Kikaichū

After Aburame Tetsumaru "awakened," he worked quite hard—hard at playing.

Konoha had no nurseries or kindergartens, and the Aburame Family's Nest House only provided meals. There was no manpower to organize lessons.

Once Aburame Tetsumaru had eaten his fill, no one bothered with him. He could not find any way to study either, so he could only play.

No matter how much his body made him childish, he still had the foundation of a forty-year-old transmigrator. Children's games like hide-and-seek, blind man's buff, and ninja battles grew boring after only a few days. There was no fun in them.

Before long, he became obsessed with insects. The Aburame Clan were Insect Users, and plenty of people enjoyed collecting bugs.

Playing with bugs should not be underestimated. There was great fun in it—on Blue Star, more than one or two people had gambled away their fortunes on cricket fighting.

What concerned Aburame Tetsumaru most now were Sugar Ants. To study how Sugar Ants produced sugar, he mainly followed the methods used for Earth's ants, testing them one by one.

Aburame Tetsumaru quickly uncovered the secret behind the Sugar Ants' sugar production: aphids.

These ants from the Land of Grass were herders among ants. They raised aphids.

Worker ants carried aphids onto plant stems and leaves rich in sap, collected aphid eggs and hatched them in their nests, drove away aphids' natural enemies, and even tapped the aphids with their antennae to help them digest. All of it was for the honeydew they obtained.

Ants themselves did not produce honeydew. They were merely honeydew carriers.

Honeydew was what aphids secreted from the back after sucking plant sap. Well... from back there.

Do not find it disgusting. Yogurt was also the excrement of lactic acid bacteria, honey was made by bees mixing nectar and pollen with their spit before fermenting it, and there was also absurdly expensive cat-poop coffee as precedent.

When he had been searching blindly, he had been completely lost. Though Aburame Tetsumaru considered himself half an insect expert, it had still taken him more than half a year of repeated trial and error to find the answer.

During those six months, he had observed ants carrying aphids and insect eggs more than once, but he had naturally assumed the ants were hunting and ignored it. Only after statistical records showed that the aphid population was steadily increasing while maintaining a fixed ratio with the ant population did he realize he had made a major mistake.

Fortunately, once the mystery was solved, it seemed particularly simple. Though there were still major questions to consider, it was enough for Aburame Tetsumaru to confirm that these two symbiotic insects had the potential to make serious money.

The final major question was: how could he make the ants produce big-bellied Sugar Ants?

If the honeydew was scattered among ordinary ants' stomachs, collecting it manually would be outrageously difficult. Only when ants with bellies worth five hundred ordinary ants appeared would collection become profitable.

Aburame Tetsumaru recalled Animal World from his previous life. The idea was clear: animals that grew fat or stored food definitely did not live comfortably. Only harsh environments could produce the fattest animals with the greatest storage capacity.

In the end, animals only stored energy to deal with famine. Otherwise, they would direct that energy toward reproduction and expanding the population.

He would recreate winter and stimulate them with lower temperatures to see the results.

Aburame Tetsumaru returned to the kitchen and checked the fish heads and rice. After confirming they were cooked, he put out the fire and relied on the lingering warmth of the ashes to keep them warm.

Then he fished out some pickled baby cucumbers from the earthenware jar beneath the eaves, washed and chopped them, and tossed them with crisp greens and a little oil. They would cut through the richness when they ate the fish heads later.

By the time he had set the table, his parents returned home one after the other.

"Oh my, Tetsumaru's cooking smells so good. How could you be this amazing?"

Not wanting to be teased by his bargain-bin mother, Aburame Tetsumaru struck first. "Hurry up and wash your hands before eating. If it gets cold, it'll turn fishy. Move it."

Waving the spatula, he chased his bargain-bin parents off to wash up, avoiding the fate of being fussed over.

Ninja missions were scarce now, with too many people competing for too little work. His father had secured a long-term security assignment and cherished the opportunity, putting great effort into his work.

His mother wanted to take advantage of the village's push to expand the number of medical ninja and advance to medical Chunin. She was currently working hard to train students, hoping to accumulate enough merit as soon as possible.

Before he knew it, the household chores had fallen onto Aburame Tetsumaru's shoulders. He had no real objection, since his bargain-bin parents were both hopeless in the kitchen. They could cook food through, but they could not make it taste good.

