Chapter 1: This Isn't the Cheat I Wanted

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Thud, thud.

The Third Hokage casually caught the eggs thrown at him and stuffed them into his pocket. As the leader of the village and the current Hokage, he couldn’t afford to be hit by such an attack, especially when it came from a three-year-old brat.

“Why do you always give me two eggs?” the Third Hokage asked, watching the child wash the clay off his hands. He had long grown accustomed to the kid’s ability to summon things out of thin air.

Should I tell him it’s because I want him to scram? the child thought, but instead, he smiled sweetly and said, “Of course, it’s to help you build up your strength, Grandpa!”

The Third Hokage, despite his advanced age, was still known for peeking into the women’s bathhouse using his crystal ball. His frail appearance and weak voice made the gift of two eggs seem like a reasonable gesture.

“This is your allowance for the month,” the Third Hokage said, placing a few bills on the small table next to him. The table, like many other items in the room, had been summoned by the child. The bed, potted plants, chairs, mirrors, sofa, wall clock, an empty fish tank, and even a birdcage without a bird—all of them had appeared out of nowhere.

At first, the Third Hokage had thought the child possessed a unique summoning ability and had considered nurturing it. But after a while, he gave up. The ability was just too bizarre to make sense of.

The Third Hokage had seen his fair share of summoning techniques—insects, bees, toads, mosquitoes, and even the mighty Rashomon Gate for defense. But this kid? He summoned furniture, roasted meat, bread, pies, buns, apples, and soup. What kind of summoning technique was that?

Sure, he could summon dirt, sand, stones, coal, sticks, and leaves, which were somewhat useful. But wool and rotten spiderwebs? What was the point?

Wooden planks, broken glass, ropes, nails, needles, paper, and balls of yarn—the most offensive thing he could summon was a brick, and the most defensive was a pot. What kind of summoning technique was this? The Third Hokage had pulled out several strands of his beard trying to figure it out.

“Thank you, Grandpa,” Naruto said after washing his hands. He took the money and stuffed it into the fish tank. Since there were no fish, he had turned it into a piggy bank, and it was working quite well. There was already a decent amount of savings inside.

From this, it was clear that Uzumaki Naruto, the protagonist of Naruto, had been replaced. And the replacement had happened right from the womb—thoroughly and completely.

Xu Xian, courtesy name Sanduo, was the third child in his family. Born before the one-child policy, his father had named him Sanduo (meaning “three excesses”) and later became obsessed with the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, giving him a courtesy name. The name Xu Xian came from a novel his father had read, claiming he saw a white snake outside the door when Xu Xian was born, which he took as a sign of fate.

After watching a TV drama about a soldier named Xu Sanduo, his father had wanted him to join the military. But after a drunken motorcycle accident ruined his chances, his mother made his father kneel on the threshold for three months as punishment.

Fearing his father’s antics would eventually lead to his demise, Xu Xian moved out and became a pseudo-recluse, spending his time playing games and marveling at the incredible structures built by other players. He vowed to create his own wonders.

But after three days and nights of non-stop gaming, he died from exhaustion and found himself reincarnated.

When he was born, he tried to see who his parents were, but his infant brain, eyes, or nerves weren’t developed enough. All he could see was a small, blurry, black-and-white mosaic. He vaguely remembered being held by someone before everything spun, and he passed out.

A few months later, when his body had developed enough to see and hear, he realized he had been reborn as Naruto. By the time he was a year old, he was already fending for himself. Aside from the occasional food delivery, he rarely saw anyone. Sometimes, the food would just appear and disappear.

At two years old, starving and desperate for bread, he summoned a slice of bread and discovered his cheat ability—the game that had killed him, Craft the World.

Craft the World was a sandbox game similar to Minecraft and Terraria, where players controlled dwarves to build, mine, fish, and chop trees. The higher the level, the more dwarves you could control, up to a maximum of level 20. His cheat ability included the game’s shop, inventory, and a small space. However, he couldn’t store items from the Naruto world in the inventory or enter the small space. He could only throw in items from the game, like leftover vegetable scraps from roasted meat or empty tea bowls.

