"First Hinata, then Sakura, followed by Ino, Tenten, Tsunade, Mei Terumi..."
"I don't need to collect them all, but I should build up max favorability where it counts... By the way, isn't chasing Hinata at my current age a little bit too illegal?"
Village Hidden in the Leaves, Ichiraku Ramen.
The blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy lightly pinched his whisker marks, narrowing his eyes as he waited for a large bowl of chashu ramen and calculated his "grand master plan" for after his transmigrations.
Yes, the Uzumaki Naruto of this moment had his core replaced by the soul of a modern corporate wage slave.
In his past life, he had worked harder than an ox and a horse, earned less than bird feed, and spent every day running around picking up packages and takeout for his managers, all while occasionally playing the sycophant—pledging loyalty with one hand and doing unpaid overtime with the other.
If the job market in recent years hadn't been so brutal, he probably would have learned from Generation Z and picked a fine day to dump a store-bought iced Americano right onto his middle-aged, balding supervisor's head, giving the man a taste of what the hell they called workplace restructuring.
So, I mean...
Since I've transmigrated into the world of Naruto—and into the Six Paths' own biological son, the pillar of battle-manga protagonists, the yellow-headed lead at that!
It's not too much to use my memories of the past life to enjoy myself a bit, right?
Of course, future life won't just be about screwing around. All the necessary training, monster-slaying, and the Nine-Tails golden finger won't be missing.
After all, this lifetime he could live for himself. No longer would he need to bow and scrape just to make ends meet, wasting time on meaningless, marginal tasks.
"Your large chashu ramen is ready." Uncle Ichiraku handed the glistening, oily bowl to Naruto, tossing in an extra slice of chashu for good measure.
"Today's your first day as a ninja, right?" Uncle Teuchi smiled warmly. "Do your best!"
Naruto flashed a brilliant smile in return, then buried his head to slurp his noodles earnestly.
See? Even Ōtsutsuki Ichiraku knew to hang around the protagonist. Otherwise, how else could he reopen his shop immediately after Pain destroyed the village? How else could he coast all the way to the finale and come out completely unscathed?
Actually, the world of Naruto was no different from Earth!
If you had a Bloodline Limit you could walk sideways; without bloodlines or connections, even delivering a simple chicken-feather letter could get you killed, leaving you to force a bitter smile and type 'GG' with both hands.
Even if you pushed your hard work to the absolute limit, you'd just end up being resurrected by Orochimaru and Kabuto via the Reanimation Jutsu to go back to work.
And look at all the past Hokage—which of them didn't have familial ties?
Well, thank goodness, thank goodness. This time I'm pure-blooded, a genuine eighth-flag Asura lineage.
With such thoughts in mind, Naruto strode into the classroom, picked a corner, and began sizing everyone up with great interest.
Sunlight pierced through the windows of the Ninja Academy classroom, illuminating the vibrant, youthful graduating class.
"Shikamaru, Chōji, Kiba and the others are exactly the same as in the original work. And Hinata keeps stealing glances at me—as expected, her favorability was maxed out right from the start."
"Sasuke really lives up to his reputation as the ultimate edgelord. His looks are top-tier, no doubt about it. If some girl had transmigrated here instead, she'd probably be hugging his face and licking it on the spot."
"Speaking of which, where's Sakura?"
Naruto looked left and right, finally spotting Sakura sitting quietly in another corner, gazing out the window.
Her neat qipao and high ponytail, combined with emerald-green eyes, gave her an even colder, more aloof temperament.
Naruto frowned slightly: "What's going on with Sakura? Shouldn't she be fighting Ino for prime real estate right now?"
A faint, ominous premonition stirred within him.
You see, a transmigrator's greatest golden finger is their familiarity with the original plot and characters. If he had transmigrated into a world different from the original Naruto, he'd be in deep trouble.
Heaven knows if some character who didn't exist in the original work would suddenly pop out and off him just like that.
"No way, right? I just wanted to secure that Jonin rank and start a harem on the side..." Naruto's teeth suddenly began to ache, and the tips of his toes started tapping against the floor.
