His name was Bai Xing.
He was a half-transmigrator.
Why "half"? That was actually a rather complicated matter.
Inside an ordinary small apartment, a black-haired young man lying on the bed suddenly opened his eyes.
Those eyes looked as if they had experienced an entirely second life.
He raised his hand and removed the virtual helmet covering his head.
To introduce himself again—
His name was Bai Xing, a modern person.
The cruelty of reality had driven him to immerse himself in online games. Until one day, he activated a realistic virtual game built around the world of Naruto.
That was when he awakened a system.
From that moment on, he could no longer leave his room.
Food would automatically refresh inside the house. Basically speaking, he didn't need to step outside to survive. He would never feel hungry.
For a shut-in, it was the ultimate dream life.
However, the system had no intelligence and never explained what would happen if he went outside.
So the moment he pushed open the door…
His challenge might fail.
—A challenge that would determine his future fate.
The game only gave him one life.
If he managed to keep his character alive until the ending of Naruto: Shippuden, he would gain two possible choices.
First, he could remain in his current world and receive a noble black card containing one billion in legal, liquid funds.
Second, he could obtain the character's peak strength and travel to any world he wished—or stay in the Naruto world and continue living there.
Who could possibly refuse such a challenge?
If he had to choose the most ideal world, it would probably be something like Detective Conan—a world with occasional excitement, but not so dangerous that life became unbearable.
With combat ability and a lifespan extended by decades, wouldn't that basically be like going on vacation?
After all…
He had eaten a Surgery Devil Fruit without weaknesses.
Bai Xing opened the refrigerator and took out a freshly refreshed can of beer.
He drained the icy drink in one gulp, then tossed the empty can into the ordinary trash can that automatically cleaned up garbage.
After that, he turned on the television.
On the screen, the news reported a story about someone bitten by a dog who had contracted rabies and was now biting people in the street.
Of course, this was news from half a month ago.
The fact that the television still played despite having no power supply or signal clearly demonstrated the power of the system.
Grabbing a handful of sunflower seeds from the snack tray, Bai Xing began eating while thinking about his next step.
How could he maximize his chances of survival and ensure he cleared the challenge?
"Fine. I'll just accept it."
"If I refuse the Hokage, it'll ruin the character persona I've spent all this time building."
Even inside an absolutely safe area, if someone stayed alone long enough—even with the game paused indefinitely—they might eventually go insane.
And if that happened, they might impulsively open the windows or door that had been sealed shut for a month.
Before all of this happened, Bai Xing had just been an ordinary unemployed young man, idling away his days in a small rented apartment.
Then one day he discovered this game.
The system warned him to keep the windows and doors tightly shut.
That was why, for the past month, he had kept the air conditioner running nonstop and turned into a complete shut-in.
Of course, even if the AC was turned off, the room still had air circulation and never felt stuffy. The only difference was that the temperature would be affected by the outside weather—sometimes becoming unbearably hot.
Bai Xing returned to the window and looked outside through the transparent glass.
Through it, he could clearly see what was happening beyond.
"Sa—save me!"
A dying passerby screamed in Bai Xing's direction.
But instead of rescue, countless zombies rushed toward him.
Soon after, somewhere above Bai Xing's apartment, the sound of glass loosening echoed. The pounding against a door grew louder.
A fat man from the upper floor had no choice but to try escaping through the window.
He vaguely remembered that the apartment below belonged to that useless guy Bai Xing. If he jumped into that place, maybe there would be plenty of food and clean water.
Maybe he could survive.
But the moment he slid down the wall and looked into the open window—
He saw a hideous zombie inside.
The fat man screamed in terror and lost his footing.
He fell straight into the swarming horde of zombies below.
Meanwhile, Bai Xing was thinking about something else entirely.
Was he still human?
Or had he already become a zombie—only dreaming that he was still alive?
After all…
This wasn't the first time he had scared someone like that.