The shop had six categories, but the advanced crafting and weapon sections seemed damaged from the transmigration and were mostly unusable. Occasionally, items would appear briefly before disappearing. Xu Xian had already bought a few things.

Purchasing items required gold coins, but the biggest cheat was the pricing. While most items were priced normally, dirt was priced at -1000 coins for 10 units. Buying dirt actually earned him 1000 coins. The data he had modified in the game to build wonders had somehow carried over, which was both strange and amazing.

He had thought he could bury his enemies under an endless barrage of bricks, but he soon discovered that summoning required magic points. While the cost wasn’t high, the dream of infinite bricks was shattered.

Magic points were the energy used to cast spells in the game, with the maximum increasing as his level increased. The formula was level squared plus five, with a maximum level of 20. In the game, leveling up was based on experience, but Xu Xian found that in the Naruto world, it seemed to be tied to age.

Magic points regenerated at a rate of one point every three minutes. At level three, he had only two spells: a teleportation spell and a light spell. The light spell summoned a small orb of light that illuminated his surroundings within a five-meter radius. The teleportation spell created a portal that lasted four minutes, with each use consuming three seconds of its duration. The portal took three seconds to form and glowed just like the light spell, making it impossible to use stealthily.

The teleportation process took about two seconds, making it useless for combat but excellent for escaping.

These two spells were beginner-level and free. Other spells required unlocking through the tech tree or by mining and chopping wood, but Xu Xian couldn’t access the tech tree or enter the small space to mine. He hadn’t even seen any dwarves yet.

“Naruto, you should try to go out more. Staying cooped up at home isn’t good for you,” the Third Hokage said with a kind smile, though he was inwardly puzzled. Minato, the fastest man in the ninja world, and Kushina, the most lively woman in Konoha, had somehow produced a child who hadn’t left the house in two months. How did that happen?

Why should I go out? To receive ‘friendly’ stares from strangers? I’d rather stay home and play with clay.

“Okay, Grandpa,” Naruto replied with a smile, though his thoughts were anything but polite.

“Then I’ll be going.”

“Goodbye, Grandpa,” Naruto said politely, though he secretly wished he could kick the old man out.

Glancing at the clock, it was past five. Naruto decided to play with clay for another hour, eat dinner, and then go out after dark. The old man had already nagged him three times, and it would be rude to ignore him completely.

His annoyance with the Third Hokage wasn’t because of his past knowledge of Naruto, but because the old man kept interrupting his clay-sculpting sessions. Every time, he had to stop and wash his hands to greet him, which was a hassle.

After receiving countless stares during his last outing two months ago, Naruto had decided to minimize contact with the villagers. They were worse than keyboard warriors—not only did they talk, but they also pointed fingers. It was incredibly annoying.

At first, he had planned to stay indoors for a decade or so, thinking that rumors would eventually die down. But after some thought, he came up with a way to both act like a child to reassure the Third Hokage and keep himself entertained—sculpting figurines.

To Konoha, a three-year-old playing with clay was perfectly normal. If he sculpted something unusual, it could be chalked up to a child’s imagination. He could sculpt Bismarck with cat ears, or even the juvenile forms of the nine tailed beasts, though he was careful not to raise suspicions. After all, the last person who was this reclusive was Orochimaru, and look how that turned out. But that wasn’t his problem.

As a 21st-century single otaku, sculpting a few figurines was no big deal. Sculpting waifus wasn’t a crime, and he could easily make hundreds of them, all his beloved characters.

But reality was harsh.

After two months of practice, his sculptures of crosses were only slightly better than those found on graves, far from the level of the Valkyrie-class battleship Yudachi. His human figures were barely recognizable as human, with no distinguishable gender, let alone facial features or chests.

“Sigh,” Naruto sighed, destroying his latest attempt at a Vittorio Veneto-inspired Fusō. It was slightly better than yesterday’s, but still not presentable.

“Truly, I’ve become so obsessed with sculpting that I’ve lost track of time,” he muttered. He pulled out two slices of bread with a piece of roasted meat in between. The meat was larger than the bread, making the sandwich look comically disproportionate.

After dinner, he rinsed his mouth with tea, tossed the leftovers into his small space, put on his coat, and prepared to head out. It was past eight, and the streets should be empty by now.

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