Konohagakure, Uchiha Clan Compound.
In an antique study, an old man and a young man sat facing each other.
Uchiha Setsuna, the Great Elder of the Shinobi World's foremost clan, looked with satisfaction at his handsome eldest grandson, whose brows were sharp as swords and eyes bright as stars, and slowly began to speak.
"Ren, Sarutobi Monkey has convened another Jonin meeting. From the looks of things, the Senju faction is about to buckle on the front lines."
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The elderly man, nearing sixty, had a gloomy, arrogant face. Neither his words nor his tone showed the slightest respect for Sarutobi Hiruzen, the Hokage of Konohagakure, one of the Five Great Shinobi Villages.
As he spoke, unmistakable scorn and disdain showed in his eyes.
He snorted. "If the Hokage Position had fallen to our Uchiha Clan, how could we have let the other villages run wild? What a bunch of incompetents!"
"If Uzumaki Mito hadn't been so stubborn back then, those people around Sarutobi Monkey should've been sent to the interrogation room. Who knows? Maybe they were the ones who killed the evil Senju Tobirama!"
At that, Uchiha Setsuna let out a mocking laugh. "The Second Hokage died in battle, yet the Hokage Guard Platoon, who were supposed to protect the Hokage, returned to the village completely unharmed after being pursued by Kumogakure—and one of them even became the Third Hokage!"
"The Hokage Position was handed out in private by the Senju faction. What a joke! What a damn farce!"
In Konohagakure, the Hokage Position was first decided from a list of candidates put forward by the village leadership. Then all active Jonin in the village voted, and the final choice was submitted to the Daimyo of the Land of Fire for confirmation.
Unfortunately, though the Uchiha were powerful, the Senju faction openly suppressed them, and they couldn't even make it past the first hurdle.
So, if you wanted to make it in the world, you couldn't just "ora ora" your way through it—you needed to have the right connections.
Watching his grandfather engage in his daily Hokage-bashing, Uchiha Ren was already used to it.
He slowly picked up the teacup before him, his expression making it clear that his grandfather's words went in one ear and out the other.
He took a small sip of tea. His clear black-and-white eyes gazed at the blue sky and white clouds outside the window, and he couldn't help sinking into thought.
Or, more accurately, his consciousness had entered the Sharingan space that had appeared after his transmigration and could be considered his cheat.
There were no landmarks of any kind. In the void, where up, down, left, and right were indistinguishable, only a cyan-white stone gate stood.
Its doors were shut, and there were no unnecessary decorations on it. It looked ancient and solemn.
"The great war is coming. I hope I can get something good today!"
Uchiha Ren pressed his hand against the door, a familiar motion, while channeling his Sharingan's power into it.
A hazy light shone across the door, revealing winding patterns. As they connected at both ends, faint, blurred characters could just be made out.
"I've been pouring my ocular power into the stone gate for more than ten years, ever since I awakened the Sharingan, but there's still a long way to go before I can truly open it."
Uchiha Ren looked at the ancient patterns on the stone gate and sighed inwardly.
He had lived two lives. He'd awakened his Sharingan at six, and now he was eighteen.
With Kage Level strength, he'd become one of the leaders among the clan's younger generation.
At the same time, he'd poured his Sharingan's power into the stone gate day and night, and the patterns had already spread across more than half of it.
But at the current rate, it would take at least another ten years for them to cover the entire gate.
"I'll only be able to speed things up once my Sharingan evolves into the Mangekyo Sharingan and gives me more powerful ocular energy."
As Uchiha Ren pondered this, a faint light spread across the stone gate and condensed into a bubble that floated before him.
He glanced at it and saw something interesting floating inside.
It looked like a slender, sexy woman wearing a tight skirt.
But she was covered in blood. One of her eyeballs dangled from its socket, and a large chunk of flesh had been bitten from her neck.
Her limbs twisted and thrashed, and her bloodied mouth gaped open in a silent howl.
"I didn't expect to get a zombie. I wonder what sort of surprises the stone gate will bring me once it's fully open."
Uchiha Ren had long known that whatever came from the stone gate was entirely up to chance. It was completely unreliable.
At first, he'd drawn things like pornographic novels and weeds from the roadside. But as the Tomoe in his Sharingan evolved, the things that appeared in the bubbles gradually became more useful.
For example, the Nichirin Sword from the world of Demon Slayer, and magic from Frieren: Beyond Journey's End that he could learn and use with his mutated Sharingan's power.
So far, he hadn't seen any living creatures, but he'd drawn all sorts of other things.
The randomness was just too great, so the things the stone gate had produced over the years hadn't helped Uchiha Ren much.
He wasn't like his fellow transmigrators, who became Jonin at three, Kage Level at five, and entered the Six Paths realm at seven.
Getting something good was entirely a matter of luck.
[Item: Corpse]
[Evaluation: A corpse from another world. The genetic virus in its body has a little value.]
[Origin: Highschool of the Dead]
"Tch. A bouncing-breasts apocalypse. If I had a capable research team, this could come in handy."
"If it shares a universe with Resident Evil or even Infinite Flow, then extracting the T-Virus and unlocking the human Gene Lock would be a huge win."
Uchiha Ren's eyes flickered as he skimmed the information in the bubble.
Several outstanding scientists and doctors from the Naruto world came to mind.
He temporarily set aside the idea of drawing blood from the zombie and giving someone an injection to test whether it would cause an evolution. Then he moved the bubble containing the zombie to one side.
After his daily draw was over, Uchiha Ren's consciousness returned to his body. He saw that his grandfather had finished his usual Hokage-bashing, taken a sip of tea to moisten his throat, and fixed his slightly cloudy gaze on him.
After giving the matter some thought, he said, "After the Jonin assembly, Sarutobi Monkey met privately with the clan head. He wants our clan to head to the eastern battlefield and guard against Kirigakure, which seems ready to make a move. Ren, what do you think?"
"What do I think?"
Uchiha Ren paused, then asked instead, "That depends on what our clan wants and what sort of situation we'll be facing."
"Oh? Let's hear it."
Uchiha Setsuna chuckled softly, his eyes shining as he looked at his good grandson.
Strong, shrewd, and clever.
He was many times better than Uchiha Fugaku, the clan head's dull-witted son.
"That indecisive brat thinks he can stop Ren from becoming clan head? What a joke!" Uchiha Setsuna thought with disdain.
My grandson has what it takes to lead the clan!
But when he heard Uchiha Ren's next words, the corners of his slightly raised mouth fell.
"Grandfather, as long as Sarutobi Hiruzen and the others, whose minds were poisoned by Senju Tobirama, remain in Konoha's leadership, our clan's long-held ambition to produce a Hokage will never come true."
Noticing the slight twitch in the Great Elder's face, Uchiha Ren kept his expression unchanged. After a pause, he continued.
"So instead of chasing the unrealistic Hokage Position, we should take every benefit Sarutobi Hiruzen is willing to offer us."
"Strengthening our clan matters far more than chasing the Hokage Position, which is nothing but a castle in the air!"
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