The Program's Conjecture

How to become stronger is a question that requires deep contemplation.

Hiroki agreed to this promise without much hesitation, but he spent the entire journey thinking about it.

He was still doing so even as he walked into the ramen shop.

The shop's noren was pushed aside, and the rich aroma of pork bone broth instantly enveloped the two of them.

Uzumaki Kushina acted as if she had returned to her most familiar territory, boldly ordering the largest bowls of chashu ramen for both of them. She then rested her chin on her hands, staring at the kitchen with eyes full of anticipation, looking as if what was about to appear before her wasn't just ramen, but a shortcut to the path of the Hokage.

Hiroki sat across from her, his thoughts gradually becoming more active.

He picked up his chopsticks and looked at the steam rising from the bowl, contemplating the "System"—his unique cheat—which was composed of countless data streams and folders.

How to become stronger?

If it were just a matter of planning his own path to strength, it was exceptionally clear to him.

That path was to rely on his cheat. Although as a reader, Hiroki had looked down on those transmigrators who used cheats before he transmigrated, as a normal person living in a ninja world where one could die at any moment, it would be idiotic not to use a cheat if you had one.

He didn't think he could catch up to Uzumaki Naruto or those overpowered freaks from the Uchiha clan without using his cheat.

If he wanted to become stronger, if he wanted to reach a point where he could ignore the Nine-Tails incident and all the various risks of the future, he had to use his cheat to rapidly increase his strength.

As for how to grow stronger through the cheat, Hiroki had some ideas.

Hiroki believed that the essence of his cheat's ability was the reading and modification of "information." Under the System's judgment, thoughts, ninjutsu, memories, and ideas were almost all programs and data that could be edited.

The Brain Overload Attack he had programmed last time was the most intuitive verification of this.

Thoughts are information data, so thoughts can be proliferated and copied, serving as a means of data attack.

During the lesson against Jiraiya's shadow clone, Hiroki had located and modified the "cache folder" in the opponent's brain, writing in a massive amount of junk cache to cause an instantaneous system crash—a brief blankness of consciousness.

Theoretically, then, other things should also be systems at the level of his cheat.

For example, the ninjutsu he copied, the memories he viewed, or even the generated urge to urinate.

As long as he started trying to understand the meaning of the code and attempted to write files using this cheat system, becoming stronger should be a very simple matter.

After all, Hiroki could copy other people's ninjutsu, and he could also write his own programs, software, and files.

From this perspective, the logic for making others stronger and making himself stronger was the same—understand the code, understand the system, and then increase his ability to read and write code.

The Brain Overload Attack was essentially the effect achieved by modifying files in someone else's brain. With the same principles, since he could attack by modifying and writing files, he could similarly make others stronger by modifying and writing files.

The Brain Overload Attack simply used the principle of indiscriminate cache replication to overload a person's thoughts, making them unable to think for a short time. If he reversed that thought—what if he changed it into a filter that only left behind thoughts of studying hard and training hard? Would a person then be able to start training or studying with an extremely clear mind?

This level of software was not difficult to implement in terms of programming.

Moreover, this was just the application of a basic program. What if he modified more than just a small cache file?

Hiroki's thoughts began to wander.

He could delve into more core system files and modify them. For example, the drivers that processed visual and auditory information.

Could he write an automated script? He could set a trigger condition—for instance, when the "visual driver" captured information about an object flying at high speed that matched the characteristics of a "kunai," the system would no longer need to go through the long "think-react" path of the cerebral cortex. Instead, the script would directly call the "muscle control file" to execute the optimal dodging maneuver.

Isn't this just like a cheat in a MOBA game for movement or an aim-lock script in an FPS?

His reaction speed would no longer be limited by his own thinking and reflexes, but would rely on the System's judgment.

Take physical training and memory writing as another example.

Logically, learning something on his own is slow, but his memory disk seemed to contain everything he had ever seen or heard. It was highly likely that there was no index directory connecting those files to the relevant skills and knowledge.

If he created an index directory, would that mean he could call up the corresponding knowledge in an instant?

By the same token, muscle growth and strength enhancement—based on Hiroki's understanding of his own system, muscle growth should also be controlled by a series of complex biological instruction files.

Through training, he triggered muscle damage, and through that damage, the body was signaled that muscles needed to grow to cope with the situation.

Could Hiroki skip the middle chain and directly program the system to "Start Program—Automatic Muscle Growth," "Stop Program—Muscle Growth Ceases"?