For the sake of his own mouth, Aburame Tetsumaru could only resign himself to sharing the chores.

After dinner, his father washed the dishes, his mother did the laundry, and Aburame Tetsumaru hid in his room to sulk because he had still been fussed over.

Wasn't the greatest stress relief for a young couple fussing over their own child? Anyone who had actually done it knew that one's own kid was no mere puppy or kitten.

Super stress-relieving.

Early the next morning, Aburame Tetsumaru went to the Nest House and joined the other cousins, younger cousins, uncles, and nephews who had turned four. A family Chunin led them away.

Aburame boys began learning the Chakra Refinement Technique at four. Those who succeeded continued on to learn the Kikaichū Secret Technique. Those who still failed to master it by five were eliminated. From then on, they could only rely on themselves; the family would no longer provide any assistance, and resources would be prioritized for Jonin seeds capable of maintaining the family's status.

Every Ninja Clan that had endured the Warring States Period and survived followed similar policies.

Before the Second Hokage established the Ninja Academy, he had already confirmed that civilian children had different constitutions from children of ninja clans. The best age to learn the Chakra Refinement Technique was six, which was why the Ninja Academy's enrollment age was set at six.

From then on, after repeated failures, children of ninja families had another path available to them. At six, they could take the Ninja Academy's Entrance Exam.

The reality was that no matter how powerful a ninja was, his children could still possess ordinary talent. Giving mediocre descendants a path upward was the fundamental reason ninja families accepted the establishment of the Ninja Academy and continuously pushed for its expansion.

Inside the courtyard of the Aburame Clan's only forbidden ground.

Elder Aburame Shihui taught seventeen younger members of the family about Chakra.

"The human body has one hundred and thirty trillion cells. Healthy cells contain immense energy."

"Human will possesses a mysterious power, and through cultivation, spiritual energy can be extracted."

"Mixing the physical energy extracted from each individual cell with spiritual energy creates Chakra."

"Refine Chakra, then use hand seals and circulate it, and you can release all kinds of ninjutsu."

Aburame Shihui, his beard streaked with gray, sat cross-legged on a cushion. Waving his only right hand, he gave the children their order.

"Form the Tiger Seal and begin refining Chakra."

"Remember, refining Chakra for the first time requires calmness and patience. Do not become impatient, and do not give up easily."

Aburame Tetsumaru formed the seal with his right hand and calmed himself. Three breaths later, he refined a wisp of weak Chakra and hurriedly stopped, lest the Elder notice.

He was not some super genius who could refine Chakra successfully in a second. He had begun refining Chakra on his own several months ago.

Aburame Tetsumaru's second "golden finger" was Insight.

Insight was not an ability of the eyes, but an exceptionally delicate power of perception.

When Aburame Tetsumaru concentrated, he could sense extremely subtle fluctuations. Through those fluctuations, he could perceive everything within a small area centered on himself, including all matter and the flow of Chakra.

Insight had continued to grow over the past year, but it remained very weak. Its current range was forty centimeters, though its precision was extremely high—enough to distinguish fungi from plant cells.

Aburame Tetsumaru had no idea how he had acquired Insight. Since free things were the most expensive, he easily associated it with fishing scams, predatory loans, and Ponzi schemes.

Fortunately, it was not a system that actively issued missions and rewards, much less some terrifying old grandpa living inside him.

Aburame Tetsumaru cautiously tested Insight, explored its specific functions, recorded as much data as possible, and extended the intervals between tests.

What? Being cautious about a golden finger?

Heh. How could he not use a golden finger once he had one?

Adults—no, mature members of society—would not feel at ease with free benefits, but neither would they throw them away unused. Forget a fully controllable mutated ability; even if a system really fell from the sky, he would still use it when it was time to use it.

Wasn't there an old saying? Maintain the heart of one walking on thin ice, while carrying out bold and diligent deeds.

The adult world was this complicated. No matter what one faced, one had to consider a second and third layer. Only an old thousand-layer cake could get by well.

Aburame Tetsumaru had used Insight to observe all kinds of substances, animals, plants, and people.

The easiest targets to observe were himself and his mother. As a veteran Genin, Aburame Aiko had long developed the habit of continuously refining Chakra at all times, and Insight allowed him to directly observe Chakra's flow.

