Cultivation

"Haah, I fell asleep without realizing it."

The next morning, a groggy Gu Qi stretched and only then noticed he'd dozed off slumped over his desk yesterday.

"To actually catch you studying—who are you, and what have you done with the real you?"

At that moment, Kakashi's voice suddenly sounded behind Gu Qi, instantly jolting the still-drowsy boy into goosebumps.

Gu Qi couldn't help rolling his eyes. "Kakashi, you know that scaring people can kill them, right?"

"Tch, with guts like yours, you'd be fine." Kakashi said dismissively.

Gu Qi ignored him, walked to the window, and closed the wide-open pane to block out the cold wind outside.

"There's a door, but you still climb through the window. No wonder you can't get a girlfriend." Gu Qi muttered.

Kakashi's forehead sprouted a vein of black lines. He had no clue what climbing windows had to do with not having a girlfriend.

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Of course it does. What girl would like a peeping tom?" Gu Qi said scornfully.

"..."

Kakashi really wanted to punch Gu Qi, but remembering the purpose of his visit, he decided to let it slide for now.

"Pakkun said you dug up your father's research scroll?"

"Huh?" Gu Qi looked completely baffled, having no idea what Kakashi was talking about.

Seeing Gu Qi's confusion, Kakashi cut straight to the point. "The scroll for the Ration Pill dried meat—where did you get it?"

"That... I stumbled across it in a corner of the storage room." Gu Qi said, a little guilty.

Kakashi nodded. "Then that's right. Pakkun said the handwriting on the scroll was your father's. I think the dried meat recipe was one of his old projects."

"Ah, oh, oh!" Σ(°Д°;

Gu Qi was speechless. What the hell was all this?

"I... my father... what kind of person was he?" Hearing Kakashi mention his father for the first time, Gu Qi couldn't help asking.

Kakashi seemed to sink into memory. "An elder with a pretty carefree personality—completely the black sheep of the Hatake Clan. Come to think of it, your personality is a bit like your father's."

"...Oh." Gu Qi really wanted to ask if his cheap father was actually a transmigrator.

He remembered that in the original story, the Hatake Clan was supposed to have only Kakashi left.

But in this world, Kakashi somehow had a cousin like him.

That made Gu Qi wonder if he'd transmigrated into some Naruto fanfic, and his father was actually the original protagonist.

"Speaking of which, I've got quite a few of your father's research notes at my place. I'll have Pakkun bring them over later. If you're interested, you can take a look." Kakashi said offhandedly.

"Got it, got it."

"About the dried meat—I suggest you sell the recipe. Neither of us is cut out for business. Of course, you can also keep it. I'll respect your choice." Kakashi advised.

Gu Qi had already made up his mind. He knew selling the recipe would maximize profit, so Kakashi's suggestion matched his own thoughts.

"I'll leave it to you. Handle it for me." Gu Qi said without any hesitation.

"Mm. I've got a mission right away. When I get back, I'll take care of it for you." Kakashi didn't refuse.

"Another mission?" Gu Qi frowned. Kakashi's break had only lasted a few days—he hadn't expected him to be sent out again so soon.

Kakashi said calmly, "The Cloud Ninja are getting restless. Time to teach them a lesson."

"Oh. Be careful." Gu Qi said with some worry.

He knew that in the original story, Kakashi lived all the way to the end. But in this world, Gu Qi couldn't guarantee anything.

Kakashi ruffled Gu Qi's hair and smiled with narrowed eyes. "Don't worry. I'll come back safe."

"...Take your paw off."

Kakashi seemed to be in a hurry to leave. After leaving Gu Qi some spending money, he took a box of dried meat and left Gu Qi's house.

With Kakashi gone, Gu Qi immediately returned to living alone.

And along with Kakashi, most of the named jonin in the village had also left.

Seeing this, Gu Qi guessed that Konoha was preparing a big gift for the Cloud Ninja, trying to force them into a peace treaty.

