The rain fell.
Sosuke opened his eyes.
He lay in the mud, half his body submerged in a shallow puddle. The water covered his ears, its freezing touch drilling through his cochlea and straight into his brain.
But he didn't move.
In his mind, fragmented memories were realigning, forcing themselves into place like a scattered jigsaw puzzle. Memories of a past life. The identity of his current one.
There was no complex fusion process. Just a momentary lapse of consciousness, and he accepted his reality.
He had transmigrated.
This was the Shinobi World. This was the Land of Rivers. It was the third year following the end of the Second Shinobi World War.
Sosuke sat up.
His clothes were woven from coarse linen, heavily frayed with loose threads spilling from the cuffs. On his feet were a pair of straw sandals; one of the straps had snapped.
His stomach growled—a sharp, burning friction against his gastric walls, a clinical reminder that this body hadn't consumed calories in at least two days.
He looked down at his hands. Rough palms, thick knuckles, the lifelines packed with black grime that refused to wash out. These were the hands of someone accustomed to grueling manual labor. They belonged to a fifteen-year-old drifter.
This was his entire capital.
No, there was something else.
Sosuke closed his eyes, letting his consciousness sink into the depths of his mind. There were no flashing holographic screens, no incessantly chattering system sprites. There was only an incredibly simple, indifferent concept—[Precious Metal Generation].
There was no instruction manual, yet he inherently knew how to use it.
He extended his right hand, palm up to the empty, muddy wasteland, and willed it.
No optical effects manifested in the air. No fluctuations of chakra. No smoke.
An object the size of a mung bean materialized out of thin air in his palm.
It was dense. Its luster was blinding.
It was silver.
Sosuke pinched the granule, examining it closely under the gray light. Extreme purity. Almost one hundred percent chemical silver. This wasn't the currency silver commonly circulated in this world, which was heavily alloyed with copper and lead.
He tried again.
This time, a granule of gold.
It was only the size of a grain of rice, but that oppressive, heavy density felt exceptionally real against the falling rain.
"No cooldown time," Sosuke muttered, his voice hoarse. "No physical exertion, no chakra required, and no... spatial storage."
He patted himself down. Aside from a pocket with a hole in it, he had nowhere to store anything.
He clenched the gold and silver granules in his fist.
Fear.
That was Sosuke's first reaction to acquiring this ability. Not ecstasy, but cold, calculating fear.
In a peaceful, lawful society, creating matter out of thin air was a staircase to boundless wealth. But in the Shinobi World, a world where absolute power dictated survival, a man without martial strength holding infinite wealth was a sheep walking into a wolf pack clutching fresh meat.
And this was the Land of Rivers. A buffer zone sandwiched between the Land of Fire and the Land of Wind. There was no order from the great hidden villages here. Only rogue ninja, samurai factions, bandits, and countless war refugees.
Gold and silver couldn't be eaten. They only attracted vultures.
Sosuke tossed the grain of gold back into the puddle, stomping it deep into the muck with his heel. At this stage, gold was a death sentence. In a world where even iron cooking pots were stolen to be melted down, producing a grain of pure gold was equivalent to suicide.
Silver could barely be circulated, but even then, he had to be excruciatingly careful.
He kept the mung-bean-sized granule of silver, wedging it into the layered sole of his straw sandal.
The rain continued to fall.
Sosuke stood up and got his bearings. A muddy dirt road stretched northward. Every few hundred meters along the shoulder lay collapsed houses or abandoned bunkers. Scars left behind by the war.
He began to walk.
After trekking for about two hours, the sky darkened. The rain dialed back, settling into a fine, hazy mist.
A ruined temple loomed ahead. Calling it a temple was generous; only half a roof and three walls remained. The enshrined deity had long lost its head, its pedestal overgrown with moss.
There was firelight inside.
Sosuke stopped, hiding behind a dead tree to observe.
Five people occupied the ruin. Three adult men, an old woman, and a little girl around seven or eight years old. They sat huddled around a feeble campfire. A chipped clay pot rested over the flames, boiling something that emitted a faint, steaming vapor.
The smell of wild herbs.
Sosuke watched for ten minutes. Though emaciated, the three men had vicious eyes. Sharpened wooden stakes and rusted sickles lay within arm's reach. The old woman and the little girl shrank into the corner, their expressions numb.
This wasn't a family. This was a temporary refugee group.
Sosuke rubbed his stomach. The lack of glucose was inducing a wave of vertigo.
But he didn't walk over. He didn't use the silver in his sandal.
In this environment, if he produced a piece of silver and asked to buy a bowl of soup, there were only two statistical outcomes: First, the silver is robbed, and he is killed. Second, the silver is robbed, and he is beaten into a cripple.
He needed a different angle of approach.
Sosuke scooped up a handful of wet mud and smeared it across his face, rendering his already filthy features completely unrecognizable. He picked up a sturdy branch from the roadside to use as a crutch, then limped out into the open.
He didn't walk directly toward the temple but followed the road, pretending to pass by.
"Stop."
One of the men inside called out.
Sosuke stopped. He turned around, his back slightly hunched, his eyes clouded and vacant.
"Got any food?" the man asked, his hand already gripping the handle of his sickle.
Sosuke shook his head, his voice raspy. "Haven't eaten in three days. I'm trying to reach the town up ahead."
The man looked Sosuke up and down. Rags for clothes. Straw sandals ready to disintegrate. Nothing but a rotting stick in his hand, and not a single bulge in his pockets.
A pauper. A pauper with absolutely nothing to bleed out of him.