As if noticing Naruto's gaze, Sakura in the distance glanced over as well.
Naruto felt his scalp tingle and whipped his head away, but failed to catch how Sakura on the other side had her delicate brows knitted tightly together.
A long while later.
As the instructors arrived one by one to call away the students of their respective classes, the number of students in the room began to dwindle.
The noise inside the classroom grew quieter and quieter.
Knowing Kakashi's usual schtick from the original work, he definitely wouldn't show up until the very last second.
As for Naruto at this moment, he wasn't exactly sitting on pins and needles, but he was certainly sweating bullets.
"The Twelve Rookie performances are normal, the Jonin instructors are standard, and Sasuke fits expectations, but this Sakura... there's definitely something wrong with her!"
Naruto had specifically counted: just now, Sakura had looked in his direction at least twenty-three times.
Twenty-three times...
The way she looked him up and down carried a faint undertone of... appraisal?
Why is she appraising me?
Did I act weird?
That's right, the prank-loving me should be wedging a blackboard eraser above the classroom door right now to prank Kakashi good and proper.
I acted way too calm, and that behavior is not Naruto-like at all.
The real Naruto isn't someone who can just sit still!
Thinking of this, Naruto feigned a casual demeanor, stood up, ran to the podium to pick up the eraser, grabbed a chair, and with a cheeky grin, wedged the eraser into the doorframe.
He recalled the exaggerated lines from the original work and spoke loudly: "What is this? Team 7's instructor still isn't here? Looks like we'll have to teach him a lesson!"
Sasuke glanced over, full of disdain as he muttered, "How could a boring trick like that possibly fool a Jonin."
Hearing this, Naruto was overjoyed—Yes, yes, yes! That's right in character!
He looked back at Sakura.
Her expression—how should he put it—was like she was watching a monkey.
Shift, can you please give a normal teenage girl's reaction!
Naruto was full of complaints internally, but he calmly put the eraser back on the podium: "Sasuke makes a good point."
No more pretending. I'm changing tactics to test you out.
After a while, Kakashi finally made his fashionably late arrival. Immediately following that came the classic rooftop self-introduction segment.
"I'll introduce myself first," Naruto volunteered, raising his hand.
Kakashi nodded, while Sasuke and Sakura turned their gazes toward him.
"My name is Uzumaki Naruto. I like Master Kong beef noodles best—braised, pickled pepper, or pickled cabbage flavors are all fine. My dream is to get a Jonin rank, lead a few Genin teams, and prepare to slack off and lie flat at any moment."
With that, Naruto looked at Sakura: "I'm done. Your turn."
His gaze instantly turned sharp.
Let's see how you respond to this.
Sakura showed no excess reaction, simply saying:
"My name is Haruno Sakura. I don't really like anything, but I hate edgelords and toxic men. Whether I get a rank in the future doesn't matter, but I hope the Konoha upper echelons won't discriminate against women."
Hearing this, Naruto felt as though a heavy iron hammer had smashed straight into his chest, leaving him temporarily short of breath and with a tight chest.
Deliberately bringing up 'official rank', radically changing her attitude toward Sasuke, using modern vocabulary, looking at his reactions like she was watching a monkey...
An audacious guess formed in Naruto's mind.
This Sakura was a transmigrator just like him!
Let's confirm it one more time.
Naruto looked at her and asked out of the blue, "...The parity of the trigonometric function remains unchanged?"
Sakura turned her head to look at Naruto, her eyes narrowing slightly: "Determine the sign by the quadrant."
It really was like that!
Naruto drew in a sharp breath and asked again, "Dare I ask, valiant heroine, which world did you transmigrate from? I'm a native of Fujian."
"I'm from Sichuan-Chongqing."
"Ah, a Sichuan lass, I've heard much about you." Naruto cupped his fists in salute.
Not a Sakura-chan, but a Sichuan lass capable of sending you back to the furnace with a single slap—the internet-famous wife-controlled archetype!
At the same time, Naruto realized a very serious problem...