Naruto: I start with one door, and I can open it infinitely.

Kusagakure, three years later—

He's six years old now, and finally has some ability to protect himself. Although he can't beat a Chunin, he can bully the Genin from Kusagakure.

The weather was nice today, and he went for a stroll outside the orphanage. No one dared to stop him because he was the leader of the children there.

Although he never formed cliques and usually trained alone, which made no one dare to approach him and he became an oddity in the orphanage, he was directly admitted to the Ninja Academy. He returned to the Ninja Academy in the second cycle of the Grass Ninja Village.

He frequented the commercial street of Kusagakure, and after becoming familiar with many people, he was known as the king of the kids on the street, and many of them couldn't beat him.

If any adult dares to bully him, he runs back to the orphanage, where most of the children are war orphans. To maintain his image as a diligent and caring official, Cao Ying wouldn't allow outsiders to cause trouble, making it a relatively safe place.

When they see him coming, many children will go around him. After all, they have been beaten so many times that even the adults are too lazy to discipline them. Anyway, they can't be beaten to death. The children are just playing around and at most they will get some minor injuries.

After arriving at the commercial street, he observed the various pedestrians coming and going. Sometimes, when he saw customers leaving, he would even take the leftover food. He would pick out the clean food to eat, and feed the dirty food to his dog.

There was no other way; he was an orphan. How could he grow up without food? He was always hungry, so stealing food fit his orphan persona. That's how he spent three years in Kusagakure, turning himself into a street thug.

Passing by a tavern, after the customers left, he went up and grabbed a handful of peanuts from the plate. The owner didn't chase him away, so he squatted in a corner of the tavern and listened, hoping to hear some useful information from the patrons.

"Konoha is holding the Chunin Exams again, and the teacher has signed us all up..."

"What?! The Chunin Exams in Konoha are way too hard..."

"The teacher said we should perform well so that the daimyo from all over the world can see our strength, and thus increase the number of orders for the village..."

"It's not like it's the first time we've taken the exam. Our village has never passed it. The Chunin Exams in Konoha are too difficult. I heard that this time we'll be facing Konoha's genius, Kakashi Hatake..."

"We should at least try, even if it's difficult. If we succeed, there will be a generous reward from the village..."

"Boss, you must have made a good profit on this trading trip, right?"

"How can I compare to you? I'm just making a meager living. The wine I just brought here will double in price when it gets to you. You have no idea how hard it was for the goods to be transported here. I had to hire Konoha ninjas to escort them because I was afraid they would be stolen..."

"This wine is good. Give me ten more jars. Order more next time. Business has been good lately..."

"Of course, of course..."

"Boss, a plate of peanuts, half a pound of pig's head meat, and half a pound of liquor..."

"Okay, coming right away, coming right away..."

"I heard they're setting off with a Konoha merchant caravan to participate in the Chunin Exams..."

"The teacher said this is safer. The caravan has entrusted the Konoha ninjas with protection, so we'll protect the caravan back to Konoha for free, and we can even get some protection money from Konoha..."

"With Konoha ninjas around, it's safer, right...?"

"The ninjas from the large village have good reputations and strength, so many merchants prefer to hire Konoha ninjas, which is why our village has no missions..."

"We really need to put on a good show this time, hoping to impress the daimyo and nobles, let them see the strength of the Grass Ninja, and hopefully get more commissioned missions..."

"The Chunin Exams? So it's Kakashi's era. Looks like the Third Shinobi World War isn't far off," Lin Chuan ate peanuts silently, listening carefully to every piece of news. Anyway, no one cared about a kid.

"There are Konoha caravans? Konoha has caravans too?" Lin Chuan asked, somewhat puzzled when he heard about Konoha caravans.

Upon closer reflection, he realized he had overlooked the trade and commerce within the ninja world, such as the Aburame clan's sugar business, the Nara clan's deer antler and medicinal herb business, and the Akimichi clan's military supplies and rations business...

Not all ninjas in ninja clans make a living from missions; some also run family businesses. So, does Konoha Village have any industries or businesses, or even does Root have any commercial dealings?

Thinking of this, his eyes lit up, and he instantly understood how to investigate. The Roots would not have normal business dealings, since the Roots were all involved in murder.

But there is another profession that uses caravans as cover to transmit intelligence: Root's informants and spies, after all, the Third Shinobi World War is about to begin.

