How to Strip the System Bare to Stay Alive

The moment he pushed open his courtyard gate, the lingering chirping of insects in the clan compound and the lazy footsteps of distant patrols were completely shut out behind him.

Ye pulled the special-grade red brick that had rendered such distinguished service from under his arm and weighed it in his hand.

Its weight was just right, its edges sharp and defined, its rough surface fitting perfectly against his palm.

Easy to handle, durable, and free.

Five-star review.

He casually set the red brick beside the shoe rack by the door.

He still had to bring this thing to school tomorrow.

The ultimate physical self-defense tool. After using it, he could retrieve it right where it landed. Its value for money crushed every Ninja Tool in existence.

Taking three steps in two, Ye strode into his bedroom and fell backward directly onto the wooden bed.

The springs creaked dully as his whole body sank into the thin blanket.

He let out a long breath and stared blankly at the dim ceiling for two seconds.

A day of insane profit-making had finally come to an end.

Unable to wait any longer, he sank his consciousness into his mind and summoned the System Panel glowing with golden light.

[Current Balance: 78,550 Points]

Over seventy-eight thousand.

Ye felt his breath catch as his heart pounded wildly.

Starting from pinning Rin against the wall in the classroom that morning, then pulling off the ultimate double kill in the public restroom after school.

Then there had been the final waves of riches contributed by Obito's bloodcurdling howl at the clan compound gates.

In less than twelve hours, he had started from zero and forcibly squeezed out this number.

Ye rubbed his chin and began reviewing the contribution ratios of all his cash cows.

Kakashi had contributed at least fifteen thousand in total, between getting both legs stabbed with Kunai and having his classroom showboating utterly crushed.

That perpetual motion machine Obito had produced steadily all day, contributing no less than eight thousand.

Asuma had single-handedly contributed over twenty thousand. From being scared pissless on the Training Ground to changing clothes in the public restroom, he had been drained until not even dregs remained.

The remaining scraps of income came from breaking the entire class's guard in bulk, as well as the thousand-plus Recognition Points contributed by that single-celled organism Guy.

Seventy-eight thousand.

He was still a little over twenty thousand away from the hundred-thousand mark.

He took a deep breath.

Ten thousand points could trigger the top-tier guarantee.

Although two of his first three ten-pulls had produced piles of outrageously useless scrap at grave-gift tier.

The third had genuinely given him Peak Genin-level Chakra.

So what if he saved up a hundred thousand points in one go?

Ten ten-pulls?

Or would the system unlock a higher-dimensional Hidden Prize Pool?

A legendary ultimate guarantee?

Maybe it would directly drop a Sharingan?

Or perhaps a Sage Body?

Ye's Adam's apple bobbed.

His gambler's intuition told him that this system definitely had hidden spending tiers.

The drop pattern from the first three ten-pulls was already laid out before him.

If he dumped a hundred thousand points in at once, the item the system gave him would definitely make everything he had gained so far look pathetic.

Single pulls impoverished you for three generations, ten-pulls ruined you for life, and going all-in was a man's romance.

But then again, what if he spent a hundred thousand points and got ten gold-plated Kunai?

Ye closed his eyes and forcibly suppressed his urge to pull cards, shutting down the system interface.

Hold back once, and the world opened up before you.

A hundred thousand was nothing. Konoha had plenty of quality cash cows.

At today's efficiency, spending another day harvesting at school tomorrow would be more than enough to gather a hundred thousand.

Kick Asuma a few more times and give Guy a couple more Strawberry-Flavored Soldier Pills, and he would have it together within days.

Even without a Hidden Prize Pool, ten ten-pulls would guarantee ten top-tier items.

Probability had to balance out. After reaching rock bottom, things could only turn around.

At that moment, Ye lay with both hands behind his head, staring at the dim ceiling.

The night wind slipped through the crack in the window, bringing a faint chill.

The excitement in his mind gradually faded, and his expression grew more solemn.

That was because of cruel reality.

He began sorting through Konoha's timeline in his mind.

It was now Konoha Year 43.

He was six years old and had just entered the Ninja Academy.

Under the standard Academy curriculum, he would graduate and be assigned to a team in three years.

Three years later.

That was when he would be nine.

Ye's face darkened inch by inch.

At nine, the Third Shinobi World War would be erupting in full force, with every nation committing its main forces to the meat grinder.

Konoha would face successive beatings from Hidden Sand, Iwagakure, Kirigakure, and Hidden Cloud, turning the entire Shinobi World into a miserable stew of chaos.

What had nine-year-old children been doing on Blue Star in his previous life?

They were still in third grade!

Every day, they argued until their faces turned red over Young Pioneers captain armbands and cartoons.

Sometimes, they could cry for half a day just from being made to stand as punishment for not finishing their homework.

After school, their greatest worries were what they would eat for dinner and whether their allowance was enough to buy spicy strips.

But in this world, where human lives were cheaper than Kunai.

His nine-year-old self would have to wear a Konoha forehead protector.

Clutch a bloodstained Kunai, follow a Jonin deep into the battlefield, and fight desperately against ninjas from other nations amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

Sending a nine-year-old brat to the front lines to fight bayonet-to-bayonet against a pack of adult brutes who killed without blinking?

A nine-year-old Genin who died on the battlefield would not even have his name remembered.

Was this the kind of thing a carbon-based lifeform could do?

Capitalists would weep at the sight, and workers from illegal mines would fall silent.

The ninja villages' twisted child-labor exploitation system was more inhumane than Zhou Papi.

A battle for life and death was no game.

Once you reached the battlefield, who cared whether you were a rookie?

When a Kunai plunged into flesh, it would still chill you straight through the heart.

Ye sat up and clenched his fists.

He felt the abundant Peak Genin Chakra within him, energy surging and circulating through his meridians.

That strength could crush his peers in the Ninja Academy without question.

But his eyes were clear, without the slightest trace of pride.

He knew himself well.

Take Kakashi, for instance. By the time others had only become Chunin, he had already become a Jonin.

And Uchiha Itachi was even more terrifying. At seven, he already possessed ANBU-level combat ability.

His own talent for training was absolutely no match for those monsters.

Not to mention Taijutsu maniacs like Might Guy, who treated their bodies as though they were forged from iron.

So from now on, he had to pursue two paths at once!

Starting tomorrow, he would max out Chakra control, Ninja Tool techniques, and Taijutsu.

But following a normal training routine step by step would be far too slow.

Even if he trained until he vomited blood, when he was thrown into the Third Shinobi World War's meat grinder at nine, he would not even make a splash.

The other path was to cling tightly to the system's thigh.

Every day, he would squeeze the maximum possible Guard-Break Points from this bunch of ninjas!

Use points to exchange for strength, and use strength to stay alive.

As long as he had enough Guard-Break Points, he could strip the System Shop bare and directly use raw stats to crush every talent and bloodline.

That was the first hurdle.

Yet even if he somehow survived the Third Shinobi World War, an even larger blade would still be hanging over his head.

Ye's brows drew tightly together.

A chilling point in time emerged in his mind.

The night of the Uchiha Clan massacre.

That was the true Sword of Damocles hanging over every Uchiha clansman's head.

That massacre would take place around Konoha Year 58.

There were still more than ten years of breathing room from now.

It seemed far away, but in truth, the rift between the Uchiha Clan and the village leadership had already been deepening from this very moment onward.

Every abnormal move by the Uchiha Clan was being magnified and scrutinized by the Hokage Building.

When that damned night finally came.

Neither the village leadership's schemes nor Uchiha Itachi's butcher's blade as the ultimate filial son would bother reasoning with him.