Year 3 of Konoha.
Spring had come again.
Madara Uchiha had left Konoha the year before. The clan had never said exactly which day in Year 2 of Konoha it had been, and neither had the First Hokage, Hashirama Senju. Uchiha Ning and her son, who lived on the edge of the Uchiha Clan Compound, had even less chance of knowing.
The news spread slowly, like ink dripping into water, impossible to gather back up. At first, it had only been vague gossip: the legendary clan leader who had founded the village alongside the First Hokage had left on his own because their ideas differed.
Of course, Uchiha Yinglang, who had long known that Madara would leave Konoha, paid no attention to it.
He had his own things to do.
Besides, he looked down on Madara Uchiha, that selfish despot.
Yes! A despot.
In Uchiha Yinglang's eyes, Madara Uchiha had always been someone who trusted only himself and cared nothing for whether others lived or died.
Before Konoha was founded, when the Uchiha fought the Senju, Madara Uchiha bore full responsibility for the Uchiha Clan's crushing defeat!
When Uchiha Izuna had been gravely wounded by the Senju, Madara Uchiha had immediately taken him off the battlefield.
Man! You were the leader of the Uchiha Clan! There were other Uchiha clansmen still on that battlefield! And you just left!
Later, the Senju had driven the Uchiha back again and again, until the entire Uchiha Clan wanted to surrender! Yet Madara Uchiha had felt he could stake everything on his Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan, and the result was... more people dying in battle, including Uchiha Yinglang's father, Retsu Uchiha.
The Uchiha... had surrendered anyway.
Seriously! If you were going to surrender anyway, what were you fighting for, Madara Uchiha?
You sacrificed the interests of the entire clan for your own pride.
Not a single clansman followed you when you left Konoha. Take a look at yourself first!
Were you even a good clan leader?
Could you lead the Uchiha Clan to a good life?
For Uchiha Yinglang, the most regular event of that year, aside from playing a three-year-old who was "slightly lively but never precocious" in front of his mother, was his routine meeting with the "myriad worlds lottery system" every seven days.
Most of the lottery prizes were "useless" things.
That was normal. "Golden legendaries" were not so easy to draw.
[Congratulations, host. You have received one "ordinary comb that never wears out."] [Congratulations, host. You have received "a complete set of the bestselling otherworld novel, The Domineering Duke Falls in Love with Me."] [Congratulations, host. You have received "one jar of strange-tasting but nonpoisonous candy."] [Congratulations, host. You have received "a blanket that automatically adjusts its temperature."] [Congratulations, host. You have received "a music box that can play a fixed lullaby."]
Uchiha Yinglang shoved all these things into the system's built-in storage space, which measured roughly a hundred cubic meters. It was not large, but it was enough to hide things he could not use yet, or which were unsuitable to appear in this home. He found an opportunity to "give" the comb to his mother, claiming he had picked it up. Although Uchiha Ning found it odd, the comb was finely made but otherwise unremarkable, so she simply put it down to her son's good luck. He occasionally sucked on a piece of candy to test his body's tolerance. His conclusion was that, aside from tasting awful, it had no other effects. In winter, the blanket became a warm, inconspicuous secret on his bed. The music box? He left that put away.
Over two years, there had been "grand prizes," too.
[Congratulations, host. You have received "mermaid flesh (from Mermaid Forest)."]
It was a small piece of flesh about the size of a palm, gleaming like a pearl inside a transparent jade box. A system description floated beside it: [Mermaid flesh (from the world of Mermaid Forest). Contains a trace of the power of longevity. Consuming it offers an extremely low probability of ageless immortality and an extremely high probability of mutation or instant death. Direct consumption below.]
Ageless immortality. Uchiha Yinglang stared at the piece of flesh for a few seconds, then looked away. It was good stuff, but its side effects were considerable. The timing was not right.
He would store it for now.
Perhaps in the future, he could use it as a base material and combine it with knowledge from other worlds to try developing an immortality drug. For now, however, that was merely a dangerous and distant idea.
[Congratulations, host. You have received "Forbidden technique: Emotion Transformation (from the world of Jing-Ju Cats)."]
It was a black token, neither metal nor jade, carved with intricate masks depicting emotions. Sealed within it was the knowledge of a forbidden technique called "Emotion Transformation."
This forbidden technique originated from the Nian Sect in Jing-Ju Cats. It could absorb and refine the intense negative emotions of living beings-such as fear, hatred, pain, and despair-and convert them into a temporary boost to the user's power. It was immensely powerful, but its side effects were equally apparent: it could very easily erode the mind, and it had extremely high requirements for both the "quality" and "quantity" of emotions. Uchiha Yinglang regarded it as a trump card that might turn the tables at a crucial moment, or... a "tool" for certain special occasions in the future.
