Kamigane Yuya

It was the fifteenth year since the founding of Konoha.

In a Japanese-style house with a courtyard in the village, a boy of about seven or eight years old sat kneeling in a secondary room with the door wide open.

On the tatami mat sat a low wooden table, upon which a map was spread out.

The boy's hand rested on the table as he stared at the various black dots marked on the map, lost in thought.

The boy's name was Kamigane Yuya, a child whom the First Hokage of Konoha, Senju Hashirama, had picked up a few years prior.

He was currently living under Senju Hashirama's roof.

Today was a day off from the Konoha Academy, so Yuya was resting at home, taking the opportunity to study the map.

As for what this map was...

Well... it was a map of gold mine veins located within the Land of Fire.

Kamigane Yuya had died of electrocution while playing a mobile game in his previous life, and when he woke up, he had arrived in this world.

He had also acquired the "cheat" from that mobile game.

The game he had been playing was called Road of the Strong, a mobile game based on One Piece, another one of the "Big Three" manga series.

Yet, he had brought this cheat into the world of Naruto, which was truly...

The starter account he had purchased had immediately recruited a character from the newly released version: Gild Tesoro, possessor of the Gold-Gold Fruit.

His cheat was this very Gold-Gold Fruit (also known as the Goru Goru no Mi) corresponding to that character.

--To be fair, Yuya felt it would have been better if it had just been granted to him directly; having to deal with a physical fruit was a nightmare, as the taste was truly atrocious--

The ability of this fruit allowed him to turn any object he touched into gold, with the drawback that it would revert to its original state if it came into contact with water.

Basically, it was useless in the early stages, and if discovered, he might be hunted down; by the late stages, once the fruit was awakened, this ability wouldn't be of much use either.

However, there was one ability that was quite decent.

That was the ability to sense gold.

Konoha was located in the northwestern part of the Land of Fire, with a vast surrounding radius. Whenever Yuya went on missions, he would take the opportunity to check the surroundings for gold mines.

Yuya had already sensed three locations, but they were all scattered veins, with reserves likely not exceeding a few hundred kilograms. He would have to go and absorb that gold sooner or later.

But since there were scattered veins, there had to be a main vein somewhere below.

Gold was the kind of thing where the vast majority of the reserves were underground, specifically more than fifty kilometers deep; what was on the surface was only a tiny fraction of a fraction.

Yuya currently had no means to go deep underground to get gold. Therefore, even if the scattered veins weren't very large, he still needed them badly.

The ninja world had been at peace for fifteen years, and every nation was developing. What Yuya needed to do now was to raise his strength in the shortest amount of time possible.

This strength included personal power, but of course, there was also the universal truth that applied to every world: money is king.

And in the ninja world, gold was hard currency.

Although the common currency of the ninja world was the Ryo, there was a fixed exchange rate between gold and Ryo.

In recent years, due to the gradual peace, this ratio had dropped significantly compared to wartime, but the fundamental nature of gold as hard currency remained unchanged.

Of course, Yuya's strength wasn't quite there yet. In this ninja world, nothing was as important as one's own power; even if you wanted to become Hokage, you had to be strong yourself.

Therefore...

"Tap, tap." Yuya used a wooden stick to mark the three points he had noted, then put the map away.

He had to get his hands on the gold contained within the scattered veins at these three locations.

"Bang, bang, bang, bang!"

Rapid footsteps approached. Yuya looked up toward the door. A man with long hair tied back and a foolish expression on his face hurried to the entrance and then lunged directly at Yuya: "Yuya! My good apprentice! Please, save your master!"

Yes, this person was the number one in the ninja world, the God of Shinobi, the founder of Konoha, and the creator of the one-village-one-country system—the First Hokage of Konoha, Senju Hashirama.

Yuya looked at this guy clinging to his leg with an expressionless face and asked calmly: "How much did you lose this time?"

Senju Hashirama grinned: "Three hundred thousand Ryo."

"Three hundred thousand?!" Yuya stared at Hashirama in shock. "That's enough for me and Mistress Uzumaki Mito to live on for a year!"