While ordinary people may not feel it yet, the leaders of various countries are well aware that there is a surplus of ninjas and insufficient resources to distribute them. A new generation of ninjas is also growing up, and there are no missions to keep these ninjas busy. Once these ninjas have time to think, something terrible is bound to happen.

If things aren't handled properly, and these brutes cause trouble at the daimyo's place, or even offend nobles or the daimyo's relatives, that would be bad.

For the sake of the ninjas' livelihood, to ensure they have enough to eat, to prevent these brutes from thinking, to keep them from pointing their blades at ordinary people like the daimyo, to give these brutes something to do, and to ensure the Kage of each village can control these brutes...

The daimyo and nobles must be paid. If they are not paid, these brutes will go crazy from hunger and either plunder the martial spirit of Konoha or the daimyo's palace.

The answer to this question is obvious. People will always pick on the weak. Fighting tooth and nail with Konoha's elites won't get you any benefits. It's much more profitable to rob a noble.

So each village knew it was time to start some friction, to let these brutes vent their anger. If they died, they would receive compensation; if they lived, they would continue to raise the next generation. Then, there would be a surplus of ninjas, fewer missions, ninjas would become unemployed, ninjas would continue to go hungry, and the daimyo and nobles would continue to pay salaries and start wars...

To maintain the fragile balance between great powers, between small powers, between ninja villages, and between daimyo and ninja villages.

This is practically buying one's life with money. If the daimyo and nobles are unwilling to spend the money, he believes that the Kage of the major ninja villages would not recommend letting the daimyo die a dignified death by being shot in the back, and then replacing him with an obedient daimyo.

After all, the Fourth Raikage had threatened the Daimyo. If the Daimyo insisted on preventing the Fourth Raikage from rescuing his brother and from fighting the Akatsuki, given the Raikage's violent temper, he might actually kill the Daimyo and install a compliant one in his place.

It's so similar, it's almost identical: economic crisis, wealth inequality, overcapacity, economic crisis, social unrest, high unemployment, military buildup, war, everything was destroyed, post-war reconstruction, demand surged, and the economic crisis miraculously disappeared.

Getting back to the point, he knew nothing; all he knew was eating, sleeping, and playing with beans...

Now that he knew the direction of the investigation, things became much easier. He focused on the food requests of the caravans traveling to and from Kusagakure, noting which shops they would enter and recording all of them.

The next step was the tedious method: these caravans would come every month, and he compiled a list of all the Konoha caravans and non-Konoha caravans, as well as all the shops that bought their goods.

After three years of statistics, including after the outbreak of war, these caravans continued to travel to and from Kusagakure. In order to obtain intelligence, the escort ninjas they sent out became stronger and stronger each time.

Because of the outbreak of war between major powers, smaller countries have become much quieter. Apart from protecting the necessary daimyo and nobles, the ninjas of small ninja villages have mostly stayed in their villages.

In the relatively safe Kusagakure village, through his three years of investigation, he finally uncovered the caravans that Root frequently used to transmit intelligence, as well as Root's five stronghold shops in Kusagakure.

He only found five of the Root's strongholds in Kusagakure. He didn't know if there were any other strongholds, but these five were enough.

Because the shop owners are all locals, and all of them have families, he knows them all. These shop owners may have family members who have been captured by Root and have become a transit point for Root to pass on intelligence. This is really in line with Root's style!

Now that the root base has been located, things are much easier. He needs to figure out what else these bases do besides relaying intelligence.

After all, he had recently heard many news reports of missing babies, and he immediately thought that Orochimaru and Danzo might be conducting baby transplantation experiments using Hashirama cells, which would probably require many children.

Since he could no longer steal children from the Land of Fire, Danzo set his sights on the more chaotic neighboring small countries, stealing children from these countries.

He needed to know which shop was responsible for transferring the children. After all, the war was too chaotic and there were too many orphans. Stealing children was nothing to them. The Grass Ninja Village might also be involved in this, taking the opportunity to make some extra money.

The reason he wasn't arrested is likely because the experimental subjects were only infants or three- or four-year-old children.

He's nine years old now and has shown his Water Clone and Water Rage techniques at the Ninja Academy. He's considered a somewhat famous genius student. If the Grass Ninja were to participate, considering his ninja talent, he could be considered the next generation of the Grass Ninja Village.

No one with a brain would dig their own grave by letting their little genius be captured and sent to Konoha for some kind of human experimentation.

If someone really wanted to capture him, it wouldn't be that easy. First, there's his strength; he's currently at the level of a Chunin, just without the chakra reserves of one. Then there's the existence of the gate; if they couldn't defeat him, they would have run away long ago, and wouldn't have waited until now.