But thinking about it was pointless.
Compared to the destruction of the world, what he needed to do was find a path to survive at all costs.
As an ordinary person, surviving in this kind of world was impossible.
His only way out was the "virtual world" inside the helmet.
A world where he could achieve true transmigration.
The time flow inside the helmet's virtual world was extremely fast.
Six years in that world had only been half a month in reality.
And Bai Xing didn't believe it was truly just a virtual world.
Perhaps it was a parallel Naruto world.
And he himself was the protagonist of that parallel world—
—or perhaps more accurately, the troublemaker.
The next morning.
Inside the Ninja Academy classroom, the graduating students sat quietly, waiting to see who their future teachers would be.
Some of them were children of ninja clans and already knew their instructor would be a Jonin.
Others were still excitedly guessing.
Would their teacher be the Hokage's disciple?
Or some famous Jonin?
Very soon, reality struck these naive boys and girls hard.
"Team One — Nawaki. Instructor: Orochimaru."
Nawaki raised his head proudly, his face full of smug satisfaction.
The other children were confused.
"Why does Team One only have one person?"
The Chunin teacher holding the documents sighed inwardly but patiently explained.
"Nawaki's team is… somewhat special. Don't worry about it."
"Next, Team Two — Yamanaka Tai'er, Akimichi Yumi, Nara Yu. Instructor: Sarutobi Shinnosuke."
"Wow! A Jonin from the Sarutobi clan!"
A slightly chubby girl with dark red hair tied into a bun—Akimichi Yumi—looked thrilled.
Beside her, Nara Yu rested his chin in his hand.
Girls really love pretending, he thought lazily.
She obviously knew already.
The Chunin teacher continued reading out the team assignments.
However, one girl in the classroom was growing increasingly anxious.
She had long straight black hair and belonged to the Uchiha clan.
Her name had not been called yet.
"Team Eleven."
"Uchiha Mikoto, Yakushi Nono, Might Dai. Instructor… Bai Xing."
"Bai Xing?!"
With a loud scrape, the black-haired girl suddenly stood up.
She had refused to join a team led by a clan Jonin, choosing instead to remain at the academy and accept the village's official assignment.
And now they were giving her an instructor she had never even heard of?
"Never heard of that name… but he shouldn't be too bad," Yakushi Nono said calmly, glancing at Uchiha Mikoto.
She didn't seem particularly concerned.
However, a moment later she realized something strange.
The teacher had mentioned a name she had never heard before—
Might Dai.
Confusion immediately appeared on her face.
The Chunin instructor had been mentally rehearsing explanations for how to deal with the inevitable complaints from the powerful Uchiha clan.
Just as he was preparing to speak, he saw Yakushi Nono raise her hand.
"Teacher, who is Might Dai?" she asked. "I don't think I've heard that name before."
Yakushi Nono came from a Chunin family but had become an orphan after losing her parents.
She wasn't particularly popular in the class.
Her question attracted quite a bit of attention.
Most students only glanced briefly before looking away.
But the children from major clans showed expressions of amusement, clearly expecting some drama.
Nara Yu silently complained in his heart.
A failed Genin instructor who has failed the Chunin Exam six times… paired with a Uchiha genius girl, a quiet nobody from the class, and now even a taijutsu-only eternal Genin uncle?
Isn't this basically the higher-ups of Konoha deliberately giving the Uchiha clan a headache?
Of course, he would never say such things out loud.
After all, he hated trouble.
"Well… as for him," the Chunin teacher said awkwardly, scratching his cheek.
"He's a Genin from a few classes above Bai Xing…"
"Then why hasn't he been promoted to Chunin yet?" Uchiha Mikoto frowned.
A bad feeling suddenly rose in her heart.
The teacher sighed.
"That's because he only knows taijutsu."
"He can't properly use even the most basic ninja techniques—the Three Basic Techniques."
"And without those… it's impossible to become a Chunin."