He could absolutely try to modify the files, skipping the primitive method of inputting external commands through "hard training," and instead modify these underlying files to create an "Automatic Muscle Growth" script.

As long as the energy (food) supply was sufficient, his body could undergo optimized growth twenty-four hours a day, at maximum efficiency, under the control of the script.

Hiroki was almost certain that these things were achievable.

This was his own, most perfect path to becoming stronger.

However, when his gaze fell once again on the red-haired girl across from him, who was slurping her noodles with a face full of happiness, another question emerged.

How could he make her stronger too?

There must be a strong correlation between making others stronger and making himself stronger.

If he could parse the various files in his brain, including the "ninjutsu files" that recorded the casting processes, could he "copy" and "paste" these files to Kushina?

This was also an exploration and application of the System.

This was also what Hiroki had been thinking about before the assessment.

If he could copy ninjutsu files to others, and if he could let Kushina skip the process of "entering the system—executing the program—releasing the ninjutsu," then theoretically, he could not only manipulate the spread of ninjutsu in the ninja world at will, but he could also spread self-replicating, auto-starting virus programs, making everyone else in the ninja world a system hijacked by him.

Once this thought took root, it grew wildly.

He could become the god of the entire ninja world at any moment!

However, Hiroki calmed down immediately because two massive, garbled-code-like problems stood before him.

First was the issue of consumption. He recalled the sensation of casting Lightning Style: False Darkness in the cave. The technique was undoubtedly powerful, but in a single instant, the "battery" within his body had been nearly drained; the system had even issued a low-battery warning, which directly led to his subsequent coma.

The problem was that Hiroki remembered that when he copied a ninjutsu, he also inherited the other person's experience with it. He knew clearly that casting False Darkness should not have consumed that much chakra.

So, what exactly was consuming the chakra?

Was it a bug?

If so, why would a B-rank ninjutsu cause such a terrifying drain on his battery?

And what principle did this battery consumption follow?

Was it because he had forcibly "run" a program he didn't possess, causing a system compatibility issue that resulted in massive resource waste and system overheating, thereby consuming a large amount of battery?

Before figuring out the conversion ratio between this "energy" and the "program," he dared not easily attempt higher-level ninjutsu files. He didn't know if a massive bug might occur, causing him to crash.

If a computer crashes, you can just cut the power and restart it, but if he were to crash, who knows if he would just be dead after shutting down.

Second, and even more critical, was the issue of interface and installation.

Even if he successfully copied the Lightning Style: False Darkness ninjutsu file into Kushina's brain, how would she "use" this file?

This was like copying a computer program to another person; how would the other party "install" it? How would they "open" it? How would they "run" it?

Many computer novices were already unfamiliar with computers, let alone in the ninja world, where he had no way to explain how to use a computer to these primitive people who had never seen or used one.

Moreover, they didn't have a visual operating interface like he did.

What would they use to "double-click" this file? Spiritual energy? Thinking deeper, he didn't even know if they could see the files he transmitted.

Real computers still require various drivers and compatibility patches to accommodate different programs, and in the environment of this ninja world, to put it bluntly, Hiroki even felt that different races, genders, and ages might all be using different, incompatible "systems."

For example, for the same ninjutsu, some people use over forty hand seals, some only need four, some can perform seals with one hand, and some don't even need seals at all—they just clap their hands together.

Did this mean their "system" files were different?

And was the act of performing hand seals a type of "shortcut" or "command line"? Was the chakra required to release a ninjutsu equivalent to the "RAM" and "CPU" necessary to run a program?

If the other person's body (hardware) did not possess lightning-style chakra nature (the specific driver), or was incompatible, would the file, once copied, become a pile of useless garbled code due to the lack of an operating environment, or even cause the other person's own system to crash?

Countless questions washed over Hiroki's thoughts like a waterfall.

"Hey, Hiroki! Your noodles are going to get soggy!" Kushina's muffled voice pulled him from his deep contemplation.

He looked up and saw the girl puffing out her cheeks, pointing with some dissatisfaction at his bowl of ramen, which he had barely touched.

Hiroki looked at her, then looked down at the noodles in his bowl, and finally picked up his chopsticks, grabbed a large mouthful, and slurped it down with force.

The warm noodles slid down his throat, carrying the purest energy of food, warming his stomach.

In any case, once he returned home, before Orochimaru returned to the village, he would explore his system as much as possible and think about how to become stronger.