Year 52 of Konoha.
Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Third Hokage, walked into a somewhat rundown two-story house.
Only one person lived here: Naruto Uzumaki, the current Nine-Tails Jinchuriki.
With a pipe between his lips, the Third Hokage entered the living room and saw a small, skinny blond boy standing on a little stool, boiling water. An opened cup of instant noodles sat on the table.
Beside the cup were a few books for learning to read and studying basic general knowledge.
The sight filled Hiruzen Sarutobi with sadness and guilt.
Hearing the door, Naruto turned to look. When he saw the Third Hokage, a smile appeared on his face.
"Grandpa Third, you're here!"
"Heh heh..." Hiruzen Sarutobi smiled kindly. "Little Naruto, you're five this year. Next year, you'll be attending the Ninja Academy. Here's a scroll for you. Study its contents carefully."
With that, Hiruzen Sarutobi took a ninjutsu scroll bearing a spiral emblem out of his sleeve.
This scroll contained the chakra extraction technique unique to the Uzumaki Clan.
Looking at the chakra extraction scroll, Naruto's eyes lit up with excitement.
Seeing how excited Naruto was, Hiruzen Sarutobi stepped forward and patted his head. Then he put this month's living allowance into an instant noodle box filled with banknotes before leaving.
All the money in the box came from the living allowance Naruto had saved over the years.
He had managed to save so much because he had stopped going out after he was two and a half.
He stayed home every day, only occasionally going out for a stroll at night when the streets were empty.
After the Third Hokage left, Naruto glanced at the money in the box and started eating his instant noodles.
As he ate, Naruto opened the chakra training scroll the Third Hokage had given him.
"After waiting so long, I can finally start training my chakra!"
In his previous life, Naruto had been named Chen Ming, an unlucky soul with no parents, no one to rely on, and a terminal illness.
After dying, he had transmigrated into the world of Naruto and become its golden boy, Naruto.
Becoming Naruto was both fortunate and unfortunate.
The fortunate part was that, as long as he followed the original story, he would become one of the biggest badasses in the Shinobi World, become Hokage, marry a beautiful, wealthy woman, and reach the pinnacle of life.
The unfortunate part was that both his parents died as soon as he arrived. Naruto had hoped transmigration would let him experience a father's and mother's love, only to end up all alone again.
Not only had he lost both parents, but he would also be treated as a demon fox in his early years and subjected to all kinds of ostracism.
When Naruto went out at the age of two, a few children threw stones at him and injured his head. That was precisely why he chose to stay home.
His poor health in his previous life had usually left him stuck at home. Now that he had transmigrated, he was still stuck at home.
As for food? Would Konoha really let a Jinchūriki like him starve to death?
Naruto knew that Anbu directly under the Hokage were always watching him, so whenever he ran out of food, he chose to go hungry. After he fainted from hunger twice, the Third realized... this couldn't go on. From then on, an Anbu delivered his meals on time every day.
Today, perhaps because the Anbu had been in too much of a hurry, they had bought instant noodles and bread.
Since the instant noodles did taste pretty good, Naruto let that Anbu off the hook instead of refusing to eat and going on a hunger strike.
It wasn't that Naruto wanted to abuse his own body. He wanted to make these dumbasses understand how important he was.
He had no intention of living as miserably as Naruto had in the original story.
After opening the scroll, Naruto began reading it carefully.
Out of boredom, he had read plenty of books over the past two years, so understanding the scroll's contents was easy.
The scroll began by describing the composition of chakra.
It was much as Naruto understood it: chakra was a combination of physical energy drawn from each of the human body's 130 trillion cells and spiritual energy.
The Senju Clan and the Uzumaki Clan possessed enormous amounts of chakra because their bodies were far stronger than those of ordinary people.
The scroll Sarutobi Hiruzen had given Naruto contained the Uzumaki Clan's chakra extraction technique, which could make the most of the clan's powerful bodies.
After reading through the scroll's contents, Naruto put down his empty noodle cup and began trying to extract chakra.
After forming a few simple hand signs, Naruto began sensing the energy within him.
Soon, a warm current began flowing from every part of his body toward his lower abdomen.
Feeling that warmth, Naruto thought, This should be chakra, right?
Perhaps because he possessed half the Uzumaki Bloodline, extracting chakra came naturally to Naruto.
The fluctuations of chakra from Naruto caused the Anbu eating instant noodles in the tree outside his window to spit out every noodle they had just eaten.
Naturally, this Anbu was stationed here to watch Naruto. Since they delivered food to him every day, they made little effort to hide; otherwise, they wouldn't have been eating instant noodles in a tree.
"He extracted chakra that quickly? What kind of freak is this kid?"
"I remember it took me more than ten days to extract chakra successfully..."
Naturally, Naruto had no idea what the Anbu watching him was thinking.
Feeling the small amount of chakra circulating through his pathways, Naruto smiled.
Before he managed to extract chakra, Naruto had still been a little worried.
After all... if transmigration could happen, it was entirely possible for the golden boy to become a complete dud.
When he first transmigrated, Naruto had thought... since he had arrived in the world of Naruto, surely he would get a system or something.
After all, he was an orphan in both his previous life and this one. Giving him a system wasn't too much to ask, right?
But even after waiting several years, Naruto had never received any system notifications.
Fortunately, he had become the golden boy. If he had become an ordinary person with no special bloodline or powerful connections... he probably would have ended up as cannon fodder.
Naruto returned to his room, planning to skip sleep tonight and stay up extracting chakra-an all-night cultivation session.
Sitting on his bed, he continued extracting chakra.
Just then, two different voices suddenly rang out in his mind.
"Who are you? Why are you here?"
"I was about to ask who you are! Why am I, the great king, locked in a cage? Where is this?"
"That bastard Minato Namikaze! Did he seal a dog in here when he sealed me?"
"You're the dog! I am a wolf, a genuine wolf!"
Listening carefully to the exchange, Naruto was puzzled.
"What's going on? Am I hearing things?"
Judging by the conversation, one of them seemed to be the Nine-Tails... after all, he had mentioned "that bastard Minato Namikaze" and sealing...
Then who was the other one?
The Wolf King?
"Holy shit! Is there a Wolf King sealed inside me too?"
Although he was puzzled and wanted to enter the sealed space to see what was going on, he couldn't.
But... Naruto didn't know how to enter the sealed space, so all he could do was continue extracting chakra.
With his eyes closed, he extracted chakra. When it circulated to his lower abdomen, Naruto suddenly heard the sound of dripping water.
Puzzled, Naruto opened his eyes. Before him stood a massive cage formed from connected bars, with a paper strip bearing the character for "seal" at its center.
Inside the cage, a pair of blood-red beast eyes glared fiercely at him.
"Holy shit! I just got in?"
Before you continue