Nano Core

Watching Ino disappear from view, Samu Kokaze smiled, walked to the shop entrance, and shut the front door. Before long, the temperature inside rose again.

Samu Kokaze surveyed the house that belonged to him and sighed.

Strictly speaking, Samu Kokaze was not from the Naruto World. He had transmigrated from a place called Earth.

Ever since confirming that he had come to the Naruto World, where people died by the villageful and which might later be dragged into the Infinite Tsukuyomi and turned into miserable creatures like White Zetsu, he had decided to cling to the protagonist at all costs, never alter any plotline, and peacefully live as a salted fish until the finale.

Though he was deeply unwilling, what could he do? Staying alive was what mattered most to Samu Kokaze. In this Naruto World, where everyone competed over fathers, grandfathers, and ancestors, what could Samu Kokaze do when his family had been commoners for eighteen generations? He was desperate too!

Samu Kokaze had once called out for systems and old grandpas in the dead of night, and he had thoroughly inspected every suspicious item on his body. Yet regrettably, he had not even seen the shadow of a cheat. Those novels claiming that transmigrators would definitely receive cheats were all lies.

He had also considered using all kinds of information from his past life to improve ninjutsu, or simply researching how nuclear fission worked. Then, whenever anyone refused to submit, he could just blast them with a giant mushroom and rule the world with mushrooms.

But unfortunately, as an illiterate who had only finished middle school, those thoughts were nothing more than fantasies in the quiet of the night.

Those hopeless days, when he could only live as a salted fish, changed completely on the day Samu Kokaze successfully extracted Chakra, the extraordinary source of power in the ninja world.

When he was five, Samu Kokaze received the inheritance left behind by this body's parents from Konoha.

Konoha gave Samu Kokaze quite a substantial inheritance. Perhaps because both his parents had been martyrs who died in the Nine-Tails Rebellion, there was a house, a Chakra Refinement Technique, and two hundred thousand ryo in cash, with nothing withheld. Of course, the cash was not handed directly to Samu Kokaze. Instead, an additional thousand ryo was added to the relief money he could collect each month.

While in the orphanage, Samu Kokaze had never displayed anything outstanding. Every day, he played those unbearably childish ninja games with children his age, disguising himself as the most ordinary child possible, terrified that acting like a genius would attract the attention of Konoha's Root.

So after receiving the inheritance, he decisively moved out of the orphanage, ignored the director's attempts to keep him there, and came alone to the house that belonged to him.

Perhaps because his soul was that of an adult, extracting Chakra was not difficult for Samu Kokaze. After merely one night of attempts, he successfully refined a wisp of Chakra from his body.

"Nano Core."

That was the name Samu Kokaze gave the item that had suddenly appeared inside his body.

He did not know what the thing that had suddenly appeared in his body was. But the moment Samu Kokaze refined his first wisp of Chakra, the silvery-white object that had appeared within him devoured it all like a cat smelling fish. Before Samu Kokaze could show any shock, a feeling that he could control it abruptly surfaced in his mind.

Samu Kokaze knew nothing about what this object actually was or how it had entered this body. But that did not matter. He could feel that he had absolute control over the foreign object that had suddenly appeared inside him.

Unable to describe the object in detail, he could only name it the Nano Core based on his limited knowledge. After all, it truly resembled the Nanorobots from his previous life: silvery-white, capable of transforming into countless tiny bug-like objects too small to see. With Samu Kokaze's shallow knowledge, he could not even describe their exact size.

Unfortunately, it could only survive on energy bearing Samu Kokaze's spiritual imprint. It could not absorb other forms of energy, nor could it divide and multiply on its own. Unless the amount of Chakra in Samu Kokaze's body increased, there would forever be only this many Nanobugs within him.

Shaking his head, Samu Kokaze stopped dwelling on the past and walked toward the inner room. This woodcarving shop was something he had bought after obtaining the Nano Core, selling his old house to pay for it. Counting the time, it had been nearly a year.

Ever since obtaining his own unique cheat, Samu Kokaze's ambitions had also been soaring higher and higher.

Now that he had gained power, he no longer wanted to cower behind the protagonist. Who knew what might happen if some other situation arose? This was a real world, and there were not so many protagonist halos here.

Even if his little wings could not stir the fate of the future, what if they could? What if the ripple effects he caused made the plot collapse?

Back when he had no power, there was nothing he could do but place all his hope and fate in the hands of others. But now that he had a path to grow stronger, no one could stop Samu Kokaze from taking control of his own destiny. No one!!!

This shop, right next to the Yamanaka Clan's flower shop, was also a decision Samu Kokaze had made after careful consideration.

First of all, as the descendant of martyrs.

Having grown up brainwashed in Konoha's orphanage, he could never possibly be a spy or anything of the sort. The Yamanaka Clan would not become suspicious of Samu Kokaze either.

As for Konoha's next generation of twelve young elites, Sakura came from a civilian family, so getting close to her now would not benefit Samu Kokaze much.

If he got too close to Naruto, Samu Kokaze swore that someone would definitely invite him for tea. Among the others, he either was not familiar with them or simply had no opportunity to approach them.

Only Yamanaka Ino was the best choice. Especially since she was the same age as his current body. If their families became neighbors, then with Samu Kokaze's methods, naturally he could coax a little girl around his finger.

Through her, he could build good relationships with the future heirs of all three Ino–Shika–Cho families. Taking it a step further, he could at least become a familiar face to all twelve of Konoha's young elites. For Samu Kokaze, who had decided to muddle through life in Konoha from now on, this was an excellent beginning.

The year since he moved here had indeed gone just as he expected. With the help of the Nanobugs, not only had the woodcarving shop's business become incredibly prosperous, but his adorable wooden carvings had also successfully hooked the still little-girl Yamanaka Ino.

Well, the fact that she had run over so early this morning made that obvious.

Entering the inner room, Samu Kokaze familiarly lifted a wooden barrel from the corner and placed it in the center of the room. He tossed in the hot water and medicinal herbs he had prepared long ago. Before long, the medicinal broth in the barrel began bubbling away, and a rich herbal scent filled the air.

Looking at the boiling medicinal broth in the barrel, Samu Kokaze calmly removed all his clothes, revealing his sharply defined body. He stepped into the barrel and began refining Chakra.

Speaking of which, he had bought these medicinal herbs through Nara Shikamaru. Once, when Shikamaru and Choji had come to see Ino, Samu Kokaze had taken the chance to ask about medicinal herbs that could strengthen the body. After all, when it came to medicine-making, no one in Konoha was more skilled than the Nara Clan and the Akimichi Clan.

After paying several wooden carvings and agreeing to several unequal terms from Ino, he successfully gained the right to buy medicinal herbs from the Nara Clan. One of those herbs could automatically heat water to boiling when placed inside it. Of course, Samu Kokaze did not know the exact principle, but he assumed it was something like quicklime reacting with water.