At this point, in Kakashi Hatake's understanding, ninjas with bloodline limits were undoubtedly stronger than ordinary shinobi—but not to the degree that ordinary shinobi could never hope to contend with them.
Take the Third Hokage, for example. He was hailed as the strongest Hokage, yet he possessed no bloodline limit at all and still stood as a towering figure in the ninja world. Kakashi's own teacher, the Fourth Hokage, had been a common-born ninja as well, and he had still carved out the legendary name of Konoha's Yellow Flash.
Among the four Hokage, only the First Hokage had possessed the Wood Release bloodline limit. Even the Second Hokage, though born from the Senju clan, had no bloodline limit of his own, yet still became a fearsome existence who shook the entire ninja world.
So at his core, Kakashi Hatake simply did not believe that a ninja had to possess a bloodline limit.
***
At the same moment, inside a house in Konoha Village, a boy who looked about fifteen or sixteen sat in a daze, a trace of astonishment still frozen on his handsome face.
He wore a standard Konoha chunin vest. His hair was short, his features clean-cut, and right now, after finishing the tenth entry in his diary, his heart was pounding so hard it felt like it might burst out of his chest.
It was time for the draw.
Yes—he was Kitahara Kaede, a modern man whose soul had crossed over from Earth.
When he first woke up in this world, he discovered that he had become an utterly ordinary genin in an absurdly dangerous world.
How ordinary? So ordinary that he didn't possess even the slightest trace of a bloodline limit. The Kitahara family wasn't some notable clan like the Sarutobi clan either—a family without bloodline abilities, yes, but one backed by deep roots and generations of accumulated strength.
No, the Kitahara family was truly ordinary.
His parents had both been common people. His father had only been a regular chunin, and he had died on a mission a few years earlier, leaving Kaede and his mother, Kitahara Yoshiko, to rely on each other for survival.
As for talent, he was only a little better than the average person. That slight edge had been enough to get him into the Ninja Academy, and after three years of grinding away following graduation, he had naturally advanced to chunin.
A very ordinary chunin.
With no bloodline limit and no heaven-defying talent, Kitahara Kaede's original plan had always been simple: don't stand out, don't fight to lead, and avoid trouble whenever possible.
Relying on the fragments of foreknowledge he had about major future events in the ninja world, he had hoped to dodge disaster where he could and survive a few extra years.
It wasn't that he lacked ambition. In a world of shinobi, reality itself was just that cruel.
Even if you had a bloodline limit, so what? In the end, you still had to be the reincarnation of the Sage of Six Paths' own son—otherwise you'd just wind up like Hyuga Neji.
The son of a savior would still be a savior.
And the son of a scapegoat would still be a scapegoat.
But everything changed ten days ago.
That was when he obtained the Diary System.
As long as he wrote in his diary every day for ten consecutive days, he would earn a chance to enter a lottery.
And today was the first time he could finally draw.
How could he not be excited?
He knew better than anyone that if he wanted even the slightest chance to overturn the bleak future already waiting for him, it could only come from this Diary System.
"Lottery!"
Kitahara Kaede silently called out in his heart.
The next instant, a semi-transparent roulette wheel appeared before him—visible only to his eyes. The rewards listed on it made his pupils contract sharply.
Wood Release. Byakugan. Sharingan. Sealing techniques. Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique.
All kinds of things that were rare and precious even in the ninja world were spinning across that panel like impossible dreams laid bare before him.
The pointer turned.
As it spun, Kaede's hopes rose with it, surging higher and higher, until at last the pointer slowed... then stopped completely.
"Standard Uchiha Clan Bloodline!"
Kitahara Kaede froze.
It wasn't the Sharingan.
It was the standard bloodline of the Uchiha clan.
For a moment, he didn't know how to react.
What exactly was this supposed to mean?
But after a brief pause, he quickly formed a guess.
According to the Diary System's classification, the Uchiha bloodline and the Sharingan were clearly treated as two separate things.
Which actually made sense.
After all, someone could possess a Sharingan without having the Uchiha bloodline—Kakashi Hatake himself was the clearest example.
But the price of that was obvious.
A transplanted Sharingan couldn't be turned off normally, and Kakashi's chakra reserves had become a laughingstock in the eyes of countless people. It had even gotten so absurd that his chakra quantity had become its own measuring unit.
One Ka.
There were even people who believed Kakashi's chakra was pitifully low.
But in truth, Kakashi Hatake's chakra wasn't actually that little. It only looked that way because the ever-active Sharingan was constantly devouring it, forcing him down the path of an assassin-style ninja.
And being an assassin-type shinobi wasn't necessarily a bad thing—at least, not in the early stages of the Naruto world.
But later on, that kind of fighter would be far too fragile. Once the power scale rose high enough, assassins became little more than cannon fodder.
By then, those monsters barely looked like ninjas anymore. One by one, they all seemed to have become body cultivators, their physiques growing more and more outrageous.
But if someone possessed the standard Uchiha bloodline, then everything was different.
That meant that, from a genetic standpoint, Kitahara Kaede had effectively become an unofficial remnant of the Uchiha clan.
And in theory...
He might one day awaken his own Sharingan.
The moment that thought crossed his mind, he felt the chakra inside his body begin to rise at a speed he could clearly perceive.
In an incredibly short amount of time, his chakra more than doubled.
Kitahara Kaede had been training for years, but never—not once—had he experienced such overflowing chakra.
Still, the more he thought about it, the more reasonable it felt.
The Uchiha clan were descendants of the Sage of Six Paths, after all. Though they could not compare to the Senju clan, who had inherited the Sage's body, the fact that they could even be placed in comparison at all already said enough.
Compared to other shinobi clans, the Uchiha's chakra reserves were naturally abundant. Otherwise, how could Uchiha Madara have fought Senju Hashirama for so long?
Not to mention that Kitahara Kaede himself had originally been just a completely ordinary person by blood—he hadn't even come from a proper ninja clan.
As night gradually fell, Kitahara Kaede finally finished fusing with most of that standard Uchiha bloodline.
His chakra reserves had increased by more than tenfold.
At that point, his chakra quantity alone was already comparable to that of a typical jonin, smashing straight through a limit he could never have reached before.
And with his current age, he was only just stepping into the stage where a shinobi's strength began to rise rapidly. His chakra would only continue to grow from here.
The potential of the standard Uchiha bloodline was far from exhausted.
More importantly, the quality of his chakra had improved by an unknown amount compared to before.
This wasn't just a quantitative leap.
It was a complete transformation in both quality and quantity.
If he used the same ninjutsu now, its power would be at least a full tier stronger than before.
He could even feel that his natural talent had changed.
His memory had improved. His comprehension had sharpened. The Kitahara Kaede who had once been nothing more than an ordinary person could now, at the very least, be called a genius within a certain small circle.
How small was that circle?
At present, only he himself knew the answer.
After that, Kitahara Kaede ran repeated tests on his own body, carefully measuring the changes in every aspect of his strength.
Before this, he had only barely stepped into the chunin level.
But now, he was certain that he stood at the level of a Special Jonin. Against an ordinary jonin, he no longer felt the slightest fear.
For the first time in years, Kitahara Kaede felt the crushing pressure that had weighed on his heart finally begin to lift at the root.
Even in a world this dangerous, he now had a chance.
A chance to escape the fate of cannon fodder.
A chance to stand at the summit of the ninja world.