[Congratulations, host. You have received "an incomplete Turtle Breath Skill manual (from a certain low-martial world)."]
It was an old thread-bound book with "Turtle Breath Skill: Breathing Methods" written on its cover in Chinese characters. It could not directly produce chakra, but its methods concerning breathing rhythms, the circulation of internal qi, nourishing the internal organs, and extending life vaguely aligned with the "qi sense" training Uchiha Yinglang was exploring. It provided valuable theoretical guidance for strengthening his foundation and conditioning his young body. This was one of the keys to his body's ability to withstand intense training in secret over the past year.
It was precisely through the conditioning provided by this incomplete Turtle Breath Skill manual, and guidance from the training experience of a taijutsu genius from a high-martial world, that Uchiha Yinglang had managed, in just over two years and without anyone noticing, to hone his young body far beyond those of his peers. In physical toughness, strength control, agility, and stamina alone, he was confident that he was already no weaker than an ordinary Konoha genin-those purely taijutsu-focused genin who did not rely on ninjutsu or genjutsu, of course. In Konoha, there were few, if any, purely taijutsu-focused genin.
His strength was one of his most deeply hidden trump cards.
Between keeping up his disguise and training, Uchiha Yinglang had not completely shut himself away. When Uchiha Ning occasionally took him to the slightly livelier parts of the compound to collect supplies or go for a walk, he had, seemingly casually, made three "friends."
Even a capable man needed a few helping hands. Humans were social animals, and Uchiha Yinglang was not foolish enough to think he could get things done all by himself.
How would that make him any different from Madara Uchiha?
He called these three friends, but in truth, they were merely playmates who occasionally played together in certain corners and shared a few snacks. They came from families subordinate to the Uchiha or small families closely connected to them. Their households were ordinary, and they, too, were on the margins of the compound.
One was Tsume Inuzuka, an energetic girl two years older than Uchiha Yinglang. She always brought along her ninja dog puppy, Haimaru, leaving her perpetually surrounded by a doggy smell that would not wash away. She was straightforward and rather fond of this younger Uchiha boy who "looked a little slow but actually didn't mind her smelling like a dog."
Another was Kurama Unkai, a boy one year older than Uchiha Yinglang, with a somewhat frail body and a slightly pale face. He was a typical "sickly pretty boy." His family was known for its talent in mental genjutsu, but he himself did not seem to have displayed anything special yet. He was rather quiet and introverted, and his favorite thing was to squat in a corner of the courtyard and watch ants move their colony, often for more than half a day at a time. Uchiha Yinglang would occasionally watch quietly beside him for a while and ask some "boring" questions. This made Kurama Unkai feel that this younger Uchiha boy was special, not as noisy as the other children.
The last was Yutian. He had no surname-or rather, his surname was "Yutian." He was the child of a servant family that depended on the Uchiha Clan for its livelihood, and he was the same age as Uchiha Yinglang. He was the most taciturn of them, but his eyes were bright, and he was meticulous. Whenever Uchiha Yinglang "accidentally" dropped a pebble, he would silently pick it up, wipe it clean, and hand it back. They spoke the least, but there was an unspoken understanding between them.
Uchiha Yinglang had not chosen them purely for childhood friendship. The Inuzuka Clan's beast-communication techniques might prove useful in the future; the Kurama Clan's system of mental power existed independently of the Sharingan and was worth his observation. As for lower-ranking people like Yusaka, who depended on the Uchiha, and their descendants, they were a group often overlooked even within the Uchiha. His perspective and potential loyalty might, at some future moment, be more valuable than those of the proud Uchiha clansmen.
"Langlang, time to come home." Uchiha Ning's gentle voice drifted over from nearby, bringing Uchiha Yinglang's "social time" with his little friends to an end.
"Coming, Mom!" Uchiha Yinglang gave a smile appropriate to his age and waved at his three little friends. "Big Sis Tsume, Big Brother Unkai, Yusaka, see you tomorrow!"
He ran back to his mother, took her warm hand, and glanced back at the compound as it slowly sank into the dusk. Beneath the setting sun, the towering fan-shaped clan crest cast a long, long shadow.
In the system space, the mermaid flesh lay quietly in its jade box, the token containing the forbidden technique Emotion Transformation glowed faintly, and the Turtle Breath method slowly circulated within his body.
His taijutsu had already reached genin level, and the seeds of personal connections had quietly been planted.
The spring of Year 3 of Konoha was peaceful. No one knew that, right on the edge of the compound, within the heart of a three-year-old child, the foundations of an empire were quietly gaining another brick with each breath he took and each beat of his heart.
Before you continue