Through his observations, Aburame Tetsumaru mastered the Chakra Refinement Technique and personally tested many unique tricks. He even discovered a more optimized Chakra circulation route.

He had not told anyone. Just like the future information in his memories, there was no way to explain it.

Aburame Tetsumaru also discovered that the process of extracting Chakra harmed the body. The safety threshold was very limited; going even slightly overboard would leave cells listless, reduce their activity, or even kill them.

However, after Chakra was successfully refined, the process of circulating through the body and gradually dissipating was beneficial. It promoted physical development, and the effect was extremely powerful.

After experimenting, Aburame Tetsumaru determined that circulating the Chakra Refinement Technique twice each day produced the best results. In particular, doing it once before sleep was best for physical development.

Aburame Tetsumaru followed the formula, and positive feedback soon arrived. His development noticeably accelerated.

An important sign of this accelerated development was that Aburame Tetsumaru grew taller and taller at an increasing rate. By his fourth birthday, he was taller than every five-year-old boy in the clan.

But faster development also meant a larger appetite, a more impulsive and irritable temperament, and stronger curiosity. Aburame Tetsumaru's uncontrollable habit of causing so many incidents definitely could not be unrelated to this.

Aburame Tetsumaru patiently waited for his uncles, nephews, and brothers to succeed. He held out until nearly dark, when Aburame Shixin successfully refined Chakra. Tetsumaru immediately pretended to succeed as well and claimed first place.

He needed the reputation of a genius, but not too much of a genius.

Last year, Aburame Masao had not yet been an orphan. Only two months later, after his grandfather died when his injuries flared up, did he truly become an orphan. Less than twenty days after that, he vanished.

Aburame Tetsumaru overheard Aunt Sachiko privately complaining that the village's Military Police Force was useless. A child had gone missing, yet they were not searching diligently, bullying an orphan because no one was there to care for him. Only then did he realize his cousin had disappeared.

Masao's disappearance was merely an unexpected event to the retired female ninja Sachiko. She basically did not take it to heart, at most privately complaining that the Konoha Military Police Force was unreliable.

Aburame Tetsumaru knew Root had already been established. This department would later develop the tradition of gathering bloodline ninja, collecting ninja clan children, and training orphans into expendable loyalists. It was difficult to say whether they had been responsible for Masao's case.

Ninja clan orphans were too high-risk. If they disappeared as orphans, no one would seriously search for them and no one would pursue responsibility. Their aptitude was higher than civilians', the chance of training them into experts was greater, and they also had research value.

He too had been born into a ninja clan, but with his parents' protection, he was far safer than an orphan. Yet his backing was not particularly solid. His father was from an Aburame branch family, an ordinary Chunin, while his mother was a medical Genin born a civilian. They were an utterly ordinary upper-middle-class family—without power, influence, or exceptional strength—and in this era, they had no security whatsoever.

If anything happened to his parents, he would become precarious in an instant.

His sense of crisis drove Aburame Tetsumaru to work actively and diligently. He began researching Chakra and mastered the Chakra Refinement Technique ahead of time. That bit of strength naturally meant nothing. What he needed was a reputation, one that could earn the attention and protection of the family's upper ranks.

But he could not be too monstrous, or he would arouse suspicion inside and outside the family and invite a fatal disaster. So he carefully arranged to "barely" surpass the main family's Shixin and gain the title of first place.

It happened to suit his reputation as king of the kids.

The next day, seven boys led by Aburame Feng Jiao from the branch families successfully refined Chakra.

The remaining eight boys continued attempting to refine Chakra in the courtyard, while the nine others, including Tetsumaru, Shixin, and Feng Jiao, were led by Elder Shihui into the large building within the forbidden ground.

The building was divided into left, center, and right rooms. The middle was a great hall open from front to back, where the ancestors were worshipped. The left room was an archive containing ninjutsu materials. The right room was the family armory, where stockpiled weapons were stored.

Passing through the great hall into the rear courtyard, they found a dense woodland. The four of them came to a clearing at its center, where a rustling sound emerged clearly from a stone tower as tall as a man.

"This stone tower is the foundation of our Aburame Family: the Kikaichū Insect Hive."

Elder Shihui stroked his beard and said with some pride,

"Kikaichū feed on Chakra, so they carry distinct personal imprints. One person's Kikaichū are difficult for another person to control."