After burning his notebooks from the past few years, he wrote down all the names of the five root base shops and began to investigate them one by one until he found the shop where the baby was transferred.

That day, he noticed that the goods sold in a shop were very strange. They were basically all packed in a wooden box the size of a washbasin. It was impossible to see what was inside the box, as there were only densely packed small holes for ventilation.

That's why he concluded that the wooden boxes likely contained hypnotized babies. But the caravan that received the goods wasn't from Konoha, yet it took the goods from the Root base. Could it be a disguise by Root? It's really suspicious!

Based on the timeline, it is currently the end of the Third Shinobi World War, when Orochimaru and Danzo conducted an experiment on transplanting Hashirama's cells into an infant, which resulted in the birth of Tenzo.

A year or two later, the Fourth Shinobi World War ended, Minato Namikaze succeeded to the position of Hokage, and Orochimaru's forbidden experiments were discovered, forcing him to defect from the village.

Not long after Naruto was born, Minato Namikaze and his wife died. It took about twelve years for Naruto to participate in the Chunin Exams. So now there are still about fourteen years until Naruto takes the Chunin Exams.

He looked at the shop owner, who was still relatively young, only in his thirties, and whose son was a little boy of three or four years old, and was helping to move goods. He knew it was time to make a move.

……

As the caravan left Kusagakure, the village seemed to return to its peaceful daily life. Everyone seemed oblivious to the war; only the rising prices made them realize that it was a time of great power war.

Apart from the daimyo's capital and the Kusagakure village, which are two relatively peaceful places, there is practically no quiet place in the Land of Grass. Chaos, famine, and refugees are erupting everywhere...

In the midst of a great power war, small ninja villages can barely protect themselves. If ninjas from great powers want to pass through, they can do so at will, and they can plunder any village they pass by. In times of war, these are all lawless areas.

The reason why the capital of the daimyo and the village of Kusagakure were spared is because these two cities are important military strongholds. The entire armed forces of the Land of Grass are concentrated in these two cities, and the great powers do not want to divide their forces to attack these two fortresses.

Furthermore, it's not a good reputation for large countries to bully small countries. They're just using other people's land as a battlefield, so the small countries naturally don't dare to object and can just fight as they please.

On this seemingly ordinary night, Lin Chuan finally took action, quietly sneaking to the shop where the baby had been moved, and quietly going up to the second floor to open the window, only to find the owner's family fast asleep.

After three years of observation, he discovered that the family consisted of ordinary people, with no ninjas among them, making them easy to deal with.

He first blew the hypnotic powder into the bedroom, and after the family had inhaled enough of it, he opened the window and jumped in. He then used a kunai to prick the boss's palm and found that the boss was just frowning and had not woken up.

Then, he gagged the boss, grabbed him, and dragged him downstairs to the underground warehouse where the boss stored his goods. He made sure all exits were sealed off. This warehouse was used to move babies, so it must have been very soundproof.

The dim light shone on the bound and unconscious boss. He poured a basin of ice water over the boss's head. The icy cold instantly jolted the unconscious boss awake, but he still didn't wake up.

Then came another basin of ice water. When the boss woke up, his mouth was also stuffed with a rag. He was looking at Lin Chuan with a blank expression, not understanding what had happened.

"I'll ask you a question, and you answer it. If you answer incorrectly, I'll cut off your finger." Lin Chuan didn't care whether the boss understood or not, and took out a kunai to cut off the boss's finger.

"Ugh, ugh, ugh," the boss thought Lin Chuan was joking when he saw Lin Chuan take out the kunai, but the pain of the severed finger came instantly, and he could only struggle in pain.

"I'll ask you a question, and you'll answer it. If you answer wrong, I'll cut off your finger," Lin Chuan said again, cutting off another finger with a kunai. The boss was in excruciating pain, unable to scream, only able to whimper in agony.

Then, Lin Chuan picked up the kunai for the third time, and the pale-faced boss immediately struggled desperately, his eyes bulging out as he stared at Lin Chuan pleadingly.

Lin Chuan removed the rag from the boss's mouth and asked, "Have you calmed down yet? I'll ask you questions, and if you answer wrong, I'll cut off your finger..."

"Sir, just ask me! How can I talk if you don't ask me? My mouth is gagged, how can I say anything?" The boss was on the verge of tears. He knew Lin Chuan was interrogating him, but he didn't ask anything and just cut off two fingers right away. Who could stand that?