The Program's Hypothesis

How to become stronger was a question that required careful thought.

Hiroki had agreed to the promise without much hesitation, but he'd been thinking about it the whole way.

He was still thinking about it when they reached the ramen shop.

The shop's noren curtain was lifted, and the rich aroma of pork-bone broth instantly enveloped them.

Uzumaki Kushina seemed to be back on her home turf. She boldly ordered the largest servings of chashu ramen for them both, then propped her chin on her hands and stared at the kitchen, eyes full of anticipation. She looked as if what was about to appear wasn't ramen, but a shortcut to becoming Hokage.

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

He picked up his chopsticks and watched the steam rise from his bowl as he considered the "system"—his own Golden Finger, made up of countless data streams and folders.

How could he become stronger?

If he were only planning his own path to strength, the answer would be crystal clear.

He could rely on his Golden Finger. Before crossing over, Hiroki had been a reader who looked down on transmigrators who relied on Golden Fingers. But as an ordinary person living in the real Shinobi World, where he could die at any moment, not using a Golden Finger was just stupid.

He didn't think he could keep up with Naruto Uzumaki or the Uchiha Clan's other cheat-code users without using his Golden Finger.

If he wanted to get stronger—strong enough to ignore the Nine-Tails' rampage and all the dangers waiting in the future—he had to use his Golden Finger to rapidly increase his strength.

Hiroki also had a few ideas about how to use his Golden Finger to get stronger.

He believed that, at its core, his Golden Finger allowed him to read and modify "information." According to the Golden Finger's rules, thoughts, ninjutsu, memories, and ideas could all be treated as programs and data that could be rewritten.

The "Brain Overload Attack" he'd written last time was the most direct proof.

Thoughts were information and data. That meant they could be multiplied and copied, and used as a means of attacking with data.

During the lesson in which he fought Jiraiya's clone, Hiroki had located and modified a "cache folder" in the other party's brain, filling it with junk cache data. That had caused the other party's brain to crash for an instant—leaving him briefly unconscious.

In theory, then, other things should also be systems at the level of his Golden Finger.

For example, the ninjutsu he'd copied, the memories he'd looked through, or the cached urge to pee he'd generated.

As long as he started trying to understand what the code meant, and tried using the Golden Finger's system to write files, getting stronger should be easy.

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

From that perspective, the logic behind making someone else stronger was the same as the logic behind making himself stronger: understand the code, understand the system, then improve his ability to read and write code.

The Brain Overload Attack worked by modifying files in another person's brain. Since the underlying principle was the same, if he could attack by modifying and inserting files, then he should also be able to make someone stronger by modifying and inserting files.

The Brain Overload Attack worked by indiscriminately copying cache data until a person's thoughts were overloaded for a short time and they couldn't think. So, looking at it the other way around—if he changed it into a filter that kept only thoughts about studying diligently and training hard, would the person's mind become crystal clear, ready to start training? To start studying?

A program of that level wasn't difficult to create.

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

Hiroki's thoughts began to branch out.

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

Could he write an automated script with a trigger condition—for example, when the "visual driver" detected information about an object flying toward him at high speed that matched the characteristics of a "Kunai," the system would no longer need to take the long route of "think, then react" through the cerebral cortex? Instead, the script could directly call the "muscle control file" and perform the optimal evasive maneuver.

Wouldn't that be like a movement script in a MOBA or an aimbot in an FPS?

His reaction speed would no longer be limited by how fast he could think and react. It would rely on the system's calculations instead.

Then there was physical training and memory storage.

In theory, he learned things very slowly, yet his Memory Disk seemed to contain everything he'd ever seen and heard. That meant there was probably no index linking the relevant files to the knowledge of the corresponding skills.

If he created an index, would that let him call up the relevant knowledge in an instant?

Likewise, muscle growth and increased strength—based on Hiroki's understanding of his system, muscle growth should also be controlled by a series of complex biological instruction files.

Training triggered muscle damage, and that damage made the body think it needed to build muscle to handle the situation.

Could Hiroki delete the links in between and directly change the program to "start program—muscles grow automatically" and "stop program—muscle growth stops"?