"Either an experienced Insect User must spend a great deal of time cleansing the original Chakra imprint, or one must rely on inheritance through the Insect Hive."

"Kikaichū lay eggs in the Insect Hive. After seven days, under the Insect Hive's influence, unmarked Kikaichū can hatch. Only those can be inherited."

"However, you must remember this. The forbidden ground is not the foundation of our Aburame Clan, and the Insect Hive is not the key to inheritance. For our Aburame Family, Insect Users are the core, and the hatching technique placed upon the Insect Hive is the key. Nothing else matters."

Elder Shihui said with emotion, "During the Warring States Period, our Aburame Clan was not the only family of Insect Users. However, they all chose to make Summoning Insects the core of their inheritance, raising powerful Summoning Insects in special environments."

"Their Summoning Insects were stronger and fiercer than Kikaichū. Back then, encountering such powerful Summoning Insects on the battlefield was truly difficult to handle."

The Elder summoned his own Kikaichū and had them circle around him for the three children to see, then his tone changed.

"However, those families' Insect Users had their upper limits bound by their own insects. If the insects could not evolve, they could not advance in ninja rank. Yet the stronger an insect was, the harder it was for it to evolve."

"The biggest problem was that powerful Summoning Insects required special environments to be raised and reproduce, creating fixed vulnerable locations. Most of those Insect User families perished when their forbidden grounds were breached."

"Our Aburame Family uses people as its foundation. We produce more Jonin, our inheritance is more stable, and that is why we had the last laugh."

"Now, go up in order and receive your Kikaichū."

Next, Elder Aburame Shihui guided the nine children in luring Kikaichū, refining Chakra to feed them, leaving behind personal imprints, and finally guiding the Kikaichū to bite through the skin at the Neiguan acupoint on the inner side of their wrists and build nests within their bodies.

The nesting process was extremely painful. Their hands went numb and lost control, yet uncomfortable sensations such as itching, pain, and numbness became even clearer. The feeling of Kikaichū biting and crawling inside their bodies triggered instinctive fear.

Aburame Tetsumaru sweated profusely as he gritted his teeth and endured. Feng Jiao had tears and snot streaming down his face, while Shixin beside him began bawling loudly.

Only after the Kikaichū became tired and began resting did the nine children slowly regain control of their arms.

Then the Elder drove them out of the forbidden ground, giving them a few instructions before they left.

"Go home and work hard at refining Chakra. Nesting takes at least three days. The Kikaichū must eat their fill to finish on time. If they do not eat enough, they will not make it to the end."

Aburame Tetsumaru noticed that while Elder Shihui spoke, he had casually glanced at him several times. Good. The initial effect of fighting for first place had appeared. The Elder had remembered him, and that was very good.

After leaving the gates of the forbidden ground, several parents of the minors were already waiting outside. Shixin, Feng Jiao, and the others ran wailing into their mothers' arms for comfort, while the parents surrounded the children, either encouraging or consoling them.

Without a word, Aburame Tetsumaru walked over to his father and suffered a triple attack: head rub, neck rub, and hug.

After an entire day of intense focus and torment, Aburame Tetsumaru was exhausted. He had no strength to resist his bargain-bin father and obediently let his father carry him on his back home.

After returning home and eating, Aburame Tetsumaru recovered a little energy. He first checked the ant nest, then used ice to create a cooling environment. Before long, he delightedly saw the ants begin scurrying about in a panic.

Finally, Aburame Tetsumaru set up vacuum test tubes to collect air before resting at ease.

Late that night, the Kikaichū became active again.

He hurriedly got up and sat properly, refining Chakra to feed the Kikaichū. After the insects ate their fill, they became even more excited. Before long, his hands lost control again and dangled at his sides like noodles.

With no outsiders in the room now, Aburame Tetsumaru could no longer hold it in and began whimpering and groaning.

Outside the bedroom door, his bargain-bin father and mother came by again and again in turns. They listened to his sounds for a while, then quietly left.

The Kikaichū rested when they became tired, and once rested, they continued nesting. Aburame Tetsumaru did his utmost to keep supplying them with Chakra.

After five repetitions, the sky began to lighten. Aburame Tetsumaru muddled through the longest night of his life.