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[Ding - Congratulations to the host for obtaining a random reward: Space Ring.]

"My god, a Space Ring!"

Torifu's eyes were glued to the silver-white ring inside the gift box, and he had no intention of hiding the grin on his face!

He never imagined that such a random gift box could yield something this incredible!

Torifu immediately took the ring out, and the moment it left the box, the gift box dissolved into specks of light and vanished.

But Torifu was in no mood to worry about how it disappeared; he was busy examining the Space Ring with intense focus.

The Space Ring was entirely silver-white, engraved with unknown characters, and topped with an extremely pure, sparkling, colorless transparent gemstone.

Torifu couldn't wait to put the ring on his finger. Mimicking the fantasy novels he had read in his past life, he channeled his mental energy into the ring, and sure enough, he could sense the space within.

"I... damn." A thousand words couldn't describe Torifu's current mood better than those two.

Because he couldn't see the boundaries of this ring! Unsure if it was as he had guessed, Torifu immediately ran to his family's secret chamber!

He began putting the collection inside one by one into the Space Ring!

But as the very last scroll was tucked into the ring, Torifu became incredibly excited!

"This Space Ring seems to have no boundaries! It can store things infinitely!"

Torifu truly couldn't believe it; the gift given by this system was actually this invincible!

Perhaps it was just that the ring's space was so vast that the items Torifu had stored hadn't filled it up yet.

But regardless, this ring would provide Torifu with immense help!

"I'll never have to eat Military Ration Pill again!"

He was in a fantastic mood, never expecting that the system he had been cursing all this time would actually gift him such a treasure!

Although his own luck played a part, Torifu decided that he wouldn't curse the system for the next three days.

That was already his limit!

Although he had become stronger since getting the system, Torifu's peaceful days had vanished along with it.

These past few days had been nothing but fighting, training, executing missions, or enemies coming for his life!

He really missed the days when he could lie on the grass and listen to the babbling of the stream.

However, Torifu was someone with strong self-regulation skills; he wouldn't let bad moods affect him too much, and a little bit of appropriate emo-ing could refresh the mind and body, preventing depression.

Coming back to his senses, he looked at the empty secret chamber and put everything he had just stored in the ring back where it belonged.

The main reason was that he had already learned most of the ninjutsu inside; keeping them in the ring didn't take up space, but it was messy.

Also, in case he ever met with an accident, these could serve as his legacy; leaving them to the village could be considered a gift.

Torifu then left the secret chamber. It was still early, and there was no need to stay home, cold and lonely.

After leaving the clan grounds, Torifu wandered the streets of Konoha. At this hour, everyone had mostly finished dinner, making it the perfect time for a stroll.

Just as Torifu passed by the Ninja Academy, he saw three familiar figures.

The three of them spotted Torifu as well and began calling out loudly: "Hey! Torifu!"

Torifu waved at the three of them. It had been a long time since he had seen Maruboshi Kosuke, Shinku, and Umino Ikkaku.

Maruboshi Kosuke and the others ran up to Torifu and gave him a light, friendly punch on the shoulder.

"We haven't seen you at the academy for so many days! Where did you run off to?"

Shinku chimed in as well: "Yeah, we thought you'd been expelled. We asked Mizunari-sensei, but he wouldn't tell us anything."

Hearing their complaints, Torifu finally recalled that, indeed, he hadn't seen Kosuke or Shinku since that practical combat class ended.

He hadn't had time to explain it to them back then before he was summoned to the office of the Hokage.

After that, he had been busy training with his master and Tobirama, so he never went back to the academy.

"Sorry, Kosuke, Shinku, Ikkaku. Actually, after that day, I was taken in as a disciple by the Hokage, so I haven't been back to school."

As soon as he said this, Torifu noticed that his three friends had suddenly gone quiet, and he felt a pang of regret.

He really shouldn't have said it like that; he didn't know if it would deal a blow to their young hearts.

After a moment, Shinku, usually the most composed of the group, spoke up uncertainly: "Torifu, are you... really already the Hokage's disciple?"

Torifu took a deep breath and nodded.

Since he had already said it, being evasive now would only seem petty.

At this, Maruboshi Kosuke patted Torifu on the shoulder, his face beaming with a smile.

"Haha! You scared me! Although it's truly shocking that you've become the Hokage's disciple, knowing you're alright means we don't have to worry anymore."

Umino Ikkaku nodded as well, offering his most sincere congratulations to Torifu for becoming the Hokage's disciple; after all, they were all good friends!

Torifu breathed a sigh of relief. He had been worried about affecting Kosuke and the others, but it turned out he had been overthinking it.

Torifu then shared some of his experiences from the past few days with his friends, opening the eyes of these children who weren't even ninjas yet.

They never expected that Torifu was already so powerful that he could fight side-by-side with Hiruzen Sarutobi and the others! And it looked like they had a pretty good relationship, too!

This also made them yearn for the life of a ninja more and more.

Torifu did not tell them about the cruelty of being a ninja so early; shattering someone else's dreams was the most malicious thing one could do.

After carefully selecting and recounting what he had seen and heard along the way during this mission, Torifu shared some of his own insights regarding chakra and the cultivation of ninjutsu with the three of them.

Although they had not yet begun to learn ninjutsu, they would be able to put this information to use sooner or later.

After chatting for a while longer, Maruboshi Kosuke suddenly remembered that they still had things to do, so he hurried away in a rush.

Watching them run off into the distance, Torifu revealed a faint smile before continuing his stroll through Konoha.

Although he appeared to be a six-year-old child on the surface, Torifu's soul, combined across two lifetimes, was already nearly thirty years old.

Yet, he was miraculously able to get along with these genuine children, which might have had something to do with his personality in his previous life.

Back then, his friends often told him that even though he was in his twenties, he still acted like a child.

But Torifu felt that a larger part of the reason was that he viewed every single person here as a living, breathing human being.

He did not treat everyone as an NPC just because he had transmigrated into another world and watched a few episodes of an anime, nor did he consider himself the destined protagonist of this world.

It was precisely because he had watched the anime that Torifu could deeply empathize with the fact that everyone here was striving for the sake of their families and their village.

From the Hokage down to the children who had just enrolled in the academy, this was true for everyone.

Torifu hated having transmigrated into this era because it was a time of frequent wars where human lives were as cheap as blades of grass.

But he also loved having transmigrated into this era, because he could witness with his own eyes what the future of a Konoha that included him would look like.