But that wasn't something Gu Qi could get involved in. For now, he just needed to study hard and train hard.

Only by accumulating enough strength could he afford to participate in the main storyline nine years from now.

"Finally done."

A week later, in Gu Qi's kitchen, as he carefully poured a cup of clear liquor into a palm-sized gourd, it marked the completion of his latest batch of Secret Brew.

As expected, from over two hundred jin of fermented mash, after distillation and filtration, only about a hundred jin of finished liquor remained.

Gu Qi packed this finished liquor into a hundred small gourds.

"Secret Brew, Secret Recipe Dried Meat... turns out they're items from that game."

Earlier, Gu Qi had felt that the names Secret Brew and Secret Recipe Dried Meat were very familiar.

After thinking it over, he finally remembered that these items came from a game on his phone in his past life.

Even the Crimson Pill the system had gifted earlier was from that same game.

Realizing this, Gu Qi, who had still held some expectations for the system, suddenly felt like the system was just reusing ready-made stuff too.

But even so, Gu Qi could only cling to the system's coattails and see it through to the end.

He put the gourd filled with Secret Brew into a wooden box, then made five more trips back and forth to store these boxes in the basement of the Ninja Tool Shop.

This place was originally used for storing odds and ends; aside from Gu Qi, even Pakkun and the others rarely came in.

So Gu Qi felt pretty at ease leaving the Secret Brew here.

After finishing all that, Gu Qi skillfully flipped the sign to "Closed" and placed it at the shop entrance, then grabbed some jerky and a few bottles of Secret Brew before leaving the Ninja Tool Shop.

Ever since Kakashi taught Gu Qi how to refine Chakra, Gu Qi found himself stuck in some kind of bottleneck.

For two straight days, Gu Qi noticed that his Chakra had basically stopped increasing at all.

Gu Qi understood that only two paths lay before him now: one was to slowly bide his time—once he grew up, his Chakra reserves would naturally increase.

The other was to find a way to break through his limits and step onto a new level.

Unwilling to just sit around and wait, Gu Qi decided to choose the second path.

After all, he had the Secret Brew—as long as he got injured, he could use it to recover and prevent any hidden damage from affecting his future growth.

So, with no worries holding him back, Gu Qi left the Ninja Tool Shop and strolled straight toward the outskirts of Konoha.

In this world, untouched by industry, the one thing never in short supply was all kinds of forests.

From his limited memories, Gu Qi often recalled seeing the main characters in anime training in little forests.

So Gu Qi decided to go with the flow and picked a random small forest to start his training grind.

After wrapping his hands with bandages, Gu Qi began his warm-up exercises.

Although Kakashi hadn't taught Gu Qi how to refine Chakra before, he had still taught him quite a bit of basic Taijutsu.

It was a last resort—if he didn't teach him, letting Gu Qi train blindly could easily mess up his body.

Kakashi might have the title of Copy Ninja, but back in the day, he was a swordsman.

When it came to Taijutsu, while he couldn't compare to masters like Might Guy, he was more than enough to teach Gu Qi.

After finishing his warm-up, Gu Qi started pounding on the big tree in front of him.

When Gu Qi couldn't punch anymore, he directly ate a piece of jerky.

The exhaustion from the high-intensity training vanished instantly, and Gu Qi was back at full strength.

Recharged, Gu Qi resumed his assault on the tree.

When his knuckles became a bloody mess from the prolonged beating, Gu Qi grabbed the Secret Brew and took a gulp.

The fiery liquid slid down his throat into his stomach, and a warm current spread through his entire body.

Slowly, Gu Qi felt a cool sensation emerge from the wounds on his joints.

He unwrapped the bandages and saw that the injured joints had actually healed.

"Damn impressive!" Gu Qi couldn't help but exclaim at the astonishing sight.

Having been a little worried before, Gu Qi now saw how powerful the Secret Brew was and, free of any concerns, decided to keep training.

So for the entire day, Gu Qi only left the forest, slightly tipsy, after he had finally broken the towering ancient tree before him.