Konoha.
Fang Xu abruptly sat up from the bed, his back already soaked in cold sweat.
Inside the narrow room, the wooden table, the old cabinet, and the low bed were all unfamiliar yet familiar.
Unfamiliar, because the memory of his previous second still remained on Blue Star.
Familiar, because this body had lived here for over a decade.
The two memories fiercely collided in his mind, like someone taking an iron hammer to crack open his skull and stuffing both his past and present lives inside.
"I... transmigrated?"
Fang Xu looked down at his own hands, which were not the hands from Blue Star.
His palms were not large, and there were calluses on his palms left by long-term practice with kunai and shuriken, but his fingers often shook from practicing due to poor chakra control.
This was the Naruto World, the hands of a Konoha civilian orphan.
The next moment, a piece of information emerged out of thin air in his mind.
[Exclusive Talent: Exchange Level 1.] [Effect: Every seven days, you can select something you own and make an exchange with a random target from the Myriad Realms.] [Exchange Range: Items, bloodlines, cultivation techniques, supernatural abilities, talents, golden fingers, etc.] [The rarer and higher the value of the invested item, the greater the probability of obtaining a high-quality return.] [After the talent level increases, the cooldown time can be shortened, and the probability of top-tier drops can be increased.]
Fang Xu's breathing instantly grew heavy.
"A cheat?"
He stared fixedly at the information in his mind, and his entire person woke up completely.
What kind of place was the Naruto World?
Bloodlines outweighed hard work.
The Uchiha unlocked their eyes, the Hyuga had the Byakugan, the Uzumaki had ridiculously massive amounts of chakra, the Senju possessed formidable physiques, and there were even things like Tailed Beasts, Jinchuriki, and Kekkei Genkai.
It was not impossible for civilian ninjas to make a name for themselves, but that path was too difficult.
How many geniuses like Minato Namikaze could the entire Shinobi World produce?
As for most ordinary people, after training for a lifetime, they were merely Chunin or Special Jonin, and if their luck was bad, a single major battle would sweep them away with kunai, explosive tags, and the aftermath of ninjutsu.
Fang Xu's situation right now was even worse.
He was no genius, his chakra volume was somewhat weak, his ninjutsu talent was average, and his taijutsu only counted as being able to endure hardship.
If he went down his original trajectory, he would most likely graduate from the Ninja Academy to become a Genin, and then get crammed into the war machine.
On the eve of the Third Shinobi World War, border frictions increased more and more, and the mobilization of ninjas within the village also became frequent.
It looked peaceful now, but anyone could feel that a real wildfire was about to burn.
Once the war broke out, a civilian Genin like him without background, bloodline, or talent would be precisely the batch most easily consumed on the battlefield.
Fang Xu gritted his teeth. "I can't go on like this."
He knew very well that wanting to live well in this world by keeping his head down and practicing bitterly was far from enough.
Hard work was useful, but without a cheat, without a bloodline, and without resources, the upper limit of hard work was too low.
Yet now it was different.
The Exchange Talent showed him a path to truly defy the heavens and change his fate.
Myriad Realms resources!
Bloodlines, cultivation techniques, supernatural abilities, and golden fingers were all within the exchange range; as long as he operated well, he might not be unable to step those clan geniuses underfoot.
He could even stand at the very top of the Shinobi World.
The question was, what should he use for the first exchange?
Fang Xu flipped himself off the bed and walked to the corner of the room; this small house was left behind by his parents.
It was not big, but it was his only safe place.
His parents died on missions in his early years, and the village had given a sum of war-death compensation, which, combined with the money left by his parents, was barely enough for him to live alone.
He ate decently, but could not get rich either.
Wanting to buy high-value items with money was completely unrealistic.
"The most valuable things on me right now are only the things left behind by my parents."
Fang Xu squatted down and dragged an old wooden chest out from the very bottom of the bed.
The wooden chest was not big, wrapped with a layer of dark cloth on the outside, and its corners were polished until they gleamed, obviously frequently wiped by someone.
This was the keepsake most cherished by his original body's parents.
The past Fang Xu never dared to casually touch it, not because he did not want to look, but out of fear.
Afraid of seeing traces left behind by his parents, he felt even emptier inside.
Things were different now.
Fang Xu reached out, untied the cloth, and opened the wooden chest. Inside were no gold or silver treasures, nor any secret techniques of a great clan-only five scrolls.
The first was the Chakra Refinement Technique.
The second was the C-rank Lightning Release: Lightning Ball.
The third and fourth were scrolls for two B-rank techniques.
The fifth had the oldest cover, with a few words written on it.
Thousand Hands Swordsmanship Insights. Fang Xu's hand stopped.
"Senju?"
He picked up the scroll, frowning.
What did the Senju clan represent? One of Konoha's founders, a top clan on par with the Uchiha.
The First Hokage, Hashirama Senju, and the Second Hokage, Tobirama Senju, were both Senju.
But the problem was that there were almost no Senju clan members in plain sight in Konoha nowadays.
Tsunade was still around, but the Senju surname had long since ceased to exist as a great clan like the Uchiha and Hyuga.
Back when he'd watched Naruto, there had always been a theory online.
The Senju clan hadn't been wiped out. Instead, it had been broken up, its members willingly blending into families throughout Konoha, making the village "the Senju's Konoha" in this way.
Originally, Fang Xu had only taken it as speculation, but now, among his parents' belongings, there just happened to be a set of Thousand Hands Swordsmanship Insights.
That was rather intriguing.
"Could my ancestors really have had ties to the Senju?"
Fang Xu looked down at the scroll. Instead of feeling excited, he felt a little frustrated.
If he really had Senju blood, it was far too diluted.
Just look at Hashirama Senju: the Sage Body, Wood Release, and an absurd amount of Chakra.
Then look at himself. Even refining Chakra was a struggle.
Even if he might have a trace of Senju blood, the gap between them was wider than that between a person and a dog.
"Forget it. Whether I have the bloodline doesn't matter. What matters is that this thing has value."
Fang Xu spread out the five scrolls and examined them one by one.
The two B-rank techniques were the most valuable.
The C-rank Lightning Release: Lightning Ball was pretty good too.
The Thousand Hands Swordsmanship Insights was more unusual.
The Chakra Refinement Technique looked the most ordinary, but Fang Xu spent the longest time staring at it.
In Konoha, the Chakra Refinement Technique wasn't rare.
The Ninja Academy taught it, and many ninja families in the village had similar basic scrolls.
But what about other worlds? That was different.
Chakra was the foundation of power in the Naruto World.
Without the Chakra Refinement Technique, ordinary people couldn't truly set foot on the path of the ninja.
To Konoha, this was basic knowledge. To a world without a Chakra System, it might be the key to a path beyond the ordinary.
"The value of an item can't be judged only by the world it comes from."
The more Fang Xu thought about it, the clearer it became.
"Something ordinary in the Shinobi World might be worth a fortune in another world. Conversely, some insignificant thing from another world might change someone's fate if brought to the Shinobi World."
His gaze fell on the Chakra Refinement Technique.
The original scroll couldn't be discarded. It was a keepsake from his parents, and the foundation for his future training.
But making a copy would be different.
The Exchange Talent required him to own the item himself, and a copied version was his too.
As long as the contents were complete, it might still be valuable. Add a ball of Chakra he had condensed himself, and he'd be sending both "theory" and "seed" together.
That combination wouldn't be anything outrageous in Konoha.