Konoha Year 41.
The Ninja Academy.
Jiang Ming stared at the very last name on the bulletin board—Aoba Yamashiro.
Taking off his red-rimmed sunglasses in utter disbelief, he rubbed his eyes vigorously before confirming he hadn’t misread it.
“Wait, I didn’t even take the entrance exam!
How the hell did I get in?
There’s got to be some shady strings being pulled here…”
Jiang Ming opened his mouth, but reason kept him from voicing the rest of his thoughts.
Even if it was only a supplementary admission list, it had still drawn quite a crowd.
Who knew if there were Anbu lurking among the onlookers…
Well…
Honestly, there probably were.
He was eighty percent certain he was already under surveillance.
As for trying to conceal anything, he had never even entertained the thought.
Did anyone really think the Anbu were just useless slackers?
Infiltration and camouflage were mandatory subjects at the Academy, and those who made it into the Anbu were the elite of the elite.
You could question an Anbu’s combat strength, but you couldn’t question their professionalism.
At the very least, until his strength reached the point where he answered to no one, it was best not to voice anything detrimental to village unity.
“Fine.
Even though I prepared myself to be ‘noticed’ sooner or later, I never expected to be shoved straight into the Academy first.
Guess I should say, nothing less from the Third Hokage, huh?”
Jiang Ming—no, his name was Aoba Yamashiro now.
He had transmigrated, or rather, awakened his memories of his past life.
Two years ago, after his current body’s parents fell in battle, forcibly extracting chakra had awakened his past-life consciousness.
The good news: he knew the plot of this world.
The bad news: this was the Naruto world.
And he had transmigrated at a rather precarious point in time—not long after the conclusion of the Second Shinobi World War.
In just a few years, the Third Shinobi World War would break out.
And cannon fodder died in droves during shinobi world wars.
Fortunately, he hadn’t transmigrated into some nameless extra.
Not only did his character have a name, but he also survived all the way to the Fourth Shinobi World War.
In the end, he didn’t even have to fight the Ten-Tails; he just teamed up with the protagonist on the Island Turtle and spent the rest of the war doing odd jobs in the rear.
Practically a free ride to victory.
He was more than satisfied with that.
Most importantly, the adult Aoba Yamashiro wasn’t bad-looking either—retaining about ninety percent of his past life’s handsome looks.
Thinking about it that way, that ‘bastard’ hadn’t treated him too poorly after all.
Oh, right, what was that guy’s name again?
Jason something.
“Dimensional Carrier, Master of Spacetime Paths, the Great God of Interdimensional Heavy Trucks—Lord Jason Wilton, Master Aoba.”
Just as he was pondering, a mechanical voice echoed in his mind.
“Alright, alright, you don’t have to recite his full title every single time.”
Aoba Yamashiro got a bit of a headache from this.
Lately, every time he badmouthed that guy, the system would pop up to defend him.
Of course, this ‘system’ wasn’t the kind that could conjure up miraculous items out of thin air or grant its host reality-defying skills.
This system was an auxiliary chip from the future.
Its original designation was CTB-9527 Auxiliary Sprite, but Aoba felt it was simpler to just call it: System.
As for his transmigration, it was a total accident.
He had run into a great stroke of fortune.
Well, in the most literal sense possible.
He was run into by a Dayun heavy-duty truck.
Could anyone imagine simply heading downstairs to pick up a package, stepping out of the stairwell, and having a heavy-duty truck barrel straight into them?
Just before losing consciousness, he wondered what unforgivable sin he had committed in this life to run into something so absurd.
After losing consciousness, Aoba saw that heavy-duty truck once again in a boundless void.
Then, right before his eyes, the truck transformed into a humanoid form like a Transformer.
In his spirit form, Jiang Ming was completely dumbfounded.
What kind of bizarre development was this?
Moreover, in this humanoid form, the truck exuded an even more oppressive aura.
The entity then introduced itself as Jason Wilton, the God of Interdimensional Heavy Trucks, whose sole purpose was transporting transmigrators to other worlds.
Whether it was truly a god remained questionable, but its ability to send people across worlds was undeniable.
Hitting him had been a complete mistake.
Normally, it operated on public highways to send people off, but this time a coordinate calculation error caused it to warp directly into a residential compound in the middle of the city, right as Jiang Ming was coming down the stairs.
The impact had intentionally lacked any braking function, designed to send transmigrators to another world in an instant so they could pass away completely painlessly.
Normally, its targets were bottom-tier drudges, corporate slaves, and expendable tools of society—the kind with no family or ties whose sudden disappearance wouldn’t be noticed by anyone.
A successful, eligible bachelor like Jiang Ming was nowhere near its target list; he had been struck entirely by mistake.
However, a mistake was a mistake.
Jason Wilton merely offered some verbal sympathy, but resurrection was out of the question.
Not only had dozens of bystanders witnessed the whole thing, but over a dozen security cameras had captured it, and reports had already reached the highest levels of the government.
While it could alter local internet data and wipe the memories of ordinary witnesses, altering the memories of top state officials carried too high a cost.
So it simply let the mistake stand and offered him this ‘transmigration’ as a complimentary ride.
Jiang Ming’s face alternated between green and pale as he listened.
But with circumstances completely out of his control, his mind raced and he had no choice but to accept reality.
“Hmm, good.
I always enjoy talking to smart people.”
“…”
Jiang Ming rolled his eyes in frustration and pointed at his mouth.
A red beam from Jason Wilton’s mechanical eyes swept over Jiang Ming, and the latter found he could speak again.
“Compensation!”
Jiang Ming cut straight to the chase, making his demand concise and clear.
“Fair enough.
However, only within the bounds of the rules.”
‘Rules, huh?’
Jiang Ming made a mental note of that.
After some negotiation, they agreed on a fictional world from movies or anime that he was familiar with.
His criteria were: soul transmigration, human, male, ideally starting from childhood, and not too ugly (this was very important).
Jiang Ming laid out his requirements clearly, as this fell under the ‘rules.’
Lastly, he wanted a cheat.
However, Jason Wilton had already exhausted its quota of systems, and since Jiang Ming was not part of the standard transmigration roster, it couldn’t apply for another system allocation.
These were all governed by the ‘rules’; it had to operate strictly within them.
Nevertheless, as an interdimensional deliveryman, Jason Wilton had plenty of miscellaneous goods gathered from various systems.
There were the usual spiritual roots and divine physiques found in web novels, bizarre talents, superpowers like telekinesis, and various miraculous artifacts.
Yet after browsing through them all carefully, Jiang Ming chose only the ‘auxiliary chip’ from the future.
“Are you sure about this?
You do realize this is merely a learning-assistance chip made for future humans.
It isn’t a proper system.”
“Yes, I’m certain.
I know it’s only an auxiliary chip, and its learning functions are exactly what I need.”
“Learning?
Then why not choose a talent like [Analogy], [Flash of Insight], or [Accelerated Thought]?
Or even those special constitutions—they allow you to absorb knowledge directly.
An auxiliary tool cannot directly grant you mastery.”
Jason Wilton offered a ‘kind’ reminder.
At that moment, Jiang Ming finally felt that the entity before him was truly an intelligent being, not some pre-programmed mechanical AI.
“Bestowed talents, no matter how good, never truly belong to you.
Relying on them creates dependency, and that isn’t what I want.
Knowledge is the only thing that will never abandon me.”
“Knowledge, you say?!”
A terrifying grin spread across Jason Wilton’s mechanical face.
“As you wish.
The pact is sealed!”
…