mission.
But the system would never get this wrong.
Chiba forced his pounding heart to steady as his thoughts raced.
There was only one possible truth.
His body’s previous owner really had carried the blood of the Senju Clan—only so thinned out that it was all but gone.
The system’s bloodline purification hadn’t conjured anything from nothing.
It had taken that faint trace of Senju blood inside him and amplified it to the very limit, triggering an atavism!
And it was precisely because of that atavism that Chiba had awakened the Kekkei Genkai of the Senju of the Forest.
Wood Release!
Basic Sage Body!
What did those two things together mean?
They were the invincible power that had ended an age of chaos and founded Konoha Village.
It was on that power that Hashirama had once tamed unruly Tailed Beasts as though they were pets.
And now that same terrifying power had appeared in him.
But the excitement lasted barely a dozen seconds.
Chiba calmed quickly, because he understood his situation all too well.
The Konoha of today was no longer the Village of the First or Second Hokage’s era.
This was the fifty-second year of Konoha.
After the ravages of the Third Shinobi World War and the crippling blow of the Nine-Tails incident, the Village’s top-tier strength had been gutted by nearly a full generation.
The Fourth Hokage, Namikaze Minato, and his wife had fallen in battle.
Orochimaru, one of the Sannin, had turned S-rank rogue ninja once his human experiments were exposed.
Jiraiya roamed outside the Village year-round, tracking Orochimaru and the Akatsuki.
Tsunade had left this land of grief altogether, carrying her fear of blood and a heart weighed down with sorrow.
The one now seated in the Hokage Office was the Third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, restored to power.
And lurking in the shadows below was Shimura Danzo, coveting everything like a venomous snake.
In these two old men, the hunger for power had grown into something pathological.
If they learned that a wild Wood Release awakener had surfaced in the Village, how would it end?
Chiba could guess the answer almost at once.
Either Sarutobi Hiruzen would mold him with that so-called “Will of Fire,” or Shimura Danzo would drag him down into Root’s underground laboratory and plant the “Cursed Seal of the Tongue” on him.
After all, even Yamato—an incomplete Wood Release—was kept hidden away like a treasure.
And Chiba, who carried the orthodox Senju bloodline and had even awakened the Sage Body—the moment he was exposed, it would set off a frenzied scramble among Konoha’s higher-ups.
Chiba didn’t even dare picture the days of being treated as a specimen for dissection, or a test subject.
His gaze drifted downward.
〔Overall Evaluation: An unqualified Jonin!〕
The system’s verdict was like a poisoned thorn.
And yet Chiba had no way to argue with it.
His chakra might have reached the early Kage level, and the Sage Body might have remade his muscles and bones into a Jonin’s, but Chiba was still utterly weak.
Why?
Because he had mastered far too few ninjutsu.
Apart from the Three Academy Jutsu taught at the Ninja Academy, Chiba knew only three low-level elemental techniques.
C-rank Water Release: Water Colliding Wave; C-rank Earth Release: Earth Dragon Submersion Technique; and B-rank Earth Release: Earth Wall.
It was like handing a three-year-old a heavy machine gun loaded to the brim.
He had firepower enough to level the world, yet couldn’t even find the safety.
Any seasoned Jonin could hit him with a high-level Genjutsu, or a close-range Taijutsu combo, and Chiba would panic—or have his neck snapped outright.
To survive…
to protect himself in the wars to come…
Chiba had to find every possible way to raise his strength, and fast!
But where was the path?
Konoha Village had long since rotted through to the core.
For a civilian ninja, gaining access to high-level ninjutsu or forbidden techniques was harder than climbing to heaven.
The first path: inheritance passed from master to student.
Like Hatake Kakashi or Namikaze Minato—a powerful teacher handing down everything he knew.
But Chiba’s instructor had been an ordinary Chunin.
He’d been blown to pieces by Iwagakure ninja long ago, on a battlefield of the Third Shinobi World War.
That path was closed.
The second path: winning the favor of the higher-ups to be granted new ninjutsu.
But this was an even worse dead end.
In Konoha’s records, Chiba was just a civilian Chunin who’d survived on luck.
If he suddenly rushed to the training ground tomorrow and unleashed a ninjutsu of astonishing power, he wouldn’t be admired—he’d be marked by the ANBU.
What followed would be endless interrogation and investigation.
…
Chiba rubbed his brow in frustration.
If Konoha’s higher-ups couldn’t be trusted, then who was left to rely on?
Who still held the true legacy and ninjutsu lineage of the Senju Clan?
Then a name flashed through his mind like lightning.
Tsunade!
One of the Sannin, granddaughter of the First Hokage, Hashirama.
The last surviving member of the Senju Clan in the open.
She was the only one in the ninja world today with both the standing and the power to protect the Senju bloodline.
She might be crippled by a severe fear of blood now, spending her days lost in gambling and drink, but the protectiveness in her bones had not changed one bit.
If Chiba could only stand before her—if he could only prove to her that Senju blood ran in his veins and that he had awakened Wood Release—Tsunade would never simply look away.
She would do everything in her power to protect him, and even pass down those lost Senju secret techniques.
Once he’d worked it all out, the corners of Chiba’s mouth curved up in a faint smile.
But the smile stiffened almost as quickly.
Because a new problem had surfaced.
How was he supposed to leave Konoha Village?
Konoha’s Barrier Team ran around the clock.
Any unregistered chakra forcing its way out of the Village would set off the alarm instantly.
Without a permit issued by the higher-ups, any ninja who left the Village on his own would be branded a rogue ninja outright.
Chiba didn’t have so much as a decent offensive ninjutsu, let alone the means to slip past the ANBU’s pursuit.
He had to go through official channels.
Take a mission.
Take a mission that would carry him out of Konoha Village, then seize the chance to head for the region where Tsunade often turned up.
Chiba began mapping out his next moves at once.
〔Ding!〕
〔The host still has one sign-in this year.〕
〔Sign in now?〕
At that very moment, the cold, mechanical voice rose in Chiba’s mind again.
Chiba was taken aback.
The novice gift pack and the yearly sign-in were counted separately?
This system really was as rigid as it was endearing!
“Sign in now!”
Chiba gave the command in his heart.
This was a cheat that could rewrite his fate outright—he’d take it even if it handed him a single Kunai.
〔Sign-in successful!〕
〔Congratulations to the host on obtaining the reward: God-Level Comprehension!〕
The next moment, as the system’s voice faded, a cool current beyond all description poured straight up his spine and into Chiba’s brain.
There was no pain, none of the tearing from the earlier bloodline purification.
There was only an unprecedented clarity.
It was as if a rusty old gear-driven machine, decades in service, had been swapped out for a top-tier quantum computer.
The world before Chiba’s eyes changed in an instant.
And in his mind, the handful of ninjutsu he’d mastered flickered past.
Before, when he cast a ninjutsu, he could only follow the seals on the scroll rigidly, marshaling his chakra one step at a time.
Hand seals, refinement, projection.
Copied out mechanically, without a shred of flexibility.
But now, under the blessing of God-Level Comprehension, those few ninjutsu were broken down into countless tiny modules of energy.