The First

Closing his eyes and carefully sensing the flow of energy within his body, he felt a small, chilly hand touch his shoulder in the darkness.

The little hand gradually warmed, and a faint heat flowed from his shoulder into his body.

The warmth slowly spread through Qiancao's body. Before his eyes, which had been empty a moment ago, the image of himself sitting cross-legged seemed to appear.

As the warmth coursed through his entire body, the network of chakra pathways on the figure before Qiancao began to glow.

He tried to guide the energy in his mind into the pathways. As it flowed through his chakra network, his spiritual energy gradually grew stronger.

When that energy reached his feet, Qiancao opened his eyes and saw that they were glowing just like Wuming's.

Excited, Qiancao started to get up, but Wuming stopped him. He asked, "What is it?"

"It's hard to control," Wuming explained. Then she lifted him straight off the bed and carefully set him on the floor.

With chakra gathered beneath his feet, Qiancao cautiously took two steps forward. He could feel as though he had gained an extra layer of skin that he could control.

Qiancao imitated Wuming and stepped onto the wall. Sure enough, he felt a force of attraction beneath his feet.

Could I really be a genius? he thought. Just as he lifted his other foot, he felt the pull beneath him vanish, and he toppled backward.

Wuming quickly caught Qiancao before he could hit the ground.

"How did it go?" Wuming asked. "Did you get the hang of it at all?"

Instead of answering right away, Qiancao repeated the process. He gathered chakra in his hand and punched the wall.

The dust-filled explosion he'd imagined never came. Instead, Qiancao's fist throbbed with pain. Grimacing, he turned to Wuming and said:

"Why... does this... feel wrong?"

Wuming rarely laughed, but his ridiculous antics made her smile. She pulled open his shirt.

A strange pattern was drawn above Qiancao's navel. Pointing at it, Wuming explained:

"This is a seal the Uchiha Clan places on its prisoners. Anyone with this seal can only use ten percent of their total chakra."

"With this seal, it's only natural that you can't control the chakra in your body very well as a beginner."

Qiancao stared blankly at the seal on his stomach. When he'd first discovered it a few days ago, he'd thought the Uchiha had planted a remotely detonated bomb in him.

Wuming reassured him, "This seal can be a good thing. It'll help you train your chakra control, and you'll be able to master many complex techniques quickly in the future."

Qiancao thought it made sense, so he stopped dwelling on it and focused on training.

After teaching her student, Wuming found herself regretting it a little.

A few days earlier, Qiancao had had nothing to do and followed her around all day. Though she'd complained that he was such a nuisance, she'd secretly grown happier and enjoyed talking with him more and more.

But now that Qiancao had learned to extract chakra, he spent all day training with intense concentration and rarely had any free time to talk to Wuming.

Watching Qiancao train kept Wuming from getting bored, but she still wished she could talk to him more.

What hurt Wuming was that whenever Qiancao returned from a fight with the enemy these past few days, he'd been acting secretive, as if he were hiding something from her.

Jutsu and all that really are nothing but trouble! Wuming thought bitterly as she lay in Qiancao's arms while he slept. Still, she didn't dwell on it for long and soon drifted off.

Qiancao wasn't deliberately avoiding Wuming. He was just preparing something to surprise her with.

Judging by how often he was brought meals each day, half a month had passed since Qiancao arrived in this world.

That day, Shiri took Wuming away early in the morning. They didn't return until dinnertime.

After returning to the cell, Wuming greeted Qiancao, then sat in a corner, staring into space. These past few days, she'd rarely started conversations with him because she didn't want to interrupt his training.

Of course, in the days before that, Qiancao had always been the one to start talking.

But today, instead of continuing his usual diligent chakra training, Qiancao approached Wuming with a mysterious air.

Seeing Qiancao glancing around, Wuming couldn't help asking, "What are you doing?"

Qiancao mysteriously pulled something out from behind his back, slipped it into Wuming's arms, and whispered, "Take a look. Does this work? If it doesn't, I'll make some changes."

Wuming looked down. In her arms lay a pair of handmade straw sandals, woven from the straw in the cell.

Their style was old-fashioned, and the two sandals weren't perfectly symmetrical, but they looked sturdy and had clearly been made with care.

As it happened, Qiancao had noticed that although Wuming usually protected her feet with chakra when she went out, after a fierce battle, she was often too exhausted to keep protecting them on the way back.

A few times, she'd returned with her feet covered in tiny cuts, and it had made Qiancao ache with worry.

That was when he remembered the craft club he'd joined in his previous life. Back then, full of youthful confidence, he'd foolishly hoped his handicraft skills would help him find a girlfriend.

Unfortunately, even after winning silver in a handicraft competition, he still couldn't find a girlfriend. All he could do was insist that video games were the best girlfriends and that he'd spend the rest of his life with his fictional waifu.

But the basket-weaving skills he'd learned back then had come in handy now. He'd managed to weave the straw sandals in front of him.

Wuming gazed at the "boy" before her, stunned. This was the first time anyone had ever given her a gift, and she didn't know what to do.

Seeing Wuming staring into space, Qiancao assumed his weaving skills had been so poor that she hadn't recognized the sandals.

He sat on the floor, took Wuming's little feet in his hands, and gently wiped away the dust.

Aside from a thin layer of calluses on the soles from walking barefoot for so long, her feet were delicate, translucent, and tiny.

Her five toes curled together, perhaps from embarrassment or because they tickled. The sight made Qiancao's heart itch, too.

Resisting the urge to keep playing with her feet, Qiancao picked up one of the sandals from Wuming's arms and gently slipped it onto her foot.

The rough straw sandal didn't do justice to her fair, jade-like foot, but at least it offered a layer of protection.

Then he put the other sandal on Wuming's foot, stood up, and took both her hands, signaling for her to get up.

"Stand up and take a walk. See if they're comfortable."

But instead of walking, Wuming threw herself into Qiancao's arms and buried her face against his shoulder. Her voice trembled as she choked out, "Thank you. Thank you..."

Qiancao stroked Wuming's head, smoothing her messy hair back into place, and said with a smile, "You taught me how to talk and how to use jutsu. I should be the one thanking you."

Wuming hugged him even tighter, so tightly that Qiancao could barely breathe. "But what am I to you? Why are you so good to me..."

Qiancao gently drew Wuming away from his shoulder and wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes. Still smiling, he said, "You're my first friend!"