Arriving

"If only I knew how to walk on walls and rooftops!" Qi Shuang sighed as he gazed at the crowded street ahead.

The apartment he rented was not far from his company, about a ten-minute walk away. However, whenever rush hour came, the streets filled with people like him heading to work.

A ten-minute journey was forcibly extended to twenty because of the sheer number of pedestrians.

If he knew how to walk on walls and rooftops, he could take a shortcut and would not have to worry about being late for work all the time.

Suddenly, he felt someone pat him on the shoulder.

When he turned his head, a slightly childish face appeared in his field of vision.

It was a child under ten years old, who was withdrawing his hand from Qi Shuang's shoulder. Judging by the situation, he had been the one to pat him.

Why would there be a child here at this time of day? Qi Shuang was puzzled.

"Wait!"

"Something seems wrong!"

He noticed a group of children of about the same age behind that child. More importantly, a layer of wooden flooring covered the ground beneath the child's feet.

He had walked this route to work more than a thousand times, but he did not remember any section of it having wooden flooring!

Coming to his senses, he immediately looked around and suddenly realized that he was no longer on his usual route to work. Instead, he was in an extremely spacious hall, its ceiling covered with bright lights that resembled stars and illuminated the entire hall as though it were daytime!

"Wait! Why can't I see the top of his head?" Qi Shuang discovered an even stranger problem.

Although he was not particularly tall himself—only about average height—an adult's stature should have allowed him to look down at a child under ten.

Yet now, he found that his line of sight was level with the child's.

That meant he had probably become shorter!

He immediately looked down, only to discover that his feet were more than one size smaller. Even his clothes had changed.

"How did this happen?" he asked in horror, raising his tender little hands.

All these abnormalities made him realize that he might no longer be in the world where he had been rushing to work. Instead, he had come to an unknown world.

What was even more frightening was that his body had become smaller. Or perhaps this was no longer his original body at all.

"Hey, Xiao Lin! What's wrong?" Seeing his strange expression, the child asked in surprise.

"Xiao Lin? Who's Xiao Lin?" Qi Shuang suddenly raised his head, only to find the other child staring fixedly at him.

At that moment, the name "Xiao Lin" seemed to trigger some crucial nerve in his body, and a series of memories surged into his mind like a tidal wave.

"Ah—"

Qi Shuang cried out, clutched his head, and crouched down in agony.

Those memories that had suddenly appeared felt like a nail forcibly driven into his brain, causing his head to throb as though it were splitting apart.

"Teacher! Something seems wrong with Xiao Lin! Sorry for the trouble, but please come over and take a look!" Seeing his pale face, the child immediately called for the two adults at the edge of the hall.

They were two men wearing gray light armor and forehead protectors bearing four wave-like markings.

"These brats are such a hassle!" One of them frowned, clearly reluctant to go over.

The other curled his lips and said helplessly, "You should be content! We're training these little ones in the rear instead of being sent to the front lines. That's already the greatest stroke of luck!"

"I heard there are countless dead and wounded on the front lines! With the little ability we two have, I doubt we'd survive three days!"

As he spoke, he strode over.

"I understand what you're saying, but facing this bunch of brats every day really makes it hard to stay cheerful!" The man shook his head and followed closely behind.

"Hey, kid! What's wrong?" one of them asked Qi Shuang, who was crouching on the ground with his head in his hands.

"My head... my head... it hurts... it hurts so badly!" Qi Shuang forced the words through clenched teeth.

"Headache?"

The other man scratched his head, then said to his companion, "Try your Healing Technique on him. He was fine just now, so it shouldn't be anything serious!"

"Mm!"

His companion answered and immediately extended both hands, holding them a fist's distance above Qi Shuang's head. A pale green light then radiated from his hands.

"Wow... so that's the Healing Technique? It's so convenient! I want to learn it too!" Seeing this, one of the surrounding children immediately showed an envious expression.

"Mm-hmm! Me too!" The other children echoed him.

"What are you looking at? Are you all that idle? Your ninja graduation exam is coming up! Are you ready? Do you want to die in the examination hall?" The other man wearing a forehead protector immediately shouted at the children.

At the word "die," all the children's faces turned deathly pale. They warily sized up the companions beside them.

Some of them even revealed undisguised killing intent!

The children who had been playing together amicably moments ago instantly became enemies who seemed ready to turn on each other at any moment.

"That's more like it!"

Only then did the man nod in satisfaction. He continued, "As ninjas, you should remain vigilant at all times!"

"Especially during the ninja graduation exam later. The person who kills you might be your best friend right now!"

"So every examinee here is your enemy!"

"When facing enemies, you must remain highly alert! Cut off all distractions. Only then can you pass the graduation exam successfully!"

At those words, the entire hall fell silent. Yet among the children, the atmosphere of slaughter grew increasingly intense.

"How are you feeling now?" The green light on his hands faded, and the man immediately asked Qi Shuang.

"Thank you, Teacher. I feel much better!" Releasing his head, Qi Shuang slowly stood up and replied with a smile.

With the help of that man, he had finally finished digesting the sudden flood of memories.

He finally knew where he was.

This was the Hidden Mist Ninja Village. He had come to the world of Naruto!

That extremely famous anime world!

More precisely, his consciousness was now inside this body, which was about to face the ninja graduation exam.

And that was exactly where the problem lay.

It would have been one thing if his consciousness had possessed the body of a child from one of the other Four Great Villages. But of all things, he had ended up possessing a child from the Hidden Mist Ninja Village.

From the memories, he knew that the Hidden Mist Ninja Village's ninja graduation exam had an extremely bizarre and cruel rule.

A student had to kill another examinee in the same examination hall to graduate successfully!

For someone from modern civilization, killing another person was an unbearably heavy burden.

He did not know whether he could bring himself to do it.

More importantly, once they officially entered the examination hall, it was impossible to say who would kill whom.

If he were the original owner of this body, it would have been fine. Although the boy was young, he had at least received proper ninja training and was already an apprentice ninja.

In a fight to the death against examinees his own age, he would have had about a fifty-fifty chance of success.

But Qi Shuang had only just arrived in this world. Even if he possessed all the body's memories and knew every ability "he" possessed, there was still a difference between knowing something and being practiced at it.

After all, the one controlling the body now was Qi Shuang's own consciousness.

Knowing how to do something was one matter; being proficient at it was another.

If he hurried into the examination hall like this, the odds of being killed were probably as high as ninety-nine percent!