Konoha, fifty-one years after its founding.
Three full years had passed since the Nine-Tails wreaked havoc on the village.
For those three years, Konoha had been peaceful on the surface.
The Fourth had died in battle, and the Third had returned to power. The biggest topic of conversation in the village was nothing more than the Uchiha Clan's young genius, Itachi, graduating early from the Ninja Academy at just eight years old.
As for the friction with Kumogakure along the Land of Fire's border, ordinary villagers had no access to such matters.
The Third Shinobi World War had drained Konoha's reserves. The foremost shinobi village had long since lost its former swagger.
But none of that crap had anything whatsoever to do with Uchiha Genya.
Early morning, atop Hokage Rock.
Two figures charged up to the summit, one behind the other.
The young man in the lead stopped, took out a cigarette, and lit it, looking down at the whole of Konoha below.
"Huff... huff... I lost to you again, Xuanye!"
Might Guy caught up behind him and braced his hands on his knees, panting heavily, his eyes full of admiration as he looked at the man.
Uchiha Genya was a celebrity in Konoha.
Whenever the village's women mentioned him, all they talked about was his outrageously handsome face.
But as a longtime morning-training rival, Might Guy knew very well just how terrifying the man before him was!
Guy knew quite a few inside stories.
For instance, during a localized skirmish in the Third Shinobi World War, the Uchiha Clan's elite had been ambushed by enemy forces and suffered heavy casualties.
Only the clan head, Uchiha Fugaku, and Uchiha Genya had survived the battle unscathed.
There were even rumors that Fugaku had only escaped with his life because Xuanye had fought his way in and out through the piles of corpses.
Precisely because of that life-and-death bond, after the Nine-Tails' Rampage ended three years earlier, Fugaku had defied the opposition of every clan elder and put the real authority of the Konoha Military Police Force captain in Xuanye's hands.
No one could gauge the limits of Xuanye's strength.
Guy challenged him to Taijutsu matches every day and had never won once.
But what Guy admired most was not Xuanye's fighting prowess. It was his perseverance!
Ever since graduating from the Ninja Academy, Xuanye had completed the same fixed training routine every single day without fail:
Two hundred push-ups, two hundred sit-ups, two hundred squats, plus a twenty-kilometer cross-country run.
Rain or shine, he had never missed a day.
Hearing Guy's remark, Xuanye merely smiled.
Beat Guy?
Couldn't anyone with hands do that?
Just then, a mechanical notification sounded in Xuanye's mind.
[Ding! Today's self-discipline check-in complete!] [Basic rewards received: strength +4, constitution +5, endurance +6, speed +3, spirit +2, charm +1!] [Special trait bonuses received: total chakra slightly increased! Fire Release Ninjutsu power marginally increased!]
Hearing the system's announcement, Xuanye stubbed out his cigarette and casually tossed it into a trash can.
Today's randomly generated traits were chakra and Fire Release power. Not too bad.
But seeing his endurance jump by six points left Xuanye muttering to himself inwardly.
With my endurance getting higher and higher, the workers at the brothel probably won't be able to take it when I go there in the future.
And the personal maid I keep at home probably has a pretty rough time every day, too.
If Might Guy knew that behind Xuanye's gentle smile, his head was full of these adults-only images, his eyes would probably have popped out.
Xuanye was a transmigrator.
When he first discovered that he had transmigrated into a member of the Uchiha Clan, he had panicked.
After all, this clan was notorious for dying sudden, violent deaths, either on the battlefield or by their own clansmen's blades.
Fortunately, on the day he graduated from the Ninja Academy, he had bonded with the [God-Level Self-Discipline System].
As long as he finished his basic physical training every day, he could stack basic attributes without limit and randomly enhance two special traits.
Sometimes the boosts went to chakra and ninjutsu; sometimes they went to muscle density or genjutsu resistance.
With this cheat, Xuanye had kept a low profile and built up his strength for several years. By now, his panel's stats had long since surpassed the shinobi world's common sense.
He casually brought up the attribute panel that only he could see:
[Host: Uchiha Genya] [Age: 19] [Strength: 215] [Speed: 240] [Constitution: 228] [Endurance: 260] [Spirit: 195] [Charm: max level] (System conversion standard: all values use elite jonin Kakashi Hatake as the baseline. Each of Kakashi's stats is 1.)
In other words, even Xuanye's weakest attribute, spirit, was now nearly two hundred times Kakashi's!
As for the long, collapsed list of ninjutsu and Taijutsu traits beneath the panel, Xuanye could not even be bothered to open it.
With his current stats, even casually spitting out a C-rank Fireball Jutsu caused a far greater commotion than other people's S-rank forbidden techniques.
How lonely was it to be invincible?
Xuanye had no such thoughts.
The shinobi world might not have much depth, but who knew whether there were higher-level worlds beyond it?
The Ōtsutsuki Clan was still floating around out among the stars. Stockpiling more attributes to protect himself could never hurt.
Besides, when he took over the Konoha Military Police Force three years earlier, the system had triggered a long-term side quest:
[Competent Police Force Captain] [Quest description: lead the Konoha Military Police Force on scheduled patrols and ensure stable public order on Konoha's streets.] [Quest reward: fixed hidden attributes awarded daily (bloodline purity, Sharingan eye power, etc.). The longer you serve as captain, the greater the final grand prize upon leaving the position!]
This quest was practically free money.
All he had to do was lead the squad for a stroll through the streets every day and grind anyone who dared cause trouble into the dirt. He could collect his daily handout while building toward the final grand prize. Only an idiot would turn that down.
As for whatever schemes the Third Hokage and Danzo were hatching against the Uchiha behind the scenes?
Xuanye could not be bothered with them.
A bunch of decrepit old fossils playing politics were a joke in the face of absolute power.
As long as they were not stupid enough to get in his face, Xuanye would treat it as watching a monkey show.
If they really pissed him off, he would just send them to the afterlife by force and be done with it.
Closing the panel, Xuanye stretched and glanced at the sky.
He patted Might Guy on the shoulder, then turned and headed down the mountain.
"Let's go, Might Guy. Time to head back, take a shower, and get ready to clock in at work."
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