Hashirama: "I couldn't help it. I actually started out winning today, but then I lost it all. I wanted to win it back, and well, this happened..."

Yuya looked speechlessly at the man in front of him, who was sheepishly scratching the back of his head.

To be honest, when he watched the anime in his previous life, he didn't have a particularly deep impression of the First Hokage because he didn't appear much.

But after living under this roof for a few years in this life, he discovered that Senju Hashirama, the God of Shinobi, was actually just a ninja with a very easygoing personality who liked to gamble a little money.

He knew perfectly well that the gambling den wasn't clean, yet he insisted on going, even using a Transformation Jutsu to avoid being recognized as the First Hokage.

Although he won sometimes and lost others, his wife, Uzumaki Mito, scoffed at the times he won, and when he lost, she would resort to physical discipline...

"If Mistress finds out, Master, you'll probably be kneeling in the courtyard all night tonight, won't you?" Yuya said, looking at the sheepish Senju Hashirama with a deadpan expression.

Senju Hashirama laughed heartily: "Hahaha, yes, yes, Mito would definitely do that."

Then, he looked at Yuya expectantly: "So, isn't that why I came to you?"

Yuya looked troubled: "You know, Master, my ability isn't that great. The gold I create turns back as soon as it touches water..."

Senju Hashirama hurriedly waved his hands. "Hey, don't say that. Those people won't care about such things. As long as you conjure up the gold, it's not like they're going to douse it with water, right? It's been like this many times before."

Indeed, this was not the first time.

Yuya watched as a look of hesitation remained on Senju Hashirama's face. "But... but..."

Seeing his disciple like this, Senju Hashirama understood, so he decisively said, "I'll go talk to your martial uncle for you tomorrow; you don't have to go to the academy tomorrow."

Yuya immediately grinned, then stood up and casually found a small stone in the courtyard. Holding it in his hand, he activated his ability. The stone gradually turned into gold.

"Hmm, this is about half a jin... over two hundred grams. Converting that to money, it's probably one million ryo." Yuya said, tossing the stone to Senju Hashirama. "Remember, it absolutely cannot touch water!"

Senju Hashirama nodded repeatedly, then turned and scurried away.

Yuya clapped his hands. Whether his gambling-addict master would get caught for swindling people was none of his business; he had helped out, and now he had a day off tomorrow.

One day... it would be impossible to visit all three locations, so he would head west first.

With this plan in mind, Yuya began to prepare his things for the next day.

Yuya's chakra natures were Water, Wind, and Earth.

Having three natures looked like a lot, but it also meant that if Yuya were to follow the standard ninja path, he would need to master the Water Release, Wind Release, and Earth Release styles.

Compared to that, I'd better upgrade my cheat code first; that's much simpler.

He didn't have a cheat code to help him learn ninjutsu, so learning them was very slow.

After all, he didn't have the chakra of Indra or Asura within him; to follow the path of a ninja, he would have to put in three times the effort of others.

If he didn't have his cheat code, Yuya might have to work as desperately hard as Rock Lee right now.

But with the Gold-Gold Fruit...

I'd better go see where there might be a gold vein; that's more reliable.

As long as I find a gold vein, I'll be set—how do they say it? I'll take off.

ps1: The gold on the Earth's surface is less than 0.001% of the entire planet, and even including the gold in the crust, it's less than 0.01%. The vast majority of gold reserves are in the Earth's core, making mining extremely difficult. In reality, even for the gold in the crust, the cost for humans to extract it is often higher than the value of the gold itself. ps2: The exchange rate for gold in Japan is roughly 1:10,000+ yen, but that ratio is a bit too high, so I've halved it to calculate at 1:5000. [The ending of Bleach, one of the three major shonen manga, was a mess; One Piece is still ongoing and moving more and more toward the magical/fantasy direction—that bearded guy among the Five Elders actually turned into a spider demon, that really is... Naruto is better, it's already confirmed finished, so there won't be any weird surprises.] [Though I don't know if anyone is still reading Naruto fanfic these days. Oh well, if no one reads it, I'll just write slowly; there's no rush.]