Start Adding Points

Shuichi then made his way unhurriedly to the wholesale food market, planning to prepare his own breakfast, lunch, and dinner for quite some time to come.

Thinking about it, Shuichi suddenly realized there was a problem with his financial situation. The more he thought about it, the more he felt he had discovered something very important.

In Konoha, ordinary villagers seemed to live in harmony with the ninja, like one big family. In truth, though, there was much about ninja that ordinary villagers knew absolutely nothing about.

One such thing was ninja income. Konoha had the best reputation among the ninja villages, and the ninja within the village generally spent lavishly. At the same time, ninja of Chunin rank and above never disclosed how much they earned from missions.

Take Shuichi's father, Takeda Kenta, for example. Shuichi vaguely remembered that his father had already been a Special Jonin by the time he was old enough to understand things.

Judging by how long his father had been active during the Second Great Ninja War, he must have completed at least ten S-rank missions over the course of his ninja career.

Since Shuichi had carefully recalled the plot of Naruto at home, he could not be certain of the exact rewards for missions of each rank. But one thing was certain: an S-rank mission paid more than 1,000,000 Ryo, while even the D-rank missions Genin used for practice could pay over 10,000 Ryo if the client was generous.

Considering that his mother had been a Chunin in the Medical Unit, Shuichi could say with certainty that, if he inherited everything successfully, he should have at least 3,000,000 Ryo.

At present, aside from the small house the village had assigned him, he received 2,000 Ryo in living expenses from the village every month.

Shuichi began calculating in his head. In the anime, Ichiraku Ramen was considered one of the most affordable shops in the village, and its cheapest plain ramen cost 60 Ryo a bowl.

Going by standard food costs, and assuming Ichiraku was an honest merchant who made all his noodles by hand, even buying decent noodles elsewhere would cost at least 20 Ryo per serving. If he ate frugally, a day of plain noodles might still cost close to 50 Ryo.

He had originally planned to switch to a healthy diet starting tomorrow: bread and milk for breakfast, with rice, vegetables, and meat for lunch and dinner. Physical fitness was one of the most important foundations for a ninja and absolutely could not be neglected.

But after doing the math, even someone as rational as Shuichi suddenly started to panic a little. He had no mind left for anything else and immediately quickened his pace toward the nearest rice shop.

It was already afternoon, yet there were still quite a few people outside the rice shop. Shuichi did not try to cut in line. Instead, he stood beside the last person in the queue, hopping about and looking around in hopes of spotting a wooden price board.

The people ahead noticed the little child bouncing around behind them for some unknown reason. After kindly asking what he needed, they told him the price of rice.

By the time Shuichi left the rice shop, half his heart had already gone cold. He immediately turned into the butcher shop next door.

Konoha's commercial district had been planned somewhat like those of the modern era. Rice shops, butcher shops, seafood shops, and all sorts of other stores stood close together along the same street, so he quickly checked the prices at every kind of meat shop.

Without question, Shuichi's lavish meal plan, combined with efficient training, had hit a wall because of money. The cheapest rice cost more than twice as much as the same amount of noodles, while meat cost at least five times more.

Vegetable shops stood on the other side of the street. With somewhat heavy footsteps, he headed over there.

Time passed quickly. Shuichi visited every place that sold food, then went straight home and began calculating at the table with a pen in hand.

According to his calculations, after deducting his monthly living expenses from the 2,000 Ryo—and assuming he spent not a single Ryo on anything else—the best menu he could manage was this: instant noodles three days a week, noodles as his main food for the remaining four days with rice only occasionally, plus a little meat for one meal on one of those days.

After finishing his calculations, Shuichi did not despair. He had already made a rough estimate in his mind after seeing the prices.

When he had first transmigrated a few days ago, there had still been some supplies at home. Besides, he had not been in the mood to eat at the time, only taking a little food whenever he felt hungry enough to fill his stomach. That was why he had forgotten about this issue.

Now, he had truly gotten his first taste of the darkness of this Ninja World. And this was Konoha, the best ninja village, where his parents could barely be considered upper class.

He did not even dare think about the harsher ninja villages outside, or how the countless ordinary civilians there lived.

Though he had discovered so many difficulties, Shuichi did not abandon his original plan. As the great men said, there were always more solutions than difficulties. Even Naruto, with the conditions he had in the original story, had managed to endure. As someone with a mature way of thinking, Shuichi should have it easier.

After mentally planning things out, he decided to finish the more important matters over the next few days before considering how to solve the money problem. Once Shuichi had adjusted his mindset and filled in the details of his plan, he went to bed early.

Early the next morning, after getting himself ready, Shuichi set off for the outskirts of Konoha's central district. Konoha was truly quite large. By his estimate, taking Hokage Rock as the center, the area within a semicircle of at least 500 meters in radius was all part of Konoha.

The central district could be considered the first ring, with second and third rings beyond it. The farther out one went, however, the more trees were mixed in among the clusters of houses.

Shuichi had now reached a street around the third ring. He found a stretch of road that was clear, level, and sparsely populated, then began exploring from an intersection for a route suitable for running practice.

After circling back to the original intersection along three different routes, Shuichi took several deep breaths, loosened up his limbs, then chose the best route he had found and began to run.

As he ran, he maintained a rhythm of breathing out every two steps and breathing in every two steps, keeping his pace steady. After running for a while, he discovered that the people of this world had physical abilities far beyond those of his previous world.

Chakra was described as energy extracted from 130 trillion cells. Humans in his previous world had only around 40 trillion cells in their entire bodies, which meant that, in terms of physical ability alone, people in this world should be at least three times stronger. That did not even include the enhancement Chakra would provide later.

The world's top marathon runners in his memories could reach speeds of twenty kilometers per hour. So even though Shuichi was a child now, he was still far stronger than he had been before transmigrating.

Shuichi did not calculate how long he had run. He only counted how many laps he completed along the route he had chosen, stopping just before his breathing became noticeably uneven. He then walked slowly, taking note of how his body felt at that moment.

Once he had a rough grasp of it, he returned directly to his residence. He briefly reviewed the plot again, practiced the basics of hand seals, then made himself a good lunch and ate until he was full.

By the afternoon, Shuichi felt that he had fully digested his meal and that his stamina had recovered to its best state. He returned once more to the starting point of the route he had run that morning.

"Time to start adding points!"