Then he could try modifying the files, skipping the primitive method of giving the body the external input command to "train hard" and directly editing those underlying files to create a "muscles grow automatically" script.

As long as he had enough energy—that is, food—his body could follow the script and grow at peak efficiency, twenty-four hours a day without interruption.

Hiroki was almost certain all of this could be done.

It was the perfect path to strength, one that belonged only to him.

But when his gaze fell on the red-haired girl across from him, who was happily slurping away, another question surfaced.

How could he make her stronger, too?

There had to be a strong connection between making someone else stronger and making himself stronger.

If he could analyze the various files in his own brain, including the "ninjutsu files" that recorded the steps for performing ninjutsu, could he "copy" and "paste" those files to Kushina?

That would also be an exploration and application of the system.

That had been Hiroki's idea before the assessment.

If he could copy ninjutsu files to other people, and let Kushina skip the process of "accessing the system, running the program, and releasing the ninjutsu," then in theory, he could do more than freely control how ninjutsu spread throughout the Shinobi World. He could also spread self-copying, auto-starting virus programs at will, turning everyone else in the Shinobi World into systems he'd hijacked.

Once the thought took hold, it grew wildly.

He could become the god of the entire Shinobi World at any time!

But Hiroki quickly regained his composure, because two enormous problems, like blocks of garbled code, stood in his way.

First was the cost. He remembered how it felt to use "Lightning Style: False Darkness" in the cave. The technique was undoubtedly powerful, but in just an instant, the "battery" inside him had nearly been drained. The system had even issued a low-battery warning, and he'd passed out soon afterward.

But Hiroki remembered that when he'd copied the ninjutsu, he'd also copied the other person's experience using it. He knew perfectly well that False Darkness shouldn't consume that much chakra.

So what was consuming the chakra?

Was it a bug?

If so, why had a B-rank ninjutsu drained so much power?

And what rules governed that energy consumption?

Was it because he'd forcibly "run" a program his system wasn't equipped to use, causing compatibility issues that wasted enormous resources and overheated the system, draining so much power?

Until he understood the conversion rate between "energy" and "programs," he didn't dare experiment with more advanced ninjutsu files. He didn't know whether some huge bug might make his own system crash.

If a computer crashed, you could just cut the power and restart it. But if he crashed, who knew whether he'd be dead the moment he shut down?

The second problem, and the more critical one, was the interface and installation.

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

It was like copying a computer program for someone else. How would they "install" it? How would they "open" it? How would they "run" it?

Even plenty of people who owned computers were clueless about how to use them. There was no way he could explain computers to a bunch of primitives in the Shinobi World who'd never seen or used one.

And unlike him, they didn't have a visual operating interface.

What would they use to "double-click" the file? Their spiritual energy? Thinking it through, he didn't even know whether they'd be able to see the files he transferred.

Even real computers needed all kinds of drivers and compatibility patches to run different programs. In the Shinobi World, if he made the pessimistic guess, Hiroki couldn't help thinking that people of different races, sexes, and ages might all have different, incompatible "systems."

For example, the same ninjutsu might require more than forty Hand Seals for one person, but only four for another. Some people could form Hand Seals with one hand, while some didn't need them at all and only had to bring their hands together.

Did that mean their "system" files were different?

And was forming Hand Seals a kind of "shortcut" or "command line"? Was the chakra needed to perform ninjutsu equivalent to the "memory" and "CPU" required to run a program?

If the other person's body—the "hardware"—didn't have the nature transformation for Lightning Style chakra—the specific "driver"—or wasn't compatible, would the copied file become a pile of useless garbled code without the right runtime environment? Could it even cause the other person's system to crash?

An endless stream of questions washed over Hiroki's thoughts.

"Hey, Hiroki! Your noodles are going soggy!" Kushina's muffled voice brought him out of his deep contemplation.

He looked up and saw the girl puffing out her cheeks and pointing at his bowl of ramen, which he'd barely touched.

Hiroki looked at her, then glanced down at the noodles. Finally, he picked up his chopsticks, lifted a big mouthful, and slurped it down.

The warm noodles slid down his throat, bringing the purest form of energy from food and warming his stomach.

Anyway, once he got home and before Orochimaru returned to the village, he'd explore his system as much as possible and think about how to get stronger.