"Piss off," the man spat. "The town ahead is locked down. You can't get in."
Sosuke nodded. He didn't argue. He just kept shuffling forward.
But he didn't go far. He stopped under a windbreak rock about fifty meters away from the ruined temple. It shielded him from the rain and offered a partial line of sight into the ruins.
He needed information. And he needed an opportunity.
The night deepened.
The rain stopped.
The three men took turns keeping watch. By the latter half of the night, the man on guard began to nod off.
Sosuke quietly fished the silver granule from his rags.
He ground it against the rock.
Silver was a soft metal. Grated against the coarse stone, it quickly became pitted and deformed, losing its blinding metallic luster. Coated in rock dust and grime, it now resembled a slightly polished lump of scrap iron or tin.
He needed to disguise it as "mixed silver." Low-quality scrap, heavily alloyed with lead and tin, perhaps even tainted with copper rust. That was the kind of currency a bottom-feeder refugee might possess—something scavenged from a corpse, or a pathetic family heirloom.
Once finished, Sosuke popped the granule into his mouth, tucking it securely under his tongue.
Dawn broke.
Movement stirred within the ruined temple. The old woman was dead.
There had been no warning signs. Maybe hypothermia. Maybe organ failure from starvation.
The three men showed no trace of sorrow. They simply fell to looting the corpse with practiced efficiency, unearthing a moldy piece of flatbread and a few loose threads.
The little girl watched blankly. She didn't cry.
The men conferred briefly, then dragged the old woman's body to the woods behind the temple. No burial. Just discarding the meat.
Sosuke watched the scene unfold, his expression entirely detached.
'This is the foundational logic of the Shinobi World,' he mused internally. 'Lives are expendable commodities. Resources are not.'
He stood up and approached the temple once more.
This time, the three men had just finished dividing the herb soup. Each held a chipped bowl, slurping loudly.
"You again." The leader was a one-eyed man. He lowered his bowl, his gaze hostile. "Didn't I tell you to piss off?"
Sosuke stood at the temple entrance, rainwater dripping from his pant legs.
"I want to make a trade," Sosuke said.
"A trade?" The one-eyed man chuckled, baring a row of yellow teeth. "Trading your life?"
Sosuke opened his mouth and spat out the deformed, saliva-slicked chunk of silver. He pinched it between his fingers.
The three men's eyes locked onto it instantly.
It looked filthy. Its luster was dull. But it was undeniably metal.
"I just found it," Sosuke said, lacing his tone with a calculated mix of cowardice and greed. "Trading it for a bowl of soup, and for you to take me with you."
The one-eyed man stood up. He didn't immediately lunge to rob him.
Because Sosuke's positioning was deliberate. He stood right on the edge of the main road. If they rushed him, Sosuke could turn and vanish into the rain, or toss the silver into the dense brush where no one would ever find it.
Moreover, this small chunk of impure silver held a middle-ground value. Risking physical exertion to murder a man for such a paltry sum required a cost-benefit analysis.
"Bring it here. Let me see it," the one-eyed man demanded.
Sosuke didn't move. "Soup first."
The one-eyed man narrowed his eyes, weighing the variables, before kicking the little girl. "Scrape the bottom of the pot."
The girl timidly picked up the clay pot, added some rainwater, swirled it around, and poured it into a chipped bowl. The broth was incredibly thin, with only a few stray herb leaves swirling in the murky water.
She carried the bowl over to Sosuke.
Sosuke took it. He didn't drink immediately; instead, he tossed the silver nugget to the one-eyed man.
The man caught it, bit down on it, and rubbed it against the hem of his shirt.
"Quality is garbage," the one-eyed man scowled. "Half lead, half silver. This thing is worth a few dozen Ryo at best."
"Enough to buy a life," Sosuke replied, lowering his head to drink.
The hot liquid slid down his esophagus and into his stomach. It tasted of dirt. It was thin as water. But it was caloric energy.
His body cheered.
Sosuke drank slowly, observing the small clique. These three were clearly heading toward a specific gathering point. Statistically, following them was safer than wandering blindly alone.
"What's your name?" The one-eyed man pocketed the silver, his attitude softening marginally. Since he had taken the money, underworld rules dictated they wouldn't kill him—at least not immediately.
"Sosuke."
"What can you do?"
"I have strength. I can carry bags."
"Fine." The one-eyed man pointed to two large sacks on the ground. "You carry that one. We're heading to Akaiwa Town. Once we get there, our debt is settled."
Sosuke set down the bowl, walked over, and hauled the sack onto his back. It was heavy. Likely packed with scrap iron or ore. He made no complaints, silently falling in at the rear of the procession.
The group set off once more.
The little girl walked beside Sosuke. She was skin and bones, her large eyes fixed on him.
"Are you hungry too?" Sosuke asked quietly.
The girl nodded, then shook her head.
She didn't speak. She just extended a frail, withered hand and pointed at the corner of Sosuke's mouth.
A single remnant of an herb leaf clung to his skin.
Sosuke wiped it off, put it in his mouth, chewed, and swallowed.
He did not give the leaf to the little girl.
His current identity was that of a ruthless vagrant doing whatever it took to survive. Nothing more. Superfluous kindness would flag him as an anomaly.
He looked ahead.
Akaiwa Town.
It was the largest trading hub in the vicinity. Word was that shinobi frequented the area. Only there did a foundation for currency circulation exist. Only there could he convert "infinity" into power.
Sosuke raised his head, staring into the oppressive gray sky.
This long, grueling journey had only just begun.